(WEST ALLIS) — Vice President Kamala Harris rallied voters in battleground Wisconsin on Tuesday, her first presidential campaign event since securing enough delegate pledges for the Democratic nomination if they keep their word — and used the rally to sharply frame her race against former President Donald Trump.
Since Sunday, Harris has earned the backing of Democratic Party leaders and enough Democratic National Convention delegates to make her the nominee if they kept true to their pledges — a major milestone for the vice president.
“So Wisconsin, I am told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. And 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 to an energetic crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin — just outside of Milwaukee.
Harris attacked Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on the issue of abortion and Project 2025, the conservative presidential transition blueprint fronted by the Heritage Foundation.
“We’ll stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own body and not have the government tell them what to do,” Harris said to raucous applause. “And when Congress passes the law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.”
Harris, in recent weeks, has leaned into her career as a prosecutor, having served as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general, to draw a contrast with Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts.
During the rally, Harris touted her previous experience while making a dig at Trump.
“In those roles, 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,” she said. “So, hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
The comments elicited the chant of “lock him up” from the crowd — a reference to the popular “lock her up” chants from crowds at Trump’s rallies when he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris’ campaign chose Wisconsin — a key battleground state in the 2024 race — as the site of her first campaign event. Wisconsin hosted the Republican National Convention last week.
“Vice President Harris’s visit will highlight the choice facing Wisconsinites: between Donald Trump, the convicted felon who would drag this country backwards, and her brighter vision for the future, where our freedoms are protected and every American has a fair shot,” the campaign said in the memo.
Before taking the stage, Harris’ campaign announced that her political operation raised $100 million in just over a day since getting in the race for president after President Joe Biden announced he would bow out of the race.
The massive sum — raised by the Harris campaign, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees — came in between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the campaign said. Within that time, 58,000 people signed up to volunteer, a figure that is more than 100 times their average daily sign-up rate, according to the campaign.
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