The vice president gazed into the mirror, reached out her hand and told her comedic reflection that she had this election thing in the bag.
“I’m just here to remind you — you got this,” the actual vice president said to Maya Rudolph, the comedian who has portrayed Kamala Harris for years on “Saturday Night Live.” She then added a jab about former President Donald J. Trump’s fumbled attempt to enter a garbage truck this week: “Because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors.”
It wasn’t cringe, which is the only bar that needs clearing for a high-risk live television appearance during the final hours of a breakneck presidential campaign.
And maybe it was not viral comedy gold, either. That is a feat more easily achieved by someone like the veteran comedian Dana Carvey, who played a rhetorically unburdened President Biden in the first minutes of the show’s cold open. Or by James Austin Johnson, who portrayed former President Donald J. Trump and joked about his tactile relationship with a microphone and his volatile relationship with his former vice president, Mike Pence.
But Ms. Harris’s appearance, which came later in the opening sketch and was delivered across a fictional dressing-room mirror from Ms. Rudolph, contained a solid riff that poked some fun at Mr. Trump. Her segment was also rife with puns designed to assist in the pronunciation of the vice president’s first name: mamala, palmala, rom-comala, pajamala … the list goes on and onala.
Ms. Harris’s appearance on the vaunted live sketch comedy show had been discussed by advisers for the better part of this week, according to a person familiar with the plans, but the vice president did not confirm that she would attend until midweek. Her aides had kept her Saturday evening plans open while they deliberated.
In the end, after a day spent campaigning in Georgia and North Carolina, two top battleground states, Ms. Harris took a surprise flight to New York City. Her plans were kept secret until shortly before her motorcade pulled up outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Appearing on live television is a gamble for a presidential candidate, or for any celebrity, without acting experience, but previous contenders have rolled the dice, including Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2015 and Barack Obama in 2007. (Mrs. Clinton also appeared in 2008.) Few have done so in the waning days of a campaign.
When Ms. Harris first appeared behind the mirror, the audience clapped and screamed. She had been introduced by Ms. Rudolph, who was wishing she could speak to someone “who’s been in my shoes — a Black, South Asian woman running for president, preferably from the Bay Area.”
“Saturday Night Live,” now in its 50th season, has maintained an unusual cultural potency during election cycles, with viewers clamoring to see which comedians will be chosen to lampoon the candidates. In 2015, Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton both appeared on the show during their parties’ primary races, and Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon morphed into their late-night comedic alter egos along the way.
Mrs. Clinton appeared in a single sketch, as a bartender serving the version of herself played by the actress Kate McKinnon, and poked gentle but toothless fun at herself.
Mr. Trump — who, as the former host of “The Apprentice,” has significant show-business experience — hosted an entire episode that year, although the sketches were tame and not seen as particularly hilarious.
But this year, the unexpected campaign of Ms. Harris, along with her choice of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, sent the perennial speculation into overdrive. The comedian Jim Gaffigan was selected to play Mr. Walz, and Ms. Rudolph reprised her portrayal of Ms. Harris to much acclaim.
Even the vice president has praised her impression. “She’s so good,” Ms. Harris said last month on the ABC talk show “The View,” adding, “She had the whole thing — the suit, the jewelry, everything.”
On “Saturday Night Live,” Ms. Harris and Ms. Rudolph chatted long enough to mock Mr. Trump but also for the vice president to laugh at herself: “I don’t really laugh like that, do I?” she asked Ms. Rudolph after the comedian let loose one of Ms. Harris’s full-throated peals.
“Little bit,” Ms. Rudolph replied.
Then they stepped out from behind the mirror, faced the crowd and embraced before the fictional Ms. Harris told the real Ms. Harris that the vice president had her vote. “I’m going to vote for us,” Ms. Rudolph said.
“Any chance you are registered in Pennsylvania?” Ms. Harris asked cheekily, before the two closed out the cold open with the one line that never needs any rehearsing.
And before the night was through, Ms. Harris was not the only politician to show up onstage.
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat who is up for re-election on Tuesday, appeared in a sketch game show called “What’s That Name,” in which neither the contestants nor the host could remember whom he was.
“Not only does he look exactly like Tim Walz, his name is also Tim,” said the game show’s host, played by Michael Longfellow. Mr. Kaine jumped in. “My name is still Tim,” he said. “I exist. I’m a senator representing Virginia.”
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