Winter is coming, yet campaign days are getting longer. Engaged in a tense, uncertain and often confusing tug-of-war, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are stepping up campaign trips and speeches. The blows are flying. Every hour is a clash. With two weeks to go before a November 5 presidential election that will test the American rule of law and the solidity of voting procedures, the candidates are focusing on a small number of swing states, which they are plowing hard. Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia: This is where the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to enter the White House is being played out.
All it may take is one favorable county, city or even a district for the dominoes to fall in favor of one candidate or the other. Unless, behind the often contradictory polls, a surprise is in the offing: a clear, more indisputable victory than almost all the experts are predicting. Already, 14 million ballots have been registered, as part of the various early voting procedures, in person or by mail. Neither of the two candidates stands out as the embodiment of change since they both have the past to answer for. Harris is banking on the repulsion of Trumpism and a powerful mobilizing issue: abortion. Trump is pushing hard on the cost of living and the migration issue, the two weaknesses of the Biden administration, painting a caricature of a decaying America in broad strokes. The number of undecided voters is steadily declining in the run-up to the election, but this does not mean a massive wave of support for either party.
On Monday alone, Trump took part in several events in North Carolina, speaking before the cameras against a backdrop of devastation caused by recent hurricanes. Harris, meanwhile, chose an unusual format, a series of posed conversations with Republican Liz Cheney in front of a seated audience. The first took place in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before the two women displayed their partnership again in Royal Oak, Michigan, and then in Wisconsin. The goal is to win over moderate Republicans, who were hardly tempted by Trump's third candidacy, but who sometimes find it hard to take the plunge and vote Democrat.
A former House member from Wyoming, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney is the most important rallying point for Harris. "Think about how dangerous and damaging it is to have someone who's totally erratic, completely unstable, someone who has aligned himself with, who idolizes tyrants," Cheney said in reference to Trump. "They absolutely know that they can play him. And we simply can't afford to take that risk." In the name of defending the Constitution and as a mother worried about the country she would be leaving to her children, the Republican argued in favor of Harris.
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