NEW ORLEANS — Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at Essence Fest Saturday evening as part of a forum with the festival’s CEO. The Biden-Harris campaign described the visit as part of its push to reach Black voters, especially young women.
“This is probably the most significant election of our lifetime,” VP Harris told the audience, “you have the former President, who is running to become President again, who has openly talked about his admiration of dictators and his intention to be a dictator on day one.”
The panel lasted about thirty minutes. VP Harris touted the Biden administration’s past accomplishments, touching on issues like abortion access, Medicaid, student loan debt forgiveness, and Black maternal mortality, of which Louisiana has among the highest rates in the nation.
The appearance came at a critical time for the Biden-Harris campaign. The latest poll from CBS shows it has fallen slightly behind former President Trump’s campaign, with 48% of ‘likely voters’ favoring Biden and 50% favoring Trump.
That poll came out after the first debate, in which President Biden stuttered, slurred, and seemed to lose his train of thought at times. “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he acknowledged at a rally the next day.
In the week since several prominent Democrats have called for the President to drop out of the race. GOP leaders have also begun focusing attention on VP Harris, including in a new ad that blames her for the border crisis and calls her ‘enabler-in-chief.’
VP Harris mentioned President Biden a few times on Saturday and did not discuss the debate at all. She ended the talk with a call to the audience to vote, saying that “we can see it through.”
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