First lady Dr. Jill Biden is preparing to step into a new role as a campaign surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, kicking off a five-state, five-day swing through battleground states later this week, a source familiar with the plans told CNN. The campaign push beginning Friday will take the first lady out west to Arizona and Nevada and through the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The Harris team is deploying the first lady to smaller, targeted markets to court undecided voters and to city suburbs as they look to mobilize women voters with less than a month until the election, the source said. The return to the campaign trail marks a new phase of the first lady’s long time role as a top Democratic surrogate. It comes more than two months after her husband, President Joe Biden, ended his own reelection bid after fellow Democrats privately and openly questioned his ability to win a second term – a difficult period for their family in his more than five decades in politics.
The first lady, a fierce supporter and defender of the president’s campaign for a second term up until his decision to withdraw on July 21, has largely stayed out of the political fray since that moment. She introduced her husband at the Democratic National Convention in August and expressed her support for Harris, who her late son Beau Biden worked with as a state attorney general. “We have seen her courage, her determination, and her leadership up close,” Jill .