While she did not make any campaign appearances for Democratic candidates in the New Jersey or Virginia elections this year, Vice President Kamala Harris is back on the trail. For the first time since her defeat last November, Ms. Harris rallied with a Democrat running in a special election for a seat in Congress in a district President Trump won by more than 20 points. Ms. Harris, who has hinted not-so-subtly at another run for the White House, traveled to Tennessee on Tuesday to support Democratic state representative Aftyn Behn, who is running for Congress in the deep-red seventh district. Mr. Trump won that district by 22 points in November, while the district GOP representative, Congressman Mark Green, won by a similar margin. Mr. Green resigned from Congress over the summer to pursue a private sector career. Following their wild overperformances in two special elections in Florida back in April, Democrats are hoping that they could pull off the impossible and win the seventh district next month. In those special elections in two Florida congressional districts earlier this year, Democrats swung the seats 15 points to the left in both cases. If such an overperformance were to happen in Tennessee’s seventh on December 2, Ms. Behn could realistically pull off an upset and win the seat. Republicans are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the race to ensure a victory. Mr. Trump has endorsed Army veteran and former state official Matt Van Epps, who, according to polling, leads Ms. Behn by single-digits. Two polls both conducted by Democratic research groups last month found that Mr. Van Epps leads Ms. Behn by anywhere from eight to ten points. Ms. Harris rallied supporters for Ms. Behn on Tuesday at Nashville, though Ms. Behn herself was not in attendance. According to the Tennessee Banner, Ms. Behn had to leave her own rally before Ms. Harris arrived because of another event she had to attend. When the former vice president showed up at the event just minutes after Ms. Behn had left, she urged voters to go to the polls for the Democratic candidate to send a message not just to Mr. Trump, but to the “powerful forces that are trying to divide us.” “This is a moment in the history of our country, right now, where the leadership from the ground, from the neighborhood, from the community, matters more than ever,” Ms. Harris said, according to the Banner. “There are some powerful forces that are trying to suggest that folks are alone and without power powerful forces that are trying to divide us and to tell folks that they don’t matter and their needs don’t matter,” Ms. Harris told the crowd. “Well, we need to let them hear our voice and let them know that they’re going to have to be responsive. This is a moment where we reclaim . our country.” Ms. Harris is now wrapping up her book tour for her campaign memoir, “107 Days,” in which she offers honest thoughts about her time in the White House, her assessment of President Biden, and her frustrations with how both she and the people around her fell short. Most notably, during that book tour, she has consistently said that she is not yet done with public life. Over the summer, she announced she would not be a candidate for California governor in 2026, leading many to believe that she will mount another campaign for the White House a little over a year from now.
https://www.nysun.com/article/harris-returns-to-the-trail-for-democrat-running-in-a-special-congressional-election-for-a-seat-trump-won-by-20-points
