WASHINGTON: At a rally in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Alicia Keys campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris, emphasizing the critical importance of voting to protect women’s rights.
Speaking to a crowd that included former First Lady Michelle Obama, Keys issued a stern warning against the potential rollback of rights should Harris’s opponent gain power, according to Deadline. She also shared the snippets from the event on her official Instagram handle.
While Keys refrained from directly naming Donald Trump, she criticized the opposing platform, stating, “If you don’t vote for her, or you don’t vote at all, you’re voting for the chaos and the hate”.
She stressed that failing to support Harris would result in “a cruel tomorrow for immigrants, people of colour, women, girls, our children, and our planet”, as per Deadline.
Expressing her vision for the future, Keys shared her desire for her children to grow up in a world where they can see diverse leadership, saying, “It’s crazy because too many people think women can’t lead just because they haven’t seen enough of it.”
She highlighted the lack of female representation in leadership positions, noting that when children look at images of past presidents, “every single one is a man, one Black guy”. This absence, she argued, contributes to a limited vision for future leadership.
Keys also addressed the ongoing struggles for women’s reproductive rights, saying, “We had reproductive freedom, but not so much now, and that’s why we’re still fighting today.” She warned that complacency could lead to further erosions of rights, referencing the overturning of ‘Roe v. Wade’.
As per Deadline, she posed a chilling hypothetical about potential future leadership, stating, “What makes us think that there couldn’t be a leader in place for the other side that would say, ‘Forget equal pay. Women don’t need it?'”
“This is not some dystopian Netflix show that I am talking about,” Keys said, adding, “This is like the platform the other side is running on. They want to turn back the clock.”
The United States is poised for presidential elections on November 5 (local time) and the race for the White House is down to the wire.
Over 160 million voters are expected to cast their ballots, with the results either delivering a return to power for Republican former President Donald Trump (78) or electing America’s first woman in the White House, Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris (60).
According to polls, both candidates are deadlocked in the race, with an estimated 75 million voters having already voted. Neither candidate currently holds a polling lead in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes.
As of November 4, NBC News and Emerson College have projected a 49 per cent-49 per cent tie nationally. Ipsos has projected a three-point lead (49 per cent-46 per cent) to Harris and AtlasIntel has projected a two-point lead (50 per cent-48 per cent) to Trump. (ANI)