US presidential candidates former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris headed to key battleground states yesterday, each seeking an edge in a race where they are running neck-and-neck less than two months before voting day.
Trump, 78, headed to Nevada, where his campaign says he would focus on delivering a message on the economy — a key issue in this election, with US inflation slowing, but still higher than most consumers are used to.
Harris, 59, would be in perhaps the most crucial swing state, Pennsylvania, where earlier this week she debated Trump for the first time, landing several barbs that appeared to get under the Republican candidate’s skin.
Photo: AFP
Voters are to head to the polls on Nov. 5, with both candidates in a dead heat according to most polls, including in the battleground states likely to decide the election in the US’ electoral college system.
Trump has turned up the heat on his rhetoric as Harris has closed the gap in recent weeks, taking aim at her with pointed insults and claiming there is an ongoing “invasion” of migrants into the US.
At a rally in Arizona on Thursday, Trump called Harris a “lunatic” and accused the moderators of the debate earlier in the week of being biased against him.
He also ruled out participating in another debate with the Democratic vice president. Hammering away at the key election issue of immigration, Trump repeated unfounded allegations against Haitian migrants in the Ohio town of Springfield, claiming they were eating residents’ pets.
If elected, the Republican candidate promised to fight illegal immigration with mass deportations, which drew chants of “USA! USA!” from his audience.
In recent days, Trump has frequently been seen with Laura Loomer, a radical right-wing activist who has been known to peddle unfounded conspiracy theories, including regarding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US.
She has hit out at Harris, whose mother is Indian, recently saying that in the event of the Democrat’s victory, the White House would “smell like curry.”
On Thursday, Harris delivered her well-honed stump speech in North Carolina, another key battleground in the election.
“It’s time to turn the page” on Trump, she said, promising to defend the US middle class and women’s reproductive rights. Harris entered the race unexpectedly after US President Joe Biden dropped out in July, following a disastrous performance in a televised debate against Trump.
On Thursday, she insisted that she remained “the underdog” in the race.
“We know ours will be a very tight race until the very end. We are the underdog. Let’s be clear about that,” she said.
In a race that is neck-and-neck, the election is likely to come down to a few tens of thousands of undecided voters in battleground states.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS