Democrats are trying to win back the Ellipse for the viral Kamala Harris moment

But the meeting, seven days before the electionalso acts as an opportunity to create a viral moment for Harris and troll Trump one last time if the vice president can gather a large crowd near the National shopping center.

Against the decidedly presidential backdrop of the White HouseHarris’ rally will take place at the same location as Trump’s infamous “Stop the Steal” event, where rioters then stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to overturn the 2020 election results. She plans to use the platform to implore voters to turn the page on the former president’s chaos and division and pursue a “New Way Forward,” her campaign slogan.

“Just imagine Oval office in three months,” Harris said this week Georgia in an example of what she could repeat next Tuesday. “Imagine it… It’s either Donald Trump hustling, going through his list of enemies, or me working for you, checking off my to-do list.”

If poll After the poll highlights how close the election still is, the Harris campaign hopes the meeting will crystallize voters’ choice between Harris and Trump, while forgoing the “joy” and strengthening the president. Joe Biden‘s concerns about the risks Trump poses to democracy.

But it also offers a final chance to present a united Democratic front and prod Trump about his insecurities about crowd size if its audience is larger than his “Stop the Steal” rally, which the newspaper said drew 53,000 people attended. House Select a committee that has investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Trump’s crowd included people on the National Mall, but the Harris campaign has applied to the city of Washington DC for a permit for the Ellipse for a crowd of 20,000 people. For reference, there were 23,000 people at her rally concert with the former president this week Barack Obama And Bruce Springsteen in the suburbs of Atlanta. An estimated 30,000 people attended her Friday night meeting with Beyonce in Houston, her largest audience yet.

Meanwhile, Democrats are receiving texts and emails encouraging them to register for Harris’ DC event. “We’d love to see you there!” read one text message.

Democratic strategist Mike Nellis said Harris “standing in a place that represents one of the lowest points in American history, where violence erupted during the transition of power after Trump lost the election,” “sends a powerful message.”

“It’s a powerful way to close the discussion, especially for those undecided voters,” Nellis told the newspaper. Washington Examiner. “Many people may agree with Trump on some issues, but they are deeply uncomfortable with what he did on January 6. We have to remind them of that. We need to remind people who he is, what he stands for and how he will hurt people.”

Another Democratic strategist, Mike Lux, downplayed Harris’ rally as an opportunity to troll Trump, claiming the Ellipse is “a serious place to raise issues about saving our democracy and stopping the fascism of Trump.”

Nellis agreed, arguing that people are concerned “about the possibility of returning to the chaos that defined the Trump administration.”

But Republican strategists and pollsters disagreed with how the Harris campaign made the negative case against Trump in the days before the election, as opposed to the positive one for Harris.

“The best thing Harris could do is spend the next 10 days telling voters what the first 100 days of her presidency would look like,” Doug Heye, former communications director for the Republican National Committee, told the newspaper. Washington Examiner. “But they made a strategic decision not to do that, despite the fact that unaffiliated voters say that’s what they want to hear. It’s puzzling.”

Heye mentioned how Senate Democratic candidates in races that will determine the chamber’s majority, including in Michigan, Montana, Ohio, PennsylvaniaAnd Wisconsin“trying to talk about issues that voters are talking about.”

“Social security, prices, abortioneven the border” he said. “Harris? Not so much.”

David Paleologos, director of the University of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, also found Harris’s meeting ill-conceived, but for a different reason.

“Given that millions of people vote every day, it is difficult to imagine that a single campaign event will move a significant number of undecided voters,” Paleologos told the paper. Washington Examiner.

Days before Harris’ rally, Trump will deliver his own closing speech on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, which has a capacity of 20,000 people.

“President Trump will deliver his forward-looking closing message to a packed house of patriots in deep blue New York Cityas Americans of all backgrounds join his “big tent” coalition Make America great again,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner. “Harris will deliver her joyless final message of fear and retaliation by sowing division and looking back.”

Trolling Trump for his size was a Harris campaign strategy during the election, best demonstrated in Harris and the former president debate in September, alongside an ad that debuted that same day.

“I’m going to do something very unusual and I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s very interesting to watch,” she said. “What you will also notice is that people leave his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”

Harris’ joke prompted an immediate response from Trump, who counterclaimed that “people don’t go to her rallies,” allowing the vice president to transition from a immigration ask.

“There is no reason to go,” he said. “People don’t leave my meetings. We’re having the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That’s because people want to take back their country.”

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Obama took a similar approach to his remarks this summer at the conference Democratic National Convention in Chicagowhich implies with a hand gesture that crowd size wasn’t the only thing little Trump had to worry about.

“This is a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” he said. “The childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories and the strange obsession with audience size. It just goes on and on.”