Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) aligned herself with Kamala Harris during the vice president’s first campaign rally since President Joe Biden endorsed her to replace him.
Baldwin’s decision to publicly back Harris after forgoing appearances with the increasingly unpopular Biden since January appears to indicate the vulnerable senator believes an alliance with the vice president could boost her odds of keeping her seat this November.
At a Milwaukee rally on Tuesday, Harris gave the battleground senator a glowing endorsement as Baldwin faces a challenge from Republican Eric Hovde.
“I had the privilege of serving with Tammy when I was in the United States Senate, and she is always fighting for the people of this state. And I know that the folks that are here are going to make sure you return her to Washington, D.C., in November,” Harris told a crowd at West Allis Central High School.
After the rally, Baldwin indicated Democrats feel there has been a positive turn in the state after Harris stepped into Biden’s shoes as the presumed Democratic nominee.
Asked whether Harris’s rally felt different than earlier this election cycle when Biden headed the Democratic Party’s ticket, Baldwin answered in the affirmative. “Absolutely,” she said, adding that rally attendees “were really fired up,” according to the pool report.
Baldwin isn’t the only Wisconsin Democrat warming to Harris. Statewide, leftist leaders have coalesced around the vice president. Ahead of Harris’s Tuesday rally, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a hearty endorsement of Harris.
“There’s simply no one better to prosecute the case against Donald Trump than Kamala Harris — a former District Attorney, Attorney General, Senator and now, Vice President,” Chairman Ben Wikler said in a statement Tuesday.
The Harris campaign’s debut in Wisconsin comes as her party battles to clinch Democratic wins in the battleground state on Election Day.
Baldwin is in a competitive race to stay in the upper chamber. While she leads Hovde by about 5 points in the latest polling, the Wisconsin senator’s margin of victory has dropped by 6 points from 2018, when she won reelection by approximately 11%.
Meanwhile, Harris is fighting to keep Wisconsin blue after Biden narrowly flipped it in 2020.
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Trump holds a razor-thin lead in Wisconsin, a state he won by 0.77% in 2016, before losing by approximately 20,000 votes four years later.
During her Milwaukee rally on Tuesday and her fifth appearance in Wisconsin this year, Harris heralded the swing state’s significance, telling voters that “the path to the White House goes through Wisconsin.”
