In a packed, electric Alliant Energy Center, Vice President Kamala Harris rallied for abortion rights and greater support for small businesses Friday evening during a campaign stop in Madison.
More than 10,000 attendees gathered to see Harris as she looks to shore up support in Wisconsin, a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election. The trip marked Harris’ fourth visit to Wisconsin and her first time back in Madison since she announced her campaign in July.
“We are not going back,” Harris vowed as the crowd roared. “Just like the Wisconsin state motto tells us, forward is where we go! Because ours is the fight for the future and ours is a fight for freedom.”
Harris’ visit follows the campaign’s launch of the “New Way Forward” tour, which is focused on mobilizing support from swing state voters. With 46 days left until the election, the Harris-Walz campaign plans to focus on the “blue wall” battleground states, such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Following remarks from Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, Harris took the stage just after 6 p.m. and began her speech by spotlighting the necessity of small business owners, calling them the “backbone of America’s economy.” She also vowed to lower the cost of living, create three million jobs by the end of her first term and “put the middle class and working families first.”
Harris has continuously campaigned on the issue of abortion, which became a hotbed debate nationwide after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. She noted meeting with the mother and sisters of Amber Thurman, a woman who died recently in Georgia after a hospital delayed performing a critical procedure for 20 hours because of strict abortion bans in the state.
“These kinds of laws of the Trump abortion bans means doctors have to wait until a patient is at death’s door before they take any action,” Harris said. “Nobody wants that.”
Opposition to abortion restrictions played a critical role in Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s victory last April, which gave liberal justices a Democratic majority.
Harris told voters this election has higher stakes than 2016 or 2020, saying the consequences of electing former President Donald Trump back in the White House are “extremely serious.”
“Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States of America should never stand behind the seal of the President of the United States,” Harris said.
The rally’s setlist of Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan and Beyoncé was a nod to the Harris-Walz campaign’s involvement in pop culture. Voters with neon green t-shirts reading “Kamala is brat” were scattered throughout the stadium.
Harris’ campaign has noticeably tapped into Gen Z culture by using memes, Tik Tok and the use of the “brat summer” trend in campaign marketing.
Many university students in attendance expressed excitement about Harris’ bid for the presidency.
“I feel like she reflects a lot of the strong leaders in my life, like my mom and my aunts and my grandmothers, who respect my humanity and my queerness,” Hannah, a campus nonprofit organizer, told The Daily Cardinal. “I feel like the other side right now doesn’t really see me as a decent human being.”
Harris told voters she lived in Madison when she was young, and her parents were professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Jump Around,” a decades-long tradition at UW-Madison, played before the rally.
“You know I got some Madison cred, right?” she laughed. Harris added that every time she arrives in Wisconsin, Evers tells her, “Welcome home.”
Before the event, the Harris-Walz campaign announced the opening of its 50th coordinating campaign office in Wisconsin, next to the UW-Madison campus. The campaign believes that Harris’ visit to Madison will help leverage the “massive” campaign infrastructure, according to a press release.
Ella Hanley is the associate news editor for The Daily Cardinal. She has written breaking, city, state and campus news. Follow her on Twitter at @ellamhanley.
