Kamala Harris hits campaign trail in Wisconsin as likely presidential nominee, touts past as prosecutor

Vice President Kamala Harris is in the battleground state of Wisconsin for her first campaign rally since she launched her presidential campaign.

“The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin,” Harris told the crowd, adding, “we are counting on you right here in Milwaukee … and in 2024, we will win again.”

She praised President Biden, who ended his reelection campaign Sunday, and said that in his single term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who served two terms.

Harris also reminded voters of both her past as prosecutor in California — and Trump’s recent legal losses — a theme she’s likely to keep hitting during the campaign. Harris said that as a former corporate prosecutor and California attorney general, “I took on perpetrators of all kinds: creditors who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain — so, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

“As a prosecutor, I specialized in sexual abuse,” she said, while “Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse.” Harris said she took on big Wall Street banks and held them up accountable for fraud, while “Donald Trump was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts.”

By Monday evening, Harris’ nascent campaign said it had raised $100 million, and she had secured the endorsements of a majority of the Democratic delegates who will soon be weighing in on her nomination in an early virtual roll call vote. Harris touted both these milestones during the rally, and she vowed to work to unite the Democratic Party “so that we are ready to win.”

That vote to formalize her presidential nomination is expected to take place in the first week of August, weeks before the Democratic National Convention. 

Hours before the rally, which is taking place in West Allis, a Milwaukee suburb, Harris also won the endorsements of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi endorsed her Monday. 

This is Harris’ fifth visit to Wisconsin this year and her ninth since she became vice president, according to her campaign. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and other officials and labor leaders are joining her.

The event was scheduled before President Biden’s announcement Sunday that he would relinquish the Democratic presidential nomination. Just before Mr. Biden stepped aside as the Democratic Party’s nominee, a CBS News poll tested a hypothetical match-up between GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump and Harris. She trailed Trump by three points in the vote preferences of likely voters, including leaners (those who didn’t pick them first but leaned toward one of them) — that’s slightly narrower than the five-point margin by which Mr. Biden trailed the former president.