Harris and Walz skip Obama speeches to rally Wisconsin voters in Milwaukee

The second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday combined two of the most inspirational and influential speakers on the planet — Barack and Michelle Obama — with the traditional roll call reimagined as a United Center dance party.

The Obamas are enormously popular and fluent on a variety of social platforms. When Barack and Michelle called Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last month after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, it reached 117 million combined views across the Obamas' multiple social media accounts. It was a chummy call — Michelle Obama called the vice president “my girl Kamala.”

Harris, however, had better things to do Tuesday night than hanging around the United Center for the speeches from, among others, the Obamas, her husband Doug Emhoff, Gov. JB Pritzker, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, plus a roll call turned into a rally.

Late afternoon, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, headed to swing state Wisconsin
  for a rally at Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum, a delicious pick of a location. That’s where Republicans handed the presidential nomination to former President Donald Trump for a third time.

Harris was slated to deliver a speech while live programming from the United Center would be streamed into the arena. After that, attendees would have the option of sticking around for a watch party outside the arena to watch the convention lineup, including the Obama speeches.

The purpose of the convention is not to hear soaring speeches, showcase future presidents, watch performances from Common, Patti LaBelle, Lil Jon or give VIP access to major donors. That’s nice, but the name of the game is for Harris to win the White House.

And to do that, she needs 270 electoral votes. A lot of experts agree the road to 270 goes through Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, and Biden beat him in that state in 2020. The margin in both cases was about 1%. This time around, the on-the-ground competition in Wisconsin is fierce.

Inside the United Center on Tuesday, I headed over to where the Wisconsin delegation was sitting. I got there in time to see foam cheese heads being put in place for delegates and to get a feel for what the impact of Harris' side trip to Milwaukee might be.

After the roll call wrapped up, Harris was beamed into the United Center from the stage of a packed Fiserv Forum, an organizational tour de force. She greeted the convention in Chicago and said she’ll be back — and then returned to her Milwaukee rally.

To learn more about the battle for Wisconsin, I talked to Christine Sinicki, a state representative and chair of the Democratic Party in Milwaukee County.

“I think this absolutely does help," Sinicki said about Harris showing up in Milwaukee during the convention. "People are so excited in Milwaukee, and we want to keep that excitement going. … I know for a fact that we will be filling that arena. My granddaughter is there right now, but yeah, it just shows how important Milwaukee is. And I would also point out that after the rally, the vice president and Gov. Walz will be staying in Milwaukee at Fiserv to watch the convention with all the people that are there.”

As for Fiserv, Sinicki said, “First of all, I think people are looking at it like, 'Oh, we're gonna cleanse Fiserv Forum now.' But, I think when people see the excitement and the fact that we can fill arenas like that with people who support Kamala Harris, I think it does a whole lot. I've noticed, like, after rallies, I've noticed traffic picks up in our Dem party office, because people are seeing the excitement and they want to be a part of it.”

All that helps Democrats organize and turn out votes. “After the convention, we will start canvassing," Sinicki said. "We will have an army on the streets.”

Alternate Wisconsin delegate Thelma Sias told me the Harris visit helps because “it shows people in Milwaukee, and Wisconsin [in] particular — we are important. She recognizes it. Her campaign sees it wants us to be involved. And what we need is to take action for that to be our reality.”

Ben Head, political director for U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. and co-leader of Operation Swing State, told me, “Today, over 40 Chicago-area volunteers took the trip up to see the vice president's rally, and this weekend over 150 volunteers will drive back up to Milwaukee to canvass in crucial battleground precincts.

"More than half of the people who have signed up have never volunteered for a campaign before," Head said. "To date, Operation Swing State has sent over 6,000 grassroots volunteers to Wisconsin and Michigan where they have already knocked on well over 10,000 doors — and we are just getting started."