Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to announce her running mate at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Harris will be the first Democratic presidential candidate to visit Pennsylvania after securing the nomination on Monday. It will be her seventh visit to the state this year and her 17th since becoming vice president in 2021.
During the event, Harris is expected to introduce her running mate, though it’s not yet clear who that will be. Harris has reportedly narrowed her field down to two candidates: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
The Harris campaign is touting the enthusiasm in Pennsylvania, and according to a news release signed by state communications director Jack Doyle, more than 33,000 people have registered as campaign volunteers in the state in the past 15 days alone. The campaign has nearly 300 staff members in 36 offices, including battleground counties such as Erie, Luzerne and Northampton. The campaign is also making inroads in historically Republican areas of Union, Lancaster and York counties.
It’s official: Vice President Kamala Harris officially wins the Democratic presidential nomination
Kamala Harris disembarks from Air Force Two at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on July 23, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohat/Pool)
The campaign also said that while Harris is “storming” Pennsylvania, her main opponent in the November election, former President Donald Trump, is “struggling to keep up.” The Trump campaign said that with “only three offices in Pennsylvania, he is far behind in building the infrastructure he needs to win,” and that “this shows he doesn’t want these voters.”
Trump was assassinated on July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, but survived and said he would rally there again in the future. He held a rally in Harrisburg last week.
The vice president has sought to contrast himself with the former president in Pennsylvania, campaigning by saying he “fights for freedom, democracy, and an economy that gives everyone the opportunity not just to survive but to get ahead,” but that “Trump’s harmful Project 2025 policies would take our country backwards by instituting a nationwide abortion ban, increasing the burden on the middle class, and giving Trump virtually unlimited power.”
Project 2025 is a controversial effort organized by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and drafted by a number of conservatives, including former Trump administration officials.
The initiative makes right-wing policy proposals if Trump wins the presidential election, including replacing civil servants with Trump supporters, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding to Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as medical care, and instilling Christian values in government.
Trump Distance yourself from leadership The plan has been criticised as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist scheme that would undermine civil liberties, but he said he knew nothing about it, that parts of it were “totally ridiculous and terrible” and that its supporters were “far-right”.
“Absolutely anti-Trump supporters” rally behind Republican Harris’ Democratic campaign
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the “Women’s Economic Participation in Industries of the Future” conference during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week in San Francisco, California on November 16, 2023. (Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, giving states the power to set their own laws on abortion access. Harris’ campaign cited polls showing a majority of Pennsylvania voters support some degree of abortion access.
“Vice President Harris will ensure that women have the power to make decisions about their own bodies again,” her campaign said in a news release. “That contrast will be at the forefront here in Pennsylvania.”
The Harris campaign also argued that the Trump administration has cost Pennsylvania more than 275,000 jobs, including thousands in manufacturing, sending the unemployment rate to an all-time high.
While Harris and Biden inherited an economy that was “messed up” by President Trump, Harris credited her with creating more than 500,000 jobs in Pennsylvania and capping prescription drug costs for millions of Pennsylvanians who are covered by Medicare.
Harris’ campaign touted her experience as a prosecutor in California and said she is committed to keeping communities safe and arresting dangerous thugs, criminals and violent criminals. The campaign said that under the Trump administration, Pennsylvania’s murder rate, especially in Philadelphia, soared, but Harris “fought against the gun lobby and contributed to a historic decline in violent crime.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Westover High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on July 18, 2024. (Alison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images)
“If Trump wins a second term, he will once again align himself with the NRA, making it easier for weapons to get into the hands of convicted felons,” the campaign said in a news release.
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The campaign also highlighted the electoral defeats that Trump and candidates he supports suffered in Pennsylvania in 2018, 2020 and 2022. The campaign pointed to Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden, Republican Mehmet Oz’s 2022 loss to incumbent Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Republican Doug Mastriano’s 2022 loss to incumbent Democratic Gov. Shapiro.
“Republicans also lost support everywhere in the state because protecting reproductive freedom and democracy were top of mind for voters,” Harris’ campaign said in a press release. “Rational Republicans in the state continue to reject Trump, with more than 158,000 voting against him in the Pennsylvania Republican Primary nearly two months after Nikki Haley dropped out of the race.”
