Harris, Trump nearly cross paths in North Carolina in final days of US election campaign

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – Democrat Kamala Harris was greeted by an unusual sight as she arrived in North Carolina on Saturday: the red-white-and-blue airplane of Donald Trump, her Republican rival for the presidency.

As Harris descended from the vice-presidential airplane Air Force Two at the Charlotte airport, Trump’s private Boeing 757 was parked on the tarmac nearby.

The close encounter was a dramatic illustration of how the two candidates are focusing on a handful of states where Tuesday’s US presidential election will be won or lost.

It was the fourth day in a row that the candidates were campaigning in the same state. Only seven states, North Carolina among them, are seen as truly competitive.

Harris was arriving for a rally with rock star Bon Jovi. Trump had campaigned in suburban Gastonia a few hours earlier, and it was not clear whether he was on his plane when Harris arrived.

With the election just three days away, Trump and Harris stuck to familiar themes at their appearances.

Trump said he would deport millions of immigrants if elected and warned that if Harris were to win, “every town in America would be turned into a squalid, dangerous refugee camp.”

Campaigning in Atlanta, Harris said Trump would abuse his power if he returns to the White House.

“This is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and the man is out for unchecked power,” she said.

More than 72 million Americans have already cast ballots, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida, short of 2020’s record early-voting pace during COVID-19, but still indicating a high level of voter enthusiasm.

Some 4 million votes have already been cast in North Carolina, and the western counties that have been devastated by Hurricane Helene appeared to be voting at roughly the same rate as the rest of the state, according to Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer.

Trump criticized the federal government’s response to the disaster and repeated his false claim that aid had been diverted from the state to help immigrants entering the country.

‘Beautiful white skin’

At a later rally in Salem, Virginia, a state that analysts say he is unlikely to win, Trump said he ran for office to rescue the economy from “obliteration”, even though it would have been easier to relax at one of his oceanfront resorts.

“I didn’t need to be here today,” he said. “I could have been standing on that beach, my beautiful white skin getting nice and being smacked, being smacked in the face by a wave loaded up with salt water.”

 

 

 

Trump was joined on stage by women from a local college swim team who have objected to competing against transgender athletes. Some of Trump’s TV ads have also sought to capitalize on transgender controversies.

Harris and Trump have very different policies on major issues including support for Ukraine and NATO, abortion rights, immigration, taxes, democratic principles and tariffs, which reflect the schisms between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that if Trump wins and Republicans control Congress, his party would “probably” repeal the CHIPS Act, passed under Joe Biden’s administration, which gave over $50 billion in subsidies to companies for semiconductor chip manufacturing and research in the United States.

Democrats have seized on the remarks. “It is further evidence of everything I’ve actually been talking about for months now, about Trump’s intention to implement Project 2025,” Harris said Saturday, referring to a conservative blueprint to remake US government and policies that was written with the help of many of Trump’s closest advisers.

Johnson revised his remarks later on Friday, saying the act would be streamlined to eliminate regulations. —Reuters