US Vice President Kamala Harris will announce her running mate as soon as Monday as she prepares for a tour of key battleground states aimed at converting enthusiasm for her presidential campaign into long-term support that will propel her to victory.
All pathways to the White House pass through a handful of swing states, and Harris will begin her five-day campaign Tuesday in Pennsylvania, the largest, as she builds momentum for her November 5 battle with Republican Donald Trump.
“At this moment, we face a choice between two visions for our nation: one focused on the future and the other on the past. This campaign is about people coming together, fuelled by love of country, to fight for the best of who we are,” she posted on X.
Fresh from earning enough delegate votes to seal the Democratic nomination, the country’s first female, Black, and South Asian vice president will enter the national convention in Chicago in two weeks with complete control of her party.
In a campaign that is only two weeks old, the 59-year-old former prosecutor has broken financial records, drawn large audiences, and dominated social media on her route to erasing Trump’s polling leads, which he had built before President Joe Biden dropped out.
The next item on the agenda is a vice presidential nominee, which is expected to be announced before her rally with the mystery contender in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s largest city, on Tuesday evening.
The Keystone State is the most valuable real estate among the fiercely contested battlegrounds that determine the Electoral College system.
It is part of the “blue wall” that propelled Biden to the presidency in 2020, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, where Harris is scheduled to campaign on Wednesday.
Pennsylvania is led by 51-year-old Democrat Josh Shapiro, a leader in the so-called “veepstakes” shortlist that also includes fellow state governors Tim Walz and Andy Beshear, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, and US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Later in the week, Harris will go to the more ethnically diverse Sun Belt and southern states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina, where she hopes to shore up the Black and Hispanic vote that has been slipping away from the Democrats.
Just a month ago, Trump was in cruise control, having created a huge lead in swing state polling following Biden’s poor debate performance, while the Republican businessman kept the country guessing about his own vice presidential nominee.
Trump’s presidential campaign was derailed on July 21 when 81-year-old Biden dropped out of the race in favour of Harris, citing mounting worries about his age and poor polling numbers.
Energetic and two decades younger than 78-year-old Trump, the vice president has made a strong start, raising $310 million in July, according to her campaign, more than doubling Trump’s haul.
While Biden made lofty calls for a return to civility and the preservation of democracy, Harris has focused on the future, making voters’ hard-won “freedom” the cornerstone of her campaign.
She and her followers have also been more forceful than the Biden camp, slamming Trump for cancelling his promise to a September 10 debate and characterising the convicted felon as an elderly crook and “weird.”
While Harris has disavowed some of the socialist ideas she held during her failed 2020 primary campaign, she hasn’t given a wide-ranging interview since entering the race, and rallygoers will be looking for more information on her intentions for the nation.
Meanwhile, Trump and his Republicans have struggled to adjust to their new enemy and hone their assaults on Harris, initially claiming she was dangerously liberal on immigration and crime before implying she was lying about being Black.
