Vice president Kamala Harris apparently likes North Carolina and it appears a lot of voters in the state have reciprocal feelings. She’s been to Charlotte three times this year with previous visits on April 4 and Jan. 11. In total, she’s made 12 visits to the state since she was elected vice president.
Her reason for her latest visit to the Queen City? To open a campaign field office here, which will be one of 10 across the state. Not just to re-elect Biden and Harris, but to capture votes that are reflective of the state at large and elect more Democrats in the 2024 election.
On March 26, President Biden and Vice President Harris made an appearance in Raleigh to attend a private fundraising event and talk about their continuing efforts with affordable health care.
Mecklenburg County has remained a consistently blue county throughout the 21st century. Although Biden and Harris won the general election in 2020, Trump captured North Carolina by a razor thin 1.4 percent margin, labeling the state purple again, as it has remained since President Obama’s first term in 2008.
With a continuing influx of new voters from blue states moving to parts of North Carolina that typically identify as red, along with younger voters coming of age, progressives and moderates expect to see positive change in the state come election ’24, despite district gerrymandering.
During Vice President Harris’s recent visit to Charlotte she met with supporters and volunteers at the Naomi Drennan Recreation Center near Grier Heights, one of Charlotte’s historically black neighborhoods.
“Elections matter,” said Harris. “Organizing matters. Showing up matters. Remembering the strength and power of our voice matters. You know we’re winning this election, right? We are winning this election.”
Her visit to the state highlights the crucial role North Carolina will play in the upcoming collection.
But Harris didn’t just talk politics. She also talked about clean energy grants specifically tagged for our state. “While every community has the capacity to join the clean energy community, not every community has had the opportunity to do that,” she said.
“This is a new approach, which is saying we’re going to put the federal dollars into communities directly and into the leaders in the community to then meet the needs that they uniquely know the community has.
“We’re talking about real people, and their hopes and dreams and aspirations. It’s a big deal.”
Harris stressed that the grants were not just for cleaning up the environment and global warming. She insisted they were also about new job opportunities and lowering the cost of utility services.
During her January appearance at Eastway Middle School, she talked about the administration’s actions to reduce gun violence, and held a roundtable discussion with educators, counselors and gun safety advocates to announce funding from a bipartisan safer communities act. She also confirmed that North Carolina was likely set to receive 12 million dollars for mental health services in schools.
A longtime LGBTQ ally and advocate
Two years ago when Harris was honored at the Washington DC National HRC dinner, she spoke about her history with the LGBTQ+ community and her first experience in 1999 attending an HRC dinner in San Francisco.
It was there she reflected on the hard work of the LGBTQ+ community across the nation and how it resulted in the election of the Biden/Harris team. “The president and I are so proud to have led the most pro-equality administration in our nation’s history,” she said. “On the very first day we took office, President Biden expanded protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and housing, healthcare, education and the workplace.
“Working together, we are strengthening protection for LGBTQ+ children who live in foster care. We are combating the dangerous and abusive practice of conversion therapy. And we reversed the ban on transgender service members. We are proud to have appointed leaders from this community and beyond to the highest levels of our administration.
An unwavering and long time ally and advocate to the LGBTQ+ community, vice president Harris spoke also about the importance of the continuing struggle for equality and acceptance during an appearance at the historic Stonewall Inn in New York last July during New York Pride.
“The LGBTQ+ movement is an expression of our love of our country and is rooted in an unwavering belief in the promise of freedom, equality and justice… Pride is, and has always been, patriotic. And as we confront the attacks on LGBTQ+ rights across the country, let us remember that we are in this together.”