2 weeks Ago By Da Lin
With a little over a week left to the general election, Bay Area Republicans and Democrats are working hard to earn votes for the presidential and congressional races. There's a lot of phone banking made from the Bay Area to those swing states. But one Oakland woman is going one step further.
Tamila Gresham flew out to Arizona three months ago so she could campaign for Kamala Harris by winning over undecided voters. She's staying with her mother who lives in the swing state. "When you get a person face-to-face, you can have that conversation with them, right? Hear what their concerns are, give them more information, and then talk to them about your own personal experience," said Gresham.
Gresham said she can explain to voters why Harris would be the right choice. She worked with Harris when Harris was the California attorney general. "Yesterday has been the only day that I've been canvassing that it was less than 100 degrees.
And so sometimes we'll get out there at 9 a.m., and it's already 103 (degrees)," said Gresham.
"California has made me a little soft. I'm not used to this heat." Gresham estimated she and her mom knocked on hundreds of doors in areas south of Phoenix and talked to many voters since August.
President Joe Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020. That's why Republican volunteers are also working hard to win votes for Donald Trump there. "We want to make sure all of those Republicans get out to vote and they vote for Donald Trump," said Jason Clark, the Bay Area Regional Cice Chairman for the California Republican Party.
Clark worked for the Trump administration in 2018. He said Bay Area volunteers are calling undecided and Republican voters to make sure they go to the polls. In a tight race, Clark said it's about which party can get the highest turnout.
"It's all hands on deck. Everybody is going out. We're not taking any race or any vote for granted.
So even here in very deep blue San Francisco, our candidates are out canvassing and talking to voters," said Clark. It's a full-court press from both parties all the way up to election day. Gresham said all the sweat and tears will be worth it come Nov.
5. "The day that we knew it was going to be Kamala, my mom called me and she said, 'We've got a chance to make a Black woman the president of the United States' and to be able to spend this time working with my mom to make that a reality, there's nothing better than that," said Gresham. Gresham's job allows her to work from remote locations.
She plans to fly back to Oakland after the election..
