‘A historical event’: Eager supporters and makeshift merch crowd Harris’ first campaign rally

WEST ALLIS, WISCONSIN — Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign less than 48 hours ago — but voters at a rally just outside Milwaukee on Tuesday were more than ready to welcome her with makeshift campaign merch and open arms.

Harris’ rally at a high school gymnasium in West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee, was her first campaign event since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday afternoon and she stepped up to replace him.

It was Harris’ fifth visit this year to Wisconsin, a critical battleground state that former President Donald Trump flipped in 2016 and Biden narrowly won back in 2020. In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did not campaign in Wisconsin during the general election, a move seen in hindsight as representative of her campaign’s strategic missteps and overconfidence in their chances.

In Wisconsin, voters couldn’t access abortion for nearly 15 months following the loss of federal abortion rights and have long lived under voting maps biased toward Republicans. The state encapsulates the key themes around abortion rights and democracy that Harris has quickly moved to emphasize in her campaign.

“The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin,” she said in her speech. “To win in Wisconsin, we are counting on you right here in Milwaukee. You helped us win in 2020, and in 2024, we will win again.”

If the crowd at Harris’ Milwaukee-area rally was any indication, the multigenerational and multiracial coalition of women that fueled the resistance to Trump, the #MeToo movement and the response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade are quickly mobilizing behind her.

Margaret and Eva Beres, a mother and daughter, came to the rally from Muskego, a suburb of Milwaukee located in Waukesha County, seen as a battleground that has voted Republican in recent elections.

“I’ve been waiting for a woman president my whole life,” said Margaret Beres. “I wanted Hillary so bad.”

Eva Beres said it’s been “tough” living in a red area and neighborhood. But she’s been heartened by the movement for abortion rights. A neighbor in her subdivision, she said, thanked her for putting up a pro-reproductive rights sign in her yard.

“I’m ready for change, I’m ready to see a woman as president, and I think it’s amazing,” she said. “I’m super excited.”

It took less than 36 hours for the Democratic Party apparatus to coalesce around Harris’ nascent candidacy. Hundreds of Democratic elected officials endorsed Harris, a majority of Biden’s state-level delegates pledged to support her at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month and the Harris campaign raked in $81 million in donations in its first 24 hours.

So many people RSVP’d to Tuesday’s rally that it had to move to a larger venue late in the day on Monday, a campaign official said. Over 3,000 people attended, making it the largest event the Biden campaign — now Harris’ campaign — has held. After remarks by Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Harris was introduced by Leia Esser, an educator who received student loan relief under the Biden-Harris administration.

In a sign of the speed of the transition, Harris spoke in front of American flags, not a branded Harris for President backdrop. Staff printed several hundred dark-blue-and-white signs that read “Kamala” on one side and “USA” on the other for attendees in the stands to hold.

Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, who wore a blue shirt that had the international sign for women as the “O” in POTUS, called Harris “the woman we need at this moment.”

“She’s not afraid to take down bullies,” she said. “And that’s what she’s going to do with Donald Trump, because he’s the bully that’s been bullying the American public, and enough is enough.”

Harris walked on and off the stage to Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” an anthem of empowerment for Black women released in 2016. The song carries a renewed significance in 2024 as Harris, who is Black and Southeast Asian, seeks to become the first woman and woman of color to hold the presidency. Many Black women in the crowd donned pink and green, the colors of Harris’ sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., one of the “Divine Nine” Black Greek letter organizations.

Harris is tasked with introducing herself to voters 105 days before Election Day and making a vigorous case against Trump. During her 16-minute speech, she melded her resumé as a prosecutor and California attorney general with Trump’s numerous legal troubles.

“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. In this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.”

When Harris mentioned the juries that found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and liable for sexual abuse , the crowd broke out into chants of “lock him up.” Harris slammed Trump as “trading access” to billionaires and corporations for campaign support and highlighted Project 2025 , a blueprint of right-wing policies a future Trump administration could enact. Trump and his campaign have publicly distanced themselves from the document. At the mention of the effort, the crowd broke out into chants of “We won’t go back.”

Harris began her remarks praising Biden, stating she was “honored” to be endorsed by him. She touted the administration’s accomplishments and doubled down on abortion, an issue she has championed and one that Biden, a devout Roman Catholic, was less comfortable talking about on the campaign trail.

Since the fall of Roe ended federal abortion rights in 2022, Harris has emerged as one of the nation’s highest-profile defenders of abortion access. In March, she became the first president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic, and she has traveled to numerous states to speak about the impact of abortion bans.

“We trust women to make decisions for their own bodies,” she said to applause. “When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it.”

Harris also highlighted the number of grassroots donations the campaign had amassed since launching.

“Because we are a people-powered campaign, we will be a people-first presidency,” she said.

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff has also participated in numerous events emphasizing abortion rights. On Tuesday, in his first public event since Harris’ campaign began, he visited an abortion clinic in Virginia, where he argued that a vote for Harris would be a vote for restoring Roe.

“It’s outrageous, it’s immoral, it’s wrong,” Emhoff said. “It must change, and it will change when we elect Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States.”

Attendees at the rally didn’t wait to receive their newly released Harris merchandise. Many women wore merchandise from Harris’ 2020 presidential run or Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, shirts with feminist and pro-abortion rights slogans, and attire with the Trump-era slogans like “Nasty Woman,” Trump’s preferred insult for Clinton, and “Nevertheless, she persisted,” a broadside in a warning from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to Sen. Elizabeth Warren that became a rallying cry.

Patricia McFarland, who has been active in Democratic politics for decades and has shared her story of getting an abortion before Roe v. Wade, came to the rally wearing a Biden-Harris button with blue duct tape over Biden’s name, along with a button for Baldwin. She’s preparing to work 20 hours a week registering voters and getting out the vote — and has started using the slogan “Yes We Kam.”

“Every place I’ve gone, women are energized,” she said. Women are ready.”

In an election cycle that was, until Sunday, between two men, voters at the rally were overwhelmingly enthusiastic at the prospect of a first woman president. They didn’t raise concerns that Harris’ gender and race could hurt her chances.

“This is a historical event,” said Marian Sheridan, who came to the rally from Fond du Lac, about an hour north of Milwaukee. “I feel so privileged to be here for a candidate that is a great candidate, who stands for everything that’s right in this country. Every woman should be behind her.”

Luz Sosa, an educator and member of the American Federation of Teachers Local 212, said the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record, including student debt relief and its support for teachers and other union workers, is a boon in a state like Wisconsin.

“I see the excitement more now than with Biden,” Sosa said. “Biden did such an amazing job, he just couldn’t communicate that. And so I am glad that we have somebody who can actually communicate all of the wins.”

Sosa doesn’t believe Clinton’s loss in 2016 foretells a loss for Harris.

“There are many different factors here. I think that her voting record is much more progressive than what Clinton was when she ran,” she said. “She is, I think, better prepared, because we have run this election before, a woman against Trump.”

Jack Bekos, who lives in Milwaukee, wore a shirt with the cartoon monkey Curious George and Harris’ now-famous idiom on coconut trees and living in the context of what came before you.

In a state that Clinton lost and where polls far overestimated Biden’s narrow win in 2020, Harris, he said, has a “fantastic shot” of winning.

While it was “bittersweet” to see Biden step aside, “there’s no doubt in my mind,” he said, that Harris has a better chance in Wisconsin than Biden would have had with the baggage of his age, 81.

Sosa said Harris’ candidacy has the potential to not only deliver more for women workers, but to change the game for women of color.

“Unfortunately, we still need to do a lot about racism,” Sosa said. “In this election, I think it’s going to be important that Kamala is going to break that ceiling for women. Women of color are more than just essential workers — we can actually have positions of power.”

Shefali Luthra contributed reporting.