Kamala Harris plans 5-day Iowa bus tour

[bluewater]

Kamala Harris is planning to ramp up her presidential campaign travel schedule and public appearances next month, starting with a five-day bus tour through Iowa.

The shift to a more intense retail operation follows Harris' rise in public opinion polls in the Democratic primary. She is attempting to capitalize on momentum following a breakout debate performance last month, in which she criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for his past opposition to busing and former associations with segregationist senators.

Harris had been slower than some of her competitors to develop a field operation in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, and some of her rivals were far more active there earlier in the election cycle.

But Harris’ campaign had long said that it planned to embark on longer campaign swings and to do more public events by late summer and early fall. An adviser told POLITICO on Thursday that the campaign was consciously conserving staffing resources throughout the first few months of the campaign.

Harris now has more than 65 staffers in Iowa, and her campaign is attempting to capitalize on momentum from the first debate by intensifying its retail efforts now. The California senator is running at 13 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll. In Iowa, a Focus on Rural America poll this month put Harris at 18 percent in the first-in-the-nation caucus state — in a cluster with Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/18/kamala-harris-campaign-travel-1421393