WASHINGTON, D.C. – American flags waving, USA signs in hand, snacking on Pop-Tarts and cotton candy, thousands and thousands of Kamala Harris supporters squeezed into the Ellipse to see the vice president make her final pitch for the White House.
The joy was high. But even at a high-energy, packed rally, some of Harris’s supporters expressed a sense of nervousness about what would happen Nov. 5 and beyond.
“I’m very nervous honestly. I think Trump might win. I don’t know,” one female student from Maryland told the Daily Caller as her friend nodded in agreement. The Caller granted anonymity to the Harris supporters so they could speak freely about their thoughts.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a campaign rally where she delivered a “closing argument” on the Ellipse on October 29, 2024 in Washington, DC. The location on the National Mall is the same spot where Donald Trump addressed supporters before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Craig Hudson /For the Washington Post)
Another rally goer, a woman from Maryland in the travel industry, remarked that the Harris event was very joyful, but she felt anxiety over the vice president’s chances.
“I am confident that she will get the popular vote but I am worried about the electoral college,” she told the Caller. “The electoral college does not go with the American people.”
Across a majority of polls, both nationally and in swing states, Harris and Donald Trump have been locked neck-and-neck. The vice president rode a honeymoon wave into the Democratic National Convention this summer, helped by dodging media interviews for the first month of her campaign.
But as pressure from the media built up, Harris eventually began to do more press. Some repeated lines and non-answers began to quell her momentum, and the Trump campaign started to surge back.
The two female Maryland students the Caller spoke to said they believed the media’s coverage of Harris had been unfair compared to Trump, which they think could be hurting Harris’s chances. They added they were nervous people may not elect Harris because she is a woman.
“I think there is a lot of misogyny, I don’t think people want to see a woman as president,” one of the students told the Caller.
We have an opportunity to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other.
America, that is not who we are. It is time for a new generation of leadership. pic.twitter.com/iTfcnTCOJh
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 30, 2024
The vice president took the stage shortly after 7:30 p.m., speaking for just over thirty minutes to a crowd that extended up the National Mall. Harris capitalized on the location of her rally, the Ellipse, where Trump addressed his supporters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. She called the former president a “petty tyrant” that is “obsessed with revenge,” alleging that he would use the military against his enemies if elected to the White House. (RELATED: Harris Completes Pivot To Failed ‘Democracy’ Message With Speech At J6 Site)
While Harris was on stage, Biden, sitting in her backdrop in the White House, was igniting a firestorm.
The president attended a get-out-the-vote call on Tuesday hosted by Voto Latino where he responded to a joke made by comic Tony Hinchcliffe. During Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally over the weekend, Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” The president called Trump a “failed businessman” with “no character” before saying the only garbage “floating out there is his supporters.”
“Biden may have done some pretty significant harm [to the Harris campaign],” CNN’s Abby Phillip admitted Wednesday.
The backlash forced Harris to address the situation first thing this morning.
“Listen, I think that first of all, he clarified his comments. Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” the vice president began.
“You heard my speech last night and continuously throughout my career. I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not, and as president of the United States I will be a president for all Americans whether you vote for me or not. I have that responsibility and that’s the kind of work I’ve done my entire career and I take it very seriously,” she continued.
Harris’s biggest fans aren’t the only ones worried about the vice president’s chances. Top Democrats are too, and some are even beginning to discuss who to blame if Trump wins, Axios reported Friday.
What it will come down to, another Harris supporter said, is the media coverage of the vice president, despite her belief that she is very qualified for the job.
“I guess it’s the way the media [has treated her] and I don’t think they are treating her on the same level they are treating Trump,” Michelle Cole, a retired investment banker from New Jersey, told the Caller.
“I don’t know. I’m nervous,” she said.