Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election

WASHINGTON – With just a month left in a deadlocked US presidential election, former president Donald Trump urged supporters on Oct 6 in the battleground state of Wisconsin to get out and vote, as Vice-President Kamala Harris kicked off a week-long media interview blitz with a focus on reproductive rights.

Polls have the Republican and Democratic candidates neck and neck, fuelling a high-cost, high-intensity scramble for each and every wavering voter in the seven key states that are likely to decide the outcome on Nov 5.

Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 and this was his fourth visit in eight days.

Ms Harris was there earlier this week, holding a rally in Ripon, birthplace of the Republican Party, where she appealed to moderate and disgruntled conservatives.

“I’m only asking you to do one thing,” Trump told the crowd in the town of Juneau. “Just go out and vote.”

He also repeated false allegations that the Biden-Harris administration had redirected relief funds for areas devastated by Hurricane Helene and spent them on migrant programmes.

Ms Harris, he said, is “someone who steals your wealth and abandons your family when the flood waters rise”.

Harris media blitz

Ms Harris has faced criticism for seemingly avoiding one-on-one interviews with national media since she took over as the Democratic nominee, and Trump hammered away at this on Oct 6.

“She doesn’t do interviews because she can’t answer the questions. She can’t answer anything,” he said.

In her bid to reach key voters, Ms Harris is taking to the airwaves in the coming week with a host of TV, radio and podcast appearances.

She began her media flurry with an appearance on Oct 6 on the podcast Call Her Daddy – one of the most popular programmes on Spotify – that focuses on advice and issues affecting women.

She addressed reproductive rights, which Democrats view as a major vote winner among undecided voters, especially women.

At one point, she was asked how she felt when she heard Trump, in their presidential debate in September, say that some Democratic states allow the “execution” of babies after birth.

In an impassioned reply, she denounced that as “a bold-faced lie”, something “outrageously inaccurate” and “insulting to women”.

“This guy”, she added, “is full of lies.”

Asked how she was feeling with just a month to go before the election, Ms Harris replied “nervous” – then jokingly mentioned what she called an old adage: “There are only two ways to run: without an opponent or scared.”

Back in Butler

Trump’s visit to Wisconsin came on the back of a theatrical campaign return a day earlier to the same venue in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he

narrowly avoided a would-be assassin’s bullet back in July.

His campaign team had hoped to recapture the momentum he enjoyed at that time – riding high in the polls – before President Joe Biden upended the race by withdrawing and being replaced by Ms Harris.

In a long, often rambling speech delivered from behind bulletproof glass, Trump suggested his political opponents may have been behind the failed assassination bid.

“Those who want to stop us... have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” he told tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered for the event.

The gunman, who was shot dead, was a registered Republican and investigators have found no motive – and no political link – to his attempt on Trump’s life.

Ms Harris spent Oct 5 in North Carolina, meeting relief workers and residents in one of the areas most impacted by Helene – which left a trail of destruction across half a dozen states and more than 220 people dead.

Later in the week, she will also be a guest on ABC’s The View, as well as The Howard Stern Show and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert – all of which are seen as generally sympathetic to the Harris campaign.

Former president Barack Obama will add his star power by stumping for her in key swing states from Oct 10 right till election day, the campaign says. AFP