When Gracie Abrams took the stage at a Kamala Harris rally at Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night (Oct. 30), the 25-year-old singer/songwriter urged young voters to support the Harris/Walz campaign so there’s still a democracy left to “fix it when it is our turn.”
“I know everybody who has been onstage tonight and will be onstage tonight wouldn’t be anywhere else for anyone else except … for the next president of the United States: the amazing, compassionate and brilliant Kamala Harris,” Abrams said. “For many of us here onstage and in this crowd tonight, this is either the first or second time that we’ve had the privilege of voting in a presidential election. As we know, we’ve inherited a world that is struggling and it’s easy to feel disconnected and disillusioned. Between the advent of social media in our childhoods and COVID and relentlessly targeted disinformation, we’ve been through some things. It’s easy to be discouraged, but we know better. We know that unless we vote and keep our democracy intact, there is nothing we will be able to do to fix it when it is our turn.”
Abrams wrapped her speech by declaring of Harris: “She is the right leader at a very tricky time and we could not be luckier.”
In addition to her speech, Abrams and her band — who are currently opening up for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on its final North American leg — also performed “I Love You, I’m Sorry” (which just peaked in the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 this month) and “Free Now”; both are from her most recent album, The Secret of Us, which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart over the summer.
Mumford & Sons also performed at the rally, playing “Little Lion Man,” “Awake My Soul” and “I Will Wait” — their highest-charting hit, peaking at No. 12 on the Hot 100 in 2013. In 2021, the group’s guitarist-banjo player Winston Marshall left the band after a controversial social media post calling right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo a “brave man” for his book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.
Remi Wolf hit the stage too, performing “Cinderella” and saying in a speech that America should feel like “a place where we feel safe, accepted and free. That is why I’m here today to support our future president, Kamala Harris, in her efforts to create this safe space for us again. She understands that the right to make decisions about our own bodies is fundamental. She’s committed to tackling big issues like climate change and, like me, she’s a girl from the Bay Area who loves to laugh and have fun.”
Also at the music-heavy rally, Aaron Dessner and Matt Berninger from The National dedicated their song “I Need a Girl” to Harris.