Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama lent their star power to Kamala Harris’ quest for the presidency on Thursday, as the vice president implored Georgia voters to consider the “brutally serious” consequences if Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House.
Harris asked voters to imagine who’ll be sitting in the Oval Office just three months from now and think about the new president’s priorities.
“It’s either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies list, or me working for you, checking off my to-do list,” she said. “You have the power to make that decision.”
The presence of Springsteen, whose career spans five decades, and former President Obama, still one of the biggest names in Democratic politics, highlights how Harris is leaning on some of the most noteworthy names in the party to help her deliver her closing message and lambaste her opponent.
Obama, who got a rousing reception from the rally crowd at a packed high school football stadium outside Atlanta, told his audience, “I get why people are looking to shake things up, but what I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump would shake things up in ways that are good for you.”
Harris echoed that message in her speech, warning that “the consequences of him being president again are brutally serious.”
The lengthy rally ran well behind schedule and seemingly took a toll on attendees. While the vast majority of seats remained full, hundreds of people streamed out of the event early as Harris spoke after hours of programming.
The other speakers wasted no time attacking Trump.
Obama argued his successor was always “trying to sell you stuff,” was someone who only cares about “his ego, his money, his status,” and regularly gives lengthy speeches that are “just word salad.”
“We do not need four years of a wannabe king, a wannabe dictator,” Obama said before offering Harris as someone “ready for the job.”
After arguing Trump is focused only on himself, Obama added, “If you elect Kamala Harris ... she will be focused on you.”
Springsteen, too, focused on Trump.
After a performance of “The Promised Land,” a ballad off his 1978 album “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Springsteen told the Georgia audience he was backing Harris because he wants “a president who reveres the Constitution.”
“There is only one candidate in this election who holds those principles dear, Kamala Harris. She’s running to be the 47th president of the United States. Donald Trump is running to be an American tyrant,” Springsteen added before playing “Land of Hope and Dreams” and “Dancing in the Dark.”
The Trump campaign called Harris’ use of Obama and Springsteen “a desperate, last-ditch effort to salvage her spiraling campaign.”
“Relying on celebrities is nothing new for the party of Hollywood elites — and as voters realize the depths of Kamala’s incompetence and radicalism, she needs an added draw,” the campaign said in a statement.
Harris’ rally in Clarkston — an eastern Atlanta suburb — reflected the suburb’s reputation as the “most diverse square mile in America.” The community has taken in waves of immigrants and refugees, and 40% of its population was foreign-born in 2020.
The DJ working the crowd before the event started called out not only to graduates of historically Black colleges and universities, but to West Indians. Among those in the snaking line to enter were people of Asian descent and women in hijabs.
Many attendees said they were trying to push their relatives and neighbors to the polls to vote for Harris, either through formal volunteer efforts or on their own. “I decided to go volunteer because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” said Beverly Payne, who lives in Cumming, a Republican suburban stronghold north of Atlanta.
Payne said she is still working on persuading her mother but has already swung one Georgia vote to Harris. “My 85-year-old father has gone Democratic for the first time in his life,” she said.
Actor Samuel L. Jackson, director Spike Lee and actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry also spoke at the start of the event.
“No matter what kind of shenanigans, skullduggery and subterfuge, the okie-doke, we’re not going back,” Lee proclaimed.
Harris’ run of events with celebrities will continue Friday when she travels to Texas for a Houston rally with Beyoncé, according to three people familiar with the matter. The singer is a Houston native, and her 2016 song “Freedom” has become Harris’ campaign anthem.
While the Friday rally is in a red state that even the most optimistic Democrat knows the vice president is unlikely to turn blue in November, the event Thursday in Georgia highlights that state’s prominent place in her possible path to defeating Trump.
Democrats, led by then-former Vice President Joe Biden and Harris, won Georgia in 2020, becoming the first Democratic presidential campaign to win the Southern state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Harris’ campaign is hopeful she can keep the state blue in 2024.
Polls of likely voters in Georgia from NYT/Siena to Fox News to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution show a tight race between Trump and Harris.
Thursday’s event is the first in the campaign’s “When We Vote We Win” concert series that aims to encourage Harris supporters to vote before Election Day.
Harris is not the only member of the Democratic campaign to lean on star power in the final days. Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, had events in North Carolina on Thursday alongside singer-songwriter James Taylor.