Vice President Kamala Harris‘s closing argument before next Tuesday’s election is more about Donald Trump than it is about herself as she uses a speech at the Ellipse to underscore the contrast between herself and the former president.
As voters repeatedly tell pollsters their top concern is the economy, Harris is emphasizing the risk Trump poses to democracy, in addition to abortion access, as the former president adopts a similar strategy with respect to the vice president regarding immigration a week before polls close.
Against the backdrop of the White House, Harris is expected to make her closing argument in a speech before a crowd of 20,000 at the Ellipse, the park south of the executive mansion and north of the National Mall, on Tuesday evening, the same place Trump rallied his supporters on Jan. 6 before some of them ransacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results.
Harris’s democracy argument is a return to former President Joe Biden‘s central campaign message that was criticized by Biden’s detractors and quickly repackaged as “joy” and “freedom” this summer when the vice president replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Despite the dark rhetoric before and after Jan. 6, the Harris campaign said that her speech will project optimism and hope and be about the future, not the past, as she promises to prioritize the country and common ground, not the Democratic Party or herself. She will also pledge to represent a new vision and generation of leadership compared to Trump.
But with almost 45 million people having already cast their ballots and an increasingly small number of undecided voters, polling indicates Harris should amplify the likes of former White House chief of staff John Kelly’s comments that Trump fits the definition of a fascist and her economic, immigration, Social Security, and Medicare policies.
For example, Blueprint, a Democratic polling firm, found that Kelly’s comments have resonated with battleground state voters, but that they also wanted to learn more about Harris’s positions related to the economy and entitlement programs.
“Harris’s winning closing message with undecided and swing state voters?” Blueprint wrote in a memo on Monday. “Real talk on addressing prices, protecting Social Security and Medicare, taxing the wealthiest Americans, taking on big corporations, and emphasizing the buy-in her campaign has from business leaders like Mark Cuban.”
To that end, complementing outreach to voters who are exhausted or frustrated by Trump, the Harris campaign is adamant that the vice president will also discuss her proposals to lower costs and her agenda for the middle class, another approach that is different from Biden, who tends to promote his administration‘s low unemployment rate.
Regardless, Brookings Institution’s former vice president and director of governance studies Darrell West contended Harris’s closing argument is about democracy and abortion, while Trump’s is about immigration.
“Only around 5% of American voters are undecided so the presidential candidates have to make arguments that are persuasive with those individuals,” West told the Washington Examiner.
Democrats, including strategist Garry South, assert Harris’s return to the democracy argument is even more relevant after Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend. In New York City, Trump’s closing argument was overshadowed by his event’s pre-program, with speakers, among other memorable moments, describing Harris as “the antichrist,” her aides as “pimp handlers,” and Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“Trump’s rally at MSG was a s***show — racist, sexist, crude, and disqualifying for any other candidate,” South told the Washington Examiner. “All the macho Hulk Hogan crap that Trump is projecting to try to peel off black and Latino males clearly isn’t working — and it’s repelling women big time.”
Republican strategist Cesar Conda countered that the Madison Square Garden rally criticism is “nothing more than a distraction from the actual issues that impact Americans on a day-to-day basis, including inflation and the dismal Biden-Harris economy.”
“Former President Trump served for four years so all the fearmongering that he is a threat to democracy is nothing more than an empty talking point,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “The American people are smart and they will see through the noise to vote for the candidate that will make their lives better.”
Some Democrats are worried Harris’s appeals to Republicans who do not like Trump with her democracy argument come at the expense of more liberal members of her own party. But Paul Henderson, Harris’s former prosecution chief when she was San Francisco’s district attorney, welcomed them.
“From Harris, I want to hear more about how a growing tide of independent and Republican voters is awakening to cross party lines and vote for democracy,” Henderson told the Washington Examiner. “The future of our country is at stake in this election, and now is the time for us to unify for the singular voice of reason, the rule of law, and unity to support the Democratic candidate.”
Meanwhile, Republican strategist Alex Conant dismissed the importance of Harris’s Ellipse speech because “both campaigns are effectively turnout operations right now” for their respective bases.
“Since they’re really not trying to persuade undecided voters any longer, they’re mostly just talking past each other,” Conant told the Washington Examiner.
For Duf Sundheim, another Republican strategist but one who will never vote for Trump, there is “consensus we have serious problems that require strong presidential leadership” and that Trump “is a strong leader,” but “many are gravely concerned about where he will lead us.”
“There also is consensus Harris has failed to show she will be a strong leader,” Sundheim told the Washington Examiner. “What is unknown at this point is whether she will win without such a dramatic shift because of the concerns as to where Trump wants to take us. Or if it is too late for such a shift to prevent a Trump victory.”
The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee are arguing that Harris’s closing argument is the one that is “a message of fear, retribution, and looking backward after ignoring the will of millions of primary voters to become the Democrat Party nominee and weaponizing our justice system.”
“President Trump’s closing message is about fixing the economy, border invasion, and national security crises that Kamala Harris created, and he will be spreading his forward-looking agenda across the battleground states for the next nine days,” RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner.
Harris previewed her speech Monday before boarding Air Force Two for campaign stops in Michigan at Corning’s facility in Saginaw and a union training facility in Macomb County ahead of a rally with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Maggie Rogers at Ann Arbor.
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“As I’ve said many times, I’ll say [Tuesday] night in my speech, there’s a big difference between he and I,” she said. “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’m elected president of the United States, which I fully intend to be, I will be working on the behalf of the American people on my to do list.”
After her speech, Harris is scheduled to campaign in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Thursday, as well as Arizona and Nevada on Friday.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
