Kamala Harris rallies voters, and works in a visit to her childhood home, in return to Madison

MADISON – Vice President Kamala Harris returned Wednesday to a city she once called home to issue a seemingly simple plea to some of her strongest supporters: vote.

Surrounded by campaign signs of Democrats past and present in the state party’s downtown headquarters, Harris encouraged a crowd of about 50 Democrats to engage other potential voters in a state that could prove critical to the Biden-Harris reelection effort.

“There’s so much at stake,” Harris said. “And so I say to you, the people who have taken it upon yourself at great sacrifice… to put yourself out and to put the time into it. To put your personal relationships into it. To fight for this election and all that we hold dear.”

She cast the election as a choice between democracy, freedom and the rule of law — “or not.” Democracy, she said, “will only be as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”

While her official visit to Madison, where she briefly lived as a child, centered around touting the Biden administration’s infrastructure and labor wins, Harris’ quick stop on Capitol Square on Wednesday to speak to a group sure to cast their vote for Biden in November underscored the campaign’s push to turn out voters in Wisconsin, where elections are often determined by the slimmest of margins.

In her remarks, Harris noted Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin in 2020 by just over 20,000 votes — less than one percentage point.

“The work that you are doing here in Wisconsin is going to make all the difference in terms of where we are and who we are and where we go for the next four years in our country,” she said.

Still, a Marquette University Law Poll released last month showed registered voters in Wisconsin are less enthusiastic about voting than they were at the start of 2020. Just 49% of voters reported feeling very enthusiastic about voting this year compared to 70% during the previous presidential election.

And both Biden and Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, are similarly unpopular among likely voters in the state.

More: In the ground game to engage Black Milwaukee voters, signs of waning enthusiasm for 2020 rematch

Trump has yet to visit Wisconsin, but state Republicans on Wednesday said the former president is sure to come to the battleground. They painted the recent Biden administration visits as desperate attempts to shore up support.

“Joe Biden is in big trouble in Wisconsin — the ticket knows it,” Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming told reporters. “That is why (Harris) is here in the base of Democratic voters trying to get them really engaged with this ticket.”

Harris, however, sought to deliver a personal touch with her message on Wednesday.

Just before speaking to supporters, she visited her childhood home on the west side of Madison, where she lived from age 3 to 5 before leaving in 1970. At the time, her father was an associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her mother worked as a breast cancer researcher in the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, according to a White House official.

She toured the home, which she said had been renovated from the “cabin” it was when she had lived there, and stood with the current homeowner on the back patio overlooking Lake Mendota.

“I don’t remember the house as much as I remember the path down to the lake,” she told reporters. “Welcome to my Madison roots.”

Hours later, at the campaign event, Harris again mentioned the house. She told the crowd that the thing she remembered most was the lake.

“So I do feel a very strong personal connection, and I’m very happy to be here with all of you doing the work we’re going to do together,” Harris said.

“And, by the way, we’re going to win.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris returns to her Madison roots to exhort voters