WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ last-minute campaign for president has led to an instant surge in travel, a surge in fundraising, a flurry of new ad shoots and a rapid search for a running mate.
Add to that list a series of hastily organized Zoom calls to raise funds and mobilize supporters, including one Monday night around “White Dudes for Harris.”
Barely a week after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, tens of thousands of people have joined virtual rallies organized by activists and outside organizations to rally support for the vice president among specific groups, including Black women, Hispanic women, Black men, Asian Americans, Native Americans and the LGBTQ+ community.
The appeals show that Democrats, including Biden, have often relied on voters from diverse backgrounds to assemble a diverse coalition of support. Biden’s 2020 victory, for example, drew on segments of the population ranging from union members to conservative suburban women disillusioned with Republican Donald Trump.
Organizers of Monday night’s “white dude” Zoom party expect 100,000 attendees to join a gathering featuring appearances from actors including Mark Ruffalo, Sean Astin, Mark Hamill and Bradley Whitford.
Also in attendance will be Democratic officials including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, all three of whom have been mentioned as potential running mates for Harris.
“We are organizing this time because we will not stand by and let the MAGA movement bully other white people into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology,” Ross Morales Rocketto, a progressive activist who founded the group, said in a statement. He was referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
This month’s Zoom calls weren’t hosted by Harris’ team, but her campaign welcomes the help — and the millions of dollars raised.
“Winning campaigns are fueled by real, organic support,” Michael Tyler, Harris campaign communications director, said in a statement.
The phone calls often feature celebrities who have supported Biden’s campaign in the past. And their number shows how the vice president will need to appeal to different facets of an increasingly pluralistic population.
The political networking group Win With Black Women held a Zoom meeting the same night Biden was absent, and saw its attendance swell to more than 44,000. Activists, business leaders, members of Congress and staffers from the vice president’s office gave celebratory speeches.
Afterward, a virtual fundraising event called “Win With Black Men” drew more than 53,000 attendees. They heard from several speakers, including Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 27-year-old advocate for Biden’s campaign among young voters, and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock.
A Zoom session on “White Women for Harris” drew more than 164,000 participants, so much so that the platform struggled to keep up with demand. Singer Pink and soccer star Megan Rapinoe were the headliners.
“As white women, we are the ones who have the privilege, of course, and we too have had to fight — and continue to fight — for our equality, our identity, our freedom,” actress Connie Britton told attendees. She supported Biden’s campaign in 2020 and this cycle before enthusiastically turning to Harris.
The Trump campaign has also organized different groups of supporters based on their distinct backgrounds, including events in key states like Pennsylvania and Georgia for black voters and “Latinos for Trump.”
Some Republicans have criticized Harris for her “politics of diversity, equality and inclusion,” saying the vice president’s political career has been helped by Democrats’ efforts to promote diversity. That’s despite House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders on Capitol Hill discouraging lines of criticism they see as racist and sexist, instead urging party members to focus their criticism on Harris’s policy record.
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Associated Press writers Matt Brown in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
