WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden co-headlined a campaign rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Monday, with Harris managing to portray herself as “a new way forward” while remaining committed to Biden and the policies he is pushing.
The two will participate in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade and deliver several speeches. It will be the first time the two have spoken together on the political stage since the surprise election upset that gave Democrats renewed enthusiasm for the 2024 election.
Harris’ campaign has said voters in Pennsylvania have been re-energized since Harris rose to the top of the ballot six weeks ago. Tens of thousands of fresh volunteers have signed up to campaign for her and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Harris and Biden’s appearance at the parade, one of the largest such gatherings in the country, is part of a blitz in swing states just under two months before Election Day.
Harris, 59, is trying to appeal to voters by positioning herself as a departure from toxic politics and rejecting the caustic rhetoric of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, while also trying to put the Biden era behind her. While her stance is very different from Biden’s, Harris’ agenda is packed with the same issues he championed: capping prescription drug costs, the Affordable Care Act, the economy and helping families pay for child care.
“We are fighting for a future where we build what I call an opportunity economy, so that every American has the opportunity to own a home, start a business, and build wealth and intergenerational prosperity. And a future where we lower the cost of living for America,” she said at a recent rally, echoing Biden’s call to grow the economy “from the bottom out and the middle up.”
Harris briefly appeared onstage with Biden after the president delivered his speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention last month, but the two have not shared a microphone at a political event since Biden’s candidacy. At the time, the campaign was mainly using Harris as its lead spokesperson on abortion rights, an issue it believes can lend a hand them win in November as restrictions raise and health care for women worsens following Roe v. Wade.
Since the ticket exchange, the two have appeared at official events and met together at the White House.
For more than three and a half years, Harris was one of Biden’s most vital supporters. Now the tide has turned, as Harris is determined to lend a hand Biden – who hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania – win the potentially decisive state. Biden, for his part, has kept a low profile since the end of his re-election campaign. He was last at the White House on August 19 and has been vacationing in Southern California and Delaware since then.
Yet even as she took over leadership of the Democratic Party, Harris stood firmly by Biden’s side. In her first interview during her candidacy, Harris passionately defended Biden’s record and his suitability for the job, despite the events of the past two months that ended with her running for the Oval Office and Biden doomed to failure.
The 81-year-old president resigned in July after a disastrous debate with Trump, and calls grew within his own party for him to make way for a fresh generation. Harris and Trump will debate on September 10.
“He cares so much about the American people. He’s so smart and – and loyal to the American people. And I’ve spent many hours with him, whether it was in the Oval Office or in the Situation Room. He has the intelligence and the commitment and the judgment and the attitude that I think the American people deserve from their president,” she said in the interview last week.
Of Trump, she added: “In contrast, the former president has none of it.”
Harris said in the CNN interview that working with Biden was “one of the greatest honors of my career” and described the moment he called her to tell her he was resigning.
“He told me what he had decided and … I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’ and that’s how I found out about it.”
The vice president said she did not have to ask Biden for his support because “he made it very clear that he would support me.”
Harris also defended the administration’s record on the southern border and immigration, one of the administration’s most persistent and vexed problems, pointing out that her job was to address the “root causes” in other countries that lead to border crossings, despite Republicans calling her a “border czar.”
“We have laws that must be followed and enforced that target people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequences,” Harris said.
Although Harris spoke more forcefully about the plight of civilians in Gaza as Israel’s war against Hamas there soon enters its eleventh month, the vice president also supported Biden’s efforts to arm Israel and broker a hostage-taking deal and ceasefire.
Israel announced early Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages captured during the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war. Among them was Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The revelation prompted tens of thousands of Israelis to take to the streets demanding a ceasefire.
Harris will meet with Biden in the Situation Room on Monday with the U.S. hostage negotiating team to discuss their continued efforts to reach an agreement that would secure the release of the remaining hostages.
