Page 81 of 107 Days
I woke up on Halloween morning at the Edgewater hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, ready for my final swing west. Because I’d had to cut short my time in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada to work on Hurricane Helene, I had ground to make up and precious little time to do it.
This was going to be a big day: from Madison, we would fly to Phoenix, Reno, and then Las Vegas.
I did a short press conference in the hotel to comment on Trump’s remarks that he was going to protect women “whether they like it or not.”
To me, it was just one more revealing example of his demeaning view of women and his willingness to strip them of any agency. “He does not prioritize the freedom of women and the intelligence of women to make decisions about their own lives and bodies.”
One of the reporters asked me if I thought it was an attempt to position himself in a hypermasculine way, like surrounding himself with UFC fighters. I said I thought his language was offensive to everyone, male and female.
Male voters were on my mind that day. Once we boarded Air Force Two, I got on the line with D.
L. Hughley for his radio show. Ever since his appearance at the convention, he’d been using his microphone to argue my case in his own take-no-prisoners style.
He had the most direct reply to the question of why I hadn’t already done the things I now promised to do.
“One of the things I’m gonna knock out of the way: Where was she for four years?
Dumbass question, don’t ask it. She wasn’t the president. ”
Hughley was exceptionally good at decoding Trump’s disparagement of cities such as Detroit, Aurora, and Springfield, all of which have large Black populations.
He wanted to show his audience how Trump attempted to manipulate them by giving them somebody to blame and to look down on: immigrants—“Venezuelan gangs that do not exist, Haitians in Springfield.”
He praised the way I came up with my plans for small businesses and for targeted health initiatives that would particularly help Black men. “You listened to Black men. It’s the plan we wrote, and you coauthored it.”
As soon as that interview was done, I had my daily check-in with Sheila, JOD, and Lorraine.
Lorraine was anxious to work on transition planning, one of the matters that I had to find time for, even on the busiest campaign days.
It would have been malpractice to neglect this in such a tight race, and I’d started back in September.
I had memos to consider on key positions and forms to keep track of decisions I’d made and ones still pending.
These would have a name suggested for the position and boxes for me to check: yes, no, maybe.
I’d selected the person I would want for White House chief of staff back in early October, and he had agreed to take the position if I were elected.
Denis McDonough had been Barack Obama’s chief of staff in his second term, chief of staff at the National Security Council before that, and had served as secretary of veterans affairs in our administration. I swore him in to that office.
One of the first public events I did as VP was with Denis.
It was the height of Covid. He and his wife, Karin, and Doug and I took heart-shaped cookies to the nurses at the VA hospital on Valentine’s Day.
The son of Irish immigrants, one of eleven children, he taught school in Belize before coming to work in government.
He is a deeply caring man who doesn’t mince words.
I knew he would run a productive and disciplined West Wing.
My Phoenix event had been facilitated by Sergio Gonzales, who had handled Latino outreach and immigration policy in my Senate office.
At the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, the pioneering band Los Tigres del Norte struck up one of their signature corridos, telling of the lives of immigrant workers, their battles with racism, and the struggles of daily life.
Chrisette, once again, had traveled from her home to campaign with me.
On the plane from Phoenix to Reno, she looked at me, concerned.
“Your shoulders are up by your ears,” she said.
She had brought treats she knew I loved, a goodie basket from her favorite cheese shop.
She looked astonished when I scolded her: “You have to stop being nice to me!” At that point in the campaign, I was in fight mode, and I needed to stay there.
I couldn’t let down my guard, couldn’t take off my armor.
If I unclenched, if I remembered what it was like to be normal, I might not be in shape to handle the next blow.
And there was too much at stake to risk that.
The last days of the campaign became increasingly kinetic. The team constantly watched the swing states’ local data: Where are we gaining, losing? What assets can we move from here to there? Where would an ad spend move the needle most?
I was no longer in these meetings. My presence in front of voters, either at a giant rally or on a dozen small-market local radio shows, was the prime commodity of the campaign. If I could have been everywhere, I would have been. But I was determined to get in front of as many people as I could.
The last place I should be spending my time was at meetings with staff. I relied on them to make the calls and tell me what I needed to know.
So when my motorcade sped by the Las Vegas Sphere, the huge music venue east of the Strip, it was the first time I absorbed the fact that we’d just created the biggest election ad in history and put it on the largest screen in the world.
I’d surprised Doug and taken him to the Sphere just after it opened in September 2023. One of our favorite bands, U2, was performing. The band had been told of my ruse and had mistakenly conceived the idea that it was Doug’s birthday, so they sang “Happy Birthday” to him from the stage.
I recall being impressed and a little overwhelmed by the magical, ever-changing visuals inside the Sphere, and thinking, I hope the ticket warns people not to come in here on stimulants. They sure don’t need them.
Thirteen months later, I didn’t have time for wonderment.
My focus was on what I had to do: the meet and greets with Jennifer Lopez and the Mexican rock group Maná and with the elected officials; my speech; the rope line after.
I needed to bring the same energy to the day’s third rally as I’d brought to the first.
As we drove past the Sphere, I glimpsed my face—far bigger than I’d ever imagined—in the rearview mirror as we sped on.