Harris and Walz set for ‘New Way Forward’ swing state tour after ABC debate

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will follow up on Harris’s Tuesday face-off against Donald Trump by embarking on a whirlwind tour of swing states in hopes of seizing momentum off her debate performance this week.

The Harris-Walz campaign says the vice president and her running-mate will criss-cross the country following Tuesday night’s debate to make appearances in each individual media market in every single swing state over a four-day period next week.

The candidates’ spouses, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, will also make a series of appearances in support of the campaign in the coming days.

Harris is currently in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she is huddled with aides and advisers while she prepares for her debate against Trump in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

She’ll resume her official schedule following the debate with a series of appearances to commemorate the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington before kicking off her swing-state campaign tour in North Carolina on Thursday.

The Tar Heel State is considered a prized battleground by the vice president’s campaign, though no Democrat has carried the state’s electoral votes since Barack Obama’s 2008 victory there. If Harris can defeat Trump there, it all but forecloses his path to the 270 votes needed to take back the White House.

After visiting North Carolina, Harris will return to Pennsylvania — considered the most crucial of the battlegrounds as it forms part of the Democratic “blue wall” of states that would provide her the easiest way to victory.

At the same time, her running-mate will be spending Thursday and Friday in Michigan and Wisconsin, the other two “blue wall” states which he and Harris must carry to have any hope of keeping her in the White House.

Emhoff is scheduled to make stops in Nevada, Arizona, and Florida this week, while Gwen Walz will visit Georgia, New Hampshire, and Maine.

With her debate against Trump just days away, Harris is also rolling out a new advertisement in which she attempts to follow up on her recent foray into economic policy by vowing to make the fight against price gouging a central focus of her administration.

The ad, which bears the title “New Way Forward,” is airing nationwide and in eight battleground states — Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nebraska — starting Sunday.

Viewers in each state will see a targeted version of the spot, in which Harris says the election between her and Trump is “about two very different visions” for the US: “One focused on the future and the other focused on the past.”

“Lowering the cost of living will be a defining goal of my Presidency,” she says before adding that she will act to lower prescription drug and insulin costs for “everyone,” following up on and expanding the Biden administration’s initiatives to lower such costs for seniors on Medicare.

Harris also promises to “pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food” and enact a tax cut for more than 100 million Americans.

“Together, we will build an economy where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed,” she says. “Now is the time to chart a new way forward.”