Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns for president as the presumptive Democratic nominee at an event Tuesday at West Allis Central High School in West Allis, Wis.
Kevin Mohatt The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE — Vice President Kamala Harris hit the campaign trail Tuesday, a day after she appeared to clinch enough delegates Monday night to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I am so very honored, and I pledge to you, I will spend the coming weeks continuing to unite our party so that we are ready to win in November,” Harris said at her first political rally as a presidential candidate in Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoon.
The Milwaukee crowd broke into chants of “Kama-la” and roared with cheers as Harris told them, “The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin.”
The campaign reportedly had to switch venues at the last minute to accommodate a bigger crowd, as more than 3,000 people responded to the event. President Joe Biden won the crucial battleground state by a few thousand votes in 2020.
Both the Harris and Donald Trump campaigns are zeroing in on key “blue wall” swing states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The visit came a week after the Republican National Convention wrapped up in the city and as Harris works to sharpen her message against the GOP nominee with just over 100 days until Election Day.
Early polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows that Harris opened a 2-percentage-point lead over Trump, which is within a 3-point margin of error. She led Trump 44 percent to 42 percent, according to the national poll released Tuesday.
In a call to reporters Tuesday, Trump said he would gladly debate his new opponent. Harris is leaning into her résumé as a former district attorney and California attorney general, seeking to draw a contrast with Trump, who is the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes.
“She’s prepared to meet this moment because she was professionally trained to prosecute a criminal, and unfortunately that’s who the Republicans have put forward,” said Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif.
Harris strode onto the stage Tuesday to the anthem “Freedom” from Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album and set about contrasting herself with Trump. “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers.
Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said. Harris cast her campaign as a “people first” endeavor, again aiming to draw a contrast with Trump, who she said represented special interests and corporations.
She also portrayed her rival’s policies as being antiquated and backward looking. “We are not going back,” she said. “And I’ll tell you why we are not going back. Ours is a fight for the future.”
That echoed Barack Obama, who frequently deployed the refrain during his 2012 re-election fight to argue against Republican ideas. Harris is riding a wave of momentum toward securing the Democratic nomination within a day of Biden announcing he was stepping aside and endorsing Harris.
The vice president racked up support from every corner of the Democratic Party, with a flood of endorsements, cash — and the support of Hollywood’s finest. Actor George Clooney endorsed Harris in a statement to CNN on Tuesday, just two weeks after he penned a bombshell op-ed in the New York Times calling for Biden to step down.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., endorsed the vice president Tuesday, becoming the last of the Democrats’ elected top brass to back Harris.
“She is ready, she is willing, she is able to energetically and emphatically lead America into the future,” Jeffries said at a news conference. More crucially, several state delegations pledged their vote for her — including California’s, the largest in the nation.
Delegates are headed to Chicago in August to formally nominate the Democrat for president, but the national party is expected to host a virtual roll call vote before then.
Rep. Pete Aguilar and Rep. Ted Lieu, both California Democrats, said in a news conference Tuesday that House Democrats are united in their goal of defeating Trump and helping Harris with her sprint to the general election. Aguilar added that “as Californians, we have immense pride in the vice president.”
Harris is scheduled to speak to one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions Thursday in Houston. Harris will deliver the keynote speech to the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th national convention, the White House said.
The convention began Monday at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston and will run through Thursday.
In other developments:
■ At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in Biden-Harris administration policies. “This election will be about policies and not personalities,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”
■ Trump’s presidential campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission claiming that the transfer of Joe Biden’s $96 million campaign war chest to Harris violates the law. The Harris campaign said the complaint would have no impact on its fundraising or spending.
■ Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley has demanded a Super PAC project, Haley Voters for Harris, stop using her name.
“Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong,” read a Haley statement shared from her communications director.
“I support Donald Trump because he understands we need to make America strong, safe, and prosperous.