AAfter a remarkable first week as a presidential candidate, in which she tied with Donald Trump in the polls and injected new enthusiasm into the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris is racing to convert summer excitement into votes in November.
The Harris for President campaign is moving quickly to increase the paid staff deployed by the Biden campaign across the country, including hiring 150 staffers during the first two weeks of August to be deployed in the so-called Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. . That would bring Harris’ total campaign staff in those states to 750 people, up from 600. In Arizona and North Carolina, Harris plans to double the size of her campaign team, a sign that her strategists believe those states are back. to the game after some in the party suggested they became invincible when President Joe Biden was still at the top of the ticket.
“This election is going to be incredibly close, so this campaign is hitting the ground running and taking nothing for granted,” Harris for President communications director Michael Tyler told reporters during a conference call Monday afternoon.
Campaign data shows that many Democratic voters who were holding on to Biden immediately left the sideline last week to support Harris. Of the $200 million Harris has raised since Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, two-thirds came from people who had not donated so far this cycle, her campaign said Monday. And his campaign signed up an impressive 360,000 new volunteers in its first week.
Harris campaign officials believe the extensive network they have already built for Biden is gaining traction for the vice president. Over the weekend, volunteers knocked on 126,000 doors and made 768,635 calls, a Harris campaign official said, far more than campaign leaders had anticipated at this stage of the campaign.
Harris will hold a campaign rally at Georgia State University in Atlanta on Tuesday night and meet with local advocates for reproductive rights, an issue her campaign believes will be decisive for voters in nearby states.
Almost immediately, Harris’ campaign captured the momentum of the race, while also gaining traction by framing Trump as “weird” and his running mate JD Vance as a callous critic of “childless hot women.” Speaking at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Saturday, Trump tried to respond to Harris, calling her “a radical left lunatic” and mocking the way she laughs. But so far, right-wing criticism of Harris has not dampened the energy behind her campaign.
It’s an unusual position for Trump, who built his political career by dominating the news cycle with unexpected and bizarre comments, and as recently as mid-July seemed ascendant in the race following the assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Dan Kanninen, Harris’ state battle director, said the campaign “will not get comfortable.”
In addition to campaigning in Georgia, Harris will travel to Houston on Thursday to attend the funeral of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Also this week, Harris’ team is working to evaluate vice presidential candidates so she can choose a running mate next week.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
