This story was reported by WHRO News.
Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, touted her economic accomplishments and emphasized the contrast between Harris and former President Donald Trump in an appearance in Newport News on Monday.
“This is a binary choice. This is an election on who better understands what you go through, what your family goes through,” Emhoff told a group of the Democratic faithful at Rep. Bobby Scott’s annual Labor Day Cookout at the congressman’s Newport News home.
“Kamala is pro-worker, she’s pro-business and she’s pro-family. Donald Trump is pro-himself,” Emhoff said.
Emhoff tapped into the Labor Day atmosphere, highlighting Harris’ labor support and the current administration’s policies requiring labor agreements on major federal construction projects and pushing for a million new trade apprenticeships.
“The Biden-Harris administration delivered all that, and that will continue in a Harris-Walz administration, because she knows what’s good for families is good for the economy,” Emhoff said.
Harris’ campaign has also leaned into concerns about housing affordability — a major issue inHampton Roads and across the commonwealth — by releasing a slate of policies last month aimed at building millions of homes and apartments, and making buying a home for the first time easier.
The vice president has been the center of a political blitz since her rapid and unexpected ascension to the nomination.
President Joe Biden announced in July he wouldn’t seek a second term amid questions about his health and mental faculties. Biden endorsed Harris and Democrats quickly coalesced around her. She formally accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Since then, she and running mate Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, have been crisscrossing the nation in a flurry of campaign stops as the election looms a little more than two months away.
Emhoff joked that he can’t keep up with what city or state his wife is in during Monday’s appearance.
“This has been an intense four or five weeks, needless to say,” Emhoff said.
Emhoff’s appearance marks the third visit to Hampton Roads by a presidential candidate or spouse this year.
President Biden’s wife, Jill, stopped at a campaign office in Virginia Beach in June to rally supporters.
Former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump visited Chesapeake the same week, praising Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Trump’s first appearance after his debate against Biden.
The attention is likely due to the demographics of the region. If the state is up for grabs in the presidential election, as some experts believe it could be, the balance will likely be tipped by white suburban women voters.
Recent polling shows Harriswith a roughly 3% lead over Trump in Virginia. The difference is better than Biden was faring before he dropped out, but still falls within the poll’s margin of error.
“We can do this, but we’ve got to run like we’re 10 points behind, so on Nov. 6, we’ll be 10 points ahead,” Emhoff said.
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