Trump holds first rally since Biden’s exit
US REPUBLICAN presidential candidate Donald Trump has so far watched from the sidelines as Vice-President Kamala Harris galvanised and re-energised Democrats by stepping in as their likely presidential nominee. Yesterday, Trump got back in the game.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, held his first campaign rally since Harris emerged as his near-certain Democratic foe in the 2024 election. The former president will appear at an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, a state that will be an important battleground in the November 5 election.
The Trump campaign has insisted that it is prepared for Harris’ candidacy, arguing that she serves as a proxy for US President Joe Biden on the economic and immigration policies that contributed to his sinking popularity with voters.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll released this week showed the newly re-jiggered race to be in a statistical dead heat.
The poll, taken in the two days since Biden decided to stand down from re-election, showed Harris with a two-percentage-point lead over Trump, 44% to 42%. Other recent national polls have shown Trump with an advantage.
Biden, who came back to Washington after isolating at his home in Delaware with Covid-19, was to address the nation from the Oval Office to explain his reasons for dropping out of the race on Sunday after intense pressure from his party.
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. “She’s a radical left person, and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it,” Trump said on the call. Harris has not called for the removal of border controls.
Harris yesterday headed to Indianapolis to speak at an event hosted by the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, which was founded at Howard University, the historically black college that Harris attended. She hopes to tap sororities’ multi-generational network of black women to deliver strong voter turnout for Democrats in November.
Harris held an energetic first rally as the likely nominee on Tuesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which hosted the Republican National Convention last week. She assailed Trump and said he would take the nation “backward”.
“Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” she asked the crowd.
Democrats will formally nominate their new ticket at next month’s convention in Chicago after an August 7 virtual vote. Harris and her campaign have worked at a breakneck pace to consolidate support among Democrats in Congress and across the country. Candidates who could have been potential rivals for the nomination have fallen in line and endorsed her.
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 dramatically shifted the narrative and sparked a surge of attention toward Harris at his expense.