Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, will be in Falmouth on Wednesday for a fundraiser for the Maine Democratic Party.
The event was scheduled before President Joe Biden left the November election against former President Donald Trump, putting Harris in a strong position to lock down enough Biden delegates to replace him on the ballot ahead of next month’s Democratic National Convention next month.
Emhoff will appear at the home of Taylor and Becca Asen in Falmouth, according to an invitation obtained by the Bangor Daily News. Taylor Asen’s brother, Jonathan, is a political strategist who has been working with the Biden campaign. Among the members of the host committee are former U.S. Rep. Tom Allen of the 1st District and state Sen. Teresa Pierce of Falmouth and Rep. Drew Gattine of Westbrook.
The event was scheduled before Biden’s stunning decision to leave the race amid swirling concerns about his age and ability to campaign following a bad June debate performance against Trump. The president endorsed Harris as his successor on the ticket.
On Monday, an Associated Press count confirmed that she had quickly locked down enough delegates previously pledged to Biden to win the nomination, including all of the delegates from Maine. Her campaign reported raising $81 million after the president’s announcement, a record sum within 24 hours that gave life to a flagging campaign.
She enters as a slight underdog to Trump, who has led Biden throughout the campaign despite May convictions on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York. He faces further legal jeopardy on federal charges alleging that he illegally hoarded top-secret records and conspired to undo his 2020 loss to Biden.
During brief remarks, Harris nodded to Trump’s background while noting her past as a prosecutor in California: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris said, adding, “I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Trump formally won the Republican nomination at the national convention last week, where he picked Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate. At an Ohio rally on Monday, Vance looked to turn Democratic criticism of Trump’s false insistence that he actually won the 2020 election back on Biden and his party.
“The idea of selecting the Democrat Party’s nominee because George Soros and Barack Obama and a couple of elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard, that is not how it works,” Vance said Monday. “That is a threat to democracy.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Correction: The fundraiser is being hosted by Taylor and Becca Asen. An earlier version of this story misnamed the hosts.