Kamala Harris’s energetic first rally
In the first rally of her presidential campaign, Kamala Harris greeted an exuberant crowd in Wisconsin and assailed the former president, telling them that she’d taken on fraudsters and cheaters as a prosecutor. “I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said.
Supporters, chanting Harris’s name, seemed to be releasing pent-up energy after weeks of uncertainty over the Democrats’ prospects. The vice president vowed to protect access to abortion and alluded to her relative youth, saying that “the baton is in our hands.”
Harris told the fired-up audience, “When we fight, we win!” before leaving the stage to Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” A report said the singer had given the campaign permission to use the song throughout the 15 weeks leading up to Election Day.
How the Biden Campaign Transformed Into the Harris Campaign
Staff members inside and outside the room have described the past handful of hours as hectic, overwhelming and emotional.
Staff at the former headquarters of the Biden campaign, now the Harris campaign, greeted Ms. Harris enthusiastically during her first official visit on Monday
After President Biden announced his departure on social media, it was somehow fitting that the call to flip the campaign to Vice President Kamala Harris was delivered over Slack.
“Please give a wave to this message if you’re online and available to do some design work right now,” the campaign’s creative director, Kate Conway, wrote to a team of designers in the messaging app on Sunday about 45 minutes after Mr. Biden made his announcement. “We are gearing up toward some quick pivots.”
This was an understatement.
A wave of hand emojis in various skin tones flew up, and campaign staffers worked through the night to pull down ads for Mr. Biden and replace them with ones for Vice President Kamala Harris. They designed a “Harris for President” logo in red, white and blue. They printed reams of new posters. And then, around midnight, there was a whiskey toast at the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del.
It was not an easy feat, as one campaign official put it, for a Sunday afternoon in July.
“The Harris for President creative and web teams sprang into action, rebranded the entire campaign overnight, and launched a new website in just 26 hours,” Ms. Conway said in an email. “There’s really no overselling how difficult a task that is — the brand exists everywhere from yard signs and rally placards to the website, our social channels, and our ad.”
Mr. Biden’s surprise decision to end his campaign not only upended the 2024 presidential race, it led to a rebranding frenzy at campaign headquarters — not to mention campaign offices throughout the country — and more than a little bit of whiplash.
For legions of campaign workers who had been trying to get Mr. Biden re-elected — some of whom have described the past few weeks as some of the hardest of their lives — there was not much time to grieve Mr. Biden’s departure.
After Mr. Biden tried and ultimately failed to resurrect his campaign after a disastrous debate performance at the end of June — was that really only a few weeks ago? — the arrival of Ms. Harris at campaign headquarters on Monday afternoon was, at long last, something to celebrate. Just before her arrival, staffers sprinted from the printers with a set of still-wet placards to hang up.
Other reminders of the breakneck launch were everywhere. For starters, Mr. Biden had to call in, since he was still recovering from Covid at his beach house.
“I know yesterday’s news was surprising,” Mr. Biden said, “but it was the right thing to do.”
Then he directed a staff that had reported to him just hours before to “embrace her.”
With 106 days to go until the election, there were only seconds to spare for wistfulness. As Ms. Harris arrived by Air Force Two in Wilmington — a city that has been closely associated with Biden political lore for the past half century — she was greeted by Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat and close ally of Mr. Biden’s who had, just hours before, been adamant that the president could continue his campaign.
A flag bearing Ms. Harris’s smiling face was unfurled and hung up on a wall. The campaign’s X account erased Mr. Biden’s name and was given a face-lift, wallpapered with a homage to Charli XCX’s album, “Brat,” a nod to Ms. Harris’s meme-y popularity. Staffers chanted her name when they caught sight of her.
Campaign officials inside the room and outside it have described the past handful of hours as hectic, overwhelming and emotional. Some cried while Mr. Biden spoke to the crowd. And several allies of Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, 59, have said it has been important to try and balance public support for the vice president with expressions of gratitude for the 81-year-old president who stepped aside and endorsed her.
But, internally, it was hard for some to deny that there had been a boost in enthusiasm since Mr. Biden stepped aside. The Harris campaign raised $100 million between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, with a large sum coming from first-time donors. Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a memo to reporters that more than 58,000 people had signed up to volunteer for Ms. Harris’s campaign. Ms. Harris’s first rally as a candidate, held in Milwaukee, drew so many RSVPs that the campaign had to find a larger venue, an official said.
Behind the scenes, other Democratic operatives, including David Plouffe, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, have reached out to Ms. Harris’s team to offer their help, according to a person familiar with those discussions.
The fact that Ms. Harris will be keeping some of the campaign leadership intact — namely, by keeping Jennifer O’Malley Dillon as campaign chair and Julie Chávez Rodríguez as campaign manager — is a reminder that someone else fronted the campaign she is now leading.
Allies of Ms. Harris, who have long said that the vice president stuck by Mr. Biden’s side despite inter-staff tensions and reports that he was unsure if she could win the election, said that her decision to keep staff and praise his leadership reflected the relationship they had built.
Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat and the lieutenant governor of California, said that until now, Ms. Harris has spent much of her vice presidency proud of the right-hand role she has played to Mr. Biden.
“He relied on her to use her prosecutor skills to drill staff and to bring information to the president to make decisions,” Ms. Kounalakis said. “She told me with pride that the president appreciated that skill she brought to the table.”
Indeed, Ms. Harris played up her past as a prosecutor as she revealed the first planks of her platform against the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Ms. Harris said. “Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
There are unanswered questions about Ms. Harris’s ability to lead and to withstand the attacks that are sure to come her way from Mr. Trump.
But the video quickly went viral.
More from the race:
Donald Trump said in a call with reporters that he “absolutely” would debate Harris and was “willing to do more than one debate.”
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