Kamala Harris rallied thousands of voters in a packed arena in Milwaukee on a Tuesday night designed to demonstrate the energy and breadth of the Democratic nominee’s emerging coalition.
Harris, speaking on the battleground in Wisconsin — at a meeting of the Fiserv Forum where Republicans held their convention last month — declared that she was running “a people-driven campaign.”
“Together, we will chart a new path forward,” the vice president said in remarks that were partially broadcast to the DNC. “A future of freedom, opportunity, optimism and faith.”
The night’s theme was “a bold vision for America’s future,” the various factions of Harris’ emerging coalition showing above all that they are connected by a deep desire to prevent a second Donald Trump presidency.
Harris, speaking in front of about 15,000 people, made the choice in stark, almost existential terms. She pleaded with Americans not to become complacent in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on broad presidential immunity, a power she said Trump would abuse.
She has also addressed Trump’s opposition to a nationally guaranteed right to abortion.
“They apparently don’t trust women,” she said of Trump and his Republican allies. “Well, we trust women.”
The vice president’s speech evoked some of the same themes that underpinned President Joe Biden’s case for re-election before he dropped out, framing Trump as a threat to democracy. Harris argued that Trump threatens the values and freedoms that Americans value.
Trump said he would become a dictator only on his first day in office, a joke he later said was a joke, and has promised as president to exercise more control over federal prosecutions, an area of government that has traditionally been left to the Justice Department.
Someone with that record “should never again have the opportunity to stand behind the seal of the President of the United States,” Harris said. “Never again.”
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