Blue-state Dem dread turns to elation over Harris: ‘It’s all changed’

PITTSFIELD, Massachusetts — One week ago, Kamala Harris stood beneath a towering monument on the tip of Cape Cod and worked to reassure anxious donors that Joe Biden was the Democrat best positioned to defeat Donald Trump.

On Saturday, the vice president returned to this deep-blue state to pitch donors on a different candidate: herself.

“Now,” she said, “the baton is in our hands.”

Harris hit the Berkshires on Saturday to rake in more than $1.4 million for what is now her political operation. The total was more than triple the organizers’ $400,000 goal for the star-studded event that featured musical performances from James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax and counted former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick among its hosts.

In a speech that mirrored those she has delivered at campaign events over the past week since the president dropped out and she became the Democratic front-runner, Harris worked to frame her anticipated face-off against Trump as one between a prosecutor and a felon, between someone with a forward-looking message versus one that focuses on the past, and between someone who would work to expand peoples’ rights instead of restricting them — a nod to her pledge to codify national abortion access (which she will need Congress to accomplish).

She spoke of strengthening gun regulations and growing the middle class. And, as she expressed hope that Trump would “reconsider” debating her after his campaign said last week that plans weren’t finalized, a man in the crowd cried out: “So do we!”

But Harris was clear-eyed, in her words, about the challenge she faces in attempting to stand up a major-party presidential campaign barely 100 days before Election Day against an opponent who has spent the past eight years plotting a second term — and whose allies are already deploying sexist and racist attacks against her.

“We have a fight ahead of us. And we are the underdogs in this race, OK? Level set,” Harris said. “But this is a people-powered campaign. And we have momentum.”

Harris returned to Massachusetts under markedly different circumstances than when she was in Provincetown just seven days ago, pitching a Biden-led ticket to deep-pocketed donors despairing about the party’s November prospects — and hauling in $2 million for what was then the president’s joint fundraising committee .

Now, she is all but assured to be the Democratic nominee, and her team is actively vetting potential running mates. She has already locked up the support of major Massachusetts Democrats — including Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, the latter of whom was among those who greeted the vice president on the tarmac Saturday afternoon — as well as verbal commitments from delegates to the Democratic National Convention here and across dozens of states.

“This is an excitement level that has very rarely been seen in American politics,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who spoke at Saturday’s fundraiser, told POLITICO. “What we saw in Provincetown last Saturday afternoon was electrifying and it was only a preview of coming attractions.”

The hype for Harris was on full display in downtown Pittsfield on Saturday. Supporters lined the streets leading to the Colonial Theatre, where the fundraiser was held, with homemade signs that displayed messages like “CocoNUTS for Kamala” and “Cat ladies for Kamala.” Some 800 people packed the theater to hear from Harris, Patrick and a lineup that included Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Markey; Rep. Richard Neal , the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee who represents this district; and historian Heather Cox Richardson.

Sherwood Guernsey, one of the hosts of the event and a former state representative for the region, said it was “easily” the biggest political fundraiser to hit the Berkshires since Michelle Obama held a concert with Taylor at the same theater in 2012.

The fundraiser had been on the books well before Biden dropped out and backed Harris. But it was not until after Harris launched her campaign last Sunday that the event sold out, he said.

Guernsey said he had “never seen the energy so low and despondent” as he had in the waning days of Biden’s bid.

“Now, it’s all changed,” he said. “The excitement here I think mirrors the entire nation among Democrats and independents. It breathes in hope.”

Outside the theater, the reception for Harris was more mixed. Supporters holding “Madame President” signs stood next to those waving banners for former President Donald Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Down the street, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators held homemade signs denouncing “Killer Kamala” and accusing her and Biden of being “complicit in mass murder” in Gaza. “Stop arming Israel,” another sign read.

Inside the dimly lit auditorium and out of earshot of the protesters’ megaphone, donors who fêted Harris with standing ovations acknowledged that the “honeymoon” phase of her campaign won’t last forever. They urged her to remain a positive messenger in the face of Trump and his allies’ attacks — Harris said Saturday that Trump “has been resorting to some wild lies about my record” and that some of what he and running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) are saying “is just plain weird” — and to keep working to define her candidacy before the other side can.

“All of the Democrats are so happy that she’s there that we’re all riding on this high. And at some point, stuff is going to be thrown around, stuff is going to hit the fan,” said Susan May, a Democratic-leaning independent voter from Lenox.

But on Saturday, Democrats were still reveling in the relief of simply having a new messenger.

“The level of excitement and enthusiasm for the vice president has just exploded,” Patrick, the former governor and 2020 presidential candidate, said in an interview. “I totally understand the appetite we all have had to move on from the inter-party conversation and take the case to the American people of where we want to take the country.”

Democratic enthusiasm for Harris is also extending into neighboring New Hampshire, where two surveys taken since Biden exited the race show the vice president ahead of Trump there by 6 percentage points — outside the margin of error for both polls. New polling also shows that the race nationally is tightening .

Across a series of Harris campaign events in the state on Thursday — that were headlined by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer , who is co-chairing the vice president’s nascent bid and is being floated as a potential running mate (though she says she’s uninterested) — the exuberance among party activists about the change atop the ticket was palpable.

“The last four months, I couldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t let Jeannie [Shaheen] turn the TV on, because I didn’t want to see it. And it was tough because I was worried,” the New Hampshire senator’s husband, Bill Shaheen, said while helping introduce Whitmer at a house party in Durham.

Now “we’ve got the right candidate,” Shaheen said, describing Democrats as “euphoric.”

Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.