Rep. Davis chatting with volunteers before borading bus to Milwaukee. (Photo by Chinta Strausberg)
The 2024 presidential election is just 12 days away and with concerns rising over polls showing Trump and Vice President Harris running neck-and-neck, Representative Danny Davis (D-7th) is returning to Milwaukee with volunteers to solicit undecided voters to vote for the Harris/Walz Democratic ticket.
Two busloads of volunteers will board at 8 a.m. Saturday, October 26, in front of Davis’ congressional office, 2815 W. Fifth Avenue. The buses will depart at 9 a.m. headed for Milwaukee where they will meet at the campaign office of Vice President Harris, 339 W. North Avenue.
After a briefing, Davis and his volunteers will begin a walk through the mostly Black Bronzeville community of Milwaukee, in search of undecided voters, who Davis believes, will help pull Harris across the finish line November 5.
“We’ll go and knock on as many doors as we can, wake up the town and hopefully convince the undecideds to come on over and support Vice President Harris,” Davis told the Chicago Crusader.
Davis is also concerned that some polls show the two candidates winning an equal number of Electoral College votes. There is the possibility that Trump and Harris could each receive 269 Electoral College votes, one vote shy of the 270 required, thus paving the way for the Republican majority U.S. House of Representatives to decide who will win the White House.
As Trump and Harris crisscross the nation campaigning in battleground states, Davis, who has previously taken volunteers to Milwaukee and who last week sent a motorcade to Racine, Wisconsin, is making a return trip to Milwaukee with volunteers on behalf of Harris.
In an interview with the Chicago Crusader, Davis warned voters that “they must make absolutely sure that they vote. The latest poll data that I’ve looked at, and I’ve looked at three sets, it is clear that it is a very close situation. One or two votes can make a difference.
“Every person needs to know that their vote could be the difference. We’ve had this one vote margin in elections in the past that changed the course of history in many instances; so, vote as if your life depends upon it because it does,” warned Davis.
And with concerns that neither Trump nor Harris will reach the 270 number to win the presidency, Davis said it’s time for the Electoral College to go.
With more people understanding the structure of this electoral process that he said is based on the winner being the one with the most Electoral College votes rather than the popular vote, “it’s clear that it has outlived its usefulness in terms of democratizing our country and system of governance.
“I think it was OK when it was started up to a point, but it has done now the opposite to people in certain parts of the population that it was designed to correct. I think it’s unfair. We should go to the system where the majority will win, get elected and rule.”
Reminded that the Electoral College was created to protect white slaveowners, Davis said slavery “was factored in, but today we’ve reached a different level in society,” explaining that times are different now. “We should change our approach and let the majority have its way and rule.”
Last week when Davis sent a motorcade to Racine, Reverend Thomas Poole, director of Social Justice at Wayman A.M.E. Church in Racine, told Davis’ volunteers that Harris will win “by a landslide” and with that victory racism “will die.”
“This is the most consequential election since the Civil War,” said Poole.
“It has everything to do with how this nation will proceed. I am very optimistic about the results. I think this nation is going to turn the corner for the first time in her history where you will have the majority of the people being done with the old overt racist ideology that is dying, if not dead.”
Poole said with the election and re-election of President Obama, those historic elections “resurrected that old hate-filled racist ideology, and they got emboldened. Trump did not descend from on high. He was vomited up from what was already in the gizzards of so many Americans on that last bastion of wanting to go back to those bad old (racist) days.”
“Get to the polls and vote,” Poole said.
“I think there are many Republicans who want their Party back and will vote against Donald Trump, and I think there will be a landslide. Once that happens, that old hideous, dictatorial racism ideology will do like the salmon and die,” he said, thanking Davis for bringing volunteers to Racine to help secure voters for the Harris-Walz ticket.
Asked his opinion on how Vice President Harris did when she interviewed with Fox chief news political anchor Bret Baier earlier this month, Poole said, “She did fantastic.
“I think she showed the entire nation that she not only has the moxie to go into the lion’s den and beat him down into submission, but she handled her business like an absolute pro.
“I have no issue that she could handle any situation on behalf of this nation on the world stage. I think once she accomplished that in broad daylight the game is over.
“At the same time, she had 100 Republican supporters go and campaign with her. That is a signal to all the others when you get into that ballot box, do what you got to do” and vote for Harris,” Poole concluded, receiving prolonged applause from Davis’ volunteers.