Page 85 of 107 Days
The final day, and we would spend it barnstorming Pennsylvania. We took off from Detroit to our first stop in Scranton. As soon as we boarded, I headed down to the back for my usual off-the-record chat in the press cabin.
“What are you most proud of?” one reporter asked me.
They were all of them accomplished people, top of their field in communications, politics, or policy.
They had offered me their talents and their skills, but they’d also pitched in and done the unglamorous tasks, taking care of whatever was needed in the moment, whether it was in their job description or not. I loved them. And I was grateful.
In Scranton we met with campaign volunteers who would be canvassing through the election. In Allentown, rapper Fat Joe, who did so much campaigning for us, asked the heavily Hispanic crowd, “Where’s the orgullo ? Where’s the pride?”
In Reading, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined us at a tiny Puerto Rican restaurant for delicious cassava and rice.
AOC goes deep into policy but has a lightness with people, a joyful-warrior vibe, and the people in this restaurant clearly loved her.
Her talent for deconstructing complex issues and her commitment to getting justice for working people make her an invaluable leader in this moment.
And then I got to go door knocking. Two doors. Of course, at this point, it was performative, with my advance and the Secret Service fully aware of who was behind those doors, but I love what it represented.
When I was first running for DA in 2004, I used an ironing board as a standing desk with a sign duct-taped to it saying KAMALA HARRIS—A VOICE FOR JUSTICE .
I would set up at the entrance to the local supermarket and call out to shoppers: “I hope to have your support.” That moment, the direct ask, from a candidate to a voter who has the right to decide, remains magical to me.
We invaded a quiet residential street trailed by a horde of reporters. At the first house, I met a young man with the same name as our son, Cole, and at the second, a woman who greeted me with a hug and the excellent news that she’d already voted for me.
In Pittsburgh, we rallied with fifteen thousand at Carrie Furnace, a national historic landmark and remnant of U.S.
Steel’s massive Homestead works. Even though steel production stopped in 1982, it has become a symbol of resilience: a place to learn about steelworkers and their culture, and to gain new skills in workshops that range from metal casting and blacksmithing to art and photography.
Everywhere we went, the events were vibrant.
But the day was filled with unnecessary tensions for me, the staff, and the crowds.
On this day, the number of magnetometers available was wildly insufficient for the size of the crowd waiting to be admitted.
At one venue, we had to hold the motorcade because a suspicious drone was in the airspace.
We had no way of knowing if these lapses were just unfortunate mistakes or partisan mischief.
We left as Katy Perry took the stage and arrived at our last rally in Philadelphia as Lady Gaga sat down at her piano to sing “God Bless America.” There were thirty thousand people—thousands of them clustered on the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and several thousand more facing the stage.
I told them that Pennsylvania would decide the outcome of the election.
In that moment, I was able to say with complete conviction:
“We finish as we started: with optimism, with energy, with joy.”