Actress Kerry Washington says voters are 'the real fixers' at Wisconsin stop for Harris
MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin needed handling. So the Harris campaign sent Kerry Washington.
Washington, who played the fictional uber-fixer Olivia Pope on the hit ABC series "Scandal," rallied Kamala Harris supporters on Sunday as an exclusive new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll showed a dead heat in Wisconsin between the vice president and former President Donald Trump.
The Harris campaign is leaving nothing to chance in the Midwest in the final days of the presidential race and has been putting every celebrity and national politician available on the road.
"You here in Wisconsin have the capacity to save the soul of this county, to really stand between us and a man who has said that he wants to be a dictator on day one, to stand between us and a man who said he wants generals more like Hitler’s generals," Washington told a roomful of Black women on Sunday at a private Harris campaign event at a cafe.
The Emmy award-winner played Olivia Pope for seven hit seasons until 2018, helping to solve fictional White House crises. These days, she is making the case that voters, not TV characters, will decide how the country is run.
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Americans have forgotten how important they are to democracy, Washington told USA TODAY after a Harris campaign stop.
"We expect other people to fix our problems and solve them for us. But a democracy really is a government by the people, for the people," she said. "So I’m not here to fix anything. I’m really here to remind people that they have so much more power than Olivia Pope."
'Not an election that we can sit out'
Washington told the women she didn't expect voters to change their behavior just because she implored them to vote for Harris on Nov. 5. Rather, the actress said she hopes that by being in battleground states like Wisconsin she can remind community members how important they are to the political process.
"They are the real superheroes in the moment," she said. "The real fixers."
Harris' campaign is concerned the election will come down to small pockets of infrequent voters. The Harris team hopes they can be motivated in the last week of the campaign by artists they've followed for years, and have known longer than Harris, to give the Democrat another look.
Artists including Beyonce, Usher, Lizzo, Bruce Springsteen, and Eminem have all vouched for Harris in the closing days of her race against former President Trump. On Saturday night, Michelle Obama campaigned with Harris in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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"This is not an election that we can sit out. There is just too much at stake," Washington told the gathering on Sunday.
Washington has talked openly about feeling she could have done more in the 2016 election to help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against Trump. Pope’s name was trending the morning after Trump's shock victory, Washington said, as social media users called on the fictional fixer to help.
She has been active in Harris’ campaign, emceeing a night of programming at the Democratic National Convention in August. Washington spoke at two canvass launches, as well as the invite-only event at the Black-owned small business, in Milwaukee on Sunday. She said she'd been to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh recently and would head to Georgia and North Carolina.
Washington is also scheduled to speak on Tuesday at an Atlanta rally hosted by When We All Vote, a nonpartisan, nonprofit working to register young people and people of color. She is a co-chair of the organization Michelle Obama founded in 2018.
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'Women make decisions, very important decisions on a daily basis'
Shante Nelson, 42, a public policy strategist who came to the Milwaukee event, said anyone with a level of influence should be doing what Washington is doing.
"Women make decisions, very important decisions on a daily basis. And as a result of that, we should be able to also make decisions when it comes to running this nation,” she said in an interview afterward.
The private event with Washington took place at the HoneyBee Sage Wellness & Apothecary Cafe.
Owner Angela Mallett said she was discouraged when her choices were President Joe Biden or Trump and had previously chosen not to engage in the political process. She feels that promises are made to the Black community in election periods that are not followed through.
"But now, because of the state of emergency that I find in this country, and based on one of the candidates’ views and perspectives ? Trump ? I do not feel like I can sit back on this one," Mallett said.
Washington on Harris: She has proven herself 'time and time again'
The evening before Washington's event, Obama had launched a searing assault on Trump at a rally with Harris in Michigan. She pushed men, in particular, to consider Harris’ qualifications.
"I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn," Obama said.
Her remarks resonated with the roughly two dozen or so women who came out to hear from Washington the next day. One of the attendees brought up Obama’s remarks and asked Washington how to speak to people applying a double standard to Harris.
"She has proven herself," Washington answered, recounting votes she’d personally cast for Harris in previous offices. "The way that she has proven herself, time and time again in these areas of leadership, where she keeps growing in power and authority because she has what it takes, and she is so ready."
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Washington encouraged the women to press people who question Harris' capabilities to explain why they have those concerns to help them become conscious of their assumptions.
"Yeah, it’s frustrating," she told them. "These are the those moments where...you’re not going to change in one conversation, like, ingrained misogyny, but calling people out to say, you know, do you believe that any ? that a woman you know is as capable as you are."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kerry Washington endorses Kamala Harris, says she has proven herself