Kamala Harris rally seeks to unleash the voting power of Wisconsin liberal bastion Madison

(This story was updated to correct a misspelling/typo.)

MADISON — Vice President Kamala Harris sought to unleash the liberal voting power of fast-growing Dane County in her first visit to Wisconsin's capital city since launching her presidential campaign, speaking to a fired-up capacity crowd at Madison's Alliant Energy Center on Friday night.

The Harris campaign placed attendance at the venue at 10,500.

Harris, who was in Georgia earlier in the day for a rally, spoke for about 30 minutes addressing a range of issues, including abortion rights, home ownership and health care while drawing a sharp contrast between herself and Donald Trump, her opponent in the 2024 presidential election.

She urged supporters to use their voices, and votes, to preserve their freedom and reproductive rights — and send her to the White House.

"We have work to do — to energize, to organize, and to mobilize, and to remind everyone: your vote is your voice and your voice is your power, and never let anyone take your power from you," she said.

Wisconsin's Teamsters Joint Council 39 president Bill Carroll introduced Harris two days after the union broke with its national leadership and endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Carroll praised Harris as "a champion for unions and working families" after the national Teamsters body broke with precedent and declined to endorse either Harris or Trump.

Wisconsin Democrats also announced this week that the party has worked with 16,000 new volunteers since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the party's nominee last month. The party also noted that, with the opening of two new offices in the liberal stronghold of Dane County, Democrats now have 50 coordinated campaign offices in 43 counties, with more than 250 full-time staff and more than 500,000 doors knocked since the Biden-to-Harris shift.

TAKEAWAYS: Kamala Harris' rally in the Wisconsin liberal stronghold Madison

Dane County is the fastest-growing county in the state.

Since the beginning of this decade, Dane County's population has increased by 2.5%. It grew from an estimated 561,508 residents in April 2020 to more than 575,300 in July 2023 ― about an additional 14,000 residents. Much of this growth occurred in one year. Between July 2022 and July 2023, the county added more than 7,500 residents.

Democrats have always understood the importance of Dane County, longtime Democratic strategist and senior adviser to the Harris campaign Tanya Bjork told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — but that importance has only grown year after year as the population and Democratic vote share continue to increase.

Amber Wichowsky, an associate professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, said the campaign’s decision to hold a rally in Madison “underscores the importance of Dane County” to the Harris-Walz ticket.

“Dane County is just a place where Democrats keep running up the margins, running up the scoreboard. And it's seen as key to counterbalance the rightward shift that we've seen in a lot of the smaller communities, more rural places of the state,” she said. “Republicans’ margins have really improved in those places. But Madison and the surrounding communities have shifted left, and there are a lot of people in Dane County."

Before Harris sopke, some University of Wisconsin-Madison students whose hometowns were outside Wisconsin said they had changed their residencies to reflect their new addresses so they could vote in this swing state come November.

Sarah Warren, 18, of Oklahoma City came to the Kamala Harris rally with her friends Julia Leonard and Eleanor Wolski, both 18 and from Chicago. They all said they’d be voting in Wisconsin and expressed excitement to cast their first votes.

“Being from Chicago, which is just so blue, and then coming here, it feels like our voices matter a little bit more,” Leonard said.

And UW-Madison freshmen Anika Ramanathan and Aadya Ganjigunta, both 18 and from California, said they felt their community was represented by seeing another South Asian woman running for president.

Harris' return to Wisconsin was part of a swing through "blue wall" battleground states including Pennsylvania and Michigan. It followed he campaign's "New Way Forward" tour and the only scheduled debate between Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.

The campaign said it would dial in its focus on young voters with an office next to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and an organizer dedicated to college voters at UW-Madison and Madison Area Technical College.

A new Marquette University Law School poll released last week showed Harris with a four-point lead over Trump, within the poll's margin of error. It also showed Harris leading for the first time among the most enthusiastic voters, while Trump held that advantage when President Joe Biden was still in the race and during the early days of Harris' own campaign.

Ahead of the rally, Wisconsin Republicans criticized Harris at a news conference at the state Capitol just a few miles away. Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming framed Harris’ rally as an effort to play to a friendly audience instead of answering questions from voters skeptical of her record.

“Kamala Harris doesn't get back to the White House unless she wins Wisconsin, and she needs a big turnout,” he said. “She has to go to her base of voters, not where independent voters live, because, frankly, she doesn't want to answer questions from independent voters. She'd rather come somewhere where it's completely safe for her politically."

State Treasurer John Leiber said he wanted to see Harris in her rally talk about what her economic policies would do for Wisconsinites and Madison residents in addition to “what they have been doing under the Biden administration.” And U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said inflation and the southern border, which he called a “disaster,” should be the top issues.

Harris' last Wisconsin rally was at Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum on Aug. 20, appearing along with Walz during the second night of the Democratic National Convention.

Jessie Opoien can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris courts base in Wisconsin liberal bastion Madison