Kamala Harris heads to Milwaukee area for the first rally of her presidential campaign

Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to the Milwaukee area Tuesday for the first rally of her newly launched presidential campaign.

Harris' visit comes just two days after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing her, and less than a week after Donald Trump officially accepted GOP nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in downtown Milwaukee.

It will be Harris' ninth visit to Wisconsin since becoming vice president and her fifth visit to the battleground state this year.

Harris' decision to head to Milwaukee for the first rally of her nascent presidential campaign highlights the importance of Wisconsin — and especially Milwaukee, the state's largest and most diverse city — in the 2024 election.

Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, similar to the margin Trump won the state in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton, who famously didn't campaign here during the general election that year.

On Monday Harris seemed to shore up the support she needed to become the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, potentially avoiding a bitter internal party dispute only one day after Biden announced he's backing out of his own White House campaign.

It will ultimately be up to delegates to pick the nominee. The Democratic Party on Monday laid out plans to hold a virtual vote to pick a nominee before Aug. 7, weeks before the Democratic National Convention that's scheduled to be held from August 19-22 in Chicago. Other candidates could put their name in for consideration at that time, but if Harris has secured the necessary votes any challenge would be short-lived.

Wisconsin is a home state of sorts for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who lived in Madison as a young child.

In May, Harris stopped at Discovery World in Milwaukee and spoke with comedian, radio host and author D.L. Hughley. Her visit was part of the White House's "economic opportunity tour" and her remarks focused on disparities for Black homeowners and business owners.

In April, Harris visited La Crosse — a more purple region of the state — where she announced new rules for nursing home staffing and rallied voters around abortion rights.

In March, Harris went to Madison, where she announced a new executive order aimed at promoting apprenticeships. During that visit, she visited her childhood home on the west side of Madison, where she lived from age 3 to 5 while her parents worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And in January, Harris visited Big Bend in Waukesha County to kick off a nationwide tour focused on abortion access. The county has delivered smaller margins for Republicans than it used to, and Democrats have aimed to target women voters in the Milwaukee suburb who may be swayed toward Democrats on issues like abortion.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kamala Harris in Milwaukee for first rally of presidential campaign