Vice President Kamala Harris made the final speech of her campaign on Wednesday, after a devastating loss to her rival, Donald Trump, which will have heavy implications for both the country and her own political future.
“The outcome is not what we wanted, what we fought for, what we voted for,” Harris told the audience. “Hear me when I say the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up, as long as we keep fighting.”
Harris mentioned that she called Trump on Wednesday morning to boos from the crowd made up of her supporters, family members and staffers. Harris said she congratulated him on his victory and discussed the peaceful transfer of power.
“I know folks are experiencing a range of emotions, but we must accept the results of this election,” Harris added. “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”
Aides and supporters held each other in Washington’s 80-degree heat. Some wiped their eyes as Harris called on them to not despair.
Harris and her team wrote most of the speech on Wednesday, a senior adviser told NOTUS. Neither a victory nor concession speech was fully written out earlier, as the campaign had really only focused on a “hold on, we don’t know the results yet, but we’re doing good” message.
To that point, campaign aides had been told that they would be employed until at least Nov. 15, with the campaign anticipating days of vote counting and a potential legal fight afterward, a Harris aide told NOTUS.
Almost immediately after Trump began his march through the Electoral College, pundits began dissecting how the campaign ended up in such a precarious place that would lead Harris to losing all of the battleground states and Trump shattering their “blue wall” strategy.
Democratic operatives, campaign aides, strategists and White House officials NOTUS spoke with said they rested a sizable amount of blame for the loss with President Joe Biden for staying in the race so long when it was clear he was not equipped to do it.
Others blamed the Harris campaign’s risk-averse strategy or a gaffe made during an appearance on “The View” where Harris didn’t put distance between herself and Biden.
“That was a tactical error,” one senior aide told NOTUS Wednesday, tossing aside the pundit accusations that the campaign itself was flawed, and not that the American electorate issued a rejection of an incumbent administration. They added, “I don’t think New Jersey was so close because of her answer on ‘The View.’”
Either way, campaign aides from the Wilmington headquarters were told to plan to be in Washington by Wednesday afternoon, no matter the outcome. While campaign leadership coordinated travel for aides in the morning, no all-staff calls had been planned until the afternoon. Instead, they wanted aides to hear from Harris directly first.
In her speech, Harris vowed to continue the fight for democracy and the rule of law, admitting that without holding the seat of power, the task is that much harder now.
“But we like hard work,” Harris said. “Hard work is good work, and the fight for our country is always worth it. … This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize for the sake of freedom.”
“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars,” Harris concluded. “Let us fill the sky with the light of a billion stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service.”
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Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS. Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.