By James Oliphant, Nandita Bose
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) -Democrat Kamala Harris was greeted by an uncommon sight as she arrived in North Carolina on Saturday: the red-white-and-blue airplane of Donald Trump, her Republican rival for the presidency.
As Harris descended from the vice-presidential airplane Air Power Two on the Charlotte airport, Trump’s personal Boeing (NYSE:) 757 was parked on the tarmac close by.
The shut encounter was a dramatic illustration how the 2 candidates are specializing in a handful of states the place Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election might be received or misplaced.
It was the fourth day in a row that the candidates had been campaigning in the identical state. Solely seven states, North Carolina amongst them, are seen as really aggressive.
Harris was arriving for a rally in Charlotte, the state’s greatest metropolis, whereas Trump had campaigned in suburban Gastonia a number of hours earlier.
It was not clear whether or not Trump was on board his airplane when Harris arrived.
With the election simply three days away, Trump and Harris caught to acquainted themes at their appearances.
Trump stated he would deport tens of millions of immigrants if elected and warned that if Harris had been to win, “every town in America would be turned into a squalid, dangerous refugee camp.”
Campaigning in Atlanta, Harris stated Trump would abuse his energy if he returns to the White Home.
“That is somebody who’s more and more unstable, obsessive about revenge, consumed with grievance, and the person is out for unchecked energy,” she said.
More than 72 million Americans have already cast ballots, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida, short of 2020’s record early-voting pace during COVID-19, but still indicating a high level of voter enthusiasm.
Some 4 million votes have already been cast in North Carolina, and the western counties that have been devastated by Hurricane Helene appeared to be voting at roughly the same rate as the rest of the state, according to Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer.
Trump criticized the federal government’s response to the disaster and repeated his false claim that aid had been diverted from the state to help immigrants entering the country.
He also said that residents of U.S. suburbs, traditionally seen as a refuge from crime and other dangers, are under threat.
“The suburbs are beneath assault proper now. While you’re house in your home alone, and you have this monster that bought out of jail, you understand, six expenses of murdering six completely different individuals,” he said.
Violent crimes dropped in the U.S. last year. However, Trump and his allies have emphasized crime on the campaign trail and falsely suggested immigrants are responsible.
North Carolina backed Trump in 2020 by a narrow margin of less than 1.5 percentage points and elected a Democratic governor on the same day, giving hope to both parties.
Trump was due to rally in Salem, Virginia, though the state is not likely to back him for president, before returning to North Carolina for an evening rally in Greensboro.
POLICY DIFFERENCES
Harris and Trump have very different policies on major issues including support for Ukraine and NATO, abortion rights, immigration, taxes, democratic principles and tariffs, which reflect that schisms between the Democratic and Republican parties.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that if Trump wins and Republicans control Congress, his party would “in all probability” repeal the CHIPS Act, handed beneath Joe Biden’s administration, which gave over $50 billion in subsidies to corporations for semiconductor chip manufacturing and analysis in the US.
Democrats have seized on the remarks. “It is further evidence of everything I’ve actually been talking about for months now, about Trump’s intention to implement Project 2025,” Harris stated Saturday, referring to a conservative blueprint to remake U.S. authorities and insurance policies that was written with the assistance of a lot of Trump’s closest advisers.
Johnson revised his remarks afterward Friday, saying the act can be streamlined to eradicate rules.
