Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance at the campaign’s debate watch party outside of Center City. She told supporters that voters have to decide which vision to choose going forward.
With the country facing a crossroads in the upcoming presidential election, Philadelphia’s history loomed large with Kamala Harris supporters ahead of Tuesday’s long anticipated debate between Harris and Donald Trump.
Hundreds of Harris supporters from across the Philadelphia region gathered at the Harris campaign’s official debate watch party on the Cherry Street Pier, just blocks from the debate.
“It’s fitting that this debate, pitting the 47th president of the United States, Kamala Harris, against that other guy is happening right here in the city of Philadelphia, the birthplace of democracy and freedom,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said to Harris supporters prior to the start of Tuesday’s debate.
“This debate is literally happening across the yard from Independence Hall, the place where our Founding Fathers gathered and etched in writing a document that would send this nation forward on a path of self-determination. We freed ourselves from a king when we signed that document. And let me tell you something, we are not going back.”
Throughout the debate, Harris supporters were jeering Trump at the watch party, especially when Trump lied about Democrats supporting abortion after birth and Trump’s racist lies about Haitian immigrants.
After the debate, guests at the watch party were treated by a surprise appearance from Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff.
“This is very much two different visions for our country—ours, which is a vision for the future, and his, which is about the past and taking us backward. And as I said on the debate stage, we are not going back,” Harris told her supporters.
“We have 56 days to go, guys. We’re still the underdogs in this race. We have got to win Pennsylvania. And we’re going to win Pennsylvania.”
In the hours leading up to the debate, hundreds of Harris supporters lined Philadelphia’s historic Rittenhouse Square with the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Vice President, who was staying at the Warwick Hotel.
The onlookers were greeted by multiple motorcades and a visit from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
William Gibson, a long-time Philadelphia resident and local university professor, stopped at Rittenhouse Square to take a picture with the Harris campaign bus and told The Keystone that he’s thinking about his grandchildren’s future ahead of the election.
“I have two grandchildren. I want the future to look like the one [Harris] has envisioned,” Gibson said.
“The one that [Trump] envisions looks like what my parents, born in 1917 and 1925, experienced in North Louisiana. That means basically that black people will be second class citizens. That is what I believe MAGA Republicans and their nominee are really working toward to turn back the clock.”
