Presidential campaign: Kamala Harris promises to embody “a future full of promise”

With behind her the illuminated columns of the White House standing out in the night, like a metaphor for this bright future that she claims to embody, Kamala Harris promised Tuesday to write a “new chapter”, while delivering a severe indictment against Donald Trump.

One week before perhaps the most indecisive and tense election in the history of the United States, the Democratic vice-president portrayed the former Republican president in the darkest terms, as an “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by resentment and in search of limitless power.

Everything in this highly anticipated speech was about contrast. The place, already: tens of thousands of people – 75,000 according to his campaign team – gathered in Washington, where the Republican candidate had addressed his supporters on January 6, 2021, before they set off to attack the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of the election won by Joe Biden.

Muted fear of violence

The rhetoric, then: Kamala Harris tried to paint an optimistic and peaceful vision for the world’s leading power, “big enough to contain all our dreams, strong enough to resist fractures and divisions, fearless enough to imagine a future full of promise .”

When Donald Trump projects a dark vision of a country in decline, according to him invaded by migrants, the vice-president launched: “Let’s fight for this beautiful country, and in seven days, we will have power. Each of you has the power to turn the page and write the next chapter of the most extraordinary story ever told.”

This electoral campaign, full of unprecedented twists and turns, is taking place in an atmosphere of extreme tension and a silent fear of violence, while Donald Trump has been targeted by two assassination attempts.

Early voting

For the vice-president’s supporters, this Washington meeting is “a way of purging what happened on January 6,” 2021, confides Mitzi Maxwell, 69, who came from Florida with her mother in search of “love, passion and enthusiasm.” She has already voted, like more than 50 million Americans who submitted their ballots by mail or by voting in advance without waiting for November 5.

In 2020, a total of around 160 million people voted. The vice-president, who arrived late in the race after the withdrawal of Joe Biden in the summer, is counting on this solemn address to relaunch herself, whom the Americans do not yet know very well, and whom many equate with the unpopular current president .

Kamala Harris assured that in the event of victory, she would pursue a “different” policy, focusing on the “cost of living”, with aid for housing and access to health, in particular. She also promised to restore federal protection of the right to abortion, dynamited in 2022 by the Supreme Court, which had become very conservative after the appointments of judges by Donald Trump.

Equal play

The two candidates, who are completely opposed, are equal in the polls, particularly in the seven decisive states that the 60-year-old Democratic candidate and her rival are campaigning tirelessly. Donald Trump also visited one of them on Tuesday: Pennsylvania.

The state is home to a large Puerto Rican community, many of whose members say they are outraged after a comedian compared Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage” this weekend during a Donald Trump rally in New York .

Her rival is counting on the outcry to grab a few precious votes, in an indirect vote which could be decided by a hair in one of the “swing states”: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

In Pennsylvania, the billionaire resumed his violent criticism of immigration on Tuesday, repeating that the United States had become a “trash can” because of an influx of migrants. And said: “No one can want that. How to win an election with that? You can only win by cheating, with this situation.” Enough to further fuel fears of a repeat of the chaos of four years ago.

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