Harris to visit Milwaukee as Wisconsin delegates pledge support

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Wisconsin on Tuesday in what will be one of her first public events since President Joe Biden exited the race on Sunday, throwing his support behind Harris.

She’ll arrive in the Badger State as Wisconsin’s Democratic delegates have begun pledging their support for her presidential campaign, four weeks out from the Democratic National Convention in August.

According to Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, 89 of Wisconsin’s 95 delegates had already pledged their support for Harris as of early Monday afternoon. That includes U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Gov. Tony Evers, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.

It also includes Democrat Ann Jacobs, who serves on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. She said all eight Milwaukee-area delegates have pledged support for Harris.

“After President Biden made his announcement, we had very lengthy and important discussions with each other, and we came out unanimously in support of Vice President Harris as our presidential nominee,” Jacobs said.

Wisconsin’s delegates, alongside seven alternates, will join about 4,600 other delegates at the DNC in Chicago next month. While they represented Biden’s primary victories from earlier this year, they will be able to move their support to other candidates, including Harris or others.

“That’s our job as delegates, is to deal with this particular issue, which is the candidate for the Democratic nomination,” Jacobs said. “That’s what we agreed to do when we became delegates and all of us take that very seriously.”

The state Democratic Party has also officially backed Harris for the nomination, Wikler said. He said that the news Sunday had sparked an outpouring of donations to the state party.

“And in hearing from elected officials across the state of Wisconsin, hearing from Democratic Party activists, hearing from donors, there is a surge of focus, of enthusiasm — a kind of flowering of the kind of unity that we’re going to need to defeat Donald Trump,” he said.

Harris’ visit to Milwaukee on Tuesday will be her fifth trip to Wisconsin this year. Details of the visit had not yet been made public as of early Monday afternoon.

Editor’s note: This story will be updated.