As Vice President Kamala Harris’ aides mulled where to hold her campaign’s last big speech, they had a few boxes to check.
The location, they believed, must convey a degree of gravity about the choice before voters. But equally important, in their opinion, was her ability to evoke the promise of the position she seeks.
At the Ellipse — the piece of public park where Donald Trump gathered his supporters on January 6, 2021, overlooking the White House — they believe they have found that balance.
For Harris, striking a balance between dire warnings about a rival she calls a fascist and forward-looking optimism about the president she would be has become a defining challenge of the campaign’s final stretch.
Tuesday’s high-profile speech is one of the last remaining opportunities for the vice president to try to reach a critical segment of the electorate known within the campaign as “conflicted voters,” aides said, or those who may have concerns about his conduct. of Trump, but who are still not convinced that Harris is a candidate for change who can get the country back on track.
While it’s hard to imagine a speech moving the needle, aides said, it is also intended to draw a clear contrast to Trump’s controversial rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night. That was not the original intent of Harris’ keynote address, aides said, but they believe it serves as a timely rebuttal.
“It will crystallize many of the main arguments she started with,” according to a source familiar with Harris’ speech, citing reproductive freedom and its structuring of what she calls the “opportunity economy.”
Despite the somber tones of the setting – it’s where Trump told his supporters to march to the Capitol on January 6; many did, causing destruction and death — Harris’ aides say the speech will be hopeful and optimistic, and not focused exclusively on the events that unfolded there nearly four years ago.
If there’s one lesson from that day she wants to drive home, it’s that her own victory would turn the page on Trump’s division, according to aides.
With the office she is trying to fill in the background, the setting offers Harris an opportunity to describe her plans for the country, particularly on the economy, the top issue for voters.
In the final week of the campaign, the speech is not intended to cover entirely new ground, aides said, but rather to frame the stakes of the race and highlight the deep contrast between Harris and Trump.
Staying at the Ellipse, aides said, will allow Harris to bring familiar arguments about democracy to life in a setting that explicitly highlights the lengths to which Trump and his allies went to try to overturn the 2020 election. The venue will also highlight how she believes a second term could be worse, they said.
“As I have said many times and will say tomorrow night in my speech, there is a big difference between him and me. If he were elected on day one, he would be sitting in the Oval Office working on his enemies list,” Harris said Monday. “On day one, if I am elected president of the United States, which I intend to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.”
Preparations were underway Monday ahead of the speech, including installing a tall black fence to create a secure perimeter around the Ellipse.
A permit for the event showed about 20,000 people were expected, with spillovers onto the National Mall — his first major outdoor campaign speech in Washington. Most of Harris’s big rallies this year have been in arenas or stadiums in swing states.
The vice president worked on her remarks while traveling to Michigan on Monday for three campaign stops, aides said, working on final drafts of one of the biggest speeches since the Democratic convention. She is also expected to address the economy, lowering the cost of prescription drugs and her broader middle-class agenda, though the sharpest contrasts will likely come over Trump’s character.
In some ways, this harkens back to Harris’ comments at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, the day after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, making Tuesday’s speech something of a wrap-up to her extraordinarily truncated campaign.
“All of this is to say that building the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said at the time. “Because here we know that when our middle class is strong, America is strong.”
Aides compared Tuesday’s speech to the closing arguments Harris delivered as a prosecutor early in her career. After presenting evidence to a jury — in this case, voters — she hopes to unite the various points into a single case for herself.
She has not been short on advice. As they have been since Biden was the party’s standard-bearer, Democrats are somewhat divided over how much to emphasize Trump’s character and perceived danger to democracy versus focusing more narrowly on pocketbook issues.
Last week, the main independent funding group supporting Harris’ candidacy raised concerns that the Harris campaign was centering too much of its closing message on calling Trump a fascist.
“This topic is not as persuasive as the contrast messages featuring Harris’s economic plans and her pledge to protect reproductive rights,” the group warned in an email to Democrats about messaging in the final stretch of the campaign.
Still, Harris’ advisers believe there are moderates who will be swayed by ties between Trump and fascism, particularly when raised by her former top adviser, John Kelly.
More broadly, Harris’ team sees the final days of the campaign as a time to tap into the widespread exhaustion and frustration with Trump’s chaotic brand of politics, not only highlighting the turmoil but also offering a clear alternative.
From the moment Harris ascended to the top of the ticket in July, her campaign has worked to capitalize on the trappings of the office — and the power of a strong image — to help voters see her as presidential and take the historic step of electing the first woman commander-in-chief.
The sweeping backdrop of the White House and National Mall was designed for maximum effect a week before the final day of voting. It’s somewhat analogous to an August rally in Detroit, where Harris spoke to thousands against the majestic backdrop of Air Force Two.
The primetime speech at the Ellipse comes amid growing anxiety among some about how much time Harris is devoting to disqualifying Trump compared to what she would do if elected. Tuesday night’s speech, aides told CNN aims to be a balance between the two messages.
“We can’t afford to just talk about what she would do as president,” said a top Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategic decisions. “We can’t pretend this is an ordinary election.”
This content was originally published in Harris hopes to evoke Trump’s chaos and extol promises in final speech on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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