With abortion in focus, Harris’s event with Oprah prompts cheers and tears

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — A star-studded online rally designed to showcase the enthusiasm and energy behind Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign turned somber as host Oprah Winfrey introduced the mother of a woman who died after waiting for health care in a state that has banned most abortions.

“You’re looking at a mother that is broken,” said Shanette Williams, whose daughter, Amber Thurman, died in what was deemed a “preventable” death stemming from Georgia’s abortion restrictions. “The worst pain ever that a mother, that a parent, could ever feel, for her father and myself and the family — you’re looking at it.”

Several people in the live audience were wiping their eyes by the time Thurman’s family members, including two sisters, finished speaking. The emotional moment prompted Harris to deliver some of her most forceful lines of the event — which over nearly 100 minutes turned the vice president’s campaign into a modern-day version of Winfrey’s popular daytime talk show.

“Amber’s story highlights the fact that, among everything that is wrong with these bans and what has happened in terms of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it’s a health-care crisis,” Harris said after lambasting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for making such bans possible. “It’s a health-care crisis that affects the patient and the profession.”

Hundreds of thousands of people watched the event, which was an outgrowth of various Zoom meetings that came together in the days after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid — with groups including Win With Black Women, White Dudes for Harris and Swifties for Kamala gathering by the thousands to show their support for Harris.

The campaign cast the event — which featured a live audience of a few hundred people — as an opportunity to showcase the breadth of support for Harris and as a call to action for those watching online.

Throughout the program, Winfrey was in talk-show mode, calling on members of the audience, introducing cameos by celebrities and shepherding a live audience between joyous bouts of applause and somber moments of reflection. As Winfrey and Harris sat down on twin couches for a conversation, members of the audience were prompted to ask the vice president about issues including immigration, inflation, gun violence and election security.

Harris at one point reiterated her status as a gun owner, emphasizing that she supported the Second Amendment as well as new laws banning assault rifles, while also speaking off-the-cuff about her willingness to use her firearm if needed.

“If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot,” she said, laughing. “I probably should not have said that.”

Several questioners highlighted their struggles with the cost of living, including a couple who had moved in with their parents to save for a home and a young woman who expressed concerns that “everything is so expensive.” In response, Harris reiterated her plans to provide first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down-payment assistance and suggested that Trump’s policies would make inflation worse.

“When you think about the cost of living, my approach is about lifting you up,” she said. “His would be about actually weakening our economy.”

The unusual event was designed to showcase the celebrity quality that surrounds Harris’s campaign and its ability to tap into the social media world. Winfrey, calling the event “the largest Zoom call we’ve all ever had,” told participants: “The rah-rah moment is going to end, and then we’ve got to get to work. We’ve got to get busy.”

When the event’s focus shifted to reproductive rights, it allowed Harris to highlight an issue on which she has long been more comfortable drawing a contrast with Trump. The crowd gave a standing ovation to Hadley Duvall, a 22-year-old Kentucky woman who shared in a viral ad for Gov. Andy Beshear (D) in 2023 that she had been raped by her stepfather.

While other questioners asked Harris what she would do to address challenges including the border security and inflation, Duvall used her time to thank Harris for championing reproductive rights.

“Madam Vice President, I just want to say thank you,” said Duvall, who appeared in a Harris campaign ad this week and at the Democratic National Convention in August. “Thank you for seeing us.”

Harris plans to continue her focus on abortion during a trip Friday to Georgia, where she is expected to address the death of Thurman and other women affected by the state’s strict abortion restrictions. Their cases were first reported this week by ProPublica.

The support for Harris from Winfrey, who over her career has been listed among the country’s most influential personalities, comes as Harris is seeking to supercharge turnout from Black women and also win over undecided and moderate voters. Winfrey, who has described herself as a political independent and used her first presidential endorsement to back Barack Obama in 2008, referenced both her race and her apolitical background during a surprise speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month.

Calling Harris’s campaign a “unifying force” on Thursday, she also made a direct appeal to centrist voters and other undecided Americans.

“I just want to say, for all of you watching who are still on the fence, you’re in the middle. You’re independent as I am,” Winfrey said, adding that “this is the moment” for such voters to make a choice. “As my friend and mentor Maya Angelou always said, when you know better, you got to do better. … So let’s do better and vote for Kamala Harris.”

The groups featured during the online rally have been organizing separately to advance Harris’s candidacy. The initial Win With Black Women call, which took place on Zoom hours after Biden ended his bid, amassed more than 44,000 people and raised more than $1.5 million for Harris’s campaign. It sparked a wave of additional identity-driven virtual calls, which channeled renewed enthusiasm into additional fundraising and volunteer efforts.

A coalition of White men supporting Harris announced on Thursday a “nearly $10 million” digital ad campaign targeted at their demographic in three battleground states. The first spot in the effort from White Dudes for Harris is intended to appeal to White men who are tired of “hearing how much we suck,” the group said.

Thursday’s event included a star-studded opening as Winfrey called out other celebrities who were joining virtually — Jennifer Lopez, Bryan Cranston, Tracee Ellis Ross and Meryl Streep among them. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) also appeared.

Harris sought to use Thursday’s online rally to build momentum for her campaign in the aftermath of her first debate against Trump last week. Trump has publicly rebuffed Harris’s calls for a second debate, and the Harris campaign has been looking for opportunities to introduce her to more of the country in the final weeks of the election.

Harris, who has largely eschewed media interviews over the course of her upstart campaign, has increased her unscripted appearances in recent days, sitting down with Black journalists and also calling into radio shows popular with specific audiences. The window for the candidates to make their case to the public is closing fast, as voters in several states start receiving their mail-in ballot in coming weeks.

Harris’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, appeared at one point at Thursday’s event to encourage Harris’s supporters to settle in for a closely contested battle.

“We are still in a margin-of-error race,” she said. “It’s tied. It’s tied right here in Michigan. It’s tied in all the battleground states. So it’s going to take all of us to build a pathway, many pathways, to 270 electoral votes.”

Praveena Somasundaram contributed to this report.