Charlotte, North Carolina – CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) – donald trump is holding his first public campaign rally since President Joe Biden backed out of a 2024 showdown that both major parties spent months preparing for, leaving the former president to direct his ire at his likely new opponent, the vice president Kamala Harris.
Trump is expected to focus fully on Harris when he stops Wednesday in North Carolina, a swing state that Trump carried in the past but that Democrats consider key. The former president’s trip to the state shows he is still concerned about keeping the issue in his column in November, even as his team seeks victories in traditionally Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, which Trump will visit on Saturday.
With Biden’s abrupt departure of the presidential race and Harris getting closer and closer To officially be the Democrats’ choice in the general elections, Trump intensified his criticism of the vice president, whom he characterizes as “the same as Biden, but much more radical”.
He blamed her for what he describes as the Biden administration’s failures, especially on security along the U.S.-Mexico border. On Wednesday, speakers who took the stage before the Republican candidate attacked Harris’ record on the border, noting that she was tasked with leading a White House effort to resolve migration issues. Harris’ name was booed several times during the speeches.
“She was assigned this, she was given this task, and she failed,” said Brandon Judd, former president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents the agents.
Trump also withheld plans for an expected debate with Harris, first saying he wanted Fox News, not ABC, to host the showdown he had originally scheduled for September with Biden. On Tuesday, Trump appeared to adjust that message again, saying on a call with reporters that he would like to debate Harris “more than once” but not committing to attending the debate currently underway and saying he has only agreed to debate Biden twice. times, not Harris.
Meanwhile, Harris spent Wednesday in Indiana, telling members of the historically black Zeta Phi Beta sorority that “we’re not kidding” and asking for their help in electing their president in November, an election she characterized as “a choice between two different visions for our nation, one focused on the future, the other focused on the past.”
Voters in Indiana haven’t supported a Democratic presidential candidate in nearly 16 years. But Harris, a woman of Black and South Asian descentwas speaking to a group already excited about his historic status as the likely Democratic candidate and that his campaign hopes to expand its coalition.
Quietly, Republicans have talked about how replacing Harris with Biden nullifies part of their party’s argument for Trump’s vitality and vigor.
At 81, Biden would have been the oldest presidential candidate to run in the general election. Now, 78-year-old Trump occupies that vacancy. Harris, 59, has launched a campaign that, in at least some ways, appears to be sparking interest among younger voters who could be key in deciding an early and close general election.
North Carolina is a state that Trump carried in both previous campaigns, but for less than 1.5 percentage points over Biden in 2020, the closest margin of any state Trump won. Trump was heavily stumped in North Carolina even as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, while Biden largely stayed out of physical campaigning and did not personally visit the state in the final 16 days of the election.
Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located – the state’s largest city – was also the scene of Trump’s smallest margin of victory in the North Carolina Republican Party primaries, surpassing Nikki Haley by less than 8 percentage points.
This year, Trump planned to hold his first rally since the beginning of his silent money trial in Fayetteville, but that event was canceled due to bad weather. Instead, Trump called from his private plane.
Democrats have also been working to win North Carolina, where the party’s most recent presidential victory was Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, despite the Republican Party’s recent dominance.
Biden held a campaign event in Raleigh the day after his disastrous debate with Trump in June. Although he was much more forceful in that appearance than on the debate stage, it did little to calm the growing concerns among his party members about his ability to win the White House again.
With Harris now ready to take her place, she may once again turn to North Carolina for political help: The state’s governor, Roy Cooper, is among the Democrats Harris’ campaign is vetting for a possible pick as her running mate. vice-presidential ticket.
Cooper is term-limited and cannot seek re-election. The highly competitive race to replace him pits Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a strong Trump supporter who is North Carolina’s first black candidate for governor.
Trump’s event in Charlotte is his second campaign rally since Assassination attempt on July 13 at a rally in Pennsylvania. Days later, Trump accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, where his ear – injured in the shooting – was bandaged.
Wednesday’s rally is also the first since the resignation of Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatlewho said he took “full responsibility for the security breach” that led to a sniper being able to get so close to Trump at the outdoor event in Pennsylvania.
The Charlotte rally, like the weekend rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, will be held in an indoor arena.
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Meg Kinnard can be contacted at Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report from Philadelphia.
