Kamala Harris visiting Milwaukee for first campaign rally since launching presidential bid
Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, the first rally since launching her bid for the presidency.
Harris announced her presidential campaign Sunday night, shortly after President Biden announced he was suspending his re-election effort. The president subsequently endorsed Harris.
On Monday, Harris secured enough delegates for the Democratic Party's nomination for president, although the Democratic National Convention formally selecting the party's nominee will not be held until next month in Chicago.
The rally in Milwaukee will be Harris' ninth visit to Wisconsin since she was sworn in as vice president in 2021 and her fifth visit to the state so far this year, according to her campaign.
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"We're proud to welcome Vice President Harris to Wisconsin, a state she once called home, where she will rally excited supporters after announcing her presidential campaign," the Harris campaign's Wisconsin Communications Director Brianna Johnson said in a press release.
Every major Democratic elected leader in Wisconsin has endorsed Harris' presidential campaign, according to her campaign. This includes Gov. Tony Evers and every Democratic statewide elected official, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan, both state legislative Democratic leaders, the mayors of Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay and other cities across the state, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and more than 90% of Wisconsin delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Democrats established a coordinated campaign in Wisconsin to support Harris' White House bid, according to Johnson. There are 48 coordinated offices across 43 counties throughout the state with about 160 full-time staffers on the ground who have already started knocking on doors, making phone calls and contacting their friends and neighbors urging them to vote for Harris and Democrats in November.
"We'll continue to build on this success with events in every corner of the state this week, harnessing the grassroots energy for Kamala Harris that we'll see on display in Milwaukee tomorrow," Johnson said.
Harris is prepared to "prosecute" the case against former President Trump, Johnson said in an apparent reference to Harris' experience as a prosecutor, adding that there is "no better place to drive this contrast" than Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Last week, Republicans, including Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, were in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, where Johnson said the former president highlighted "his Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion nationwide, raise taxes for middle-class families, cut Social Security and Medicare, and give Trump virtually unchecked power."
"In Milwaukee, Trump paraded out JD Vance – a rubber stamp for his extreme agenda – the architect of Trump's family separation policies, authors of Trump’s Project 2025, and governors who have signed dangerous and extreme abortion bans," Johnson continued.
Project 2025 is a controversial initiative organized by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that was authored by a number of conservatives, including some former Trump administration officials.
The initiative offers right-wing policy recommendations for Trump should he win the presidency, including replacing civil service employees with Trump loyalists, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding for Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as health care and infusing the government with Christian values.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative, which has been criticized as an authoritarian and Christian nationalist plan that would undermine civil liberties, saying he knows nothing about it, that parts of it are "absolutely ridiculous and abysmal" and "extreme" and that its backers are on the "radical right."
During her visit to Milwaukee, Harris plans to highlight the choice between Trump, the "convicted felon who would drag this country backwards," and Harris' "brighter vision for the future, where our freedoms are protected and every American has a fair shot," Johnson said.