The Biden campaign held its first in-person campaign event in Colorado Springs on Friday: a health care roundtable with Doug Emhoff, husband of vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Emhoff and state Sen. Pete Lee, a Colorado Springs Democrat, spoke with three diabetics and a nurse who suffered COVID-19 in March at the event, held outdoors at Pikes Peak Community College’s north campus.

Emhoff’s message to attendees: The Trump administration seeks to wreck the Affordable Care Act and has mishandled the pandemic.

A Biden administration would seek to protect and enhance health care accessibility, and would offer true leadership when it comes to pandemic response, he contended.

“We literally just need to move on and get leaders who will take it seriously,” Emhoff said. 

While El Paso County is known as a Republican stronghold, it also has grown in significance for Democrats, who view it as the state’s second-deepest pool of Democratic voters and a key to statewide campaigns.

Among those who spoke at the event was diabetic Kelli Raleigh Deferme, who lost her job during the pandemic and her health insurance.

She claimed the attitude of the Trump administration has trickled down to former friends, who believe mask mandates and other pandemic-related precautions are the fault of the elderly and those who, like her, are considered high-risk for the sometimes deadly virus.

“It’s your fault; you guys need to stay inside so we can continue living our lives,” said Deferme, who has other autoimmune conditions, conveying her former friends’ attitudes.

Her brother, David Ward, also has diabetes and is on the transplant list, awaiting a pancreas and kidney.

The idea of the Affordable Care Act being repealed makes him feel “dead to the world,” he said, adding that he has no idea how he’d pay hundreds of dollars each month for insulin, without insurance.

Nurse Jennifer Bresnanan said she contracted the virus in March and “never would have thought back in February that we’d still be in this position” as a country battling the pandemic.

The hospital she works at is still reusing masks due to a supply shortage, she added.

Emhoff said their stories angered but didn’t surprise him, adding that he hears similar stories wherever he goes in the country.

“If my mask was off, you’d see my jaw clenched,” he said before pointing out that ballots in Colorado were mailed starting Friday.

“Vote early so we can end this nightmare,” he said.

On Thursday night Emhoff headlined a car rally featuring Democratic Senate nominee John Hickenlooper, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock in a parking lot at Denver’s East High School.

After the rally, Emhoff and Hickenlooper made a stop at Novel Strand Brewing Company in Denver to meet the staff and pick up some beer.

On Friday, Emhoff said he’d visited Colorado Springs before, when his son attended Colorado College.

Colorado Politics reporter Ernest Luning contributed to this report.