Why has Harris spent so much time – and money – in Republican heartland state Texas?
Residents of 50 American states will descend on polling stations in just eight days, but few are as interesting as Texas.
The state, worth 40 electoral votes, is an important battleground for any candidate to target – even with its history of voting Republican.
In fact, it hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1976 – when the state chose Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford.
On top of the history, Donald Trump currently holds a comfortable lead over Kamala Harris in the Lone Star State.
All of this points to Ms Harris perhaps focusing her attention elsewhere, but that’s not put her off visiting the state – and in style.
She’s not under any illusion that she could win Texas, but the state allows her to bring key talking to the forefront.
She brought Houston-born pop megastar Beyonce out in her recent rally in the state’s capital – with speeches focusing on one of the major issues that has defined local and national politics in Texas and the US in recent years: abortion.
Ms Harris told reporters ahead of that rally that she came to Houston to “highlight that sadly, the elected leaders of Texas… have made [it] ground zero in this fundamental fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body”.
It’s notable that the crowd at this rally was the largest Ms Harris has been able to draw since taking over as candidate, with 30,000 Texans in attendance.
She’s also spent money appealing to voters there.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent approximately $13m on television advertising in the Senate race so far and announced that it was sending another $5m, according to Politico.
Spending falls into the wider strategy, however, of Democrats looking to highlight personal stories to show the impact of abortion being almost entirely banned in 16 states.
Ahead of the Houston trip, the Harris campaign released an ad featuring a Texas woman who was denied an emergency abortion when her water broke at 16 weeks in 2022 and who then almost died of sepsis.
Some seven million women of reproductive age live in Texas, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, while an analysis by JAMA Paediatrics found that Texas had a larger increase in infant mortality than the rest of the US after enforcing the abortion ban.
Watch: ‘Your freedom is your human right,’ Beyonce says
Ms Harris’s presence in the state has an additional aim.
She looked to push Democrat Senate candidate Colin Allred, who is locked in a tie with two-term incumbent GOP Senator Ted Cruz, up in the polls.
“When Texans vote for Colin Allred for United States Senate, we will be in a position where we actually will be closer to being able to put back in place the protection of the Roe v Wade,” she said.
It’s one of the closest Senate races nationally for some time, so every candidate with a chance of winning their individual races has been well-funded and robustly backed by Democrat heavyweights.
Republicans clearly feel nervous about the very real possibility of Mr Cruz losing his Senate position, with Mr Trump consistently backing him at rallies and online.
Earlier this month the former president wrote: “While I have endorsed Ted on numerous occasions verbally, because of the importance of the race and Ted’s importance to the future of our country, I thought the endorsement should be memorialised in writing.”
The need for that post, with that wording, somewhat speaks to the feeling in the GOP camp that Mr Cruz could be about to fumble what has been a safe seat for them.
On the flip side, Mr Allred has performed well in debates against Mr Cruz, consistently held his ground in the polls and has grown a considerable social media presence – all of which has impressed Democrat donors and strategists.
By targeting Texas, Ms Harris has given herself a platform to talk about abortion, a crucial issue in this election, and support a candidate with a good chance of allowing the Democrats to keep a foothold in the Senate.
Time and money well spent?