Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration and Harris campaign.
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West Wing Playbook will begin covering the transition of power on Wednesday, Nov. 6. We’ll deliver daily updates and analysis on the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations that follow the 2024 elections. Have colleagues who will want to get inside the transition? Forward and ask them to subscribe. Vice President KAMALA HARRIS
’ Tuesday evening rally on the Ellipse could be the largest crowd she’s drawn since becoming the Democratic nominee — even outdoing the 30,000-person rally she hosted in Houston last week with BEYONCÉ. After her campaign initially requested a National Park Service permit for 20,000 people, they increased it to 40,000 expected participants.
That’s a huge number of people for any campaign rally. But it’s an especially impressive number given the location: Downtown Washington. We can set aside the strategic choice to locate the speech in the nation’s capital — and not, say, in a swing state — to put a sharper symbolic point on the contrast with DONALD TRUMP by offering her own final argument at the spot where he incited a violent insurrection nearly four years ago. As our
MYAH WARD reports, Harris intends to focus largely on her agenda, not the JOE BIDEN-esque obsession with saving democracy — though the subtext of the location itself could register as much as the text.
But pulling off a high-impact final event here is no easy feat. Current and former Democratic advance staffers said that D.C. political rallies are notoriously difficult to build a crowd for. For starters, the parking downtown sucks, especially at rush hour. People tend to be a bit more on edge about mass gatherings in the nation’s capital. In a city teeming with government employees who are beholden to strict guidelines about attending political events during work hours, few are willing to take time off to stand in line to attend a campaign speech. Plus, if you’re constantly getting stuck in Massachusetts Ave. traffic
thanks to the vice president’s motorcade, the idea of waiting for hours to see her speak might be slightly less appealing. “These events aren’t as special to a lot of the politically engaged people in the city who often have big jobs themselves and have been to a million of these types of events before,” said a Democratic advance staffer, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “Or they’re used to getting invited to a White House reception here and there. So why wait in a long line with thousands of other people at the end of the work day? It’s a hard sell.”
A Harris campaign official said they built the crowd for the Tuesday night event the same way that they’ve been doing for her other large rallies across the country, and that a lot of the enthusiasm was organic, including from Maryland and Virginia.
Inside the West Wing, senior staffers have been urging colleagues to attend the speech and bring their significant others and friends. Many of them got a “friends and family” link to reserve tickets that would get them closer to the stage, according to administration officials. At the same time, the White House Counsel’s office reminded staffers that time spent attending the campaign event would have to be declared as time off (as such, you can expect the White House contingent to file in on the later side, between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. when the gates close).
The massive event has somewhat disrupted the White House campus and federal agencies headquartered near the National Mall. Some agency staffers said they were working from home on Tuesday to avoid the downton chaos. Those still required to go into their offices were ditching their cars for the metro or scooters.
White House Operations Center sent out a campus-wide email reminding staff that those with parking spots on the Ellipse (many of whom tend to leave their cars there for days on end) could not park there between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday, otherwise they would be towed. “Placard holders are encouraged to travel to and from work by public transportation or utilize a nearby parking garage,” the WHOC email read.
On top of that, the White House has yet to build out its “Hallo-Read” event, which is scheduled to take place Wednesday on the South Lawn. “Typically, they’re working on that build like a week ahead of time, but they held off because of the rally — a giant inflatable pumpkin probably isn’t the right vibe for Harris,” one administration official said. “But those guys are going to be working on it all night once the speech is over.”
And then there’s Biden himself. The president, kept at a distance from Harris in the campaign’s final weeks, will be coming back from a fundraiser in Maryland some time in the 6 p.m. hour, his motorcade likely pulling into the gates just as thousands await Harris on the grass south of the White House. Upon returning, Biden is scheduled to do a Zoom event with Voto Latino before retreating to the residence to watch the Harris speech on TV — not from the Truman Balcony.
Asked by a reporter Tuesday why he wasn’t attending, Biden replied: “It’s for her.” MESSAGE US — Are you JEREMY PETERS? Did you get a nap today? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at
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