(AFP) – US election rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris made their pitches to Latino voters Tuesday as their neck-and-neck White House race entered its final two-week stretch. Democratic candidate Harris was set to tape an interview with Spanish-language TV network Telemundo while Republican nominee Trump held a roundtable event with Latino leaders in Florida, where he called the border the “biggest issue” facing the nation. Both campaigns are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a last push for undecided voters who could tilt the balance in their favor, with polls showing the candidates in a dead heat ahead of Election Day. About 18 million Americans have already voted by mail or in person — representing more than 10 percent of the total in 2020.
Whatever the result, US voters will make history on November 5: they will either elect the country’s first woman president, or they will put the first convicted felon into the White House. At Trump’s event, one speaker falsely claimed Vice President Harris and outgoing President Joe Biden were “human traffickers” while pushing baseless claims that Trump won the 2020 election. The former president still refuses to accept his defeat at the polls four years ago and is expected to reject the result in November if he loses again — potentially pitching the United States into chaos. Some polls appear to be giving the Republican, who at 78 is the oldest nominee from a major party in US history, a slight edge recently — but all within the margin of error.
Trump, speaking to Latino leaders, falsely claimed the Biden administration was flying in “hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.” Harris, who will give an interview to NBC on Tuesday evening, has been honing in on abortion, a hot-button issue this election cycle. Her campaign announced she would on Friday travel to Texas — “ground zero of Trump’s extreme abortion bans” since a 2022 Supreme Court decision ended the national right to the procedure. In Madison, Wisconsin, a long line for early voting snaked through a library branch, and resident Dawn Lauderdale said she would have to come back another day to cast her ballot. The Harris supporter said abortion was a key issue for her. “There is no reason any politician, male or female, should be in that room,” she said, referring to where abortion procedures take place.
Harris, 60, is also deploying two of her party’s most popular emissaries onto the campaign trail: Barack and Michelle Obama. The former president, speaking at a rally in Madison, rolled back the years with fiery attacks on Trump. “Don’t boo, vote!” he implored people after his jibes. Upping the star factor, rapper Eminem will introduce Obama at a major Harris campaign event in Detroit on Tuesday, according to US media.
After his Florida appearance, Trump was set to fly to North Carolina for an event slated to focus on the economy. He rarely sticks to the topic at his rallies, however — instead, recent weeks have featured rambling monologues and threats about weaponizing the military against Democrats, whom he calls “the enemy from within.” One televised town hall veered into an impromptu music session, as Trump abandoned discussion of the election to play his favorite hits while swaying on stage. The Harris campaign has begun to hammer at his mental and physical fitness to occupy the Oval Office while trying to woo moderate Republican voters.
Trump has increasingly pushed conspiracy theories on the campaign trail, mainly taking aim at migrants and his political opponents. On Monday, he again called into question the fairness of the poll, implying at a campaign event that elections in California were rigged against him. On Tuesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) warned that foreign actors — including Russia, Iran and China — “remain intent on fanning divisive narratives” to undermine confidence in the country’s democratic institutions. The same day as the ODNI warning, Fox News, citing anonymous intelligence officials, reported that Moscow was behind a recent viral video — since debunked — showing a man alleging sexual misconduct by Democratic vice presidential pick Tim Walz.
– Camille CAMDESSUS
© 2024 AFP
