Diana Vahabzadeh had never voted Democratic in her life, until Barack Obama's first campaign in 2008. “I've loved him for years,” she said as she waited to see the United States' first black president on Thursday for endorsing Kamala Harris in the hotly contested state of Pennsylvania.
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This 63-year-old woman says it is “a good opportunity to see him and also to support the Democratic ticket,” less than a month before the presidential election against Republican Donald Trump.
In Pittsburgh, one of the major cities in this key eastern state, Barack Obama, a Democratic icon since his two terms in office from 2009 to 2017, is leading a massive rally in the interior part of a “particularly tense and tense campaign.”
Around the University of Pittsburgh, where the large rally is taking place, Democratic fans are getting impatient in the pre-concert atmosphere.
Diana Vahabzadeh says his words still carry “great weight.”
Retired teacher Valerie Brown agrees. “I love seeing and hearing her way of expressing herself well and motivating others who may still be hesitant” to vote for Kamala Harris, she explains.
After a honeymoon in the polls and media at the start of her campaign, the vice president remains neck-and-neck with Donald Trump, with the former president relying on a self-motivated electoral base.
“We will not come back”
The two candidates traveled to key states such as Pennsylvania, where elections will be held on November 5 due to a specific American electoral system.
Lisa Harris, a friend of Valerie Brown, who is also a retired teacher, believes that the Democratic campaign offers a vision for the future, unlike the Republicans, who, in her opinion, offer only a dark return to the past, conservative and hostile to diversity.
“We will not go back,” shouted the 57-year-old black woman, adopting one of Kamala Harris' campaign slogans. “People died so that we could have the right to vote, so that we could have the right to control our bodies, our minds, our souls,” she insists.
Even for the younger generation, the arrival of Barack Obama does not go unnoticed. Like Tia Douglas standing in line to see a former president elected for the first time when she herself wasn't old enough to vote.
“It's very historic that Obama, our first president of color, is campaigning once again to choose the first woman of color as his vice president,” beams Kamala Harris, a 20-year-old athlete sporting a now-famous military-colored camouflage campaign hat.
“Something really big”
“Seeing them join forces for the good of everyone is truly amazing,” Tia Douglas continues. “I grew up with Obama as president, but we're not really part of that political history. I was very young.”
But she said: “It's great to see him back in the field” and described Kamala Harris as his political successor. So “cool” that she waited hours for the Democratic star to arrive at her old university gymnasium, where her campaign’s primary slogan of “Yes We Can” on posters was transformed into “Yes, We Can Do.” Yes you can.”
For Julia Palchikov, growing up under the Trump presidency, from 2017 to 2021, made her appreciate Barack Obama even more.
“Being in a key state during an election like this is a historic moment, and I feel like I have to be a part of it,” says the 20-year-old journalism student.
“When I heard Obama was coming here, I thought to myself I loved him as a kid. And Kamala, honestly, I feel like we're on the cusp of something really big. “I'm so happy to be here.”
