MADISON, Wis. (AP) — More than 40 people crowded into a converted cafe in Madison, Wisconsin, on a recent Saturday morning to organize the campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in a west-side neighborhood.
A month ago, fewer than 10 people showed up at a similar event for President Joe Biden, with some telling organizers they were no longer willing to knock on doors in Wisconsin’s famously liberal capital.
The excitement among committed Democrats sparked by Harris’s succession to Biden has energized the party base in Wisconsin, especially in districts where the vice president needs to win immense majorities to win a swing state that Biden took from Republican Donald Trump.
“Kamala Harris is the defibrillator the Democratic Party needed,” said John Anzalone, Biden’s chief pollster during the 2020 campaign.
Dane County, which includes Madison, is the fastest-growing county in the state, fueled by the combination of the University of Wisconsin and the workforce of the state capital.
In addition to growth in Dane County, Democratic voter turnout and the share of the vote for Democratic candidates have also increased. Biden won 75% of the vote in 2020, beating Trump by 181,000 votes in the county, while leading the state by fewer than 21,000 votes.
But in the final month of Biden’s campaign, voters in Madison’s most Democratic neighborhoods were more likely to talk about whether the party would field a competitive presidential candidate than about their desire to volunteer, says Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
“This created a world where volunteer numbers were dwindling. The conversations at the doors over the last few weeks have left people more worried than motivated,” Wikler said. “It felt like the engine was sputtering. And now the engine is roaring.”
Brian Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said at a press conference on Tuesday that Harris was experiencing “a little honeymoon of sorts.”
“But I don’t think it will last,” he said.
Moreover, he said, Biden is suffering so much “across the state, in every Democratic stronghold” that “things can only get better” for the Democrats.
According to interviews with more than a dozen Madison Democrats, Harris’ attention to specific party priorities, as well as her younger age and livelier style, have helped restore their enthusiasm.
Daniel Zaydman, 24, pointed to Harris’ public call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in March, a conflict that has divided the Democratic base. Biden also pushed for a ceasefire but continued to support arms sales to Israel, which is waging a war in Gaza that has left at least 39,000 Palestinian dead.
“She spoke out against the genocide in Gaza not just in the last few days, but months ago,” said the former parliamentary adviser to the state, who pointed out that he is Jewish. “At the time, I thought: Wow, the vice president is ahead of the president in this regard.”
“She was in Biden’s shadow and nobody in my age group liked his stance on Gaza. And that was a big sticking point with voters in my age group,” he said. “But not anymore.”
According to Sam Heesacker, Harris is much louder and more persuasive in her advocacy for abortion rights, one of the 28-year-old University of Wisconsin education graduate’s top priorities. Biden struggled during the debate with Trump to come up with a response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a national right to abortion. Trump nominated three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“She is more progressive than Biden and calls it what it is: reproductive freedom,” she said while taking a study break at a cafe on busy State Street in Madison.
Shea Head felt a modern optimism, noting that Harris’ visibility supports the priorities of the LGBTQ+ community.
The 59-year-old education researcher said from a corner seat at a west-side cafe that she read last spring that Harris had spoken about the 20th anniversary of same-sex marriage in California. Head recalled Harris’ more public profile on the issue after seeing the contestant promote voter registration on “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” last week.
“She talked about gay and trans rights. Obviously, she knows that in this situation, she is speaking to a population that knows our rights are in danger,” Head said. “She speaks to me in a way that Biden did not, or perhaps could not, do as convincingly.”
The observations reflect a nationwide enthusiasm for Harris among Democrats.
An AP-NORC poll conducted after Biden withdrew from the race found that about 8 in 10 Democrats would be fairly or very satisfied if Harris became their party’s nominee. That’s a stark contrast from another AP-NORC poll conducted before Biden withdrew, which found that only 37% of Democrats were very or fairly satisfied that he would be the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee.
Strategists from both parties point to other college towns in swing states where they believe Harris will appeal to younger adults and established liberals. In Michigan, those are Ingraham County, home to Michigan State University and the Democratic-dominated capital city of Lansing, and Washtenaw County, home to the University of Michigan. Biden won them with 65% and 72% of the vote, respectively, and won Michigan by less than 3 percentage points in 2020.
Although he lost in North Carolina by less than two percentage points, Biden won 67 percent of the vote in Wake County, a booming center around the capital city of Raleigh and the region’s Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina.
Anzalone, Biden’s former pollster, said there was concern within the party even before Biden’s decision not to run that there would be a number of younger voters who might not vote or might consider voting for third-party candidates.
“I was afraid that even loyal Democratic voters might become indifferent to her choices,” said Leah Kechele, 38, a nursing instructor, between Zoom meetings at a popular Madison coffee shop. “I think she can energize them.”
___
Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, polling editor for the Associated Press in Washington, contributed to this report.
