Harris, Trump setting rally sites for final 72 hours
(The Center Square) – Presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will spend the final 72-plus hours of Election 2024 working five battleground states east of the Mississippi River.
While stops may still be added, information pulled together by The Center Square late Friday afternoon showed the continued emphasis on Pennsylvania in particular. The state has 19 electoral college votes, one of seven consensus battlegrounds representing 93 of the 270 needed to win.
Harris, the 60-year-old vice president of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, was in Wisconsin on Friday. She’ll go to the South on Saturday and back to the Blue Wall on Sunday and Monday.
Trump, the nation’s 45th president, was in Michigan and Wisconsin late Friday, headed to the South on Saturday, and on Sunday doing Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Monday the 78-year-old is hopscotching four stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
On Election Night, the vice president and her team will be at Harris’ alma mater, Howard University in Washington. Trump has not announced a place to be, though his campaign has a watch event at the convention center in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The following are tentative schedules with times approximate beginning Saturday:
For Harris: Saturday, 9 a.m. Atlanta, 5 p.m. Charlotte; Sunday, morning church service in Detroit, after church in Pontiac, Mich., 6:30 p.m. East Lansing, Mich.; Monday, afternoon in Allentown, Pa., 3 p.m. Pittsburgh, evening in Philadelphia.
For Trump: Saturday, noon Gastonia, N.C., 4 p.m. Salem, Va., 7:30 p.m. Greensboro, N.C.; Sunday, 10 a.m. Lititz, Pa., 2 p.m. Kinston, N.C., 6:30 p.m. Macon, Ga.; Monday, 10 a.m. Raleigh, N.C., 2 p.m. Reading, Pa., 6 p.m. Pittsburgh, 10:30 p.m. Grand Rapids, Mich.
Few prognosticators believe either candidate can win without Pennsylvania or North Carolina, and perhaps need to take both. In addition to Pennsylvania’s coveted 19 electoral college votes, other battleground states are North Carolina (16), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (six).
Trump has a 20-point platform, led by a return to enforcement of securing national borders. He chastises the Democrats for inflation that at 2.4% is nearly double – up from 1.4% – when he left office in January 2021, yet is considerably lower than the 9.1% high of June 2022 in the era of Bidenomics. Energy independence and “manufacturing superpower” are also in his top five.
Harris, not a candidate in primary season and until Biden quit 107 days before Election Day, says her top issues are an opportunity economy and lower costs for families. Tax cuts for the middle class, affordable rent and home ownership, and growth by small businesses also top her list. On abortion she favors federal regulation over state authority, meaning a return to Roe v. Wade.
