CHICAGO (AP) — Kamala Harris rallied thousands of voters in one packed arena as former President Barack Obama prepared to energize millions more on Harris’ behalf inside another on a Tuesday night designed to demonstrate the energy and breadth of the Democratic nominee’s evolving coalition.
Watch the event in the player above.
Ahead of Obama’s address at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris declared in battleground Wisconsin — at a rally in the arena where Republicans held their convention last month — that she was running “a people-powered campaign.”
“Together we will chart a new way forward,” the vice president said in remarks that were partially broadcast to the DNC. “A future for freedom, opportunity, of optimism and faith.”
Back at the Democrats’ convention, a symbolic roll call in which delegates from each state pledged their support for the Democratic nominee turned into a party atmosphere. A DJ played a mix of state-specific songs — and Atlanta native Lil Jon ran out during Georgia’s turn to his hit song with DJ Snake, “Turn Down for What,” to the delight of the thousands inside the cavernous United Center.
The raucous night of events spanning two states underscored the diversity of the coalition that Harris’ campaign is working to stitch together in her bid to defeat Trump this fall. She is drawing on the party’s biggest stars, leaders from the far left to the middle, and even some Republicans to boost her campaign.
And while the theme of the night was “a bold vision for America’s future,” the disparate factions of Harris’ evolving coalition demonstrated, above all, that they are connected by a deep desire to prevent a second Trump presidency.
In an appearance perhaps intended to needle Trump, his former press secretary Stephanie Grisham — now a harsh critic of her former boss — also took the convention stage.
Trump “has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth,” Grisham said. “I love my country more than my party. Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people. And she has my vote.”
Sens. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent beloved by progressives, praised Harris. Later on the night’s speaking program: Several other Republicans who have turned away from Trump, including former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former Trump White House staffer Olivia Troye.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff was also scheduled to speak.
Trump, meanwhile, is visiting battleground states during the convention. He went to Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday and stood aside sheriff’s deputies as he labeled Harris the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.
“Kamala Harris will deliver crime, chaos, destruction and death,” Trump said in one of many generalizations about an America under Harris.
Obama, the nation’s first Black president, returns to the convention stage 20 years after making his first appearance at a national convention, a 2004 appearance in Boston that propelled him into the national spotlight ahead of his successful presidential run.
In his Tuesday address, Obama is expected to help affirm why Harris and Walz are the right leaders for the country at this moment, lay out the task in front of Democrats over the next 10 weeks and bring into focus the values at stake in this election and at the heart of our politics, according to a person familiar with the remarks.
The former president believes this is an all-hands-on-deck moment and he is committed to do all he can to help Harris win, the person said, adding that Obama would engage in a range of traditional and creative tactics to reach voters over the coming weeks.
Harris, meanwhile, cast the election in dire, almost existential terms. She implored Americans not to get complacent in light of the Supreme Court decision carving out broad presidential immunity, a power she said Trump would abuse.
She has also seized on Trump’s opposition to a nationally guaranteed right to abortion.
“They seemingly 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 underlaid Biden’s case for reelection before he dropped out, casting Trump as a threat to democracy. Harris argued that Trump threatens the values and freedoms that Americans hold dear.
Trump said he would be a dictator only on his first day in office, a quip he later said was a joke, and has vowed as president to assert 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.”
Cooper reported from Phoenix.
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