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Harris speaks to a select group of undecided voters in the final debate
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Harris speaks to a select group of undecided voters in the final debate

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WASHINGTON – Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign It’s aimed at two different audiences, who make up a small sliver of undecided voters who could swing the election as the Democratic nominee closes the race with a warning about putting Donald Trump back in the White House.

While Harris sharpens her rhetoric against Trump; labeling him a fascist − some Democratic allies They questioned a Trump-centered strategyHe said Harris’ narrow focus on the former president and Republican nominee’s character was a risk.

Republican critics accused The vice president is putting “joy” aside as he prepares to deliver his “closing argument” speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, the same place where Trump gave his speech on January 6, 2021, before his supporters stormed the Capitol.

But in an election that is historically close in seven battleground states, the Democratic candidate’s latest argument — portraying Trump as too dangerous to be put in office — is aimed at appealing directly to the roughly 3% to 5% of unhinged voters. It could be lifted or changed a week before election day, according to a Harris campaign official.

One camp is voters who were “persuaded to participate,” the official said. This includes young voters, voters of color, and other voters who tend to vote for Harris but still need to be motivated. The group includes so-called “low-information voters” who do not closely follow the daily news of the campaign.

The second group consists of more engaged traditional swing voters; independent and Republican voters in the suburbs; She may have supported Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primaries against Trump, but disagreed with Harris. Many of these people are largely driven by the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. He voted for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections due to the impact of the abortion issue after Wade overturned his case.

Presidential campaigns have historically focused only on get-out-the-vote efforts very close to Election Day, Harris campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a call with reporters Tuesday. But Harris said her campaign remains in persuasion mode as well as mobilization.

“We know there’s a really clear segment of undecided voters — and frankly after this weekend — maybe some new voters might be open to supporting us,” O’Malley Dillon said. Trump’s campaign rally Sunday night Located in New York’s Madison Square Garden received bipartisan pushback for his racist innuendos and harsh criticism.

“These are the people we’ve been talking to all along,” O’Malley Dillon said of the two different camps. “And there’s no doubt we think we have an opportunity to get Trump’s past support.”

Trump says Harris is ‘running a hate campaign’

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University national pollThe research, conducted between October 14-18, revealed that 5% of voters were undecided in the race in which Harris was ahead of Trump by 45-44%. New York Times/Siena College pollThe poll, conducted Oct. 20-23, found Harris and Trump tied at 48 percent among national voters, with undecided voters at less than 4 percent.

More than 50 million people nationwide voted early ahead of the Nov. 5 election, according to tracking data. University of Florida Election Lab.

The seven battleground states expected to decide the election — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — are all within 1 or 2 percentage points. Based on Five Thirty Eight average of recent surveys.

Trump accused Harris of waging a “hate campaign” in a speech to supporters at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, ahead of his Democratic rival’s Ellipse speech. Trump campaign comes with a closing message “Harris broke it, Trump will fix it” He tries to blame Harris on Biden’s unpopularity and poor marks on dealing with the economy and immigration.

“He is running a campaign of ‘immorality’ and essentially a campaign of destruction,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday morning. he said. “But in reality, perhaps more than anything else, this is a campaign of hate. This is a campaign of absolute hate.

Harris’ effort to portray Trump as dangerous comes at a time when the former president’s favorability ratings are higher than when she was running for re-election in 2020 while leading the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. New York Times/Siena College poll It was determined that Trump was viewed positively by 48 percent of voters and negatively by 50 percent of voters. Trump was viewed favorably by 43 percent of voters, unfavorably by 54 percent in the Times’ latest poll before the 2020 election.

In her closing speech on Tuesday, Harris is expected to describe Trump as follows: focused on self and personal revenge – The person who will carry an “enemies list” to the White House, unlike Harris and her “to-do list” of policies for the American people.

The campaign said Harris would present herself as a “next generation of leadership” who would leave behind a decade of Trump-dominated politics and discuss a variety of policy proposals to increase housing affordability and encourage small business growth.

“This is not a presidential candidate thinking about how to make her life better,” Harris plans to say of Trump, according to excerpts from her speech provided by the campaign.

Harris faces questions over closing strategy

The Ellipse on the National Mall was chosen not just to evoke memories of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. But O’Malley Dillon said the location, with the White House in the background, was intended to remind Americans of the “seriousness of the job” so they could visualize the different approaches in the Oval Office.

“This speech is designed to reach undecided voters, people who are making decisions, to move forward in a time when sometimes it’s hard to get through,” O’Malley Dillon said.

“Some Democrats argued that Harris should have made a more aggressive economic call in the final days of the campaign.”

“Harris campaign stalled as Trump shifted gears to attacks on democracy.” Robert Reich, former Minister of Labor in the Clinton administration, he wrote in an op-ed in The Guardian on Tuesday. “I think it’s because Americans continue to focus on the economy and want the answer to why they continue to struggle economically.” Reich urged Harris to attribute Americans’ ongoing economic concerns to the power of big corporations.

Harris drew on recent comments from Trump’s former White House chief of staff, John Kelly: Who said Trump fits the definition of fascist? and had made admirable statements about Adolf Hitler in the past.

But leaders of Future Forward, the leading super PAC backing Harris’ presidential bid, expressed concern that Harris shut down her campaign by merely attacking Trump as a fascist.

In a Future Forward email to our Democrat friends, The New York Times reported“Purely negative attacks on Trump’s character are less effective than opposing messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris’ plans to meet the needs of ordinary Americans,” the group wrote.

Harris’ campaign pushed back against criticism of the strategy, arguing that increased warnings about Trump were at the heart of the message at odds with Harris.

“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the top and hurt everyone else,” Harris plans to say in her speech. “I propose a different path.”

Reach Joey Garrison on X (formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison).