California gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris came to the Santa Clarita Valley to campaign for congressional candidate Katie Hill and Assembly candidate Christy Smith at the Newhall Family Theatre on Saturday.
The rally served as a stop for Newsom’s Get Out the Vote, or GOTV tour to visit Democratic candidates all across the state.
“This is an amazing moment,” Smith said. “And this is a moment where I think we have all realized, and we’ve been realizing for about two years, that this moment is bigger than any one of us.”
Hill said a few hundred votes could make the difference in how the election concludes.
“It’s fundamental,” she said. “This is how people have a voice, and I think this election — this is a chance for us to know that our vote matters.”
Newsom hopes Americans, especially millennials, will look to issues that matter to them as an incentive to vote, including gun safety, climate change and health care, as well as the kind of future voters want, he said.
“I think the senator said it best today during this rally,” he said. “I mean, this is not who we are. It’s not reflected at least in the nightly news, certainly not being reflected in the White House and Washington, D.C., right now. We’re better than this.”
Newsom said the happiest people he sees in the state are people who already voted.
“It’s an empowering experience,” he said. “If you haven’t done it, test it, I think you’ll actually enjoy it.”
As Harris spoke to the audience, she said it was a moment of inflection, about looking within at an individual and community level. As she concluded, Harris said voters should not be convinced of the “us versus them” narrative, and that moment will pass.
“I’m hearing that folks are really disturbed because this rhetoric is not really reflective of who we are as a country,” she said to reporters. “Most Americans, I think, feel very strongly that we have so much more in common than what separates us and that they want leaders who recognize that and then deal with core issues.”
