Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are both making a concerted effort to shore up perceived weaknesses ahead of Election Day.
With just three weeks until Nov. 5, the race is virtually deadlocked. The Real Clear Politics polling aggregate gives Harris a 1.7-point advantage nationally, but several polls, including the latest offerings from ABC-Ipsos and NBC, show Trump eating into Harris’s margin.
The most valuable commodity a candidate has is time. Harris’s and Trump’s schedules this week give a glimpse into their priorities in the final stretch of the election.
1. Harris hammers the blue wall
The vice president headed to Erie, Pennsylvania, on Monday for her first of two campaign stops in the Keystone State this week and will travel to Michigan and Wisconsin by the week’s end.
Furthermore, her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), will also blanket the blue wall this week, holding his events in Western Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania, the 2024 battleground with the most Electoral College votes, could prove decisive for Harris, who leads Trump by 3 points in the latest Philadelphia Inquirer state poll. Carrying the blue wall in full would ease the burden on Harris overperforming in the Sun Belt, where Trump maintains a slight lead.
2. Trump appeals to women
Harris, buoyed in large part by both the abortion debate and her possibility to be the first female president in U.S. history, has far outpaced Trump in support from female voters since she entered the race in July.
But Trump isn’t going down without a fight. The former president is set to sit before an all-female town hall on Tuesday with Fox News’s Harris Faulkner in Cumming, Georgia. The program will air during Faulkner’s broadcast on Fox News the following day.
Trump, whose role the Harris campaign frequently highlights in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, recently attempted to buy himself more breathing room on the matter by vowing to veto any national abortion ban that might come across his desk in a second term.
The former president had celebrated his role in laying the groundwork for the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision and said he supports states making abortion decisions.
3. Harris focuses on black men
Though the vice president saw an immediate polling bump after supplanting President Joe Biden atop the ticket, she failed to wipe out Biden’s flagging support among young, black men, a traditionally reliable voting bloc for Democrats.
Biden won 90% of the black male vote in 2020, but those numbers slipped nearly 10 points throughout his term, and a recent poll from the New York Times and Siena College found Harris pulling just 78% of black male support. Harris looks to change that with a concerted push this week, which the campaign opened by releasing a memo outlining her “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.”
“As we approach the final stretch here, she wants to make sure that we are speaking directly to a constituency that has always been important for her, and that’s black men,” Harris campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler wrote in a statement.
“This agenda is a further realization of Vice President Harris’ Opportunity Economy, where black men are equipped with the tools to thrive: to buy a home, to provide for our families, start a business and build wealth,” added former Rep. Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of Harris’s 2024 campaign.
Harris additionally booked a radio town hall with host Charlamagne tha God, following an appearance on the All the Smoke podcast, hosted by former NBA players Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama will stay on the campaign trail and stump for Harris in Arizona and Nevada, two other battlegrounds.
4. Peach State payoff
Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, but the former president is clinging to a razor-thin lead over the vice president in the Peach State this cycle.
Both candidates will campaign in Georgia this week.
Harris will hold a rally on Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia. Counties encompassing the state’s capital overwhelmingly voted blue in 2020, and the vice president is also deploying former President Bill Clinton to several events in the state this week.
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Trump, on the other hand, will hold his aforementioned female town hall in Cumming, located near the state’s northern border. He will campaign at Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday.
The former president also recently traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, to survey damage from Hurricane Helene and distribute aid to victims.