WASHINGTON (AP) – United States (US) Vice President Kamala Harris will pledge to Americans that she’ll work to improve their lives while Republican Donald Trump is only in it for himself as she delivers her campaign’s closing argument from the same site where the former president fomented the Capitol insurrection in 2021.
One week out from Election Day, Harris’ address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House is designed to encourage Americans to visualise their alternate futures if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office in less than three months.
She hopes to sharpen that contrast by delivering her capstone speech from the place where Trump on January 6, 2021, spewed falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election that inspired a crowd to march to the Capitol and try unsuccessfully to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and the sealing of his own defeat.
With time running out and the race razor-tight, Harris and Trump both have been looking for big moments to try to shift the momentum one way or the other. But after her speech in the nation’s capital, Harris will be back to furiously scouring for votes one rally and one event after another in the battleground states.
Yesterday, aides said, Harris aims to look beyond the startling imagery of her location on the Ellipse to make a broader case for voters to reject Trump and consider what she offers.
“There’s a big difference between he and I,” Harris told reporters on Monday in previewing her speech. “If he were elected, on day one he’s going to sit in the Oval Office working on his enemies list. On day one, if I am elected, which I fully expect to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.”
Campaign aides stressed that she will not be delivering a treatise on democracy – a staple of President Biden’s own attempts to draw a contrast with Trump. But her campaign is hoping the setting will help catch the attention of battleground state voters who remain on the fence about whom to vote for – or whether to vote at all.
It comes days after Harris traveled to Texas, a reliably Republican state, to appear with megastar Beyoncé and emphasise the consequences for women after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. That, too, was a speech meant to register with voters far away in the battleground states.
The vice president’s latest address has been in the works for weeks. But aides hoped her message would land with more impact after Trump’s rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers hurled cruel insults. Harris said the event “highlighted the point that I’ve been making throughout this campaign”.
“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country,” she said. Harris was expected to use her speech to lay out a pragmatic and forward-looking plan for the country, including reminding voters about her economic proposals and pledging to staunchly work for access to reproductive care.
Also central to her message: positioning herself as a “new generation” of leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden.
As for Trump, she said on Monday, “People are literally ready to turn the page. They’re tired of it.”
Harris’ aides, many of whom also advised Biden’s campaign before he dropped out, still believe that centering the race on who Trump is and how she’s different will be their strongest message for voters.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said it was important for battleground voters to be reminded of the consequences of their choice this fall and for Harris “to really drive home the stakes of this election and the clear contrast in the race”.
He said Harris had the stronger argument on economic policies, reproductive freedom and the matter of chaos vs order, adding that she “has a vision that’s going to bring more order and more hopefulness and more joy”.
Meanwhile, Trump used planned remarks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida yesterday to attempt to preemptively rebut Harris’ speech, according to a person familiar with the matter.
