Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the closing argument of her presidential campaign on Tuesday to a crowd of about 75,000 people. The event was held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the site of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s speech that incited the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Harris highlighted her plans on various issues, echoing the rhetoric she focused on throughout the campaign season.
“If elected, Donald Trump will walk into the Oval Office with an enemies list. If elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” Harris said.
Two experts reflected on the candidates’ speeches and whether they will affect the election’s outcome.
“I think it was her attempt to look presidential,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the USC Price School of Public Policy. “Every presidential candidate has to kind of meet that bar within the minds of voters.”
The choice to have the White House as the backdrop led Romero to reflect on Harris’ role in President Joe Biden’s administration.
“She has somewhat straddled a line in terms of associating herself with some of the positives of the Biden administration, and at other times trying to distance herself,” she said. “You have to assume President Biden is inside the White House, so it ties her that much closer in the minds of voters to the Biden administration.”
Harris’s speech was the subject of praise from many, especially following Trump’s controversial rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Trump’s event received widespread backlash following offensive comments made by guest speaker, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, about Puerto Rico.
“[Harris’ comment about the enemies list vs. the to-do list] suggests one of them is seeking the presidency for vengeance and recrimination and the other with an actual set of plans,” said Jim Newton, a lecturer in communication studies and public policy at UCLA, author and longtime Los Angeles-based journalist.
He added that Harris didn’t offer “much that was new, but reiterated the essence of her plans… All of that suggests that she’s got ideas to work with, and you don’t hear many from him.”
Trump’s speech did include some details of his agenda going forward, but he let the spectacle and scale of the event do most of the talking.
“Donald Trump’s whole rally spoke for him,” Romero said. “He does hit policy that matters to his voters and may matter to swing voters. He does talk about policy and he doesn’t get enough credit for that, but he does it in a very Trump way… sometimes it’s grievances with some policy mixed in and sometimes it’s policy with some grievances mixed in.”
The Trump campaign responded to Harris’s comments Tuesday night in a press release.
“Kamala Harris is lying, name-calling, and clinging to the past to avoid admitting the truth — the migrant crime crisis, sky-high inflation, and raging world wars are the result of her terrible policies,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary in the press release.
Whether or not either candidate’s final speech will make any difference is another matter. Newton said some voters may need a reminder of what the Trump presidency brought in 2016 and that Harris sent a message of contrast in hopes of swaying undecided voters in her direction.
“We’re talking about moving a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Georgia, so in that sense, I think it could [be effective],” said Newton, who is also the editor of Blueprint, a California and Los Angeles-based public affairs magazine.
Romero added, “Both campaigns have been fighting for two things: the small sliver of swing voters in swing states and trying to run up the numbers of their supporters — getting higher turnout of those that are already supporting them in swing states.”
Each campaign has taken its own approach in the closing month of the election season, and each approach has had its effect on the course of the election.
“My own view is that Trump is probably near his ceiling… it’s hard for me to see what he’s doing to broaden his appeal at this point,” Newton said. “It feels more like he’s settled on a strategy of consolidation and she’s still trying to expand, so she might have some more room for growth than he does at this point.”
In her speech, Harris made one final appeal to those on the fence. Romero said part of her approach is reintroducing herself to Americans unfamiliar with her leadership.
“When she talks about businesses, when she talks about her gun ownership, she’s trying to appeal to people who put her in a camp, including Donald Trump himself, as being very left and very different from them. She’s trying to appeal to what she says is this common ground,” Romero said. “Trump is a much more known entity… normally she would be the incumbent being the vice president, but she didn’t get the nomination that way… Trump is in many respects the incumbent.”
Due to the efforts of both campaigns, the polls are still predicting an incredibly close election.
“Nothing matters in the macro sense and everything matters in the micro sense,” Newton said. “I think if Trump’s speech affects the outcome, it’s more likely to hurt him, and if hers affects the outcome, it’s going to help her… anyone who tells you that they’ve got a clear sense of who’s going to win this election is either misreading the polls or just lying.”