Page 83 of 107 Days
Sheila, for one, didn’t believe it. “We’re not winning in Iowa,” she said.
But since the polling firm, Selzer & Company, was one of the most reputable, she suspected it was picking up something positive for us: perhaps a shift in the votes of suburban women, or perhaps Republican women moving to our corner.
In Nevada, Jon Ralston, considered an election oracle in his state, predicted we would squeak to victory in that tight race.
Some supporters became unreasonably euphoric. They wanted to believe these predictions, thinking that a shift in a conservative state such as Iowa might signal the chance of a landslide elsewhere.
I wasn’t leaving a thing to chance. I would visit five states in twenty-four hours.
Meanwhile, in Oregon, ballot drop boxes had been set on fire and the National Guard put on standby, as it had been in Washington and Nevada, as a precaution against election unrest. In Washington, DC, police were on alert.
Trump did this to us. His baseless claims of voter fraud, claims that had been tested and found worthless in every court case—more than sixty of them—riled up people. It was no wonder states were nervous, given Trump’s statement that there would be “a bloodbath” if I won.
Still, as I faced the press in Milwaukee that morning, I felt good about the race. When one of the reporters accidentally addressed me as “Madam President,” I quipped, “Not for three days!”
I had events that day in two of the states where we were slightly lagging Trump: Georgia and North Carolina.
Twelve thousand people had come to a big outdoor rally in the parking lot of the Atlanta Civic Center.
Spike Lee had already addressed the crowd as we arrived.
I had to keep interrupting my speech to call for medics as I saw people fainting from the heat.
Ike, my senior policy adviser, almost required a medic himself.
Because I couldn’t get all the way home to California to cast my ballot in person, like 71.
5 million Americans, I planned to vote by mail.
There were important initiatives on the California ballot, and I had snatched time here and there to study and consider them carefully.
I’d finally made my decisions and marked the ballot, but I didn’t want to take any chances on it not getting to the county clerk on time.
Ike located a FedEx office three blocks from the rally parking lot and said he would run it over there while I was giving my speech.
They turned out to be three very long blocks.
Poor Ike had twenty minutes to run a half mile there and a half mile back in Atlanta’s soupy humidity.
Aides live in fear of being left behind by the motorcade.
There’s no way to catch up, especially on a five-state day.
As I came off the stage, I saw Ike, breathless, sweaty, on his last legs.
“You don’t look so good!” He probably didn’t need me to tell him that.
We arrived in Charlotte to find ourselves sharing the tarmac with Trump’s plane. That’s how it is in battleground states the last few days of a campaign: you’re always tripping over your opponent.
Trump’s rally was in Greensboro. I’m not sure why it bothered him so much—it was futile to try to get inside his head—but for some reason, he hated the fact that I’d worked at McDonald’s and repeatedly claimed I’d lied about it.
When he made the claim again in Greensboro—“She never worked there”—someone in the crowd shouted, “She worked on a corner.” Trump loved that.
He laughed and pointed to the guy, encouraging the audience to cheer him.
“This place is amazing!” Show him a gutter and he crawled right into it.
Meanwhile, I was onstage in Charlotte with a man who seeks to lift people up.
The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation has been building affordable housing and providing food in the rock star’s Soul Kitchens since 2006.
I was proud to have his support. As he performed his hits “The People’s House” and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” it was a case of life imitating art.
Bon Jovi appeared as himself in season seven of The West Wing , singing at a rally for the fictional Democratic candidate Matt Santos.
In the series, Santos wins, so I took it as a good omen.
I was supposed to stay onstage after my speech.
Jon would come back, and we’d acknowledge applause together.
But at this point in the campaign, I was on autopilot.
I finished talking and sprinted offstage to greet the crowd as I usually did, shaking hands.
Halfway down the rope line I realized I’d left Jon to go onstage alone.
OMG, I thought, I just abandoned Bon Jovi .
My schedule said we were heading directly from Charlotte to overnight in Detroit. We would still overnight in Detroit, but I had something to do first. The press had not been informed of the change in our itinerary and were surprised as the plane touched down at LaGuardia Airport.
They were waiting in their usual spot under the wing, and as I came down the plane’s front steps, they yelled out to me, “Why are we in New York?”
It took everything I had to not shout back:
It’s Saturday night!
By the time we rolled down Fifty-Third Street and turned south toward Rockefeller Center, they had worked it out.
I was doing the cold open with Maya Rudolph, who’s played me on Saturday Night Live since 2019.
In my interview with Howard Stern, he’d said, quite sweetly, that he couldn’t stand to watch the SNL sketches, that it pained him to see me being made fun of.
I don’t feel that way. I think it’s healthy to laugh, especially at yourself, and I think Maya is an incredibly talented artist who puts a lot of work into her impersonations.
I had just a couple of minutes to rehearse with Maya before they let the audience into that small, intimate studio.
Just offstage, a burly stagehand held up a large panel, positioned to hide me from the audience as I came onto the set. There was a tremendous cheer when I suddenly appeared in the “mirror” as Rudolph’s reflection. (Lorne Michaels later told me it was some of the loudest applause he’d ever heard.)
At the close of the sketch, we stood up and hugged as Rudolph said, “I’m gonna vote for us.”
“Great!” I replied. “Any chance you are registered in Pennsylvania?”
We’d been through a couple of script revisions in which, for secrecy’s sake, I was identified only as “SPECIAL GUEST.”
A gag that didn’t make the final version:
Maya Rudolph: I will be a president for all Americans.
Special Guest: Even Donald Trump?
Maya Rudolph: Even Donald Trump—whether he likes it or not.