Before he was the Democratic presidential nominee, the vice president had an idea Kamala Harris may not have what it takes to mobilize voters among party elites and Washington insiders.
His approval ratings were low. He has been criticized not only by Republicans, but also by fellow Democrats for missteps in his early days as the No. 2 government job. The employee could not save.
But while the Beltway set embraced it, Harris built a huge political network across the country and online. Her direct contact with tens of thousands of political activists and voters—particularly through college campus tours, events promoting reproductive rights, and pushing an economic empowerment agenda focused on the Black community—has made Harris Power up his party when he taps to climb to the top of the ticket.
In other words, there was a ready core of Harris supporters ready to take action.
“He’s come on board, not just in the last few weeks, but the last few months, the last few years,” said Harris, D-Nev., recalling his meeting with the culinary staff. strong labor group in the state – for backroom tours, roundtables and a keynote address in January. “Those workers are now showing up for him, you know, launching one of the biggest ground campaigns I’ve ever seen. . . . It’s going to pay big dividends.”
If Harris can win For the fifth consecutive election for the Nevada Democrats – though most requests showing a small lead over former President Donald Trump — the activism of the 60,000-member culinary workers union will be central to victory.
His official schedule and campaign activities, which took him repeatedly to key states earlier this year, have garnered segments of the electorate crucial to Democrats’ chances of retaining the White House.
In March, Harris became the first vice president to hold the position visit an abortion clinic when he traveled to Minnesota – a Trump state long eyed Despite decades of Democratic rule, she was able to take over and promote reproductive rights with Governor Tim Waltz, who is now her aide.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which struck down abortion rights, angered Harris, but it turned into political power for him. More than anyone else, she served as the first woman the vice president was the face of the White House’s response to the decision – and state abortion bans that went into effect after that.
“A year after Dobbs, it’s clear where this is headed: Extremist Republicans in Congress have proposed a nationwide ban on abortion,” Harris He said during a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina in June 2023. “But I have news for them: we don’t.”
Mini Timmaraju, president of the group Reproductive Freedom for All and a former Biden administration official, said Harris has deep and long-standing ties to abortion rights activists dating back to her years in the Senate and in California.
As a senator, he grilled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and garnered clips that helped build a stronger national audience among abortion rights advocates. Kavanaugh would win the endorsement, but Harris won new fans. She traveled to Arizona to speak about the state’s reproductive rights The 19th century ban on abortion came into force in Apriland he spoke in Florida in May when new restrictions were introduced there. Both states have been competitive in recent presidential elections, with Arizona voting once for Trump and once for Biden, and Florida twice favoring Trump by less than 4 percent of the vote.
“It all adds up and is important,” Timmaraju said.
As of Aug. 14, he has been to each of the seven battleground states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona — four to seven times in 2024 alone, according to a list provided by the Harris campaign.
At Harris’ first rally as the presumptive Democratic nominee in Atlanta on July 30, he was introduced by Tyler Greene, a Morehouse College graduate who participated in a May 2023 roundtable on youth of color and small business in Washington, D.C. In addition to events like this, the vice president the campus tour put him in front of about 15,000 students at institutions that serve mostly students of color, community colleges and vocational schools, and public universities.
“The best thing that happened to Kamala Harris was to leave the Naval Observatory (where the vice president lives), leave the Capitol and get out of Washington,” said Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state representative and prominent Harris supporter.
When Biden became vice president, it made sense for him to spend time on Capitol Hill and make deals in the Senate, where he served for 36 years. But for Harris, who was a senator for just four years before being elected vice president, there was a better use for his skills in pushing the administration’s agenda, Sellers said. he said.
“Kamala Harris’ case is different because she is one of our more effective ambassadors,” Sellers continued. “And when reproductive rights or college tours or black economic mobility were the issue du jour, having him on the road was more valuable than giving him a policy to negotiate. [centrist Sens.] Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.”
If he is elected president, Harris will have to work with his former colleagues in the Senate. But so far, and over the next two months, the experience he’s gained as he travels the country and the connections he’s built with civically engaged voters have served him well.