Harris was greeted with thunderous applause from the diverse audience of several hundred.
Ms. Harris’ comments were her most vocal defense of the president to voters since Mr. Biden’s lackluster performance in last month’s debate. She has been in the spotlight since the June 27 debate as she has sought to back Mr. Biden’s candidacy and showcase her skills as a campaign strategist.
Harris’ visit to Las Vegas was part of the campaign’s outreach to a small but important group of AANHPI voters. Her speech came just after lawmakers in Washington, 2,400 miles away, met to discuss Biden’s campaign amid calls for him to step down from the White House.
Harris’ campaign stops, which include visits to Dallas on Wednesday and Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday, come as some Democrats are considering the possibility of her becoming the presidential nominee if Biden drops out. Biden has repeatedly said he will remain in the race, but many Democrats see Harris as the only realistic replacement if Biden drops out.
That leaves the vice president with two delicate and competing goals this week: bolstering Biden at an extremely vulnerable time in his political career while also demonstrating his own potential appeal. With Biden in Washington trying to quell the Capitol insurrection, Democrats will be watching Harris closely in the coming days to gauge her abilities as a campaigner, especially in the wake of the disappointing outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“There’s no playbook for this. She’s walking a new, untrodden path,” said Mike Trujillo, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Hillary Clinton. Trujillo emphasized that it’s unprecedented for Democrats to debate the presumptive nominee’s positions just weeks before the Democratic National Convention begins on Aug. 19.
“This is a big test of her mettle in terms of loyalty to the president, loyalty to the White House, loyalty to the White House’s agenda, loyalty to the campaign and loyalty to our democracy,” Trujillo added. “She has not made a single mistake.”
The Biden campaign has long seen Harris as a powerful messenger for reaching Black and Asian American voters, which has become increasingly important as the president strives to solidify support from those influential groups. In 2020, exit polls showed Biden leading Black voters by 75 percentage points and Asian American voters by 27 percentage points, and any wavering in their support could be devastating in his close race against Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Harris’ mother is an Indian immigrant and her father is Jamaican, and her rise to fame is a source of pride for black and Asian communities.
Her visit to Las Vegas marked her sixth this year to Nevada, a battleground state that Biden won by fewer than 34,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election and that recent polls suggest could slip away from Democrats’ grasp.
After praising Biden, Harris emphasized the Trump campaign’s contention that a second term for the former president would be disastrous, saying Trump wants to turn the US into a dictatorship and “the Supreme Court has basically just said that he can get away with that,” she said, referring to a recent ruling that said Trump cannot be prosecuted for official acts as president.
“Someone who denigrates immigrants, promotes xenophobia and incites hatred should never again be given the opportunity to stand behind the microphone and seal of the president of the United States,” she said.
Joining Harris was Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-American author and television host, who praised Harris as the first female vice president and delivered a brief remark that slammed Trump.
Ahead of Harris’ appearance, the Asian American Action Fund, a Democratic PAC, described the event as “a community celebration recognizing the work that President Biden and Vice President Harris have accomplished for the AANHPI community and all Americans.”
Harris has been a vocal defender of Biden, urging him to focus on voters. Ms. Harris spoke of the dangers of a second term for Mr. Trump. The day after the June debate, Ms. Harris also held a rally in Las Vegas, where she defended her administration’s record and sought to ease concerns about Mr. Biden by portraying him as a leader and Mr. Trump as a liar.
“This campaign will not be decided overnight in June,” she said that day, hammering home her central message that while Biden may have performed poorly in the debate, he is a great president and his performance does not reflect deeper issues about his health or capacity.
Few communities are more important to the Democratic Party’s national aspirations than Black voters, particularly Black women, whose support for Biden in 2020 catapulted him to the nomination and presidency. Harris appeared at the Essence Festival in New Orleans on Saturday for a moderated conversation with a mostly black women audience that focused on the importance of the election but did not address the current controversy surrounding the Democratic Party and its leader.
The vice president has several days of travel scheduled this week, including a speech to the historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in Dallas on Wednesday. Harris, a 1986 graduate of Howard University, is a member of AKA, giving her access to a powerful network of activists.
Harris travels to Greensboro on Thursday for her sixth visit to North Carolina, a state that is swinging Democratic in this election, and next week she will be in Indianapolis to meet with members of Zeta Phi Beta, another Black sorority with a history of focusing on social justice.
Moderated or scripted events like the one Harris is taking part in this week have allowed the campaign to make its case to key voters without having to deal with the pointed questions that have arisen in the wake of Biden’s shaky debate performance.
