Kamala Harris responded forcefully this Thursday, October 31, to Donald Trump on women’s rights and abortion, a crucial issue in an ultra-tense US presidential campaign and for which the two rivals are heading towards the west of the country.
Five days before an election with an unpredictable outcome and potentially violent consequences, the former Republican president and the Democratic vice president are engaged in a chase through the seven crucial states, or “swing states.”
Kamala Harris, 60, is trying to mobilize the female electorate by promising to restore the federal right to abortion, against Donald Trump, 78, accustomed to sexist statements and sentenced in a civil court in 2023 in New York to tens of millions of dollars in fines for sexual assault.
On Thursday, Democrats circulated a passage from his meeting the day before, in which he mocks his own advisers by asking him to stop presenting himself as a “protector” of women and where he states:
“I’m going to do it whether women like it or not.”
From Madison, Wisconsin, Kamala Harris denounced these “very insulting” comments. The two candidates have been accusing each other for weeks of dividing the country, politically schizophrenic according to polls, which cannot decide between them.
Americans began voting by mail and early. More than 60 million have already sent their vote. In 2020, a total of 155 million voters voted in the presidential election.
Westward
The two adversaries facing each other have headed to the western United States, to seduce the increasingly important Hispanic and Latin American electorate.
Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with radical right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson in Arizona and hold a rally in neighboring Nevada.
In Arizona, on the border with Mexico, the populist platform with increasingly authoritarian and far-right rhetoric is expected to once again promise to put an end to an “invasion” of millions of immigrants from Latin America and Africa.
The former Republican president (2017-2021) was narrowly defeated by Joe Biden in November 2020 in this Grand Canyon state. He will also go to New Mexico, a state where Kamala Harris appears to have won.
The latter will continue to mobilize celebrities: this time with the actress and singer Jennifer López, of Puerto Rican origin, in Las Vegas (Nevada), and the “Tigres del Norte”, a Mexican music group, in Phoenix (Arizona).
Strong support from Elon Musk
In the final stretch, the billionaire can count on the extremely active support of Elon Musk, which has gotten him into trouble with the law.
A hearing was held Thursday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the absence of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX called to appear to explain the million-dollar lottery he launched to reward a Republican election newspaper in a key state.
The closer the November 5 elections get, the more concern is emerging about a possible violent protest if victory were to slip away from Donald Trump. Election centers in the most contested counties, targets of high tensions four years ago, have become fortresses, protected by wrought-iron fences and metal detectors.
Donald Trump, who never admitted defeat in 2020, spoke of “cheating” in Pennsylvania.
In Georgia, where he is being prosecuted for alleged interference attempts in 2020, electoral official Brad Raffensperger assured Thursday on CNN that all the results of this key state would be known “before the end of the night” of November 5.
Source: BFM TV