Harris and Trump zero in on key swing state as US election race heats up

Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are campaigning in battleground state of Pennsylvania this weekend.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are holding campaign events in the key US swing state of Pennsylvania this weekend, as the race between the United States presidential candidates heats up before November’s election.

Trump will hold a rally in the small town of Wilkes-Barre on Saturday while Harris is expected to make several stops on a bus tour around the city of Pittsburgh on Sunday.

The focus on Pennsylvania — one of several battleground states expected to be critical in deciding the election — comes as recent polling shows a close fight between the Republican and Democratic candidates in key parts of the country.

A New York Times/Siena College poll on Saturday showed that Harris, who launched her campaign after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid last month, had gained ground in four states that Trump had looked set to win comfortably over Biden.

The US vice president and Democratic nominee was leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona and North Carolina, the poll showed, and had narrowed the former Republican president’s lead in Georgia and Nevada.

An earlier New York Times/Siena College poll released last week also showed Harris with 50 percent support among voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, compared with Trump’s 46 percent support in each state.

Harris’s push for the White House has reinvigorated an election race that had largely failed to inspire many Americans frustrated by a choice between Trump and Biden.

The pair had faced off in 2020, with Biden defeating his predecessor in a race Trump falsely claimed was marred by widespread fraud.

Trump lost to Biden in Pennsylvania in that election by a narrow margin, but he has strong support in rural areas and small towns.

With Harris now atop the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket, Trump has struggled to find an effective way to counter her campaign.

Recent statements from Trump’s team have focused on issues such as immigration and inflation, but he has spent large parts of recent speeches launching personal attacks against Harris‘s identity.

“Hard-working Americans are suffering because of the Harris-Biden administration’s dangerously liberal policies,” the Trump campaign said in a statement in advance of Saturday’s rally in Wilkes-Barre.

“Prices are excruciatingly high, cost of living has soared, crime has skyrocketed, and illegal immigrants are pouring into our country,” it said, although a recent crackdown on the US-Mexico border has stemmed much of the flow of migrants and asylum seekers.

He also hammered Harris on Thursday over the economy, saying she has a “very strong communist lean” that would bring the “death of the American dream”.

For her part, Harris — who will be travelling to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention next week — has promised to “bring down costs and increase economic security for all Americans”.

In one of her first major policy speeches of the campaign, on Friday, she put forward a set of proposals that she said would help boost the economy and combat food “price gouging”.

“I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class,” Harris told a crowd of supporters in North Carolina. “Together, we will build what I call an opportunity economy.”