Harris and Trump try to sway undecided voters

Heading for the Great Lakes region on Thursday in the American presidential campaign: Kamala Harris goes to Wisconsin, to hunt for the votes of moderate Republicans, and Donald Trump is moving into a constituency Michigan worker.

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 about former First Lady Melania Trump's pro-abortion stance.

Kamala Harris goes to Wisconsin on Thursday, one of the seven swing states for the November 5 presidential election.

Donald Trump, in Michigan, 2 September 7 2024 © AFP – JEFF KOWALSKY

The indirect voting system in the United States means that the presidential election is not decided by the votes cast across 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 city of Ripon, located an hour's drive from Lake Michigan in the north of the United States.

– Strategic county –

At this historic site, where meetings were held to create the Republican Party in 1854, the Democratic candidate will be accompanied by former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Having become a spokesperson The de facto leader of American conservatives opposed to Donald Trump, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney has already called for a 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 country's best interests, according to her campaign team.

Like her, Donald Trump knows that the election will probably be decided by a few tens of thousands of votes, those of voters who are still undecided or demobilized, in the famous “swing states”.

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Republican Liz Cheney on December 19, 2022 at the Capitol in Washington © AFP – Mandel NGAN

He chose to target 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, had voted for Donald Trump in 2016 then by a very slim majority for Joe Biden in 2020.

Badly affected by the deindustrialization of the 2000s then by the financial crisis of 2009, Saginaw is emblematic of the battle for the popular vote.

The former president also continued on 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 flooding in the southeast of the country.

– Melania Trump pro-choice –

“This is the worst storm ever managed at the federal level, but their management of the border (with Mexico) is worse!” wrote the Republican on his Truth Social platform.

He is here returning to his main campaign message, around illegal immigration that is out of control according to him, which would compromise the security and prosperity of Americans.

Melania and Donald Trump in Milwaukee, July 18, 2024 © AFP – ANGELA WEISS

His wife Melania Trump has 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? A woman's fundamental right to individual liberty (…) gives her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes,” she writes in excerpts from her memoir, to be published Tuesday, revealed by the Guardian.

The Democratic campaign team immediately seized on 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 by the American Supreme Court, which put an end to 2022 to several decades of protection of the right to abortion at the federal level.

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