A campaign rally was held on Sunday, October 13, by Ken Calvert, who is running for reelection to Congress, along with Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
During this campaign rally, other speakers such as Sheriff Bianco and Bill Essayli were present to give an introductory speech before the spotlight was placed on Ken Calvert and Mike Johnson.
Before the campaign speeches began, attendees checked in at the table booth in front of the venue to confirm their RSVP. There was a giant American flag that was at the venue as if to draw attention to it with many signs to reelect Ken Calvert for Congress.
After checking in, attendees entered the venue. They could pick up merchandise and refreshments from the table as they waited for the campaign to start.
However, video recordings and audio recordings were not permitted during this rally.
Candace Lee, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, mentions how “A pastor was brought out and led a prayer during which he asked that men such as Trump and Speaker Johnson who had been blessed by God be reelected.”
At the start of the campaign, Sheriff Bianco and Bill Essayli began to talk about elevating Calvert to Congress because he’s qualified for the spot in comparison to his opponent Will Rollins.
These two candidates for Congress are currently tied neck and neck in their race for the seat, leaving tensions high as they promote their ideology and campaigns in hopes of turning the tides in their favor.
A few speakers went onto the stage to officially start the campaign rally, giving speeches on why they think Ken Calvert is the perfect candidate to take up the seat in Congress once again.
They mention how the world would be safer if people voted for Republicans to be reelected into Congress since they also promote the idea of having former President Donald J. Trump win the reelection in the presidential election against Kamala D. Harris.
This type of support is seen with both Democratic and Republican campaigns.
They continued by encouraging all attendees to knock on doors, write postcards, and make phone calls to convince people to reelect Ken Calvert for Congress and Trump for president.
Ken Calvert made his appearance after these speeches, making jokes with the audience about the ads against him that claim he is “fat and corrupt,” but that he has recently lost weight.
Calvert spoke about how Democrats have spent 20 million dollars to take Republicans down and how the attendees have to reelect Republicans into the government. He then ended his roughly 5-minute appearance by speaking about former President Trump before walking offstage and allowing Speaker Mike Johnson to take over.
Grace Yu, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School also thought the same as she mentioned how “…Ken Calvert himself only talked for 5 minutes,” which may have been slightly disappointing considering that it was his campaign rally.
Mike Johnson started his speech by saying that he would have not made it as Speaker of the House of Representatives without Ken Calvert’s help, sharing that he trusts Calvert to retake office in Congress.
Johnson said he trusts Calvert to be in charge since he likes how he seems to know how to run the place. Similar to Calvert, Johnson also incorporated humor into his speech, making several jokes with the audience as he continued through his speech.
Johnson mentioned foreign policy briefly, and while on this topic, he emphasized how, “The outcome of this election matters,” before moving on to talk about the statistical difference between President Biden’s votes in 2020 in comparison to Kamala Harris’ votes currently.
Multiple times Johnson brought up how Kamala has lost around 20 percent and how he likes those numbers since Kamala is at a record low, according to his words.
Religion emerged as an important part of the rally, as it was started with a group prayer and with Mike Johnson saying that he believes God is not done with America due to God being able to see who is worshipping him since he has his eyes across the entire world.
When talking about former President Donald Trump, Johnson included an impersonation of Trump during one of the segments in his speech, which is a nod to something similar he did about 3 months ago at the RNC event.
Johnson emphasized to attendees that “Everyone has a role to play,” and how Republicans are “going to save America and it starts in 23 days.”
Mike Johnson ended the speech there and the campaign rally finished with Mike Johnson and Ken Calvert taking a selfie with the attendees to send to former President Donald Trump, according to Mike Johnson when he took out his phone and raised it into the air to take the photo.
After the photos were taken, Mike Johnson and Ken Calvert allowed audience members to come up to them for photos for around 5 minutes.
When leaving, there were yard signs for the attendees to take home with them near the door of the venue.
Interestingly, it seemed that Speaker Mike Johnson had a more extensive presence on stage compared to Ken Calvert, prompting reflection about the differing approaches candidates take in engaging with their audience.
