With just one week before Election Day, U.S Vice President, Kamala Harris is scheduled to give her closing argument speech later today, October 29, 2024, at the Ellipse in Washington DC.
She is expected to deliver a hopeful and optimistic message that’s focused on moving forward.
The National Park Service said that it is expecting about 40,000 people in attendance for Harris’ speech.
The Harris campaign described the remarks as a major address that will underline the Vice President’s closing message, in a location she hopes will remind voters precisely why the electorate denied Trump a second term four years ago.
She is expected to cast Trump as a divisive figure who will spend his term consumed by vengeance, leveraging the power of the presidency against his political enemies rather than in service of the American people.
Campaign Chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters in a call previewing the speech that Harris will lay out her vision for the presidency to underscore the “gravity” of the choice before Americans this November.
O’Malley Dillon said that the speech is dedicated to reaching voters who have yet to make up their minds- or aren’t sure they will vote – young people, those who haven’t tuned in and suburban women, and independents.
O’Malley Dillon noted that Trump’s rhetoric in the final weeks and especially his Madison Square Garden rally appears to have created even more openings for the campaign to reach these voters. Support among their targeted Puerto Rican voters is growing. “We know that there are still a lot of voters out there that are still trying to decide who to support or whether to vote at all,” O’Malley Dillon said.
Also, Campaign Co-Chair, Cedric Richmond said that Harris, a former Prosecutor, will lay out the speech as she would a closing argument, with the American people as the jury.
Richmond said Harris will use the speech, from a site where Trump spoke to his supporters before they stormed the Capitol on January 6, to remind Americans that the former President is “so all-consumed by his grievances and his power and his endless desire for revenge that he is not focused on the needs of the American people.”
Harris is also expected to lay out her personal story and her vision for building up the economy and working across party lines to serve all Americans– including, in contrast to Trump, she will argue, those who did not support her.
Harris To Balance The Existential And The Economic
In her remarks, Harris will attempt to balance the existential and the economic – focusing on the threat Trump poses to American institutions while weaving in the Democrat’s plans to bring down costs and build up the middle class.
She is expected to cast Trump as a tool of the billionaire class who would eliminate what is left of abortion access and stand in the way of bipartisan compromise when it does not suit him politically.
Polls consistently show the economy and the cost of living are the issues most important to voters this election. Protecting democracy tends to be a higher priority for Democrats and voters planning to support Harris.
In the final stretch of the campaign, Harris has emphasized the breadth of her coalition, especially her endorsements from a slew of former Trump administration officials and conservative Republicans such as Liz Cheney and her father, the former vice-president, Dick Cheney.
According to the Harris campaign, the Vice President will do five interviews ahead of her Closing Argument speech.
The interviews will include four battleground state television interviews to reach voters in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, as well as a Spanish radio interview with Rumba in Pennsylvania
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