Vice President Kamala Harris drew thousands of supporters for her first presidential campaign rally in Madison.
Red and blue lights flickered on 10,500 supporters’ wristbands and accompanied cheers filled in Alliant Energy Center’s Veteran Memorial Coliseum. Harris, as she’s been making way around the country, took time to reiterate her platform and take a jab at former President Trump.
The rally marks Harris’ first time in Madison and fourth overall in Wisconsin, since she launched her bid for presidency. Harris spoke for around 30-minutes as she garnered excitement from supporters.
“Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power, and never let anyone take your power from you,” Harris said to the crowd. “So Madison, today I ask you, are you ready to make your voices heard?”
Harris’ platform is centered on bolstering the middle class. Her planned policies include first time homebuyer assistance along with addressing inflation, rampant high healthcare cost, reproductive health protection, workforce development, continued infrastructure projects from the Biden Administration and many others in her attempt to rebuild the middle class.
“I talked about issues that matter to families across America, like bringing down the cost of living, investing in America’s small businesses, protecting reproductive freedom and keeping our nation safe and secure,” Harris said. “But that is not what we heard from Donald Trump. Instead, it was the same old tired show. The same old tired playbook we’ve heard for years, with no plan on how he would address the needs of the American people.”
The vice president spoke in Madison on the same day she gained another endorsement with Teamsters Joint Council 39 based in Milwaukee. The endorsement breaks from the national organization’s choice to not endorse any candidate for presidency.
Other voters like Jeanette Arenas Pineda, a Mexican immigrant who will be able to vote for the first time, are fully behind Harris.
“As a proud Mexican immigrant, I am happy to support Kamala because I think that she will actually lead this country in alignment with values of honesty and fairness and humanity,” Arenas Pineda said. “I think we can’t sit back and expect that it will turn out. I think we need to work really hard at it still, but I think we’ll get there.”
Another voter, Arun Brekke, is happy to see collective efforts to bring Harris to the presidency.
“I feel like everybody’s united and working towards getting [Harris] elected, and that’s number one priority right now,” Brekke said. “We just can’t stop. We’ve got to keep working really hard until November. Seems like we’re doing the right thing — we just got to keep working at it.”
While supporters for Harris are excited, others are still pressing for her to more forcefully address the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Two protestors managed to enter Alliant Energy Center with a banner and chanted before being removed from the rally.
