PITTSBURGH (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris plans a four-day campaign trip through major swing states after the Democrat’s debate Tuesday with Republican Donald Trump.
Her “New Way Forward” tour will include a new television spot, rallies, canvassing events and programs designed to target important voting groups, the campaign said Sunday, adding that the tour will culminate at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 15.
In a tight race against the former president, the Harris campaign sees itself as having the room to persuade voters before focusing more intently on turnout with the beginning of early voting before the Nov. 5 election. Trump has also stepped up his outreach with rallies and interviews in seemingly friendly forums.
The period after the debate in Philadelphia marks the start of the aggressive sprint toward the end of what has been a dramatic race.
“Our campaign will take the vice president’s message directly to the voters wherever they are -– on the airwaves, on the doors, and online,” said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director. “With so much at stake in this election, we are blitzing the battlegrounds and leaving it all out on the field.”
Trump, who campaigned Saturday in Wisconsin, posted on social media that “when” he wins, anyone who he deems as having been “involved in unscrupulous behavior” tied to the election “will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
After the debate, political leaders on Wednesday are set to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Harris kicks off her tour Thursday in North Carolina and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be in Michigan. On Friday, Harris will return to Pennsylvania while Walz is in Michigan and Wisconsin.
The candidates’ spouses will also be part of the tour. Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, will go to Nevada, Arizona and Florida. Gwen Walz is scheduled to be in Georgia, New Hampshire and Maine.
More details are to come.
Harris’ campaign will start running a new television ad that will speak to her plans for middle-class tax cuts, limiting prescription drug prices and addressing the housing shortage. The ads are part of a broader $370 million media investment and will be tailored state by state for voters in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nebraska.