Vice President Harris on Tuesday held her first campaign event as the lead contender for the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, rallying supporters in key state Wisconsin around beating former President Trump in November.
She was met with a loud and excited crowd in the Milwaukee area, with bystanders outside the venue where she spoke holding up signs that said “We love u Kamala.” Another sign said “Kamala Harris changes lives. Watch her change the world.”
During her speech, she went after Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s vision for a GOP presidency that Trump has attempted to distance himself from despite many of his former aides’ work on it.
The Biden campaign had also made the Project 2025 agenda a focus of its attacks on Trump before President Biden dropped out of the race Sunday.
Harris appeared to be picking up that baton, telling the crowd that agenda “will weaken the middle class, like — we know we gotta take this seriously,” she said.
“And can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It’s 900 pages,” she said, arguing that the plan would cut Social Security and Medicare, give tax breaks to the wealthy and end the Affordable Care Act.
“We’re not going back,” she added, to chants from the crowd that she joined in on.
The scenes inside and outside the venue reflected what Democrats have said is a newly energized campaign that they now see as competitive. Ahead of the event, organizers were inundated with so many RSVP’s that they switched to a larger venue late in the day Monday, a campaign official told The Hill.
Harris also reiterated she was told she has support from enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.
Harris officially crossed that threshold late Monday, receiving more than 1,968 delegate pledges just more than a day after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her. She also relayed to the crowd that she beat a presidential fundraising record in the first 24 hours since she announced she would seek the 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,” she said in Wisconsin.
“We are running a people-powered campaign. And we just had some breaking news: We just had the best 24 hours of grassroot fundraising in presidential campaign history,” she added. “Because we are a people-powered campaign. That is how you know we will be a people-first presidency.”
Her campaign raised more than $100 million between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, with more than 1.1 million individual donors contributing to the campaign.
“In the next 105 days, then we have work to do. We have doors to knock on, we have phone calls to make, we have voters to register and we have an election to win,” she said.
She also again bashed Trump for his legal issues, reiterating lines that she told a group of campaign aides in Wilmington, Del., the day before, when she gave the first glimpse into her Trump attack lines, noting she was a prosecutor and attorney general before being elected to the Senate.
“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,” Harris said in Wisconsin. “So, hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
“In this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week,” she added.
Harris began her remarks by praising Biden, saying his legacy is unmatched.
“It is my great honor to have Biden’s endorsement in this race,” she said.
Trump, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he would be willing to debate Harris more than once before Election Day. He plans to hold his next campaign rally Wednesday with running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in North Carolina — a state both campaigns are angling to win in November.