CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris, in the first rally of her 2024 presidential marketing campaign, instructed supporters in Wisconsin Tuesday that she’s going to spend the approaching weeks “persevering with to unite our get together” forward of the Democratic Nationwide Conference subsequent month and this fall’s showdown with Donald Trump.
Harris’ rally in Milwaukee featured a stump speech much like the one she has delivered on the marketing campaign path for months — one which drew the form of sharp contrasts with Trump that President Joe Biden had lengthy struggled to articulate earlier than he dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday.
Nonetheless, it got here with far more consideration now that Harris is the Democratic standard-bearer.
Talking about her document as a prosecutor in California, Harris mentioned she “took on perpetrators of all types: Predators who abused ladies; fraudsters who ripped off customers; cheaters who broke the principles for their very own achieve.”
“So hear me once I say, I do know Donald Trump’s sort,” she mentioned.
Her quip was met with chants within the packed highschool gymnasium of “lock him up” — an echo of the “lock her up” chants that had been outstanding at Trump rallies in 2016, when he confronted Hillary Clinton.
Harris famous that lower than two days after Biden exited the race and endorsed his vice chairman, she had amassed sufficient help from DNC delegates to develop into the get together’s nominee. She additionally nodded on the vital position Wisconsin will play within the race for 270 electoral school votes.
“The trail to the White Home goes by Wisconsin. And to win in Wisconsin, we’re relying on you, proper right here in Milwaukee. And also you helped us win in 2020. And in 2024, we are going to win once more,” she mentioned.
She sought to drive an financial message that was a lot clearer and extra forward-looking than Biden’s case for his personal accomplishments.
“Build up the center class,” Harris instructed supporters, “might be a defining purpose of my presidency.”
Harris additionally pointed to what she known as Trump’s “excessive Undertaking 2025 agenda.” Trump has disavowed the Heritage Basis-backed coverage plan, which was created by lots of his former staffers. Nonetheless, lots of its most conservative and controversial proposals have develop into central planks in Democratic assaults on Trump.
“We’re not going again,” she vowed, prompting the group to chant, “We’re not going again.”
Tuesday’s rally in Wisconsin got here on the finish of a 48-hour stretch that had turned the 2024 race on its head.
By Monday night time, lower than 36 hours after Biden had introduced he was dropping out of the race and endorsing his vice chairman, Harris had secured sufficient commitments from Democratic Nationwide Conference delegates to successfully lock down the nomination.
She had additionally raised greater than $100 million from 1.1 million totally different donors — 62% of them first-time contributors — between Sunday and Monday, a Harris marketing campaign official mentioned. The big determine displays the brand new power inside what had been a morose Democratic base.
The highest two congressional Democrats, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer and Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, endorsed Harris at a information convention Tuesday, becoming a member of a cascade of Democratic lawmakers and governors who’ve introduced their help.
“Now that the method has performed out from the grassroots, bottom-up, we’re right here as we speak to throw our help behind” Harris, Schumer mentioned.
Prime Wisconsin Democratic officers, together with two-term Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who’s up for reelection this yr, even have endorsed Harris. They’re amongst an extended listing of Democratic officers and candidates who appeared with the vice chairman on Tuesday.
Harris’ marketing campaign, inheriting the infrastructure put in place throughout Biden’s candidacy, has 48 coordinated places of work in 43 counties in Wisconsin, together with 160 full-time staffers.
The marketing campaign can also be touting a lift in its organizing since Harris introduced her intention to hunt the Democratic nomination, with greater than 58,000 people signing as much as volunteer as of Tuesday morning – up from the almost 30,000 introduced Monday afternoon.
The journey to Wisconsin — one of many three “Blue Wall” states, alongside Pennsylvania and Michigan — is Harris’ fifth there this yr and ninth since changing into vice chairman.
With Biden because the Democratic nominee, the get together’s path to successful 270 electoral school votes went straight by these states.
It could be the identical for Harris. Nonetheless, it’s too early to inform whether or not one other path — one that features Solar Belt swing states Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia — is likely to be a bigger a part of the Harris calculation.
The governor of a kind of states, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, and a senator from one other, Arizona’s Mark Kelly, are among the many names being floated as being part of her vice presidential shortlist, a bunch that additionally consists of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and others.
Former Legal professional Basic Eric Holder and his regulation agency, Covington & Burling, will deal with the vetting of Harris’ working mate, a supply acquainted with the matter instructed CNN.
The auditions are already in full swing, with Beshear taking a rhetorical two-by-four to Ohio Sen. JD Vance, calling the GOP vice presidential nominee a “phony” and “pretend” whereas pointing to his evolution from Trump critic to MAGA inheritor.
“The issue with JD Vance is he has no conviction. However I suppose his working mate has 34,” Beshear mentioned Monday night time throughout an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
This story has been up to date with extra reporting.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.