Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump delivered their final addresses to voters in the same area of Pennsylvania at about the same time on Monday, spending the final full day of the presidential campaign in a state that will decide the chances.
Focusing on southeastern Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump took the stage in Reading, about 30 miles from Allentown, and Ms. Harris held her own event about 30 minutes later.
“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said. “it’s over.”
Indeed, a Trump victory in Pennsylvania would flip 19 electoral college votes, blowing a hole in the Democratic Party’s “blue wall” and making it harder for Harris to win the 270 votes she needs.
Democratic candidate Harris, who spent all of Monday in Pennsylvania, the biggest payday of the states expected to decide the Electoral College result, offered a similarly frank assessment.
“We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote,” she said. “You are going to make a difference in this election.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump concluded Tuesday’s debate with different messages about the future of the United States in their closing statements.
In addition to Allentown, Harris visited Scranton, the birthplace of President Joe Biden, and had plans to stop in Reading before ending with a late-night Philadelphia rally that included Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey. .
“Are you ready to do this?” Harris shouted in Scranton on Monday with a large handmade “Vote for Freedom” sign behind her and a similar “Vote” banner next to her. .
Trump first visited North Carolina before visiting Redding. He plans to head to Pittsburgh on the other side of the state, then finish in Grand Rapids, Michigan, holding his final campaign rally in the same location where he ended his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Southeastern Pennsylvania is home to several thousand Latinos, including a significant number of Puerto Ricans. Ms. Harris and her allies have repeatedly accused Mr. Trump of digging up comedians in Puerto Rico during the former president’s famous Madison Square Garden event. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.”
“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican-American living in Redding who became a U.S. citizen in 2015. That wasn’t right and I think Trump should have apologized to Latinos. ”
But Emilio Feliciano, 43, was waiting outside Santander Arena in Reading, waiting for a chance to take a photo of President Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed comments about Puerto Rico, even though his family is Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he would vote for Trump.
“Is our border safe? Are we going to reduce crime? That’s what I care about,” he said.
“I stand here proud of my longstanding commitment to Puerto Rico and its people,” Harris told the crowd.
“And I will be the president for all Americans,” she said, adding, “The momentum is on our side. Can you feel it?”
Trump, meanwhile, insisted on talking about his proposed immigration crackdown. He brought to the stage Patti Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, whose body was found the day after she went missing on a hiking trip. The suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the United States illegally on suspicion of killing the woman in his native El Salvador, officials said.
Approximately 77 million Americans have voted early. Whichever side wins, it will be unprecedented.
If Trump wins, he will become the first president-elect to be charged and convicted of a felony after a hush-money trial in New York. He would gain the power to terminate other federal investigations pending against him. Trump also becomes the second president in history to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, following Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.
Harris becomes President Joe Biden’s second-in-command, four years after breaking similar barriers in national office, fighting to become the first woman, Black woman and South Asian to reach the Oval Office. are.
The vice president rose to the top of the Democratic field after Biden’s dismal performance in the June debate caused him to drop out of the race, one of a series of upsets that have hit this year’s campaign.
Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania by millimeters. A second attempt in September, in which a gunman raised a rifle while President Trump was golfing at one of his Florida courses, was also thwarted by his Secret Service agents.
Harris, 60, is promoting a generational change from Biden, 81, and Trump, 78. She has emphasized her support for abortion rights following a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that abolished the constitutional right to abortion services. regularly pointed to the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Harris, who is part of a coalition that includes progressives such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, called Trump a threat to democracy and said the election In the final stages of the war, he even accepted criticism that accurately described Trump as a “thug.” fascist. “
Heading into Monday, Harris had largely stopped mentioning Trump by name, instead calling him “the other guy.” She is committed to solving the problem and seeking an agreement.
Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillion said in a call with reporters that she did not mention Trump by name because voters “want an optimistic, hopeful and patriotic vision of the future in their leaders.” He said that was intentional.
Harris also offered insight into her personal formation as a politician that she doesn’t reveal much about. In Scranton, she talked about her unsuccessful run for San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and how she was “campaigning with an ironing board.”
“I was walking outside to the front of the grocery store and setting up my ironing board, because ironing boards make really good standing desks,” the vice president said of how she had taped up her He said while remembering. Put up a poster on the outside of the bulletin board and fill it with flyers “requiring everyone who comes and goes to talk to me.”
In Allentown, Harris was scheduled to rally with rapper Fat Joe and visit a Puerto Rican restaurant in Redding with New York progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe (real name Joseph Cartagena) and Ocasio-Cortez are of Puerto Rican descent.
Ron Kessler, a 54-year-old Air Force veteran who switched from Republican to Democrat, who was in line for Harris’ rally in Allentown, said he was planning to vote for only the second time in his life. Kessler said he didn’t vote for a long time because he thought the country “would vote for the right candidate.”
But “now that I’m older and wiser, I believe it’s important and it’s my civic duty and that I vote for myself and for democracy. It’s important to vote for your country.”
As recently as Sunday, President Trump reiterated his false claims that the U.S. election was rigged against him, reflected on violence against journalists, and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021. ” — a dark development that overshadowed the closing argument’s other anchor: “Kamala broke it. Let’s fix it.”
