Kamala Harris makes her final pitch to North Carolina voters, highlighting a choice between ‘promise’ and ‘grievance’

“We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on Donald Trump, who’s been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,’ Harris told a large crowd in Raleigh. “But North Carolina, I know that is not who we are.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, brought her closing arguments to North Carolina on Wednesday, entwining stark warnings about Donald Trump’s authoritarianism with a pledge to fulfill “the promise of America” and build a country that works for everyone. 

Speaking before an exuberant crowd of 8,000 people at Coastal Credit Union Music Park in Raleigh, Harris highlighted the contrasts she’s been drawing since the start of her campaign, comparing her promises of working across the aisle with Trump’s threat to imprison his political enemies.

“We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on Donald Trump, who’s been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” Harris said.

The election, she said, offered a crucial choice between two entirely different visions for the future.

Harris, and Joe Biden before her, have long argued that Trump’s suggestions that he’d use the military against American citizens, his demands to “terminate” the Constitution, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election make him unfit to return to the White House. 

“We know who Donald Trump is. This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power,” she said.

But that is not the way it has to be, she said.

“We know that is who he is,” she said, “but North Carolina, I know that is not who we are.”

Harris promised that her administration would listen to those who disagreed with her, not threaten them, and she offered her campaign as the antidote to Trump’s constant threats and personal attacks. 

“I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” Harris said.

“I believe in the promise of America and I see the promise of all of you, in the women who refuse to accept a future without reproductive freedom, in the men who support them, in Republicans who never voted for a Democrat before but put the Constitution of the United States before party,” she said. 

‘Enemies list’ vs ‘to-do list

Harris repeated many of the same policy ideas from previous speeches, pledging to give tax cuts to millions of middle class families and to expand Medicare to cover home healthcare costs.

“If he is elected, on day one Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list. When I am elected I will walk in with a to-do list,” Harris said. “At the top of my list is bringing down your cost of living, that will be my focus every single day as president.”

Trump’s economic plan, however, would add to the burdens of low- and middle-income families and make life even easier for the wealthy, she said.

“Donald Trump’s answer to the financial pressures you face is the same as last time,” Harris said.

“Another trillion dollars of tax cuts for  billionaires and big corporations, and this time he will pay for it with a 20% Trump national sales tax on everyday basic necessities, which will cost the average American family nearly $4,000 more a year.”

Trump has proposed imposing 10% to 20% tariffs on all imported goods and a 60% tariff on Chinese imports. But, despite what he says, that cost is paid not by other countries, but by US companies bringing the products into the country. Those companies then almost always raise prices, passing the cost on to the consumer. 

“This is not someone who is thinking about how to make your life better,” Harris said.

But the key contrast she returned to most often in what is likely her final speech in the Triangle before Election Day was her promise of unity against Trump’s constant discord, and it was a message that resonated with the audience. 

‘Working as hard as I can to make sure that my baby has a good life.’

“When you know what you stand for,” Harris said, “you know what to fight for.” 

In interviews after the rally, attendees said they knew both.

lan Opel and Chloe-Ann Detwiler, Duke students, said that Harris had addressed their biggest concerns about the election overall, the polarization that often made simple interactions at school and with family uncomfortable.

“It’s become very difficult to simply just have a conversation with a person of a different party,” Detwiler said.

Under a Harris administration, Detwiller said, it would be again possible to cultivate “a community and a climate where we can have discussions and respect the person who has a different opinion than us.”

Opel agreed.

“I have relatives who think opposite things and … who keep sowing division,” he said. “I want to build a constructive country where we can disagree peacefully.”

Many others filling out of the venue echoed one of the most consistent concerns voters have about the campaign, that Trump would follow through on the hidden threats in Project 2025 to ban most forms of abortion care and restrict IVF access. 

Irina Mikhalevich of Chapel Hill said that the issue was personal for her.

“I have a three-and-a-half-year old daughter, she’s an IVF baby. We struggled to get her, she finally arrived, and now she’s living in a world in which she has fewer freedoms than I did,” Mikhalevich said.

“I’m working as hard as I can to make sure that my baby has a good life.”

She encouraged any voter still on the fence to take a closer look.

“Think about what matters to you and then go read Kamala’s plans, I guarantee that she has thought about what matters to you and has a plan to make it better.”

‘But by then it will be too late’

Maya Spikes of Raleigh said that reproductive rights and healthcare were two of the most important issues to her.

Harris’ positions would protect them, Spikes said, while Trump would upend them both.

Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) several times while he was in the White House, and has hinted he might do so again in a second term. 

This week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a major Trump surrogate, suggested to reporters that if Trump wins, Republicans might seek to make major reforms to the ACA, which prevents insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. 

Johnson did not provide any details about what such reforms might look like, but in the past, Republicans’ proposed reforms have all sought to repeal the law, and neither Johnson nor Trump has offered any other tangible ideas or plans for how to reform the law without repealing it

“As somebody who works as a freelancer and does have a preexisting condition, my health care could possibly be in danger if you go the other way,” Spikes said of a possible Trump victory.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. If we go the other way, people are going to realize that but by then it will be too late.

“We have these next six days to prevent that.”