Vice President Kamala Harris will take a lead role in the Biden campaign’s push to draw attention to GOP divisions during the Republican National Convention, including working to court female voters with a focus on national security and reproductive rights.
On Wednesday, the day newly minted GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance will address GOP delegates in Milwaukee, Harris will hold a moderated conversation with Republican women in Michigan in what the campaign calls a direct appeal to Republican and independent female voters.
She will participate in a moderated conversation with Olivia Troye, a former Trump administration national security staffer, and Amanda Stratton, a former registered Republican who the campaign says will share her personal reproductive health story.
On Thursday, Harris will make her seventh trip this year to North Carolina, a state Trump narrowly carried in 2020, for a campaign rally in Fayetteville.
The Biden campaign has said it believes there is an opening for the Democratic ticket to win over Republican women, especially those who voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in GOP primaries even after she dropped out of the race. Last week, Haley, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, announced she was releasing her delegates and urging them to back Trump, and she was invited to address the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The spotlight on Harris has grown since President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, with some Democrats calling for the party to unite behind a new standard-bearer. Biden has insisted he plans to remain in the race, but he said Harris was qualified to serve as president and praised her work, especially on women’s health issues.
At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Harris, in turn, rallied voters behind Biden, calling him a fighter.
“He is the first to say when you get knocked down, you get right back up,” she said, adding that a second Trump term would bring about a “full-on assault on reproductive freedom.”
Harris’ RNC-week travel originally included a stop in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump’s hometown; it was canceled after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
Harris’ events aimed at broadening the Democratic coalition during the Republican convention in contrast to Biden’s focus on the Democratic base this week. He arrived Monday night in Las Vegas to speak at major gatherings of Black and Latino voters — the NAACP and UnidosUS national conventions — as well as an economic forum with Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford, D-Nev., this week.
Biden will also sit for an interview with BET that will be broadcast in prime time Wednesday.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee are on the ground in Milwaukee during the GOP convention, including daily news conferences with top surrogates and messaging focused on Project 2025, a conservative governing blueprint for a potential second Trump term produced by his allies.
Harris phoned Vance on Monday after his selection to the GOP ticket was announced. No vice presidential debate has been scheduled yet, but the Biden campaign said she was “fully prepared to take him on.”
“Vice President Harris has not only been making that case, but making it an incredibly compelling way and we expect that she will do the same if JD Vance is willing to debate her,” spokesperson TJ Ducklo told reporters.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
