It was a long night before what’s expected to be a very long Election Day.
The Democrats’ “Vote for Freedom” rally and concert, which culminated in a near-midnight appearance by Vice President Kamala Harris, hugging it out with Oprah Winfrey, drew a crowd of about 30,00 to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the foot of the Philadelphia Art Museum. It started at 5 p.m. and continued all the way to midnight. Thankfully, it was a comfortable, 50 degree evening.
Lady Gaga, The Roots, Ricky Martin, and DJ Cassidy performed at the event, with Oprah, Fat Joe, and Philly’s own DJ Jazzy Jeff delivering speeches. Harris arrived later than expected, after she and her husband Doug Emhoff flew to town from an earlier rally in Pittsburgh.
Philly is a crucial source of votes for the Vice President, and turnout in the city could well determine who takes the White House. Harris visited Philly often in the weeks leading up to the ballot count. Former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance was in the region on Monday, too.
Billy Penn spoke to folks during the event to get a sense of their mood and hopes. WHYY’s Carmen Russell Sluchansky was there, too, and provides this overview of the event.
Upper Darby councilwoman feeling confident for Harris
Upper Darby Councilwoman Danyelle Blackwell, a Democrat, was at the “Vote for Freedom” rally in Philly Monday night. She stood in an ADA section close to the stage, dancing with others nearby. She said she’s feeling confident about tomorrow.
“Oh, we’re going to win,” she said. “It’s going to be the first woman [president]. It’s going to be historic. We’re going to work together and we’re going to have peace.”
“And the Electoral College, they better not do the same thing they did with Hillary,” Blackwell added, referring to the fact Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College tally, 304-227. “Because we got the popular vote — we got it already. We got it before and we’re doing it again.”
Asked about what an event like this offers, Blackwell said it would help get out the vote, but also that it was a good experience for possibly anxious voters across the region.
“You need music. Music calms the soul. Human nature needs to have the arts, theater. We need this to help us calm down.”
These college students identify as moderates, and Harris supporters
Henry Bailey, Nathan Nazareth, Oden Calvert and Eric Stellato, all seniors at Drexel University, said Monday night’s “Vote for Freedom” rally was the first political event any of them had been to — and that they skipped class to get in line early.
“It’s historic,” Stellato said. “We gotta show our support and show that, I don’t know, people do generally care about this. Even people like us.”
When asked what he meant, Stellato explained that he might not fit the mold of someone you’d instantly identify as a Harris supporter.
“We might not be vocal about it, we might not wear stuff or stuff like that or post about it or anything,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t care, you know? And we definitely talk to our friends about it and have serious conversations.”
Stellato said he liked Trump in 2016 when he was a teenager and “didn’t know better,” but changed his opinion throughout the course of the following four years. Going to college after that, he said, was also a big shift.
“I think we see it with a lot of people now — they see it as like the edgier thing, like the rebellious thing to do,” he said of supporting Trump. “If you’re not informed, his stuff might sound whatever. Then once you realize he’s lying every single sentence, then you start to realize — you might learn better.”
Stellato said he’s concerned that his father, an Ecuadorian immigrant who is now a U.S. citizen, could be harmed by what he imagines could be a sweeping and disorganized mass deportation in a Trump presidency. He also worries about his gay and transgender friends, as well as the women in his life.
Bailey, a registered Democrat who identifies as a moderate, agreed that he was concerned about women’s reproductive rights under a second Trump presidency. Bailey said that while he sometimes wishes Harris leaned more conservative in certain topics, like immigration, he thinks the Republican Party as it stands today is a “total sham.”
“Even if there’s things I don’t agree with her about, it’s way better than Donald Trump,” Bailey said. “He’s made it clear that he doesn’t believe in certain things as far as the Constitution. And also, it’s clear that he’s for the rich. He’s a rich-person president. Not that we haven’t had rich presidents, but he’s clearly a lot more, I guess, Hollywood about it.”
The group of four said that they were excited, nervous and “cautiously optimistic” about what Election Day would bring.
