Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is expected to launch an aggressive attack on his new Democratic rival Kamala Harris on Wednesday in his first campaign rally since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race at the weekend.
At the event in the battleground state of North Carolina, former President Trump will likely depict the vice president as a proxy for Biden on economic and immigration policies that contributed to the president’s sinking popularity with voters.
On Tuesday, Trump took the unusual step of speaking to reporters on a conference call to underscore his campaign’s line of attack on the border, saying Harris was partially responsible for a record flow of migrants.
Biden put Harris in charge of working with countries in Central America to help stem the tide of migration, but she was not given responsibility for border security.
“She’s a radical left person, and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it,” Trump said on the call.
“She wants open borders. She wants things that nobody wants.”
Harris has not called for the removal of border controls.
Later on Wednesday evening, Biden, 81, will address the nation from the Oval Office to explain his decision to drop out after a disastrous June debate with Trump raised questions about his ability to win the election, or to serve another four years if he succeeded.
The president returned to Washington on Tuesday afternoon after isolating with COVID at his home in Delaware, where he made the announcement that he was ending his campaign.
Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, would become the first woman to be elected president if she prevails on Nov. 5. In the three days since Biden dropped out, she has shaken up a staid race and sparked new energy among Democrats.
Earlier on Wednesday, the 59-year-old vice president called on a rally of more than 6,000 Black women in Indianapolis to help her revitalize the Democratic campaign.
The Democratic National Committee’s rules committee agreed on Wednesday on a plan to formally nominate Harris as soon as Aug. 1 — before the party’s Aug. 19-22 convention in Chicago — with Harris picking a running mate by Aug. 7.
Harris spoke at an event in Indianapolis hosted by the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, which was founded at Howard University, the historically Black college she attended. She hopes to tap sororities’ multi-generational network of Black women — who played an important role in Biden’s 2020 victory — to deliver strong voter turnout for Democrats again in November.
“I thank you. And now, in this moment, our nation needs your leadership once again,” Harris said.
Harris and Trump are closely competitive, public opinion polls showed this week.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday showed Harris with a marginal two-percentage-point lead over Trump, 44% to 42%. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS showed Trump leading Harris, 49% to 46%. Both findings were within the polls’ margins of error.
BIDEN TO SPEAK
Trump, coming off a triumphant week in which his party unified around his presidential bid after a failed assassination attempt two weekends ago, has had to watch as Biden’s sudden departure from the race shifted the narrative and sparked a surge of attention toward Harris at his expense.
Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a memo made public on Wednesday that Democrats would aim to compete in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, opening up a map that in the final weeks of Biden’s campaign had appeared to be more focused on the Midwest.
“This race is more fluid now – the vice president is well-known but less well-known than both Trump and President Biden, particularly among Dem-leaning constituencies,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.
The Harris campaign on Wednesday said it has raised $126 million since Sunday, with 64% of donors making their first contribution of the 2024 campaign.
