360K people sign up to volunteer Harris campaign

Washington, Jul 30 (PTI) As many as 3,60,000 people have signed up to volunteer in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, her campaign has said, reflecting the groundswell of support in her favour in her race against former President Donald Trump.

Harris is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. She officially declared her candidacy for president last week after incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew from the race for a second term. She is expected to be officially declared as the presidential candidate by the Democrats at the party’s national convention in Chicago next month.

If elected on November 5 to succeed President Biden, Harris – the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother – would not only be the first woman, but the first Indian-American, the first Asian and the first Black woman to ascend to the office.

The Harris campaign said on Sunday it has intensified its effort after raising a whopping USD 200 million in a week and with 17,000 volunteers having signed up.

“We continue to see enormous enthusiasm around the Vice President’s campaign. Over USD 200 million in less than a week, two-thirds of which came from new donors. Today, we’ve got 360,000 new volunteers and counting,” Harris for President Battleground States director Dan Kanninen told reporters on Monday.

“We had 170,000 new volunteers heading into this weekend of action. As the vice president herself said on Saturday, we are the underdogs in this race, but the groundswell of support around the vice president is real and it is meaningful. Our task now is to translate that enthusiasm into action,” Kanninen said.

Energised by this, in the coming weeks, ‘Harris for President’ is going to continue to scale up in both the Blue Wall and the Sunbelt to continue to bolster the multiple paths to 270.

“We are making these investments across the entire map because the data is clear: we have multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes. The Vice President is strong in both the Blue Wall and the Sunbelt, and we’ll be running hard in both,” Kanninen said.

“Her record as a fighter for reproductive rights resonates in the suburbs as well as traditionally red and rural communities. Her historic candidacy is mobilising for the Democratic Party’s diverse base. And we’ve seen enormous enthusiasm from young voters as well,” he said about the 59-year-old Harris.

“We jumped in with just 100 days to go against an opponent who has shown he is willing to do anything to win and this weekend, even suggesting this might be America’s last election if he regains power. This is going to be an incredibly close race, just like it was in 2020. But just like four years ago, we are going to win this thing,” he said.

Harris will be up against former president Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential candidate for the high-stakes November 5 general elections.

“This election is going to be incredibly close, so this campaign is getting to work and taking nothing for granted,” said Harris for President communications director Michael Tyler.

Over the weekend, Haris said: “We are the underdogs in this race, but this is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum.”

To build on that momentum, Vice President Harris will take her winning message to Atlanta on Tuesday and will lay out her vision for a future where this country moves forward, not backwards, while continuing to prosecute Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.

“Before speaking to a crowd of thousands, Vice President Harris will also meet with local reproductive rights leaders and activists as part of the campaign’s reproductive rights weekend of action. In Georgia specifically, we had 2,500 volunteers this weekend come out to join over 174 events – with more than 300 voters turning out in even deep red Forsyth County,” she said.