Three weeks before the election | Harris with black voters, Trump in a border state

(Washington) Kamala Harris and Donald Trump each travel to contested states on Sunday, the American vice-president trying to dispel doubts about her ability to mobilize traditional electorates crucial for the Democratic camp, and the former Republican president hammering out his anti- -immigration.

A little more than three weeks before the November 5 vote, the polls are still undecided, but several recent surveys reveal Kamala Harris’ difficulties in attracting votes among black and Hispanic electorates.

A survey carried out by the New York Times in collaboration with Siena College, published Sunday, gives him less than 60% of voting intentions in the Hispanic community, which would represent the lowest level for a Democratic candidate in 20 years.

She is credited with only 19 points ahead of her Republican opponent within this strategic electorate in several pivotal states, notably in the South-West, such as Arizona or Nevada, or seven less than Joe Biden in 2020 and 20 fewer than Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The 59-year-old vice-president was in North Carolina on Sunday, a state won by a Democratic candidate for the last time in 2008 with Barack Obama and recently devastated by the hurricane Helene.

She attended a religious service in a church attended mainly by African-Americans in Greenville – a town itself located in a part of North Carolina with a large black population, but which has a high rate of voter abstention.

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday reprimanded his African-American “brothers” in the key state of Pennsylvania who were reluctant to elect a woman for the first time in American history.

Jim Clyburn, an African-American elected representative from South Carolina to the House of Representatives, told CNN on Sunday that he was “worried that black men could stay at home or vote for Trump” on November 5.

Another supporter of Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton campaigned on Sunday in Georgia, another disputed state on the Atlantic coast. The former Democratic president, still considered very popular with the black electorate, also spoke in a church attended mainly by African-Americans.

Contesting the 2020 results

Outgoing President Joe Biden visited Florida, hit successively by hurricanes Helene Then Milton.

“It is at times like this that we come together to help each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans,” Joe Biden said in a disaster zone, who signed the major disaster declaration the day before.

Donald Trump, for his part, is due to speak at a meeting in Arizona, a border state where his anti-immigration speech is popular.

His Republican running mate, JD Vance, once again refused on Sunday on ABC to recognize that Donald Trump had lost the previous election to Joe Biden, citing “serious problems in 2020”.

He defended the ex-president’s catastrophic speech on immigration and castigated the outgoing Democratic administration for having, according to him, “let in millions of people, most of them without verification”.

At a meeting Saturday evening in Coachella, California, Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of having “orchestrated the invasion of the United States.”

He once again promised mass expulsions upon his return to power and heavy prison sentences for illegal immigrants.

“We will defend our civilization. We will not allow ourselves to be conquered, we will not allow ourselves to be occupied. We will recover our sovereignty,” insisted Donald Trump.

After these few days of remote duel, the two candidates must meet on Monday in Pennsylvania, considered vital by each of the two camps to open the way to the White House.