Harris and Trump go toe-to-toe in a frenzied final campaign weekend

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final weekend of the tensest US presidential campaign in modern times with a wave of swing-state rallies that will test their endurance – and their ability to the last undecided voters in the country.

Harris, who is running to become the country’s first female president, will use rallies in Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan to deliver her message that Trump is a threat to American democracy.

Trump — seeking a sensational return to the White House after losing in 2020 and subsequently becoming the first presidential candidate to be convicted of crimes — is promising a radical right-wing government makeover and aggressive trade wars to boost his “America first” policy to promote. ”.

In an interview with Fox News Saturday morning, Trump lashed out at the state of the economy under the Biden-Harris administration, calling the disappointing jobs numbers released Friday “a gift to me.”

The candidates’ hectic schedules continue into Monday, culminating in late-night rallies — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Harris.

Election day is Tuesday, but Americans have been voting early for weeks, with more than 72 million votes already cast – including a record four million in Georgia, where Democrats are trying to do everything they can to keep the state in their column.

Opinion polls continue to show a tie, especially in the seven battleground states that will likely decide the outcome in the US Electoral College system, leaving the Republican businessman and his 60-year-old Democratic rival to fight hard to get even a glimmer of support away from them. to peel. each other’s camps.

Harris, currently President Joe Biden’s vice president, is doing that by appealing to centrist voters and propelling her base to the polls with a robust ground game and a get-out-the-vote effort.

Thousands of women were expected to demonstrate in cities across the country on Saturday under the theme “We Won’t Go Back” in support of Harris and abortion rights.

But while she has worked to appeal to women voters across party lines, using issues like abortion and health care, Trump lashed out at a Democratic TV ad that depicted wives of his supporters secretly voting for Harris.

“Can you imagine a woman not telling her husband who she is voting for?” he asked on Fox News Saturday morning.

Harris, who previously chided Trump for saying he would protect women whether they “like it or not,” has encouraged voters to “finally turn the page” on the former president.

“He is an increasingly unstable person, obsessed with revenge, consumed with resentment – ​​and the man is bent on unchecked power,” she told supporters in Little Chute, Wisconsin, on Friday.

Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on his already extreme rhetoric in hopes of galvanizing his loyal base to come out in large numbers.

“Kamala’s final message to America is that she hates you,” Trump raged on Friday evening in Warren, Michigan, where he blasted the economy under Biden and Harris — even as experts say the overall economy is strong.

He also warned that there would be “a 1929-style economic depression” if Harris were elected. Speaking on Fox Saturday, Trump described the weak employment numbers released Friday as “the worst jobs numbers,” although analysts said the numbers were a temporary blip.

Citing her hawkish foreign policy views, Trump had previously evoked the image of Liz Cheney, a former Republican representative turned Harris supporter, being shot.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her there with a gun while nine barrels shoot at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about, you know, having the guns pointed at her face,” Trump said.

Harris, the nation’s first Black and first Asian American vice president, has meanwhile sought to leverage the power of celebrities like Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen in the final days of the campaign.

Jennifer Lopez, a pop icon of Puerto Rican descent, joined Harris onstage Thursday amid a firestorm sparked by a Trump warm-up speaker who labeled the U.S. territory a “floating island of trash.”

With the election just days away — and Trump refusing to say whether he would accept its results if he loses — businesses in the capital Washington have begun boarding up storefronts as city authorities warn of a “fluid, unpredictable security environment” in the days after the elections. polling stations close.

Trump is already accusing fraud and deceit in swing states like Pennsylvania, laying the groundwork for what could be more unrest following the violence that erupted at the U.S. Capitol in the aftermath of the 2020 election.