(AFP) – Kamala Harris embarked on a bus tour of the potentially election-deciding state of Pennsylvania on Sunday, as she keeps up the momentum before her star turn at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The US vice president has reenergized the party after an astonishing month that has seen her replace President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and wipe out Republican rival Donald Trump’s lead in the polls.
Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, accompanied by their spouses, arrived at an airport hangar in Pittsburgh and greeted supporters, before setting off on a bus emblazoned with their names to a series of small towns to woo blue-collar voters. Visiting a campaign phone bank later in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a crowd chanted “We are not going back” — Harris’s signature line as America’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president casts herself as a new generation of leader. Her rapid rise has unsettled 78-year-old former president and convicted felon Trump, who is resorting to his favored tactic of personal insults as he struggles to recalibrate a campaign that had focused largely on 81-year-old Biden’s age.
A day earlier at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump lashed out at Harris as a “lunatic” and bragged that he was “much better looking” than 59-year-old Harris. The two campaigns are focusing heavily on Pennsylvania, in the heart of America’s rust belt, which Trump won in 2016 before Biden seized it in 2020.
Later in the day, Harris will head to Chicago, where Democrats are daring to be hopeful again, just a few short weeks after a disastrous debate performance by Biden led many to think the election was already lost. A Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos survey published Sunday showed Harris with a narrow lead over Trump among registered voters across the country, where one month ago it had Trump and Biden in a dead heat.
Security has been ramped up for the four-day Chicago convention, with tens of thousands of protesters expected to rally every day against the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. The demonstrations are expected to begin on Sunday and continue through Thursday, with major gatherings scheduled for Monday and Wednesday in particular. “We are ready,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told ABC on Sunday, adding that his police force was working with the Secret Service and other agencies to ensure a “safe, peaceful, yet vibrant” convention. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said the planned protests would be allowed as long as they remained peaceful. “If there are troublemakers, they are going to get arrested and they are going to get convicted,” he told CNN.
The Democratic bonanza in Chicago will allow Harris to tell her story to an American public that is still getting to know the candidate. Harris is set to join Biden on stage when he addresses the convention on Monday — a speech that just a few weeks ago he expected to be giving as the Democratic candidate. The ageing president is reportedly still fuming over the way Democrats pushed him out, believing he still could have beaten Trump. But Biden is expected to focus instead on passing the torch and on what he terms the threat to democracy posed by Trump, as he seeks to cement his legacy by helping Harris to victory.
Biden will “make the case for Vice President Kamala Harris” and “highlight the stakes of the election for all Americans,” the Harris campaign said. First Lady Jill Biden will also address the conference on Monday. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama will appear during the week, along with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former first lady Michelle Obama. Taking the stage on Wednesday will be Harris’s vice presidential pick Walz, the Minnesota governor who has made his name with attacks branding Trump and his running mate Vance as “weird.”
While Democrats meet in Chicago, Trump will be crisscrossing the country, with rallies scheduled in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and Arizona through the week. – Danny KEMP
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