Vice President Harris made her final push for Wisconsin before Election Day, joined by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) on a three-stop swing through the key battleground state.
“Wisconsin, truly, we need everyone to vote here. You, Wisconsin, are going to make the difference in this election. You will make the difference,” Harris said at a Friday evening rally in Little Chute.
The crowd at the rally, holding “vote” and “when we vote, we win” signs chanted “we will win.”
“We are the type of people that when you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for,” Harris said.
The vice president, in arguing that she believes in the promise of America, called herself “a child of the civil rights movement.”
“My parents took me to the marches when I was in a stroller. And there were people there from every walk of life who came together to fight for freedom and for opportunity,” she said. “The promise of America is all around us. It is in the young leaders who are voting for the very first time. Where are you? Oh, I love Gen-Z! I really do.”
She also asked the crowd who had already voted early, which was met with loud cheers at the rally.
“Oh wow. Oh my goodness, that’s great, thank you!” Harris said. “For anyone who’s not yet voted, no judgement, but please take a moment now and just think about what your plan will be for when and where you will vote.”
Baldwin is in a close race against Republican Eric Hovde that Democrats are looking at in order to hold onto the upper chamber. The senator has a slim lead over Hovde, polling at 48.4 percent compared to his 47.9 percent, according to a polling aggregate from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill.
“Having Kamala back in the state again makes it clear that this campaign knows that the path to the presidency and control of the United States Senate runs directly through our state because we are the battleground state in this election,” Baldwin said.
Harris also visited Wisconsin on Wednesday, on the first day of taking her closing message to the battleground states after her speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the night before.
“The stakes could not be higher for our reproductive freedoms, for our health care, for our economy. We have the choice to embrace our state motto, which is ‘forward,’ or let Eric Hovde take us backward. And you know what, we’re not going back,” Baldwin said.
Harris later called on voters to “send her back to the United States Senate,” calling Baldwin a close friend.
Earlier in the day, Harris and Baldwin visited with workers at an IBEW union hall in Janesville. There, she promoted the idea of retooling existing factories, saying that workers in the state don’t want to have to leave their towns to find a job.
“We here know, Donald Trump is no friend to labor,” she said. “He is an existential threat to America’s labor movement.”
Later on Friday, Harris was joined by female rapper Cardi B at a rally in Milwaukee. The performer reflected on her career in the industry citing parallels with Harris as she worked to overcome stereotypes and gender discrimination.
“Just like Kamala Harris, I too have been the underdog,” the rapper told the crowd. “I’ve been underestimated. My success, belittled and discredited. Women have to work 10 times harder, perform 10 times better, and still, people question us how we got to the top.”
Cardi B shared that one of her strongest ties to the Democratic nominee was Harris’s empathy for caregivers, mothers and women as a whole.
“I did not have faith for any candidate until she joined the race and said the things that I wanted to hear — things I want to see next in this country,” Cardi said. “I believe in every word that comes out of her mouth; she’s passionate, she’s compassionate, she shows empathy, and most of all, she is not delusional.”
Harris is doubling down on her visits to the so-called “blue wall.” A Marist Poll released on Friday showed Harris slightly ahead in the three states, leading Trump by 3 points in Michigan, and 2 points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Former President Trump has a 0.4 percentage point lead in Wisconsin going into the weekend, according to Decision Desk HQ/ The Hill’s aggregate polling.
Ashleigh Fields contributed to this article. Updated at 11:23 p.m. EDT
