MILWAUKEE — The Harris campaign was back in Wisconsin on Thursday. This time, trying to make inroads with voters in Milwaukee and Kenosha with the hopes they could count on them to vote early.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff had some help when he came to the Harambee neighborhood of Milwaukee. With the goal of exciting the community to get out and vote early, Vice President Harris’ husband teamed up with some familiar faces for a “Dunk for Democracy” block party.
“People come up to me and say, ‘Hey Doug, you look pretty tired.’ I’m like, ‘Good! I should be tired because all I’m doing is this.’ And that’s great—I want you to be tired too,” Emhoff told the crowd gathered at Rose Park.
In a state that comes down to the thinnest of margins, Emhoff isn’t leaving anything to chance.
“The polls are really close here in Wisconsin,” Emhoff added. “They are close all over the country and in the seven or so swing states, which means we can win each and every one of these states if we just push, if we just get through.”
With both early voting in Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Bucks’ season underway this week, head coach Doc Rivers and former Bucks coach Terry Porter, both with long ties to Milwaukee and the state, teamed up with Emhoff and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to spread a message.
“I think this is the most important election of my lifetime,” Rivers explained. “It really is, and we’ve got to get everybody to understand that—we really do. When I keep hearing ‘anything’ again ain’t good. When you want to take women’s rights away again, you want to go back to something again, that scares me.”
An analysis by Wisconsin Watch found nearly 90% of Wisconsin’s Black population resides in just six counties in the southern part of the state—two of them being Milwaukee and Kenosha where the Harris campaign hit Thursday.
“We don’t come from a political family. I don’t come from a political background, so I understand why there is people asking and wondering what is at stake and does my vote matter,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said. “Because these, frankly, are still conversations I am having with my own family members, so I get it.”
Thursday’s block party came just a day after Republicans hosted their own rally to mobilize Black voters in Milwaukee.
The visit also came in the wake of a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Black voters that showed support for Harris among Black men dropped by 15 points compared to 2020 when 85% of Black men who were likely to vote said they planned to support President Joe Biden.
“Once you go and do the research, don’t fall for the misinformation, the gaslighting, these commercials, don’t look at that,” Emhoff said. “Go do your homework and you’ll conclude like this young man, that Donald Trump is not your friend.”
After the block party in Milwaukee, Emhoff went down the road to Kenosha with Gov. Moore for a “March to the Polls” event.