Presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Harris is in Wisconsin, a key battleground state, today, marking her official turn to the top of the November ticket, after President Biden dropped his reelection bid on Sunday.
“Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line,” Harris said in a statement Monday night. “I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Her rally in Milwaukee, the site of last week's Republican National Convention that formalized former President Trump's nomination and introduced running mate JD Vance to the masses, is expected to focus on “her brighter vision for the future, where our freedoms are protected and every American has a fair shot,” according to her campaign team.
"The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin," Harris said to a roaring crowd of supporters. "You all helped us win in 2020, and in 2024 we will win again."
Harris’s campaign amassed more than $100 million from more than 1.1 million individual donors in the short time since its inception, indicating a groundswell of support as it secured a raft of endorsements from top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.); Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.); House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.); 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; former President Clinton; Govs. Gavin Newsom (Calif.), Andy Beshear (Ky.), Josh Shapiro (Penn.) and JB Pritzker (Illinois); and Biden himself.
It also adopted a banger of an anthem, “Freedom” from Beyonce’s iconic “Lemonade” album, with the superstar singer’s blessing.
Trump swiftly shifted his aim to the former junior senator from California, after hammering Biden for months. Trump has called Harris "dumb as a rock" and branded her "Lyin’ Kamala Harris" on his Truth Social feed.
Polls suggest that Harris has significant ground to cover in her battle against Trump this fall. The latest polling averages from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) and The Hill show her trailing Trump by 2.5 percentage points.
A Morning Consult poll conducted after Biden dropped out of the 2024 race found that 65 percent of Democratic voters surveyed said they support Harris taking the reins of the party’s presidential fight.
Trump leads Harris by 2 percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent, according to Morning Consult's survey. Biden faced a 6-point deficit against Trump in Morning Consult’s head-to-head poll conducted before Biden exited the race.
"[Harris] is more competitive today than Joe Biden was on Saturday," Morning Consult politics analyst Eli Yokley told reporters Tuesday. "Clearly, she is in a much better position than Joe Biden would be today."
Morning Consult’s analysis found Harris's strengths over Biden include attracting Black voters and young voters. Yokley said Harris's campaign has shown that it's leaning into those groups by spotting and embracing trends and being very online.
"They're engaging on all sorts of cultural fronts to try to push themselves into the conversation and almost memeify her on the campaign trail as this is unfolding," he said.
