HOUSTON ‒ Reading specialist Monique Macnamara delayed her return home to hear directly from the woman she hopes will be the next U.S. president: Kamala Harris.
Harris, the current vice president and, as of Sunday, the Democratic Party's frontrunner for presidential nominee, spoke here Thursday morning to the annual meeting of the 1.8-million member American Federation of Teachers. And instead of flying home to Pennsylvania, Macnamara was there to listen. To get excited. To get motivated.
Macnamara, of Punxsutawney, Penn., was always going to support the party's nominee. But she worried President Joe Biden was going to lose to Republican challenger Donald Trump this fall. And she knew her heart wasn't in his campaign.
"There would have been that little voice in the back of my mind saying, 'what am I doing this for?’ because I just didn’t see a path forward,” Macnamara said.
That all changed for Macnamara on Sunday when Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris. The AFT was the first major union to endorse Harris.
“It’s just going to motivate me to put more and more hours in,” Macnamara said.
Liberal activists are counting on that abrupt, joyous shift in energy around Harris's candidacy to reshape the presidential election. In particular, women's groups say they're planning a major push to support Harris.
Public-school teachers ‒ overwhelmingly women and often Democrats ‒ may play a key role in boosting Harris' presidential bid. While teachers have long been a key bloc for Democrats, teachers are uniquely positioned to influence the young voters whose votes Harris needs to win.
Over the past six months, dozens of young, liberal-leaningvoters have told USA TODAY they were reluctant to support Biden because they didn’t see him as significantly different than Trump.
Many said they would withhold their votes if the election was Biden vs. Trump for the second time, and that sentiment has been reflected in polls. Biden won the White House in 2020 in part due to a groundswell of youth voting that was absent in 2016, when Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
At the AFT's annual conference, Harris' entrance into the race has buoyed the spirits of teachers and educators who suddenly see Democrats with a chance to keep the White House, and AFT members say they're stepping up. About 77% of public school teachers are women, and Harris received multiple standing ovations during her 20-minute speech Thursday.
Harris' candidacy prompted Minnesota-based union organizer Ilissa Morrow to make her first-ever donation to a presidential campaign.
"As a Black woman in education, this is the pinnacle for me," Morrow told USA TODAY as she waited for Harris to speak.
Treneece Dortch, who works at a community college in Detroit, is ready to volunteer for Harris’ campaign, the first time she’s done something like that.
“She’s going to have so many people behind her,” Dortch said.
Joy Bacon, a high school English teacher from Baltimore, was riding a bus to the conference on Sunday when she heard Harris was replacing Biden. She's cautiously optimistic that Harris has what it takes to win, and said that while she doesn’t normally get involved in top of the ticket races, she now could see herself knocking on doors or volunteering.
"It's exciting to be for something instead of just against something," Bacon said. "I'm more willing to fight for this."
Several new polls suggest Harris has pulled even with Trump, reversing the slide that Biden's popularity had taken in recent months.
"Yes, we must vote, but we must do more. In this world of 'alternative facts,' and disinformation, your voice and your activism are essential," AFT President Randi Weingarten told union members Monday in her convention keynote. "You are trusted, you are beloved ‒ because you make a difference in the lives of others. Talk to your co-workers. Talk to your neighbors. Knock on doors. Write postcards. Put out the lawn sign and slap on the bumper sticker. No one can do everything, but we can all do something. We can't risk regretting that we didn’t do more."
More than 44,000 women joined a nationwide pro-Harris video call Sunday, organized by the #WinWithBlackWomen group, and white women planned to hold a similar call Thursday night. Polls show college-educated women voters, especially Black or Hispanic women, are more likely to support Democrats.
Trump and the Republican Party have been harshly critical of the AFT and Weingarten, in part over the union's opposition to reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The GOP's 2024 party platform adopted earlier this month at the Republican National Committee's convention in Milwaukee also calls for conservatives to "defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children."
Trump and his allies have also pushed for more public funding for private and religious schools, consequently diminishing the power of unions like the AFT. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump mentioned education only once, to insist that "patriotism" be taught to students.
At the AFT convention, teachers said they draw clear distinctions between nonpartisan efforts at school to get their students to vote, and their plans to campaign for Harris on their own time.
While teachers shouldn’t share their own political views, New York state educator Susannah Blum said she used to host mock elections to help students decide who to support. And this weekend, she made sure to call her own nieces, 18 and 20, to urge them to participate.
"I said, 'I hope you both are registered right now and if you aren't, make sure you are and just vote,'" said Blum, a special education speech therapist.
