Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign crossed the $1 billion threshold this week in donations raised. She’s only been the candidate since July 21!! The Harris-Walz campaign is so flush with cash, they’re spreading out their money to all 50 states, trying to help out Democratic candidates everywhere, from Senate races to House races to state and local elections. The Harris-Walz campaign strategy isn’t just “pushing hard in five swing states” either – they’re actively looking to appeal to rural voters, white working class, the tricky youth voters and former Republicans across the board. You know who else did that? The Big Dog himself, President Bill Clinton. Now the Harris-Walz campaign is letting the Big Dog loose. Bubba’s got big plans in Georgia and North Carolina. Pennsylvania Democrats are dying for Bubba to come up there too.
Former President Bill Clinton will hit the trail this weekend to begin what is expected to be a very targeted push across battleground states through Election Day, three sources familiar with his plans told CNN. The former president will seek to appeal to rural voters, among whom polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris is performing worse than some of the last few Democratic nominees, particularly among younger Black men. Former President Barack Obama is also hitting the trail, beginning Thursday night in Pittsburgh.
Clinton will start with stops in Georgia on Sunday and Monday, with a bus tour next week in North Carolina expected to follow, pending recovery from the hurricanes. The emphasis is on counties won by former President Donald Trump. But it’s also on Clinton voters, hoping there are enough left from when he was the last Democratic presidential nominee before Biden to win Georgia in 1992 and that he can reconnect them to a coalition they’ve been steadily dropping out of over the last decade.
Clinton won’t appear at rallies. Going back to a kind of campaigning that he hasn’t done since before he became the “Comeback Kid” in the 1992 New Hampshire primary, Clinton’s schedule is for local fairs and porch rallies, talking to at most a few hundred people at a time.
He will talk about the economy, convinced that this is the issue that the election will come down to for the voters on the fence. He will pick up themes from his Democratic National Convention speech this summer about how Trump is only out for Trump, and how he himself has been out of office for more than 20 years and is still younger than the Republican nominee. He will eat fried foods (maybe even briefly breaking the vegan diet he’s famously kept to since heart surgery).
“He’s the perfect messenger to make the case that Kamala Harris would fix inflation and finish getting the economy back on track,” one person who’s spoken with the former president about his plans told CNN on Thursday. “So he’s saddling up, returning to his roots and meeting people where they are to ask for their help electing her.”
Clinton was one of the first five calls Harris made in July after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, a person with knowledge of the conversation told CNN. She asked for his support and he immediately offered it, and their aides have been working out campaigning details ever since.
“He’s an authority on economics and bread and butter issues and the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history,” said Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia state representative who talked to CNN about his warm memories of watching Clinton campaign in the state in 1992. “He has a knack of reaching people.”
The Clintons have been total champs this entire election cycle. When everyone was freaking out over Joe Biden’s debate performance, the Clintons were the ones working behind the scenes, trying to soothe nervous donors and party faithful. Hillary and Bill endorsed Kamala Harris within hours of Biden withdrawing from the race. And now they’re sending Bubba to Georgia? And they’re making him do small-batch events too, which is an interesting strategy. I would assume that Obama will be used for the rallies and power-house GOTV speeches. Clinton can do that too, but Clinton has always been amazing in smaller groups, where he can really work a room and make sure every single person gets a handshake, a chuckle and a smile.
I remember hearing a wonderful story about Clinton… it was probably during the 2012 election, when the Obama campaign sent Clinton to headline some fundraisers out west somewhere. Clinton worked the room of big-money donors and had them all eating out of his hand, every donor got a handshake and a private joke with the Big Dog. Then, after he worked the room, Clinton went around and shook the hand of every waiter and waitress, then he went into the kitchen and made sure each and every one of the blue-collar workers got a handshake and a smile too. All of which to say, sending Bubba to some fairs in Georgia will probably have a huge effect on the race.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.