Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are targeting key states in a final bid to win over undecided voters as they continue to tour the United States ahead of Tuesday's election.
The two contenders, who are locked in a tight race for the White House, will host rallies Friday night about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from each other in Milwaukee, the largest city in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
Milwaukee is home to the most Democratic votes in the state, but its conservative suburbs are where most Republicans live and are a critical area for Trump as he tries to win back the state he narrowly won in 2016 and lost in 2020. .
Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin were decided by less than 1 percentage point, or fewer than 23,000 votes, and this time the race is just as close.
After appearing with music star Jennifer Lopez at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevasca, on Thursday, Harris will perform with musicians including GloRilla, the Isley Brothers and Flo Milli in Milwaukee. Grammy Award-winning rapper Cardi B, who has more than 200 million followers on social media platforms, was also scheduled to speak at the campaign event.
Trump, for his part, will return to the Fiserv Forum, where in July he formally accepted his party's presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention.
He previously made a campaign stop in Michigan, in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, home to a large Arab-American community.
When asked why Dearborn was important to him, the former president said: “We have a great feeling for Lebanon and I know a lot of people from Lebanon, Lebanese and Muslim population. [like] Trump and I have a good relationship with them.”
He said: “We want your votes. “We are looking for your votes and I believe we will get them.”
Trump also disparaged Harris and stated that if he is elected to the White House again, “we will have peace in the Middle East.”
In comments that echoed claims he had made about ending the conflict in Ukraine, he said bringing peace to the Middle East was possible “but not with the clowns they have running the United States right now.”
Opinion polls, both nationally and in the seven closely divided battleground states, suggest the two candidates are virtually tied four days before Election Day. More than 66 million people have already cast their early vote.
Trump has focused his campaign on raising fears about violence he attributes to immigrants and pessimism about the economy. The former president continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud in multiple states, and he and his supporters have spread unfounded claims about this election in the key state of Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, Trump escalated his baseless accusations that investigations into suspicious voter registration forms are evidence of voter fraud. Some of his supporters also alleged voter suppression when long lines formed this week to receive mail-in ballots.
“This is sowing the seeds for attempts to overturn an election,” said Kyle Miller, a strategist at the advocacy group Defend Democracy. “We saw it in 2020, and I think the lesson that Trump and his allies have learned since then is that they have to plant these ideas early.”
State officials and democracy advocates said the incidents show a system working as intended. A judge extended the deadline for mail-in voting by three days in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, after the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit over allegations that some voters were turned away before the Tuesday deadline.
Election officials discovered potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster and neighboring York counties, prompting investigations by tópico authorities. There is no evidence that the requests led to illegal votes.
“This is a sign that the safeguards built into our voter registration process are working,” Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania's top elections official, told reporters this week.
Meanwhile, Harris is running with warnings of an authoritarian takeover, promising to help the middle class and rejecting Republican bans and restrictions on abortion.
One issue of concern to voters is the economy, with many complaining about inflation and wages that are not keeping up with rising prices.
Economists said the US economy is actually in good shape, ignoring the remaining impact of the coronavirus pandemic with low unemployment and strong growth. However, new figures on Friday showed drastically lower employment growth last month, with just 12,000 new jobs created.
Analysts attributed this largely to the effects of the hurricanes and the attack on aerospace giant Boeing.
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