NEW YORK — Vice President Kamala Harris made an unannounced trip to New York to appear in “ Saturday evening live,” briefly stepping away from the battleground states where she was campaigning just three days before the election.

Harris left on Air Force Two after a campaign stop Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was supposed to go to Detroit, but once the plane was in the air, aides said it was actually going to New York.

Her appearance on the show was confirmed by three people familiar with Harris’ plans who were not authorized to speak publicly. This is the last episode of SNL before Election Day on Tuesday.

Actress Maya Rudolph first played Harris on the series in 2019 and reprized her role this season, doing a pitch-perfect impression of the vice president, including calling herself “Momala.”

Rudolph opened the show’s season premiere with the line: “Well, well. Look who fell from that coconut tree. And she joked about keeping President Joe Biden in his place.

Harris’ husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, was played by former cast member Andy Samberg and Biden is played by Dana Carvey, who also famously played President George HW Bush in the early 1990s.

Rudolph’s performance received critical and comedy acclaim, including by Harris herself.

“Maya Rudolph — I mean, she’s so good,” Harris said last month on ABC’s “The View.” “She had everything, the costume, the jewelry, everything! »

Harris added that she was impressed by Rudolph’s “mannerisms.”

Politicians have a long history on SNL, including Harris’ Republican opponent, former president Donald Trumpwho hosted the show in 2015.

Hillary Clinton was running for president in the 2008 Democratic primary when she appeared alongside Amy Poehler, who played her on the show and gave a signature exaggerated laugh. The real Clinton asked herself during her appearance: “Am I really laughing like that?”

Clinton returned in 2016, when she ran against Trump in a race she ultimately lost.

The first sitting president to appear on Saturday Night Live was Republican Gerald Ford, who did so less than a year after the show began. Ford appeared on April 17, 1976 and declared the show’s famous opening, “Live from New York.”

Barack Obama was still just a Democratic presidential candidate when he ran in February 2008, and Republican Bob Dole made an appearance in 1996, just 11 days after losing that year’s election- there against Democrat Bill Clinton. Dole consoled Norm Macdonald who played the Kansas senator in the series.

Then there was the impression Tina Fey gave in 2008 about vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin — and particularly her joke that “I can see Russia from my house.” It was so good that Fey won an Emmy Award. Palin herself appeared on the show that season, in the weeks leading up to the election.

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Long, Miller and Weissert reported from Washington.