tThe iconic columns of the White House shone behind her. In front of her, thousands of supporters held signs that read “United States” and wore armbands that illuminated the grassy acres of the Ellipse in red and blue. One week before election day, Vice President Kamala Harris decided to present his closing argument to Americans in prime time, not from one of the seven contested states on the battlefield but from the same place in Washington, DC, where donald trump had gathered his followers January 6, 2021to try to reverse his 2020 electoral defeat.

The place was the point. Harris wanted voters to remember Trump’s obstinacy that day — when he failed to act to protect Vice President Mike Pence from rioters shouting for his hanging or listen to his Republican colleagues’ pleas to call off his supporters who were attacking the forces. of order at the Capitol) and what he has done in the years since, when he continued to deny the election results and promised to forgive the January 6 rioters convicted of assault.

In a powerful 30-minute speech, Harris asked voters to elect her and “turn the page” on Trump.

“We know what Donald Trump has in mind: more chaos, more division, and policies that help those at the top and hurt everyone else. “I offer a different path,” he said.

Harris compared Trump to a “little tyrant” who is “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge” and who wants “unchecked power.” She said he wants to return to the Oval Office, “not to focus on her problems but on his.” Trump has expressed support for military tribunals for political enemies, promised to purge the federal bureaucracy of workers who disagree with him and said he would use the military against opponents he calls “the enemy within.” Trump would arrive at the Oval Office with a “list of enemies,” Harris said. She will appear with a “to-do list.”

Early voting is underway in nearly every state and polls show the race is tied. The Trump campaign spent the previous few days trying to contain the fallout from racist jokes and sexist comments made by speakers at his rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Meanwhile, Harris has worked to avoid defections from the left over her support for arming Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. During the speech, several protesters in different sections of the crowd began shouting “Stop the genocide!” and were escorted by the police. One person unfurled a pink banner that read “Kamala: No guns for Israel” before it was removed.

Harris has also been trying to convince Republicans alarmed by Trump’s autocratic comments to vote for her, campaigning with the former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming. Liz Cheney and run ads that show Republicans explaining why they are voting for her.

Harris has presented a series of future ideas for the country in recent weeks, trying to paint a positive vision of what it could achieve if voters agree to promote it. During her speech Tuesday night, Harris promised to protect women’s access to abortion and reproductive health care, and said she would work to reduce costs for Americans. He outlined a plan to reduce red tape for homebuilders to alleviate a housing shortage that is driving up prices. He said he would penalize companies that extort consumers on groceries. He proposed expanding Medicare to include home care.

Trump’s campaign has pounced on those proposals, urging voters to question why he didn’t do more to implement his political wish list during the past four years as No. 2 in the White House. Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said voters should blame Harris for inflation, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and crime caused by recent immigrants. “Kamala’s first day in office was more than 1,300 days ago, and she has spent the last four years working hand-in-hand with Joe Biden to destroy our country, but now she is lying about her record because she has no policy solutions to offer,” Leavitt said in a statement after Harris’ speech Tuesday night. “As for President Trump, his final argument to the American people is simple: Kamala broke him; He will fix it.”

But many Harris supporters at the rally were less focused on what Harris would do if she reached the Oval Office than on stopping Trump from returning there. Gretchen McMullen, 64, came to Washington from Accokeek, Maryland, to see Harris speak. She wants to be able to tell her newborn granddaughter when she’s older and “show her the side of the story I was on.” McMullen is retired from the military and now a case manager helping seriously injured veterans, and she said Trump’s public comments that he would use the military to pursue the “enemy within” have alarmed her. “I was scared by the idea that my classmates would be left alone,” he said.

Mitzi Maxwell, 69, decided to fly from outside Orlando, Florida, to attend Harris’ speech after her 88-year-old mother told her, “I think we have to go.” Maxwell has been writing postcards for the Harris campaign and waving signs in support of Harris in her hometown of Howey-in-the-Hills. But Maxwell wanted to attend Harris’ speech at the Ellipse to be part of the site’s restoration. She wanted to be here in person, she said, to “help rid this beautiful place of the negativity and pain of the terrible tragedy that was January 6.”