MILWAUKEE — Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took a detour from Chicago to rally with more than 15,000 supporters here Tuesday in an effort to channel the momentum from the Democratic National Convention into votes in a critical battleground state.

“As the generation of Americans before us who led the fight for freedom, the baton is in our hands,” Harris said, one day after President Joe Biden delivered a convention speech that was designed to pass the torch to her. “We carry the baton.”

The lively event took place at the Fiserv Forum, the same venue where Republicans gathered to nominate Trump at their own party confab last month. About 90 miles to the south, thousands of other Democrats gathered at the United Center in Chicago for the second day of their convention, featuring influential leaders such as former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Harris used her remarks to zero in on the issue of abortion, criticizing Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump for telling CBS News in an interview Monday that he had “no regrets” about appointing Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“I do believe, you know, bad behavior should result in a consequence,” she said. “Well, we will make sure that he does face a consequence — and that will be at the ballot box in November.”

As she has done in previous events, Harris spoke about abortion within the broader context of fundamental freedoms that she said are under “full on attack” by Trump and his Republican allies.

Harris’s speech was interrupted multiple times by rowdy applause and cheering, including chants of “We’re not going back!” and “U-S-A!” echoing the celebratory atmosphere at the convention in Chicago. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator was removed after shouting out in protest during Harris’s remarks.

Both arenas at times had the feel of a music concert, with attendees dancing and cheering for hours. In Milwaukee and Chicago, attendees wore matching light-up bracelets similar to the ones at Taylor Swift concerts. The Fiserv Forum, which has a capacity of about 18,000 for concerts, was largely full, though some of the seats were covered up with black curtains. Ahead of Harris’s arrival, attendees sang along as the DJ played hits like “Sweet Caroline” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Supporters at the Milwaukee event watched some of the convention programming on video screens inside the arena, including the nationwide roll call vote that included surprise celebrity appearances. Attendees in the United Center viewed some of Harris’s speech in Milwaukee after the roll call.

It is rare for a presidential candidate to stage a large political rally in another state at the same time as their nominating convention is taking place, but Walz and Harris sought to take advantage of the proximity to a critical state ahead of their acceptance speeches in Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

The decision to hold the event in Wisconsin also reflected the truncated timeline for Harris’s campaign for the presidency, which began after Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid on July 21. Both Harris and Walz have noted the dwindling number of days they have to win over voters and pledged to campaign aggressively over the coming weeks. They also sought to undercut Trump’s fixation on crowd size by simultaneously filling two arenas while drawing a sharp contrast with the Republican convention in the same venue.

“Trust me, Milwaukee, a hell of a lot can change in four weeks,” Walz told the crowd, noting Democrats’ improved fortunes since the GOP convention last month. “Not only do we have massive energy at our convention, we’ve got a hell of a lot more energy at where they had their convention, right here.”

Trump has also ramped up his travel schedule, with plans to visit multiple battleground states this week. During an event with police in Michigan on Tuesday, he attacked Harris over crime, asserting that he would be a better advocate for law enforcement than the onetime prosecutor.

“People don’t know the real Kamala,” Trump said, calling her “so far left that nobody can even imagine.”

Trump plans to hold events in North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada in the coming days as the Democratic convention wraps up.

Harris’s event marked her third visit to Wisconsin since she launched a presidential bid one month ago, a sign of the importance of the Midwest battleground. Both candidates see Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes as critical to most pathways to victory, and Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also have made frequent stops in the state. Vance remarked on the central role of the state in the campaign Tuesday during an event focused on crime in Kenosha, Wis.

“I basically live in Wisconsin now,” he said, adding that it “may be very well be the most important state in the country.”

Biden won the state by about 20,000 votes over Trump, who had carried the state by a similarly narrow margin in 2016. Polling indicates the race is neck-and-neck, with Harris ahead of Trump by 2 points, according to The Washington Post’s polling averages.

Wisconsin is also home to an important Senate race, with incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) set to face off against Republican businessman Eric Hovde in a contest that could help determine control of the chamber.

“Time and again, my home state has determined the political fortune of our country, and this year will be no different,” Baldwin wrote Tuesday in a piece for MSNBC, noting that the Badger State was the only state in which the winner prevailed by less than 1 percentage point in the last two races.

Democrats are hoping strong turnout in cities like Milwaukee and its suburbs will propel them to victory in November, even as Trump has been counting on a surge of rural votes to remain competitive.

CHICAGO — When President Joe Biden delivered his valedictory address at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, he invoked the need to “preserve our democracy,” “vote for democracy,” and confront the “clear and present threats to our very democracy.”

“We saved democracy in 2020,” he declared, “and now we must save it again in 2024.”

The theme of existential stakes for the American experiment was in keeping with one that Biden has hammered throughout the campaign. But his rhetorical emphasis hasn’t been embraced by the woman he endorsed to take his place on the Democratic ticket: Vice President Kamala Harris. Rather, she has shifted the focus, speaking far less about democracy and far more about freedom.

Harris on Monday took the stage for a surprise appearance to the rousing beat of Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” her campaign’s unofficial anthem. She was preceded onstage by a nearly three-minute hype video set to the same song, with the narrator promising “freedom from control, freedom from extremism and fear.” Together, the night’s speakers referenced “freedom” more than 100 times. And on Wednesday, the convention’s entire program will be dedicated to the theme “A Fight for Our Freedoms.”

Since Harris took over as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, much about the campaign’s approach to defeating Donald Trump has changed, from the trappings of its rallies to the size of its fundraising hauls to its tone on social media.

But the rhetorical evolution is among the most significant, redefining the stakes of the race and giving Democrats a new rallying cry that political practitioners say is far more likely to resonate with voters.

At 100 campaign events since launching his reelection in April 2023, Biden referenced “democracy” 386 times and “freedom” about 175 times, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches. By comparison, in eight campaign rallies since he has dropped out, Harris referenced “freedom” 48 times and “democracy” just nine.

Where Biden ominously warned that Trump posed a fundamental danger to the future of America’s constitutional republic, Harris has leaned into a term that better fits the more upbeat and optimistic tone she has sought to strike. It can also be applied to a range of issues with a more tangible impact on people’s day-to-day lives, including abortion, education, gun control and the economy.

“I always say people sitting around the table talking about democracy. It’s probably because they don’t have to worry about the food they have on the table,” said David Axelrod, a veteran Democratic strategist whose messaging helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency.

Biden believed the call to defend democracy would motivate voters to choose him over Trump, as they did in 2020. The message was also integral to Democrats’ successful 2022 midterm election, when they fended off Republican candidates in key state races who repeated Trump’s falsehoods denying the results of the 2020 race.

But in the lead-up to Biden’s July withdrawal, polls showed him significantly lagging and the democracy message not cutting through. In a spring Post poll of voters in six states that Biden narrowly won in 2020, more people said they trusted Trump to handle threats to democracy than Biden. Most said the guardrails in place to protect democratic institutions would hold even if a dictator tried to take over the country.

Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who did polling for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, said that “democracy” polled well with older Democrats but not with younger ones “who really don’t think we have a democracy.”

“The freedom message is just broader, more forward-looking,” she said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Harris’s campaign had offered “no solutions or policy ideas to fix the problems America faces today. All they have are nonsensical slogans and feel-good platitudes that are devoid of substance and, ultimately, reality.”

Trump, who has said he would be a dictator on “day one,” has repeatedly argued that he is the true defender of democracy because he is fighting prosecutions that amount to “election interference.” He has also falsely called Harris replacing Biden a “coup.” The argument has clouded the question of what democracy — a term that leaves much to the imagination — even means.

“Democracy has almost become trivialized, even though it’s hardly a trivial issue,” Axelrod said.

Harris still talks about democracy, but not nearly as much as the president, even as she has amped up the centrality of freedom — a word often more associated with the political right — as a rallying cry.

“The vice president’s fundamental point is the same as those who invoke ‘democracy,’ but she believes discussing it in terms of fundamental freedoms makes it tangible in terms of what Americans stand to lose under a Trump presidency,” said Brian Fallon, a Harris campaign spokesman.

Freedom, as Democrats have increasingly used it, can mean saving democracy from would-be autocrats. But it can also refer to protecting reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, access to affordable health care, a choice of what to read at school and safety from gun violence.

“Voters respond to freedom as a core American value,” said Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, a gun safety advocacy group. “When we can talk about [gun violence] as a freedom issue, we get near universal agreement about it.”

“We share this core value of more freedom, not less, and for too long, we’ve allowed the far right to claim they are the party of freedom,” Brown said.

For decades, Republicans have adopted freedom as their rallying cry, amplified in recent years by the 2010 tea party movement’s “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan and the 2015 creation of the “Freedom Caucus” by a group of far-right GOP members of Congress.

Anat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal communications consultant, has been urging Democrats to reclaim the term “freedom” for several years. In focus groups she’s conducted with disaffected Democrats and swing voters, Shenker-Osorio said people respond more favorably on issues such as voter suppression or gerrymandering when they are “framed through the language of freedom than through the lens of democracy.”

“Where freedom sort of lives inside of the body, democracy is a more abstract idea,” she said.

After the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats began using freedom more in their messaging. Josh Shapiro, who ran for Pennsylvania governor that year against a Republican who had helped orchestrate efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, was among the earliest adopters.

“It’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed to do with their bodies. That’s not freedom,” said Shapiro, who won his race, in a campaign speech that went viral. “It’s not freedom to say you can work a 40-hour workweek, but you can’t be a member of a union. That’s not freedom. And it sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote, but he gets to pick the winner. That’s not freedom.”

Shapiro, who was a finalist to be Harris’s vice president and will speak Wednesday night, held a “real freedom” happy hour on the first day of the convention. In a brief interview afterward, Shapiro said freedom “is not theoretical. It’s quantitative. Donald Trump took away freedoms and is promising to take away more, and Kamala Harris is promising to expand our freedom.”

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota and a former Democratic congressman, said the rhetorical pivot is part of a broader shift in mood for the party that coincides with the change in presidential candidates. “The messaging is a little more electric,” he said. “People do operate on fear, but they volunteer out of joy.”

Down-ballot Democrats have followed Harris’s lead.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), the first House Democrat to call for Biden to step aside this summer, said he’s started emphasizing freedom more.

“Democracy, as vital as it is, may not have been reaching some of the undecided voters,” Doggett said. “Freedom, people can identify with. They don’t want other people telling them how they have to live their lives.”

That’s not to say democracy has disappeared from the conversation on the campaign trail or in Chicago. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), during his remarks Monday night, told the story of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and warned that Trump would “terminate our Constitution” if elected for another term.

“Welcome to the democracy convention,” he said. Then he added: “Welcome to the freedom convention.”

Morse reported from Washington.

CHICAGO — Welcome to The Campaign Moment, your guide to the biggest developments in the 2024 election, now featuring more Lil Jon on C-SPAN.

(Make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter here. You can also hear my analysis weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.)

The big moment

The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night included an energetic, DJ-spun roll call vote of the states (where rapper Lil Jon stole the show for his home state of Georgia), both Obamas and a number of Republicans prosecuting the case against Donald Trump.

As a reminder, I’ll be with you every night this week when the program ends, offering my takeaways from the convention. Here are Tuesday’s.

1. The Obamas look to bestow their movement on Harris

Monday featured some reminders of less-proud electoral times for Democrats, with the headliners including 2016 runner-up Hillary Clinton and the recently nudged-aside President Joe Biden.

Tuesday was devoted to bringing back that winning feeling — to reclaiming the ethos of the Democrats’ proudest years of the 21st century, the Obama era. Indeed, the Obamas effectively painted Vice President Kamala Harris as their political heir, commandeering their movement. And it was about as far from subtle as possible.

Both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama spoke and wasted no time in seeking to rekindle the themes for which the Obama era was so well known.

“We have a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long,” Michelle Obama began. “You know what I’m talking about: It’s the contagious power of hope.”

She added: “Hope is making a comeback.”

Barack Obama later spoke and began: “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling fired up. I am feeling ready to go.”

He quickly added: “I am feeling hopeful.”

He later pulled out: “Do not boo. Vote.”

When an audience member said of Harris, “Yes she can,” Obama responded, “Yes she can.”

And perhaps most strikingly, he alluded to how “this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible” — the idea being that Harris shares those characteristics with him.

It’s reductive to regard these speeches as mere retreads of past Obama themes; both Obamas made their own case for Harris and against Trump and got huge responses. Michelle Obama’s repeated pleas that Democrats “do something” rather than sit back and complain landed with particular force, and she went after Trump more strongly than she has in the past. Barack Obama played up Harris as an ally of and advocate for regular Americans, and he painted Trump as a whiner consumed with his own grievances.

But Democrats are benefiting so much right now from their markedly improving “vibes.” And Tuesday was mostly about keeping that going — with an assist from the past.

Now it’s about whether Harris can take that baton and actually run with it, living up to the hype the Obamas sought to juice.

2. Republicans delivered strong Trump rebukes

The program on Tuesday night made a point to feature Republicans, former Republicans and former Trump allies who are now backing Harris.

Some of the more notable testimonials:

• “The View” co-host Ana Navarro, who hosted the session, compared Trump to Latin American dictators including Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega (for calling the media the “enemy of the people”), Cuba’s Fidel Castro (for using office to enrich himself and his family) and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro (for refusing to accept legitimate election results). Trump has recently suggested without any evidence that Harris will lead the country to communism.
• Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham described Trump as having “no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”
• Mesa, Ariz., Mayor John Giles (R) said that he felt out of place, but that “I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican Party. The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult — the cult of Donald Trump. … John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind.”

3. Harris’s spouse plays up their blended family

Harris got what’s likely to be her most significant character-witness speech of the week Tuesday night from her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

And Emhoff’s comments about the challenges involved in their blended family were a particularly potent moment in a Democratic convention that is focused on inclusivity.

“Those of you who belong to blended families know that they can be a little complicated,” Emhoff said. “But as soon as our kids started calling her ‘Mamala,’ I knew we’d be okay.”

“Ella [his daughter] calls us a three-headed parenting machine. Kamala and Kerstin [Emhoff], thank you both,” Emhoff added, shouting out his ex-wife, who was in the crowd.

He referenced a story about a time when Harris appeared deeply focused on something, and he assumed it was her job as vice president — potentially an international crisis.

“I could see she was focused, and all I knew was that it must be something important,” Emhoff said. “And it turns out it was: Ella had called her. That’s Kamala.”

4. Bernie Sanders made another notable Gaza mention

For the second straight night, the war in Gaza got a fleeting but high-profile mention on the stage — as demonstrations related to the war have fallen short of organizers’ hopes.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), toward the end of his speech, said, “We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate cease-fire.”

The comments came a day after President Joe Biden spoke about his work toward a peace deal and added, “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point; a lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had also insisted that Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.”

Sanders’s comments, notably, were less of an endorsement of Harris’s approach. He argued last week that people shouldn’t withhold votes from Harris over the issue — because Trump was worse — but he also said that he aimed to “move Harris if she becomes president” — apparently away from Israel.

Few speakers have broached the issue. But it’s clear the convention feels the need to address this elephant in the room and assure the protesters that they are being heard.

5. A bona fide big-tent (and ironic) moment

The convention this week has largely been defined by efforts to set aside differences and enthusiastically work as one.

And rarely was that in such stark relief as in the middle of Tuesday’s program, when things took an ironic turn.

Shortly after 8:30 a.m. Central time, Sanders echoed his long-standing talking points on combating the influence of billionaires. “Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections,” Sanders said.

The very next speaker: Billionaire Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), who spent $350 million of his fortune winning his two campaigns — including a competitive 2018 Democratic primary.

“Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity,” Pritzker said, about 10 minutes after Sanders’s comment.

Take a moment to read:

• “In biggest speech of her career, Harris hopes to tell her story first” (The Washington Post)
• “Kamala Harris allies say plan to ban ‘price gouging’ has been misconstrued” (The Washington Post)
• “The ‘OG’s for Kamala’ raise a glass and enjoy a little I-told-you-so” (The Washington Post)
• “Trump’s AI fakes of Harris and Swift aren’t meant to fool you” (The Washington Post)
• “The DNC Is a Big Smiling Mess” (Atlantic)

The second night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago featured former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, among others, who made thematic speeches that required little fact-checking. Here’s a roundup of three claims that caught our attention, in the order in which they were made.

As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios for a roundup of statements made during convention events.

“Under Project 2025, a family making just $75,000 a year with just two kids would pay 1,800 bucks more in federal taxes.”

— Malcolm Kenyatta, Pennsylvania House representative

This appears accurate. During the convention, Democrats have been highlighting proposals from a Heritage Foundation report called “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page manifesto chock full of detailed conservative proposals that is popularly known as Project 2025. It’s not an official campaign document, and former president Trump has distanced himself from it, but a CNN review found that 140 people who worked in the Trump administration contributed to the report.

One of the proposals would replace the current progressive tax system — which has seven tax brackets, at 10 percent, 12 percent, 22 percent, 24 percent, 32 percent, 35 percent and 37 percent — with just two brackets: 15 percent and 30 percent. Everyone making less than $168,000 (about the point when Social Security payroll taxes are no longer collected) would be subject to a 15 percent rate. The proposal also would eliminate most deductions, credits and exclusions.

While this would make the system simpler, it could also raise taxes for many people at lower income levels, as they currently pay federal income taxes at 10 percent and 12 percent. The current rate jumps to 22 percent after $94,300 for married couples.

Brendan Duke, senior director of economic policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, calculated that a family of four making $75,000 would receive a tax increase of $1,800. “My best guess is that the breakeven point — where a family of four goes from a tax increase to a tax cut — is about $170,000 when using the assumptions most favorable to Project 2025,” he wrote on X.

A Heritage representative did not respond to a request for comment.

“Within two months of taking office, our government did respond. We passed the American Rescue Plan, which provided $1,400 for every man, woman and child in the working class. We extended and expanded benefits for the unemployed. We provided emergency assistance for small businesses to stay open.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

This is half the story. Sanders extols the response of President Joe Biden to the pandemic but skips over the fact that Trump — whose response to the crisis was criticized as stumbling — in March 2020 signed into law bills that included stimulus checks of $1,200 and unemployment benefits. Trump also signed into law a bill in December 2020 that provided $600 checks — though complained they should have been $2,000. The bill signed by Biden made up the difference.

“Let me tell you what a radical agenda is. And that is Trump’s Project 2025. … Putting forth budgets to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is radical.”

— Sanders

This is misleading. Sanders slips in a mention of Social Security, but the old-age retirement program is only tangentially referenced in the Project 2025 report, and there is no proposal to do anything with it, let alone “cut” it.

The report contains some Medicare recommendations, mainly to promote Medicare Advantage plans, which are managed by insurance companies with federal funds. Just over half of Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, compared with traditional Medicare, which is run by the government and favored by Democrats. The 2025 proposals could have an impact on Medicare, but there is no call to cut funding.

Medicaid provides health care for the poor. Project 2025 does have a number of Medicaid proposals that could reduce spending, such as tighter eligibility standards and new work requirements.

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CHICAGO — Former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, two of the Democratic Party’s most popular figures, electrified delegates at the party’s convention Tuesday, saying they saw the same sense of excitement and hope that characterized their own rise to the White House now surrounding Kamala Harris.

“I’m feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,” Barack Obama said, a reference to his emergence as a political star at the 2004 convention. “Because we have the chance to elect someone who’s spent her whole life trying to give people the same chances America gave her.”

The former president sought to frame the election as a stark choice.

“We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie — and we all know that the sequel’s usually worse,” he said. “America is ready for a new chapter. America’s ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”

In her remarks, Michelle Obama delivered a similar message. “America, hope is making a comeback,” she declared.

The former first lady — whose appearance was greeted with particular emotion, even prompting some delegates to cry — also took on Republicans who have disparaged Harris as incompetent, calling her “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.” And she needled Trump over a recent comment that undocumented immigrants are taking “Black jobs.”

“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?” she said.

In the choreography of the convention, the Obamas played the role of charismatic figures charged with inspiring those at the Democrats’ gathering and beyond to power Harris to victory in the two months remaining before Election Day. Monday featured an emotional tribute to outgoing president Joe Biden, Wednesday will be headlined by vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, and on Thursday the convention will culminate with Harris’s acceptance speech.

Before the Obamas spoke, the delegates held a roll-call vote for Harris on the convention floor — a colorful, if ceremonial, ritual that reaffirmed Harris’s official nomination, which had taken place in a virtual vote earlier this month.

Harris was then beamed in to greet the Chicago delegates from a rally she was holding in Milwaukee, as she addressed cheering crowds in both cities at once.

“I thank everyone there and here,” Harris said. “This is a people-powered campaign, and together we will chart a new way forward.”

She added, “I’ll see you in two days, Chicago.”

In his remarks, Obama also saluted Biden’s tenure and his accomplishments. The two men have a complicated relationship, one that evolved from a marriage of political convenience in 2008 to a bond shaped by political triumphs and the loss of Biden’s son Beau. “History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” Obama said. “I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend.”

Obama selected Biden as his running mate because of his foreign policy expertise and Washington experience, offsetting Obama’s perceived political weaknesses. In the process, he elevated the longtime senator to a new political stature, setting the stage for Biden’s own presidential run in 2020.

Biden and his closest aides, however, have long been frustrated by Obama’s skepticism of Biden’s political prospects, a dispute that dates to the end of Obama’s presidency and that resurfaced in dramatic fashion in recent weeks.

When Biden considered entering the 2016 presidential race, Obama made clear to aides that he believed Hillary Clinton should be the Democratic nominee instead. Obama even dispatched David Plouffe, one of his top political strategists, to reiterate for Biden the long odds he faced if he decided to run. (Plouffe has since joined the Harris campaign as a senior adviser.)

More recently, in the aftermath of Biden’s politically disastrous debate against Trump on June 27, when the president sometimes struggled to complete his thoughts and finish sentences, Obama told allies that Biden needed to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, irking some of Biden’s closest aides, who thought Obama should have been more supportive — publicly and privately.

While the Obamas were clearly Tuesday’s emotional high point for many delegates, several other speakers also rallied the party. In his remarks, Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, shared details of his upbringing and his courtship with Harris. Filling a role often ascribed to spouses of political candidates, Emhoff also sought to share a more personal side of Harris and to humanize her.

He talked about the love that Harris, his second wife, has shown to his children and the way the two of them have worked to care for their blended family.

“She comes to synagogue with me for High Holiday services, and I go to church with her for Easter,” he said. “I get to enjoy her mom’s chile relleno recipe every Christmas, and she makes a mean brisket for Passover that brings me right back to my grandmother’s apartment in Brooklyn.”

Emhoff has been elevated to a novel role as potentially the first male spouse of a president. He has also become a leading advocate against antisemitism at a time when attacks on Jews, as well as Muslims, have been rising amid the war in Gaza.

“Kamala has fought against antisemitism and all forms of hate her whole career,” he said. “And she encouraged me, as second gentleman, to take up that fight — which is so personal to me.”

While the convention was underway Tuesday, Harris and Walz were about 90 miles north in Milwaukee for their rally at the Fiserv Forum, the same arena where Republicans gathered last month for their own convention. It was during that rally that the delegates in Chicago held their ceremonial roll call, complete with a DJ and special effects. It began with Delaware — a tribute to Biden — and concluded with California, Harris’s home.

Convention organizers also brought several Republican officials onstage as part of an effort to highlight how Trump’s third campaign continues to splinter his party.

Stephanie Grisham, who worked in the Trump White House before resigning on Jan. 6, 2021, also spoke Tuesday night. Grisham said she had been more than “just a Trump supporter”; she was “a true believer” and “one of his closest advisers.”

“When I was press secretary, I got skewered for never holding a White House briefing,” she said. “It’s because, unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at that podium and lie. Now, here I am: behind a podium, advocating for a Democrat. Because I love my country more than my party. Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people. And she has my vote.”

In his remarks, John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., assailed Trump and urged Americans “in the political middle” to support Harris.

“Our Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult,” he said. “The cult of Donald Trump. Trump doesn’t know the first thing about public service. Like a child, he acts purely out of self-interest.”

Trump, meanwhile, continued his pattern of holding a campaign event every day of the Democratic convention with remarks at a sheriff’s office in Howell, Mich. He falsely accused Harris of orchestrating a “vicious, violent overthrow” by replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Trump went on to defend those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, wrongly claiming that “nobody was killed.” Four people died in the attack, three from medical problems and one who was shot by a police officer. One officer who fought the mob died of a stroke the next day, and four more officers died by suicide in the days and months that followed.

In Chicago, where Democrats have largely been united since Biden dropped out of the race, a rare mention of one of the biggest fissures in the party — the war in Gaza — came from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), though only briefly.

“We must summon the courage to stand up to wealth and power and deliver justice for people at home and abroad,” Sanders said in his remarks from the stage. “We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate cease-fire.”

But in the end, it was a night highlighted by a one-two punch from the Obamas, who both delivered blistering takedowns of Trump, defining the election as a fight over the essence of America.

“That’s the America Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believe in — an America where ‘we the people’ means everyone,” Barack Obama said.

And Michelle Obama concluded: “No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one.”

She added, “Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation — not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by devoting her life to service.”

Kamala Harris’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised three times as much as Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee in July, and ended the month with a cash advantage that positions the newly minted Democratic presidential nominee to air more ads and maintain a larger payroll than her Republican opponent in the final months of the race for the White House.

Those results, which are based on federal filings released Tuesday and Wednesday, do not capture the full fundraising picture because several committees that support the candidates will not report their quarterly tallies until October.

But the Harris campaign and her allied committees said they raised more than $300 million last month in total and had $377 million on hand heading into August. Much of that money came in during the days after July 21, when President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris to succeed him at the top of the ticket, her aides have said.

The Trump campaign and his allied committees said they raised nearly $139 million in July and had $327 million in cash on hand heading into August. That four-week fundraising total was less than the $200 million that the Harris campaign said it raised during the first week after Biden ended his reelection bid. Because the parties’ allied committees won’t report until October, The Washington Post was unable to independently verify either effort’s claimed fundraising totals.

Harris’s main committee and the DNC entered August with a $286 million war chest that exceeds the $250 million bankroll Trump’s committee and the RNC reported, according to Tuesday’s filings.

Harris’s huge haul reestablishes a fundraising lead that Democrats had held before Trump’s May 30 conviction on 34 felony charges in New York led to a surge in online donations to the Republican’s campaign. By the end of May, Trump had essentially erased the cash advantage that Biden and the DNC had held over Trump and the RNC for much of this year. But Democrats’ swift embrace of Harris, who reversed Biden’s downward trajectory in key swing-state polls, upended that equation, re-energizing the party’s donors.

During the early months of this year, Biden and Harris’s cash advantage allowed them to build an extensive campaign operation with more than 280 offices and more than 1,600 aides, and to make plans to scale up to 2,000 staff members by Election Day. The Trump campaign, which has declined to share the size of its staff, has made the unusual and electorally risky decision to outsource much of its voter turnout operation to third-party groups such as America First Works, America PAC and Turning Point Action.

Harris campaign officials have said that two-thirds of the people who have given to her campaign since she became a presidential candidate are new donors. The campaign has said it has booked $370 million in ads for the period after Labor Day — with $200 million of that spending devoted to digital advertising.

But the super PACs aligned with Trump remain well funded. Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC that has aired tens of millions of dollars in ads on behalf of Trump, raised $54 million in July, driven by a $50 million gift from reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon. The largest donor to MAGA Inc. has been Mellon, who has given $126.5 million since late 2022, including a staggering $100 million over the past three months.

Both the Future Forward super PAC, which has aired ads supporting Biden and Harris, and MAGA Inc. reported about $124 in cash on hand at the end of July. Future Forward raised less than MAGA Inc. It brought in $29.7 million during the period, driven by a $20 million donation from its affiliated nonprofit, Future Forward USA Action, which is not required to disclose donors.

Future Forward plans to spend at least $250 million on television and digital advertising in a major push between Labor Day and Election Day in November, Chauncey McLean, the group’s president, said at a forum hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics this week.