Harris and Trump make final pitches to voters in swing states

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are making their way through several swing states as they cast their final votes to voters ahead of next week’s US presidential election.

Speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harris said “it’s time for a new generation of leadership” – an effort to position himself as a new face to the former Republican president.

Trump is 78 years old and this is his third attempt to become president.

“We know that in this election we have an opportunity to turn the page on a decade in which Donald Trump has tried to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” Harris added. “We know he is, but North Carolina is not who we are.”

Harris also lamented that a third of women live in states with “a Trump abortion ban, including North Carolina and every state in the South except Virginia.”

Trump played a central role in reforming the Supreme Court, nominating three conservative justices crucial to overturning Roe v. Wade and federal abortion protections in 2022.

Since that decision, abortion has strengthened the Democratic base and threatened Republicans. Trump has since said he would not sign a federal abortion ban.

She then made her way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she emphasized the importance of early voting and urged her supporters to not only cast their own ballots, but also encourage family and friends to do the same.

“Pennsylvania, if you still have a ballot, please bring it to a poll box or election office in your county before 8 p.m. on Election Day,” she said. “Let’s spread the word.”

“I’m visiting this afternoon because we need your vote, Pennsylvania, we need your vote. Because we have just six days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes,” Harris added.

Pennsylvania is a key state for both Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Polls show a tight race in the Commonwealth, and both campaigns have spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign.

A Pennsylvania judge has also sided with Donald Trump’s campaign, agreeing to expand in-person voting in a Philadelphia suburb, where long lines on the final day led to complaints that voters were being disenfranchised by an unprepared election office.

Judge Jeffrey Trauger said in a one-page order that voters in Bucks County who want to request early voting by mail now have until Friday. The closely divided county, which is led by Democrats, is often seen as a political bellwether.

The Trump campaign’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday morning, comes amid a flurry of lawsuits and complaints over voting in a state expected to play a central role in selecting the next president in the 2024 election.

The lawsuit sought a one-day extension, through Wednesday at 5 p.m., so Bucks County voters could request a ballot in person. The judge’s order allows applications through Friday.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is also campaigning in North Carolina, responding to President Joe Biden’s controversial comments on Tuesday.

“Joe Biden has finally said what he really thinks about our supporters. He called them ‘garbage’. And they mean it. Even though my supporters are without a doubt of much higher quality than crooked Joe’s,” Trump told his audience.

Biden and the White House rushed to explain that the president was talking about the rhetoric on stage, and not Trump’s supporters themselves.

Trump further suggested that the administration was mistreating Americans by returning to his familiar theme of immigrants entering the country illegally.

“We know what they believe,” he said. ‘Cause look how they treated you. They treated you like trash.”

Both presidential candidates will also hold rallies in Wisconsin, where polls show the two candidates remaining neck and neck.