Harris, Trump battle it out in swing states in final weekend before US election
VP makes surprise SNL appearance while Trump campaigns in North Carolina; respected pollster drops survey showing Harris three points ahead of Trump in solidly red Iowa
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump dueled across the swing states Saturday on the final weekend of the tensest US election of modern times, with the Democrat urging voters to “turn the page” on the Republican’s scorched-earth brand of politics.
Seventy-five million people have already cast early ballots as the hours tick down to the Election Day climax Tuesday.
The country — and the world — could then face a nail-biting wait to know whether Harris becomes the first US woman president or Trump secures a spectacular return to power after his unprecedented and at times violent campaign to overturn his 2020 reelection loss to Joe Biden.
The rivals literally crossed paths Saturday, with Harris’s official vice presidential Air Force Two and Trump’s personal jet sharing the airport tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Both held rallies in North Carolina, while Harris also spoke to supporters in Georgia, another of the seven swing states seen as the keys to victory in an otherwise dead-even nationwide contest. Trump added in a stop in Virginia.
The rounds of high-stakes speeches before thousands of people at each stop continue Sunday when Harris will hold multiple events in the swing state of Michigan and Trump will rally with supporters in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Most polls show Trump, 78, and Harris, 60, within the margin of error from each other across the swing states.
However, there was a surprise boost for Harris when one of the most respected pollsters in the country dropped a new survey in the Des Moines Register that shows the Democrat three points ahead of Trump in Iowa.
The poll of 808 likely voters, who were surveyed October 28-31, has Harris leading Trump 47%-44% in Iowa, which has been trending deeply Republican in recent years. It is within the 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but it marked a turnaround from a September Iowa Poll that had Trump with a 4-point lead, the newspaper reported.
“The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris,” the Register said.
Trump won Iowa in his past two presidential campaigns by more than nine percentage points in 2016 and eight points in 2020.
The Trump campaign released a memo from its chief pollster and its chief data consultant calling the Des Moines Register poll “a clear outlier,” and saying that an Emerson College poll — also released Saturday — more closely reflected the state of the Iowa electorate.
The Emerson College Polling/RealClearDefense survey of a similar number of likely voters November 1-2 had a starkly different result, with Trump leading Harris by 10 points. This poll also has a 3.4 percentage point margin of error.
The Emerson College survey had Trump with strong leads over Harris among men and independents, while Harris was performing well with those under the age of 30.
Whoever wins Iowa will collect six Electoral College votes. A total of 270 are needed to capture the White House.
Women and dark rhetoric
For Harris, a key electorate is women voters angered over the ruling by justices appointed by then-president Trump to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, ending a decades-long constitutional right to abortion.
“Donald Trump’s not done. He will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris said in Atlanta, Georgia.
She painted Trump as “increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge” and “out for unchecked power.”
“We have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump who spends full time trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” she said.
Abortion rights have passed inflation as the top issue in the presidential election for women under age 30, and ballot initiatives have surged since the issue was shifted to the states.
Nine states will consider constitutional amendments that would enshrine abortion rights — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. Most would guarantee a right to abortion until fetal viability and allow it later if necessary for the health of the pregnant woman.
A proposed amendment in New York doesn’t specifically mention abortion but would prohibit discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes” and “reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
Trump, stirring up his right-wing base, continued to deliver increasingly dark rhetoric.
In Salem, Virginia, he began his speech by saying, “I’ve come today with a message of hope for all.”
But he was soon back to conjuring the apocalyptic vision he’d laid out hours earlier in North Carolina.
Calling his opponent “low IQ” and “stupid,” he said Harris would usher in an economic “depression,” asking the crowd: “Do you want to lose your job and maybe your house and pension?”
In later remarks, he dipped into far-right rhetoric with a promise to “keep American for American citizens.”
“We’re going to have American people in our communities now,” he said.
Trump has worked hard to appeal to men, appearing on podcasts with martial artists, spending time in barbershops and meeting with crypto entrepreneurs. With Harris getting a surge in support from women, some predict a dramatic gender gap in the results.
During his second rally of the day in North Carolina, the former president laughed along with a sexist joke about the vice president.
As he repeated his claim, without evidence, that Harris lied about working in McDonalds in her youth, someone in the crowd yelled, “she worked on the corner.” Trump laughed, looked around and pointed toward a section of the crowd.
“This place is amazing,” he said to cheers. “Just remember, it’s other people saying it. It’s not me.”
Thousands demonstrated Saturday in central Washington, DC, for a Women’s March.
Tlaib declines to endorse Harris
Underscoring the vice president’s difficulty rallying the Arab-American vote due to anger over US support for Israel, Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rep. Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Harris at a rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday.
Appearing alongside fellow progressive Democratic lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib encouraged attendees to get out the vote, but made no mention of the US vice president, and instead chose to focus on down-ballot races.
“Don’t underestimate the power you all have,” Tlaib said, according to the Detroit News. “More than those ads, those lawn signs, those billboards, you all have more power to turn out people that understand we’ve got to fight back against corporate greed in our country.”
Ocasio-Cortez, along with the two other members of the “Squad,” the progressive contingent of Democrats — Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — have all endorsed Harris.
While withholding an endorsement from Harris, Tlaib has nevertheless been critical of Trump, calling him a “proud Islamophobe” and “serial liar who doesn’t stand for peace” in a post on X on Friday.
However, she blamed the Republican candidate’s apparent popularity among Michigan’s Arab-American community on President Joe Biden, claiming that his “unconditional support” for Israel amid the war against Hamas in Gaza “is what got us here.”
‘Keep Calm-ala and carry on-ala’
Reflecting Harris’s drive to hit every possible target before Tuesday, her plane unexpectedly took a detour to New York for an appearance on the “Saturday Night Live” television comedy show.
Harris portrayed herself, appearing in a mirror opposite the actor who plays her on the show, Maya Rudolph, who was nervously preparing for a campaign speech. Dressed identically in a black suit and pearls, the two traded variations on Harris’s first name, saying Americans want to “end the drama-la” in politics “with a cool new stepmom-ala.”
“Keep Calm-ala and carry on-ala,” they said in unison.
“I don’t really laugh like that, do I?” Harris asked, after Rudolph imitated her distinctive chortle.
“A little bit,” Rudolph responded.
Harris was making her first appearance on the show, which has had other presidential candidates over its decades-long run.
“It was fun,” she told reporters on the tarmac before flying to Detroit in the battleground state of Michigan.
Rudolph’s performance has won critical and comedic acclaim — including from Harris herself.
“Maya Rudolph — I mean, she’s so good,” Harris said last month on ABC’s “The View.” “She had the whole thing, the suit, the jewelry, everything!”
Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, expressed surprise that Harris would appear on “SNL” given what he characterized as her unflattering portrayal on the show. Asked if Trump had been invited to appear, he said: “I don’t know. Probably not.”
