Kamala Harris paints a choice of 'chaos' vs. 'compassion' in swing state Wisconsin during first rally of presidential campaign
WEST ALLIS – Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday delivered her opening argument against a second Donald Trump presidential term in a state she knows she will need to win in November: Wisconsin.
Speaking in a packed gymnasium outside Milwaukee just two days after she effectively replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, Harris put it bluntly.
“Ultimately in this election we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?" Harris said at her first campaign stop as Democrats’ presumptive nominee. “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?"
"We each have the power to answer that question," she added. "The power is with the people."
Her remarks at West Allis Central High School came at a time unlike any other in modern history and as the presidential race was shaken up with about 105 days until Election Day.
Just 48 hours prior, Biden, 81, dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris following weeks of questions from within his own party about his age and viability. And the change came just days after Republicans formally made Trump, 78, the Republican presidential nominee at a Milwaukee convention that followed an attempt on the former president’s life.
Harris in her remarks sought to contrast herself with Trump, the first former president to be convicted on felony charges. She pointed to her background as California's attorney general and as district attorney in San Francisco.
“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds," Harris said to loud chants of "Lock him up" from the crowd. "So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type."
She listed abortion rights, affordable health care and workers' freedom to organize as key issues of her campaign.
And she echoed Biden, who she said has a legacy “unmatched in modern history," as she claimed that building up the middle class "will be a defining goal for my presidency."
"But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward," Harris said. "He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda would weaken the middle class.”
“Wisconsin," she said, addressing the crowd, "this campaign is also about two different visions for our nation: One where we are focused on the future. The other focused on the past."
The decision to make Wisconsin the first stop of Harris' presidential campaign only doubled down on the importance of the battleground state — and particularly the area around Milwaukee, the state's largest and most diverse city — in the 2024 election.
Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, similar to the margin Trump won the state in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
Marquette University political science professor Julia Azari called the move to open the campaign in Wisconsin “a direct response to any of the inevitable comparisons with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the big critiques,” noting that Clinton did not campaign in Wisconsin after the 2016 primary election.
“I think it illustrates a likelihood that this will be the tipping-point state,” Azari said.
Tuesday's stop was Harris' ninth visit to Wisconsin since becoming vice president and her fifth visit to the state this year.
On Monday, Harris secured the support of enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee for president as top leaders in her party continued to line up behind her. Locally, 93% of Wisconsin's DNC delegates have pledged to support Harris at the convention, according to the state Democratic Party.
It will ultimately be up to delegates to pick the nominee. The Democratic Party on Monday laid out plans to hold a virtual vote to pick a nominee before Aug. 7, weeks before the Democratic National Convention that's scheduled to be held from August 19-22 in Chicago.
The events of the last 48 hours, however, have upended much of the last two years of campaigning on both sides of the aisle. And Republicans are now forced to wrestle with the idea they will not face Biden on the ballot this November.
Republicans say Harris and Biden are inextricably linked
But top Wisconsin Republicans ahead of the vice president's visit sought to downplay that pivot, suggesting Harris is inextricably linked to the president.
“Vice President Harris is Joe Biden the sequel,” said Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming, using a phrase he’s frequently repeated over the last two days.
Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who has spent the majority of his campaign trying to tie Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin to Biden, similarly suggested Biden and Harris are one and the same. Harris “owns the Biden record,” Hovde said, calling the vice president “one of the most extreme liberals.”
“Senator Baldwin has to own what the Biden and Harris record has done,” Hovde said. “As far as I’m concerned — Biden, Baldwin and Harris, and now Harris, Baldwin and Biden — it’s going to be the same thing.”
Baldwin, who had distanced herself from Biden as polls showed him losing ground to Trump in Wisconsin and other key swing states, flew to Milwaukee with Harris on Air Force 2 and delivered remarks before Harris spoke. She called the day "a new beginning for our party, for our country."
Asked whether the party saw Harris as more difficult to defeat than Biden in Wisconsin, Schimming said the outlook was “likely the same, perhaps for different reasons,” saying Harris owns Biden’s record but also has her own Senate record, which Republicans cast as left-wing.
“We’ll know more about her as we go through the coming weeks and months,” Schimming said, adding at another point: “There’s issue after issue after issue where Kamala Harris is not in-sync with the people of Wisconsin or the people of America.”
Still, the Wisconsin Republicans on Tuesday appeared to push back on Biden’s move to drop out. They noted Biden, not Harris, was selected as the party nominee by voters in state primaries. And they painted the weekend’s events as “rigged” and “a coup within the Democratic Party.”
“The elites and the insiders of the Democratic Party have chosen Vice President Harris to be the new figurehead,” U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil said. “But the policies remain the same.”
Trump, on a call with reporters as Harris spoke in Wisconsin, said much of the same.
“She's the same as Biden, but much more radical," Trump said. "She's a radical left person, and this country doesn't want a radical left person today. She's far more radical than he is.”
Wisconsin Democrats, meanwhile, framed the next months as a "sprint to victory in November" and pointed to Harris' background as a former district attorney and attorney general in a matchup against Trump.
"There’s simply no one better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump than Kamala Harris," Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler said.
The scene inside the gymnasium Tuesday reflected the sense of renewed energy Democrats have projected since Harris assumed the top spot on the ticket.
Hundreds of supporters filled the arena, many holding blue and white signs that read "Kamala" on one side and "USA" on the other. They periodically chanted "Kamala!" before the vice president had arrived and as Beyonce songs like "Break My Soul" and "Cozy" blasted out.
Others held a series of signs that together spelled out, "YES WE KAM!" A number of voters interviewed by the Journal Sentinel said they felt new energy and excitement now that Harris was at the top of the ticket.
One attendee, 29-year-old Emily Fremgen, called Biden's decision to drop out and endorse Harris "amazing."
“It’s time that it’s a woman and not an old white man making decisions for the country,” Fremgen said. “I was excited.”
Before Harris took the stage, a number of the state's leading Democrats attempted to lay out what they saw as the stakes of the next four months. They pointed to reproductive freedoms — noting Trump has taken credit for the fall of the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade — and tied Trump to the controversial GOP governing blueprint Project 2025 from which Trump has attempted to distance himself.
"It's a choice between control over Americans' lives from the far right and a president who will defend our freedom," Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul told the crowd.
In her remarks, Harris nodded at her own Wisconsin roots: She lived in Madison from age 3 to 5 before leaving in 1970.
And Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, too, pointed out Harris' ties to the state.
It's connections like those, Harris hopes, that will endear her to voters.
"The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin," Harris said. "And we are counting on you right here in Milwaukee."
Journal Sentinel reporters Rachel Hale, Alison Dirr, Hope Karnopp and Jessie Opoien contributed.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris brings her case against Trump to battleground Wisconsin
