'We Are Not Going Back': Harris Girds for Fight, at Exuberant Wisconsin Rally

MILWAUKEE – Thousands of people jammed into West Allis Central High School, in a suburb just outside Milwaukee, on Tuesday to hear Vice President Kamala Harris at her first rally since effectively securing the Democratic nomination for president.

The diverse crowd included parents who brought their children to witness history and sorority sisters from Alpha Kappa Alpha — the same African American sorority Harris belonged to as an undergraduate at Howard University — dressed in pink and green, the sorority’s colors.

The Harris campaign said they were so “inundated” with requests to RSVP for the event, they moved it to a larger venue. Even then, some were turned away at the door.

The vice president was introduced by Leia Esser, a Wisconsin teacher who said her student debt had been forgiven by the Biden administration. After taking the stage to thunderous applause, Harris promised that her campaign will be looking forward, not back.

“This will be a campaign of two different visions for the nation. We are focused on the future, the other party is focused on the past,” she said, adding that “We are not going back.”

Unlike her run in 2019, Harris is leaning into her experience as a former prosecutor in San Francisco and then California attorney general, noting that she was used to dealing with people she compared to former President Trump.

“Sex predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” Harris said to cheers. “So hear me when I say ‘I know Donald Trump’s type.’”

Before Harris took the stage a series of Wisconsin Democrats spoke on her behalf, many of them echoing that theme as well as protecting the right to abortion and preserving access to women’s health care.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly emphasized that Harris was perfectly suited to take on Donald Trump.

“She took down sexual predators,” Uderly said. “She doesn’t back down to bullies. She brings them down. And that’s what she’ll do to Donald Trump.”

The energy generated by the Harris rally was palpable, with many saying they came to watch history unfold.

“We love Kamala, and we think that it’s a momentous occasion for them to experience,” said Angela Micheli-Gwiazdowski who came with her husband and four children. “She was our first female vice president, and we hope she’ll be the first female president.”

It was striking how many younger voters were in the crowd, including Raniyah Edwards, 19.

“I think that this election is one of the biggest elections in history. It’s iconic just being here right now,” said Edwards. “And I feel like every vote counts. So one less vote or one wrong vote could sway the whole course of history.”

Outside across from the high school, a small contingent of protesters held a banner reading “Stop the Genocide,” a reference to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. A single protester shouting a pro-Palestinian message was escorted out by police as Harris continued talking.

This was Harris’s fifth visit to Wisconsin this year and her ninth since becoming vice president, according to her campaign. In 2016, Donald Trump carried the state by 27,257. Four years later, Biden won by 20,682 votes. The state is evenly divided among Republican and Democratic voters, who in recent years have elected both conservative Republican Ron Johnson and liberal Democrat Tammy Baldwin to represent them in the U.S. Senate.

Harris lived in Madison, Wisconsin between the ages of 3 and 5. Both of her parents worked at the University of Wisconsin. Her father, Donald Harris, was an associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, worked as a breast cancer researcher at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research.

Since Biden officially dropped out on Sunday, Harris has moved swiftly to consolidate support for her to be on top of the ticket.

Monday, after throwing her support behind Harris, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who worked feverishly behind the scenes to ease Biden out of the race, secured pledges from enough of California’s nearly 500 delegates to put Harris over the top with enough delegates to likely secure the nomination, according to The Associated Press.

In the hours after Harris’s swift ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, the Harris campaign announced it had raised more than $100 million from 880,000 unique donors since Biden dropped out, indicating renewed enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket. Additionally, tens of millions more in pledges were reported by large donors.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the vetting process for potential vice presidential running mates for Harris. Among the Democrats thought to be under consideration are Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Roy Cooper from North Carolina, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan. Also thought to be on the short list is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly.