(Washington) Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed remotely on Sunday in two highly contested American states: the Democratic vice-president seeking at all costs to further mobilize the African-American and Hispanic electorates and the former Republican president hammering home his declarations anti-immigration.
Posted at 1:46 p.m.
Updated at 9:16 p.m.
Selim SAHEB ETTABA
Agence France-Presse
Three weeks before the November 5 vote, the polls are still as close as ever, but several surveys reveal Kamala Harris’ difficulties in attracting votes among black and Latin American voters.
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.
On Sunday, the 59-year-old vice-president chose North Carolina (southeast), in a region with a large African-American population in this state last won in 2008 by a Democrat and which has just been devastated. by the hurricane Helene.
At a meeting in Greenville, she attacked her rival, accusing him of a lack of transparency about her state of health and of refusing to have a second debate with her.
Trump “provokes fear”
“Is his [équipe de campagne] fear that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America? “, she asked herself.
For Mme Harris, “Donald Trump is more interested in scaring people, creating fear, stirring up problems rather than helping to solve them, which is what real leaders do.”
Previously, in a church of African-American faithful, she had greeted “the heroes and angels” revealed by the disaster caused by the hurricane Helenewhile castigating “those who divert people’s tragedies and grief into resentment and hatred” by “spreading misinformation.”
She was referring to Donald Trump’s allegations that the Democratic government had abandoned the populations of the majority Republican areas of North Carolina.
In response, outgoing President Joe Biden, 81, announced Sunday from Florida, also hit by another hurricane, Miltona total aid of 600 million dollars.
“Enemy from within”
His predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump, 78, was in Arizona, a state bordering Mexico: he once again used anti-migrant rhetoric, accusing the Biden/Harris government of having “imported an army of irregular migrants » from “dungeons all over the world”.
In an hour-and-a-half-long speech, he promised that if elected, he would hire 10,000 more border guards and increase their salaries by 10 percent.
And taking his incendiary rhetoric up a notch, the populist tribune asserted on Fox News that “the National Guard”, or even “military”, should be called in against the “enemy within” in the United States. , against “very bad people […] crazy people, far-left weirdos.”
Two other former presidents, Democrats Barack Obama (2009-2017) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001), also threw their forces into M’s campaign.me Harris: the first by urging his African-American “brothers” on Thursday, and men in general, to vote for the woman who could be the first American president. The second was Sunday in a church in Georgia with the black electorate, to whom he is known to be very close.
After these remote duels, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will both be in Pennsylvania (northeast) on Monday, considered crucial for opening the way to the White House.