Beyoncé Rallies for Harris in Houston With a Message for the Battlegrounds

 

Beyoncé Rallies for Harris in Houston With a Message for the Battlegrounds

 

Kamala Harris used Texas’ strict abortion ban as a cautionary tale as she sought to lay out the stakes of a deadlocked election.

 

Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland expressed support for Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event focused on abortion rights in Houston on Friday night.

We are grabbing back the pen from those who are trying to write an American story that would deny the right for women to make our own decisions about our bodies. I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies. It’s time for America to sing a new song. Our voices sing a chorus of unity. They sing a song of dignity and opportunity. Are y’all ready to add your voice to the new American song? Because I am. So let’s do this. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big, loud Texas welcome to the next president of the United States: Vice President Kamala Harris.

 

Reid J. EpsteinJ.  David Goodman Lisa Lerer

By Reid J. EpsteinJ. David Goodman and Lisa Lerer

Reid J. Epstein and J. David Goodman reported from Houston, and Lisa Lerer reported from New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/politics/harris-beyonce-rally-houston.html

Oct. 26, 2024

Updated 1:19 a.m. ET

 

Vice President Kamala Harris diverted from the presidential battlegrounds on Friday to receive the endorsement of the global superstar Beyoncé in Texas, in an event almost entirely focused on abortion rights.

 

With the presidential race deadlocked, the Harris campaign sought to use Beyoncé’s status — particularly in her hometown, Houston — to focus attention on the state’s near-total abortion ban as a cautionary tale for what could happen throughout the country should former President Donald J. Trump win another term in the White House.

 

The rally in Houston was not only her campaign’s largest but also its most emotionally charged event since she became the Democratic nominee. Beyoncé offered a speech focused on a more optimistic future, and the wrenching stories of Texas women who suffered life-threatening health complications as a result of being denied proper care for pregnancy complications were center stage.

 

Ms. Harris and many of the speakers laid the blame solely on Mr. Trump, who frequently boasts of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.

 

While Mr. Trump has promised to leave abortion laws to individual states, and says he would veto a national ban, allies of the former president and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights that would go beyond the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.

 

Ms. Harris warned that, if elected to another term, Mr. Trump would move to ban abortion nationally — regardless of his campaign promises.

 

“Though we are in Texas tonight, for anyone watching from another state, if you think you are protected from Trump abortion bans because you live in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, California or any state where voters or legislators have protected reproductive freedom, please know: No one is protected,” she said. “Because a Donald Trump national ban will outlaw abortion in every single state.”

 

By pairing dire warnings with the reach of a celebrity of Beyoncé’s stratosphere, the Harris campaign hoped to break through a crowded and diffuse news environment to get voters in formation before Election Day. The aim was to create a moment that resonated with disengaged voters and the Republican-leaning women who Ms. Harris’s team believes are key to the vice president’s potential success.

 

Beyoncé’s appearance was notable for the pop star, who is a frequent supporter of Democratic candidates but rarely delivers extended remarks about her political beliefs. Her song “Freedom” has become the anthem of the Harris campaign, used to introduce the vice president at nearly every appearance. After Mr. Trump used a clip of the song in a video, her lawyers reportedly threatened to send a cease-and-desist letter.

 

“I’m not here as a celebrity,” Beyoncé told Friday’s crowd, which the Harris campaign put at 30,000. “I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother, a mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in.”

 

She continued: “Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations. Imagine our grandmothers, imagine what they feel right now.”

 

Other speakers included Beyoncé’s mother, the singer’s longtime friend and former bandmate Kelly Rowland, the Texas country music legend Willie Nelson and Representative Colin Allred, the Democratic challenger to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. Several women who have sought abortion care since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe and the mother of Amber Thurman, the Georgia woman who died after delays in her medical care connected to Georgia’s abortion ban, also spoke. The rally also featured a group of obstetricians who said they were no longer able to practice medicine as they saw fit in Texas since the state banned most abortion care.

 

On the outdoor stadium’s video boards, Ms. Harris played clips of Mr. Trump bragging about his role in doing away with abortion rights in between testimonials from women who have suffered as a result of strict bans that prevented them from getting care.

 

In a race in which polling shows a substantial gender gap, with women favoring Ms. Harris and men backing Mr. Trump, the vice president made an explicit abortion-rights appeal to men, almost pleading with them to vote for women’s rights.

 

“Men across America do not want to see their daughters and wives and sisters and mothers put at risk,” she said. “The men of America don’t want this.”

 

Yet, even as abortion rights remain one of Ms. Harris’s strongest issues, some abortion rights activists and political strategists believe the cause may not maintain the same level of political resonance in a presidential year. In battleground states, one in five voters wrongly blame President Biden for ending the constitutional right to an abortion, even though Mr. Trump was the one who appointed three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe.

 

The Harris campaign sees the personal stories of women as one of its most powerful political tools, a way to highlight the real-life impacts of the abortion restrictions that have swept conservative states and to reach less politically engaged voters.

 

A woman named Ondrea, whose story of failing to receive proper medical treatment after a miscarriage because of the Texas abortion ban was recently featured in a Harris campaign ad, recounted how she was denied an abortion after discovering her baby would not survive delivery.

 

Her voice breaking, she described developing sepsis, a life-threatening pregnancy complication, facing a partial lung collapse, hours of surgery and months of difficult recovery.

 

“Texas abortion bans unleashed by Donald Trump almost cost me my life and have left me with physical and emotional scars,” she told the crowd of cheering supporters. “This election, I proudly cast my vote for Kamala Harris because lives depend on it.”

 

As the race enters its final stretch, the Harris campaign is going to great lengths to make its rallies feel like events that transcend politics. Bruce Springsteen and former President Barack Obama both appeared before a Harris campaign crowd of more than 20,000 on Thursday night in Georgia, and Mr. Obama’s wife, the more-popular Michelle Obama, is scheduled to rally supporters with Ms. Harris in Michigan on Saturday. John Legend is set to perform at a rally Sunday in Philadelphia, and the band Mumford & Sons is scheduled to play next week at a Harris rally in Madison, Wis.

 

On Friday in Houston, the disc jockey warming up the crowd in the hours before Ms. Harris and Beyoncé took the stage repeatedly called the rally “the biggest political event ever” (not quite) and urged people to cheer for “the first Black woman president” — which would be true if Ms. Harris wins but not a point she or her campaign has emphasized.

 

DeMarkus Phipps, 33, a city worker, said that he had seen Beyoncé in concert several times but that he had come to the event for Ms. Harris.

 

“This is a once in a lifetime event,” his cousin, Courtney Jones, 36, said. “I wanted to be part of it.”

 

Both she and Mr. Phipps said they had already voted early for Ms. Harris. So, too, had one of their nieces, Asia Phipps, 20, her first time voting for president.

 

“I felt special,” she said. Asked if she had come more for Ms. Harris or for Beyoncé, she smiled. “Both!”

 

Erica L. Green contributed reporting.

 

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein

 

J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma. More about J. David Goodman

 

Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades. More about Lisa Lerer