Aug. 20 (UPI) — Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday during the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will host the rally and convention watch party in Milwaukee, roughly 90 miles north of the Chicago site of the Democrat convention where she will formally accept the party’s nomination on Thursday.
Harris and Walz will deliver speeches to what is expected to be a large crowd at the Fiserv Forum to build on the enthusiasm surrounding their ticket in a battleground state. Wisconsin — and particularly the turnout in Milwaukee — will be key to Harris’ potential path to the presidency.
“I don’t know if I need to mention this, but Wisconsin is at the center of the political universe,” Ben Wikler, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Democratic Party scheduled its 2020 convention for the same location but much of that convention went virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the Fiserv Forum, Harris and Walz will watch speeches by former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama back in Chicago.
Harris made a surprise appearance during the first day of the convention, supporting President Joe Biden as he delivered his speech.
Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, told WISN-TV that Democrats are covering new ground dealing with Harris’s condensed presidential campaign while having a spotlight at a neighboring battleground state at the same time.
“I was looking around for other times this might have happened, and I couldn’t find anywhere where essentially the vice president comes to a nearby city,” Azari said. “The dynamics of this are very different.”