More than a rally, the electoral event that brought together the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, this Friday in Houston (Texas), already superstar beyoncehas had the air of a spectacle. Both because of a cast that also brought together celebrities such as Willie Nelson or Jessica Alba and because of the massive capacity: 30,000 people filled the stands, the largest attendance of the entire campaign, according to the Democratic team. Millions more followed him via streaming to hear the superstar announce his vote for the vice president and call to “sing a new American song of dignity and opportunity,” in a passionate appeal in defense of abortion rights.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I am here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world that my children, and all of our children, will inhabit. A world in which we have the freedom to control our bodies. A world in which we are not divided,” declared Beyoncé, received among the delirium of the public. He did not perform any of his songs; what mattered were his words. “Our past, our present, our future, come together here. Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what is possible without ceilings, without limitations. Imagine what our grandmothers are feeling right now… their sacrifices, to be able to see the leadership of a woman,” added the superstar, before joining in a hug with the Democratic candidate.
Beyoncé’s explicit support comes at a key moment. The campaign enters its last ten days with an absolute tie between the two candidates, Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump, who has managed to overcome the small advantage that the vice president had scratched in recent times. With early voting already underway in numerous states – more than twenty million Americans have already cast their ballot – and hardly any undecided voters, any change of opinion, any more or less vote, can be decisive.
“These elections will determine the future of reproductive freedom for generations to come,” the Democratic candidate recalled to the audience that packed the Shell Energy stadium in Houston. “In just four years as president, Donald Trump managed to pulverize half a century of hard-won progress for women,” Harris highlighted, in one of her most passionate speeches of the campaign, while her voice broke at times.
Texas is one of the states most inclined to the Republican side: the last time it voted for a Democratic presidential candidate was in 1976, to elect the southerner Jimmy Carter. In these elections it does not seem that this trend will change. But the rally’s message was not just for the audience in the stadium, but for a much broader audience across the country. The choice of the place was symbolic: since 2021, this State has one of the most extreme laws against abortion in the entire United States. And Harris wanted to hammer it home. Her defense of abortion rights is her best electoral asset: the issue she feels most comfortable talking about in interviews and sessions with voters, and on which most voters consider her the best candidate. Instead, Trump has the advantage when it comes to managing the economy and immigration, the issues that concern citizens most.
The Texas anti-abortion law prohibits the voluntary termination of pregnancy from the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected (five or six weeks, when the vast majority of women do not yet know they are pregnant), with no exceptions for victims of incest or rape, and punishes those who practice this intervention with up to 99 years in prison. The measure has had consequences: between 2021 and 2022, child deaths in Texas rose from 1,985 to 2,240, which is equivalent to an increase of 12.9%, while in the rest of the country an increase of only 1.8% was recorded. .
Around 54% of the electorate in Texas, according to polls, believe that Harris would carry out better policies on reproductive rights, compared to 28% who think the same about Trump. And the vice president wanted to take advantage of that advantage, and remember that her rival appointed three conservative judges to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, the ruling that guaranteed the federal right to abortion, and made it possible for states to pass laws such as from Texas.
“There is no doubt about it: (if Trump wins the election) he will ban abortion throughout the federal territory… it does not matter if you live in a state where it is allowed, your ban will annul state laws. No one will be protected. And he will not need to count on Congress to approve that veto. “Elections matter,” said the vice president. “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women, but we do.” And he stressed: “the momentum is on our side.”
Previously, actress Jessica Alba had opened the rally by arguing that “our rights and freedoms are at stake!” “We all need the path of hope… we are not going to go back,” he stated, referring to one of Harris’s campaign slogans.
In the last days of the campaign, the Democrats, superior in fundraising and support from the stars to their Republican rivals, want to put all the meat on the grill to try to convince the last undecided and cut off what seems like a greater boost from the rival Republican, Donald Trump, who closes the small distance that Harris had achieved in the polls in recent times. On Thursday, the most popular Democrat among his bases, former President Barack Obama, and the “Boss” of the Vice President campaigned alongside the vice president in Georgia. rock’n’roll, Bruce Springsteen. The previous weekend, also in Georgia and at another rally, he performed singer Usher. Next week she will be joined by Los Tigres del Norte and Maná in Nevada and Arizona on Thursday for two rallies to motivate the Latino public to vote. In Madison, Wisconsin, a cast that includes Grace Abrams, Mumford and Sons, Remi Wolf and The Nation’s Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner.
Tonight, in Houston, it was about mobilizing a very specific segment of the electorate: white women without higher education, a group that had overwhelmingly supported the Republicans in other elections but among whom there may be a part that does not want vote for Trump, whose personality they dislike. Democrats hope to attract them with their message in favor of the right to abortion and in defense of democracy.
At this rally, Harris adopted an unorthodox strategy, according to the campaign scripts, but one that Trump applied on several occasions in this campaign: traveling to states where he has no chance of winning. But where the fact that he goes is news. And they can serve as examples in favor of your program. Thus, the Republican has traveled to Detroit, the economic capital of Michigan and a generally pro-Democratic city, to set it as an example of what, according to him, does not work in the United States of the Administration of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, where the economy is looking for alternatives after vehicle manufacturing has largely migrated to other countries.
The vice president’s presence also had another objective: to support Colin Allred, the Democratic candidate who is trying to take the seat from Republican Senator Ted Cruz on the 5th. Allred, according to polls, is the great hope, probably the only one, of the Democrats to snatch a seat from their rivals in the Upper House. So far, Harris’s party maintains a 51-49 majority but considers it lost in one seat, in West Virginia, and polls see its defeat as very likely in another, in Montana. In that case, and assuming that the rest of the seats remain as they are, a victory for Allred would allow the Democrats to maintain their majority if they win the White House: in a situation of a tie (50 seats for each caucus) the vice president casts the vote that breaks it.
