US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ last-minute campaign for president has meant an instant spurt of increased travel, intensified fundraising, a flurry of filming new content for ads and a quick search for a running mate.
Add to that list a series of hastily organised Zoom calls to raise money and rev up supporters – including one on Monday night built around “White Dudes for Harris”.
In barely a week since US President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed Harris, tens of thousands of people have joined virtual gatherings spun up by activists and outside organisations to rally support for the vice-president among specific groups including black women, Hispanic women, black men, Asian-American, Native Americans and the LGBTQ community.
The calls reflect how Democrats, including Biden, have frequently relied on voters from broad and disparate backgrounds to piece together a diverse coalition of support. Biden’s 2020 victory, for example, relied on segments of the population ranging from organised labour to conservative, suburban women disillusioned with Republican Donald Trump.
We are organising ourselves this time because we aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully other white guys into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology
Organisers of Monday night’s “white dudes” Zoom expect 100,000 attendees to join a gathering featuring appearances from actors including Mark Ruffalo, Sean Astin, Mark Hamill and Bradley Whitford.
Democratic officials including Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, all of whom have been mentioned as potential running mates for Harris, are also set to take part.
“We are organising ourselves this time because we aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully other white guys into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology,” Ross Morales Rocketto, a progressive operative who founded the group, said in a statement. He was referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
This month’s Zoom calls have not been organised by Harris’ team, but her campaign welcomes the assist – and the millions of dollars in fundraising.
“Winning campaigns are powered by real, organic support,” Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
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Kamala Harris, a trailblazer eyeing America’s highest glass ceiling
Kamala Harris, a trailblazer eyeing America’s highest glass ceiling
The calls often feature celebrities who have supported Biden’s campaign in the past. And their sheer number shows how the vice-president will need to appeal to different facets of the increasingly pluralistic population.
The political networking group “Win With Black Women” held a Zoom meeting the same night that Biden dropped out, and saw its number of participants swell to more than 44,000. It featured celebratory speeches from activists, business leaders, members of Congress and staff from the vice-president’s office.
After that, a “Win With Black Men” virtual fundraising event attracted more than 53,000 attendees. They heard several presentations, including by 27-year-old Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida, who had been a leading advocate for Biden’s campaign among younger voters, and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.
A Zoom of “White Women for Harris” attracted more than 164,000 participants – so many that the platform struggled to meet the demand. It was headlined by the likes of singer Pink and football star Megan Rapinoe.
“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 selfhood, our freedom,” actor Connie Britton told participants. She supported Biden’s campaign in 2020 and this cycle before shifting enthusiastically to Harris.
Trump’s campaign has also organised different groups of supporters by their distinct backgrounds, including events in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia for black voters and “Latino Americans for Trump”.
Some Republicans have criticised Harris for her “diversity, equality and inclusion politics”, arguing that the vice-president’s political career was helped by Democratic efforts to promote diversity. That is despite House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders on Capitol Hill discouraging lines of criticism they considered racist and sexist – instead urging members of the party to focus their criticisms on Harris’ political record.
