WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are taking stock of the states they hope to swing this year, as each tries to widen their narrow path to victory in a tight presidential campaign.
Harris has his sights set on North Carolina, where he is scheduled to hold rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro on Thursday. It was his first political event since winning supporters with his handsome performance in Tuesday’s debate.
Trump is heading west to Tucson, Arizona, as he seeks to stabilize his campaign, which continues to struggle to recalibrate nearly two months after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Although Harris’ team said they were open to another debate, the Republican nominee has balked.
“Are we going to have a rematch?” Trump said Wednesday. “I just don’t know.”
The candidates attack one day after they marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a somber occasion that offered little respite from partisan politics in a fast-paced campaign season.
At a fire station in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, near where United Airlines Flight 93 went down as passengers resisted their hijackers, Trump posed for photos with children wearing campaign T-shirts. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared on one of the shirts that Biden and Harris were “dumb and dumber and dumber.”
Biden and Harris visited the same fire station earlier in the day. Someone there offered Biden a red-white-and-blue baseball hat that read “Trump 2024” and suggested the president wear it to show his commitment to bipartisan unity. Biden put it on for a moment and grinned widely.
Only a handful of battleground states decide the outcome of the election.
Democrats have not won North Carolina’s electoral votes since 2008, when President Barack Obama was first elected. However, Trump’s 2020 margin of 1.3 percentage points was his narrowest in the state that year, and Democrats are hoping North Carolina’s growing and diversifying population will give them an edge this time around.
Harris’ campaign says Thursday’s trip will be his ninth in the state this year, with recent polls showing a tight race. More than two dozen combined campaign offices — supporting Harris and other party candidates — have opened, with popular Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper as one of his top surrogates.
Republicans have been confident about Trump’s chances in the state, and the former president held rallies there in August.
Registered independents — known as unaffiliated in North Carolina — are the largest voting bloc in the state and are usually key in determining the outcome of statewide elections. A state Supreme Court ruling this week upholding the removal of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from North Carolina’s ballot could bring more votes to Trump thanks to Kennedy’s endorsement.
The state’s Republican Party has dismissed concerns that a poor showing by its gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, could hurt the electoral chances of other party candidates, including Trump.
Democratic candidate Josh Stein and his allies have been lambasting Robinson for months on the radio and on social media for his past harsh comments on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Stein, the state’s attorney general, was leading Robinson in several recent polls of North Carolina voters.
Arizona is another state where the presidential election could be shaped at least in part by downvoting. Kari Lake, a prominent Republican election naysayer who lost her campaign for governor in 2020, is seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema.
Lake is an example of the state party moving to the right in the Trump era. He is up against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who was the leader in several recent polls, though the race was close in another.
Republicans have won Arizona in nearly every presidential election since World War II, but Biden narrowly won in 2020.
Arizona’s Democratic surge has been driven by an influx of transplants from blue states and a political realignment that has pushed suburban voters — especially college-educated women — away from Republicans.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, held a rally in the state on Tuesday ahead of the debate, and the Democratic banner campaigned there together last month.
Republicans still outnumber Democrats in Arizona, but a third of voters are independents. Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, made a strong appearance last week in a heavily Republican district in metro Phoenix along with Charlie Kirk, the founder of an influential conservative youth group.
Trump was last in Arizona two weeks ago at a news conference at the US-Mexico border, where he delivered one of his most powerful attacks on Harris over the number of people crossing the border seeking asylum, after which he staged a rally at the former hockey player’s home. arena in the Phoenix area.
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Cooper reports from Phoenix and Robertson from Raleigh, North Carolina.
