Vice President Kamala Harris headlines two Seattle fundraising events for Biden Victory Fund

It has­n’t been a month since Pres­i­dent Biden head­lined two fundrais­ing recep­tions in the Seat­tle area and already Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris has done the same. 

Mon­ey is the moth­er’s milk of pol­i­tics, the say­ing goes, and pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns in this day and age demand a lot of it. Accord­ing­ly, the entire pur­pose of Har­ris’ quick trip up from Cal­i­for­nia to the Pacif­ic North­west was fundrais­ing. She stepped off Air Force Two, zipped over to West Seat­tle for one recep­tion, then prompt­ly left for a sec­ond in down­town Seat­tle, then swift­ly returned to Boe­ing Field for a flight back to California.

Unlike their pre­de­ces­sors, the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion allows the press to send a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to these closed-door cam­paign fundrais­ing events. For this trip, The Seat­tle Times’ Claire With­y­combe was tasked with send­ing reg­u­lar updates (known in media par­lance as pool reports) to the White House press corps. 

In her first dis­patch, she described the scene where she await­ed Har­ris’ arrival: “The home where the fundrais­er is being held is on a qui­et street in West Seat­tle. The VP’s vis­it has gen­er­at­ed some excite­ment among the neigh­bors, but as of 3 PM, there were no crowds on the near­by block. Guests are stand­ing and chat­ting in the back­yard of the home, which has an impres­sive, panoram­ic view of Puget Sound. A few boats are glid­ing through the water. Guests stand near cock­tail height tables cov­ered in pale green table­cloths. I am in the garage, where cater­ing staff are prepar­ing and send­ing out an array of savory appe­tiz­ers, includ­ing crab cakes, short­rib and hon­eyed feta toast.”

At 4:02 PM, with motor­cy­cles rum­bling, Har­ris’ motor­cade pulled up at the home of Melis­sa and Peter Evans, to cheers from the neigh­bors. Har­ris waved to them on her way into the fundrais­er. About a half hour lat­er, she began her observ­able remarks.

Har­ris told the small gath­er­ing of donors that the stakes of the elec­tion are high and momen­tum is on the Biden campaign’s side.

“In this re-elect, lis­ten, guys, we’re gonna win,” Har­ris said. “We may have bloody knuck­les when it’s over, but we’re gonna win and our coun­try is worth fight­ing for.”

Har­ris added that this piv­otal 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion is not about what team you’re root­ing for but “what kind of coun­try we want to live in.”

“We believe in the promise of Amer­i­ca,” she said. “And we know that in order for us to achieve that promise and make it real we have to fight for it.”

Har­ris empha­sized that the out­come of the elec­tion will impact peo­ple around the world. She warned that if Trump is elect­ed and Con­gress passed a nation­al abor­tion ban, Trump would sign it, where­as Biden would veto a nation­al ban. She tout­ed the Biden admin­is­tra­tion’s work to cap insulin costs for seniors and called the con­trast between the pri­or regime and the Biden admin­is­tra­tion “extreme.”

Har­ris’ remarks last­ed for a lit­tle less than thir­teen minutes.

Not long after that, around 5 PM, the motor­cade was rolling again. Peo­ple lined the blocks near the fundrais­er, hold­ing cell phones and waving.

With roads closed to accom­mo­date the motor­cade, the trip down­town took less than twen­ty min­utes, about the same length of time that the trip to West Seat­tle took. For­tu­nate­ly for Seat­tle Mariners fans attend­ing the sec­ond to last game of the home­s­tand, first pitch had already been thrown an hour before­hand and the Mariners were on their way to a 9–0 vic­to­ry over the Los Ange­les Angels of Anaheim. 

Har­ris’ entourage pulled up to the West­in around 5:16 PM. 

Har­ris’ observ­able remarks began around 5:40 PM. She spoke from a podi­um with Amer­i­can and Wash­ing­ton State flags behind her. Her audi­ence for this sec­ond Vic­to­ry Fund recep­tion num­bered about one hun­dred and twen­ty peo­ple.

The Vice Pres­i­dent repeat­ed sev­er­al of the same com­ments from ear­li­er in the day at the Evans­es’ home about the high stakes of the elec­tion, oth­er coun­tries look­ing to the Unit­ed States as a role mod­el, the neces­si­ty of defend­ing repro­duc­tive rights, and cap­ping the costs of insulin for seniors. 

But at this recep­tion she also dis­cussed the Biden administration’s work on the econ­o­my, cit­ing “his­toric” low employ­ment and new man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs.

She char­ac­ter­ized the choice as super clear, declar­ing that many things in the world and in the coun­try are “com­plex and nuanced” but Novem­ber of ‘24 is “bina­ry.”

“There’s two choic­es. And let’s be clear, if you pull up the split screen, what we’re look­ing at,” Har­ris said. “On one side, you’ve got a for­mer pres­i­dent who open­ly prais­es dic­ta­tors and said he’d be a dic­ta­tor on day one, who has essen­tial­ly said he will weaponize the Depart­ment of Jus­tice against his ene­mies, polit­i­cal ene­mies, who has open­ly talked about how proud he is of what he did in undo­ing the pro­tec­tions of Roe v. Wade.”

“On the oth­er side, you have Joe Biden and our admin­is­tra­tion, which has done trans­for­ma­tive work, which the his­to­ry books, if not the pun­dit­ry right now, will show has been his­toric in terms of what we have done to strength­en and grow the Amer­i­can econ­o­my and invest in the future of our nation.”

The Vice Pres­i­dent also addressed the issue of med­ical debt, say­ing that it affects so many peo­ple and it’s usu­al­ly incurred because of a med­ical emergency.

“What we are say­ing that med­ical debt can­not be used in your cred­it score,” she said.

Har­ris’ remarks were inter­rupt­ed on two sep­a­rate occa­sions by pro­test­ers opposed to Israel’s mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in the Gaza Strip. 

The first, in a red shirt, stood up and yelled what sound­ed to With­y­combe like “Chil­dren are being buried in Rafah,” then was escort­ed out of the room.

“I appre­ci­ate your right to express what is right­ly a con­cern… we are work­ing to end this war as soon as pos­si­ble. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Harris. 

After the pro­test­er left, she said: “And that’s why we’re fight­ing for our democ­ra­cy. That’s exact­ly why we’re fight­ing for our democracy.”

Soon after, a sec­ond pro­tes­tor stood up and said: “Vice Pres­i­dent, when will you stop send­ing weapons to Israel?”

“Thank you, I’m talk­ing now,” Har­ris said as the pro­tes­tor kept try­ing to interrupt.

“You can stop this geno­cide Vice Pres­i­dent, you can stop this geno­cide,” the pro­tes­tor assert­ed. They were also removed from the reception.

The Vice Pres­i­den­t’s remarks last­ed around nine­teen min­utes and con­clud­ed at 6 PM.

Har­ris returned to Boe­ing Field short­ly there­after, con­clud­ing her trip to Seattle.