TThe iconic columns of the White House glowed behind her. Before her, thousands of supporters held “USA” signs and wore armbands that glowed red and blue across the grassy acres of the Ellipse. A week before Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris decided to deliver her closing argument to Americans, not from one of the seven closely contested battleground states, but from the same spot in Washington, DC, where Donald Trump had gathered his supporters. January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.

The place was the point. Harris wanted voters to remember Trump’s defiance that day — when he failed to act to protect Vice President Mike Pence from rioters chanting for his hanging or listening to pleas from fellow Republicans to recall supporters who were targeting law enforcement attacked the Capitol — and what happened in the years since, as he continued to deny the election results and vowed to pardon the January 6 rioters convicted of assault.

In a powerful 30-minute speech, Harris asked voters to elect her and “turn the page” on Trump.

“We know what Donald Trump has in mind: more chaos, more division, and policies that help those at the top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path,” she said.

Harris compared Trump to a “petty tyrant” who is “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge” and wants “unchecked power.” She said he wants to return to the Oval Office, “to focus not on your problems, but on his.” Trump has expressed support for military tribunals for political enemies, vowed to purge the federal bureaucracy of workers who disagree with him and said he would use the military against adversaries he calls “the enemy within.” Trump would enter the Oval Office with an “enemies list,” Harris said. She will appear with a ‘to do list’.

Early voting is underway in almost every state, and polls show the race is at a dead end. Trump’s campaign has tried in recent days to contain the fallout from racist jokes and sexist comments from speakers at his rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Harris, meanwhile, has worked to prevent defections from the left over her support for arming Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. During the speech, several protesters in different parts of the crowd began shouting, “Stop the genocide!” and were led away by the police. One person unfurled a pink banner reading “Kamala: No weapons for Israel” before it was removed.

Harris has also tried to convince Republicans, who were alarmed by Trump’s autocratic comments, to vote for her. He campaigned with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming and ran ads with Republicans explaining why they voted for her.

Harris has laid out a series of forward-looking ideas for the country in recent weeks, attempting to outline a positive vision for what she could achieve if voters agree to promote her. During her speech on Tuesday night, Harris pledged to protect women’s access to abortion and reproductive health care, and said she would work to lower costs for Americans. She outlined a plan to cut red tape for homebuilders to ease the housing shortage that is driving up prices. She said she would punish companies that rob consumers of their groceries. She proposed expanding Medicare to include home health care.

Trump’s campaign has pounced on these proposals, prompting voters to wonder why she hasn’t done more to implement her policy wish list over the past four years as No. 2 in the White House. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said voters should blame Harris for inflation, conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and crime caused by recent immigrants. “Kamala’s first day in office was over 1,300 days ago, and she has spent the last four years working hand-in-hand with Joe Biden to destroy our country – but now she is lying about her record because she has no policy solutions to offer,” said Leavitt in a statement after Harris’ speech Tuesday evening. “As for President Trump, his closing argument to the American people is simple: Kamala broke it; He will fix it.”

But many Harris supporters at the meeting were less focused on what Harris would do if she got to the Oval Office than on blocking Trump from getting back there. Gretchen McMullen, 64, came to Washington from Accokeek, Maryland, to see Harris speak. She wants to be able to tell her newborn granddaughter about it when she’s older and “show her the side of history I was on.” Retired from the military and now a case manager helping seriously injured veterans, McMullen said Trump’s public comments about using the military after the “enemy within” have alarmed her. “The thought of my fellow comrades standing alone scared me,” she said.

Mitzi Maxwell, 69, decided to fly from outside Orlando, Florida, to attend Harris’ speech after her 88-year-old mother told her, “I think we have to go.” Maxwell writes postcards for the Harris campaign and waves signs in support of Harris around her hometown of Howey-in-the-Hills. But Maxwell wanted to come to Harris’ speech about the Ellipse to be part of the restoration of the site itself. She wanted to be here in person, she said, to “help rid this beautiful place of the negativity and sadness of the terrible tragedy of January 6.”