MILWAUKEE (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris He flew to his first battleground state on Tuesday after locking up candidacy support Democratic representativesThe Democratic Party has decided to investigate a political case against former Republican President Donald Trump.
Harris arrived in Milwaukee two days after President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid, where he was scheduled to hold his first campaign rally since launching his campaign on Sunday. Biden’s endorsement. Harris has raised more than $100 million since Sunday afternoon.
The vice president also has the support of Democratic officials and political groups, including congressional leaders Charles Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, as a sign of his party’s focus on defeating Trump.
Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general, plans to lean on her resume to try to contrast Trump, who is the first former president to be convicted of a felony.
“He’s ready to meet this moment because he’s professionally trained to punish a criminal, and unfortunately that’s what Republicans have put forward,” said Sen. Labonza Butler said.
Tuesday’s visit was planned before Biden wrapped up his campaign, but it took on new resonance as Harris tried to project calm and optimism. Weeks of Democratic turmoil o Biden’s political future.
The visit comes a week later Republican National Convention Harris is working to sharpen his message against the GOP nominee with more than 100 days until Election Day. Part of Wisconsin Democrats’ “Blue Wall” Their hopes of winning the November elections in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are crucial.
The vice president previewed the themes that will be central to his campaign against Trump on Monday A stop at his campaign headquarters He compares his time as a lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware Trump’s beliefs — “I know the type of Donald Trump,” she said — and cast herself as a defender of economic opportunity and abortion access.
“This election will present a clear choice between two different views. “Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedom and equal rights,” she responded in a statement. Number of AP Reps. “I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures that every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to thrive.”
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“I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already placed their trust in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people,” he added.
AP reporter Julie Walker reports that Democrats plan to hold a virtual roll call ahead of their convention, backed by Kamala Harris.
By Monday night, Harris, who He ran for the presidency in 2020, according to the AP delegate count, he has more than the 1,976 delegates he needs to win on the first ballot. No other candidate was named by a representative contacted by AP.
Still, the AP isn’t calling Harris the new presumptive candidate. That’s because convention delegates are still free to vote for the nominee of their choice at the convention in August or the Democratic Party. A virtual roll call In front of that crowd in Chicago.
AP count It is based on interviews with individual delegates, public statements by state parties, many of which have declared their delegates overall support for Harris, and public statements and endorsements by individual delegates.
Trump and his campaign quickly turned their attention to Harris and insisted that they were open to the change and that it had not changed their plans.
The former president has nicknamed the vice president “Lynn’ Kamala Harris,” accused him of not being tough enough on crime as a prosecutor, and tried to tie him to the administration’s policies on the border while seeking to make immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. .
But it seems Trump is less pleased to confront a younger vice president than to make his case against an older president. Twice since Biden’s departure, Trump has suggested that ABC News not hold the planned second presidential debate and instead move it to Fox News, which it considers friendly to him.
Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, said he was unimpressed by Trump’s attacks, telling reporters Tuesday, “Is that all he got?”
Harris joined key elected officials in Wisconsin, including Gov. Tony Evers, Sen. Tommy Baldwin, Lt. Gov. Sarah Rodriguez, Attorney General Josh Kaul, Secretary of State Sarah Kotlewski and Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wigler. As state labor leaders.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republican leaders are labeling Harris a “radical liberal” who has more than most voters in the swing state.
“Kamala Harris’s odds are as bad as Joe Biden’s,” Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said at a news conference ahead of a Harris event at a high school outside Milwaukee. “So they’re replacing one bad candidate with another bad candidate, hoping that the people of this state and this country won’t notice where he really stands on the issues.”
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AP writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Michelle Price in New York contributed.
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