Former President Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz starting next Thursday, Oct. 10, through Election Day, according to a senior campaign official — with stops planned for crucial battleground states.
The first stop will be in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania before Obama embarks on a campaign blitz across the battleground states in the final 27 days before Nov. 5, the campaign official said.
Both Harris and former President Donald Trump — as well as their surrogates — will be targeting key battleground states like Pennsylvania in the run up to what’s expected to be a close election. Pennsylvania went for former President Donald Trump by over 44,000 votes in 2016 before President Joe Biden took it back by over 80,000 votes in 2020.
Obama, who endorsed Harris in July, was one of the last remaining high-profile Democrats to do so at the time.Since then, Obama has backed Harris by holding a Los Angeles fundraiser for the vice president in September and — along with former first lady Michelle Obama — gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.
“Kamala Harris won’t be focused on her problems, she’ll be focused on yours. As president, she won’t just cater to her own supporters, punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee. She’ll work on behalf of every American. That’s who Kamala is,” Obama said during his DNC speech.
Harris and Obama’s friendship goes back 20 years — when they met on the campaign trail as he was running for Senate. Harris was an early support of Obama’s, knocking doors for him in Iowa ahead of the caucus.
Meanwhile, Harris recently enlisted the help of former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday at a rally in Wisconsin.
Cheney, the former co-chair of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, laid out former President Donald Trump’s actions on that day before telling the crowd, “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. That is depravity, and we must never become numb to it. Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again.”
Cheney is among a handful of prominent Republicans, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have pledged to support Harris’ bid, but her endorsement, as one of former President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics within the party, is one that Harris hopes to leverage in crucial states like Wisconsin, whose margins are expected to be razor thin.
