Heading Thursday to the Great Lakes region in the American presidential campaign: Kamala Harris is going to Wisconsin, to chase the votes of moderate Republicans, and Donald Trump is traveling to a working-class constituency in Michigan.
The race for the White House between the Democratic vice-president and the former Republican president, extremely undecided, was also spiced up Thursday by revelations on the favorable positioning of the right to abortion of former First Lady Melania Trump.
Kamala Harris is traveling to Wisconsin on Thursday, one of the seven pivotal states, or “swing states”, for the November 5 presidential election.
The indirect voting method means that in the United States, the presidential election is not decided by the votes cast throughout the country, but by those of electors designated by each state.
The 59-year-old vice-president is traveling to the “cradle of the Republican Party”, according to her campaign team, namely a former school in the town of Ripon, located an hour’s drive from Lake Michigan, in the northern States. -United.
– Strategic county –
On this historic site, where meetings were held for the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, the Democratic candidate will be accompanied by former Republican parliamentarian Liz Cheney.
Having become a de facto spokesperson for American conservatives opposed to Donald Trump, the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney has already called to vote for Kamala Harris.
The Democratic candidate wants to speak directly to moderate Republicans to call on them to transcend partisan divisions in the name of the best interests of the country, according to her campaign team.
Like her, Donald Trump knows that the election will undoubtedly be decided by a few tens of thousands of votes, those of voters who are still undecided or demobilized, in the famous “swing states”.
He chose to target on Thursday not only a state, in this case Michigan, but also, within this state, an ultra-strategic county: Saginaw.
This working-class constituency, historically Democratic, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 then by a very slim majority for Joe Biden in 2020.
Bruised by the deindustrialization of the 2000s and then by the financial crisis of 2009, Saginaw is emblematic of the battle for the popular vote.
The former president also continued Thursday to criticize the response of Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden to the deadly Hurricane Helene, the day after visits by the two Democratic leaders to areas ravaged by wind and floods, in the south- is from the country.
– Melania Trump pro-choix –
“This is the worst federally managed storm ever, but their management of the border (with Mexico) is worse!” wrote the Republican on his Truth Social platform.
Here he resumes his main campaign message, around uncontrolled illegal immigration according to him, which would compromise the security and prosperity of Americans.
His wife Melania Trump invited herself into the campaign on a hot topic among all: the right to abortion.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her body? The fundamental right to individual liberty that a woman has (…) gives her the authority to “terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she writes in the pages of her memoirs, to be published on Tuesday, revealed by the Guardian.
The Democratic campaign team immediately took up the subject, asserting in a press release: “Unfortunately for women in America, Mrs. Trump’s husband does not agree with her at all.”
According to polls, Kamala Harris, a fervent supporter of the right to abortion, has a clear advantage on this specific subject over Donald Trump.
The Republican, who presents himself as the “protector of women”, boasts of having contributed to the reversal of jurisprudence of the American Supreme Court, which put an end in 2022 to several decades of protection of the right to abortion federal level.
aue/rle
