Former President Donald Trump held his first public campaign rally since President Biden withdrew from the 2024 showdown that the two major parties had been preparing for, leaving the former president to direct his anger at his new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump is expected to be fully focused on Harris when he stops Wednesday in North Carolina, a swing state that Trump has carried in the past, but Democrats have seen it as important. The former president went to the state to show that he is still worried about staying in the column this November, even if the team has won in Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, which Trump will visit on Saturday.
With the sudden departure of Mr. Biden from the presidential race and Harris is closer and closer to officially becoming the choice of the Democratic general election, Trump has ramped up his criticism of the vice president, who he considers to be “the same as Biden but more radical.”
He blamed him for what he described as the failures of the Biden administration, particularly on security at the US-Mexico border.
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Trump has also hedged in his plans for the expected debate with Harris, initially saying that he wanted Fox News, not ABC, to host the match originally scheduled for September with Mr. Biden. On Tuesday, Trump appeared to tweak that message again, saying in a phone call with reporters that he wanted to debate Harris “more than once” but declined to appear in today’s debate on the book and said he just agreed. Mr. Biden debated twice, not Harris.
At 81, Mr. Biden would be the oldest presidential candidate to enter the general election. Now, the 78-year-old Trump occupies that slot. Harris, 59, has launch a campaign which at least in some corners seems to be attracting the interest of younger voters who could be key in deciding the close general election.
Republicans see North Carolina as an important state
North Carolina was a state that Trump carried in the previous campaign, but it is less than 1.5 percentage points ahead of Mr. Biden in 2020, the closest margin of any state that Trump won. Trump has been largely absent from North Carolina even as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, while Mr. Biden has largely avoided the physical campaign trail and has not visited the state during the 16 days of the election.
Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte – the largest city in the country – is also the scene of Trump’s narrow margin of victory in the GOP primary of North Carolina, edging out former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley by less than 8 percentage points.
This year, Trump had planned to hold his first public rally since the start of the impeachment trial in Fayetteville, but the event was canceled. due to bad weather. Trump called from a private plane instead.
Democrats are looking to flip the script in North Carolina
Democrats have also worked to win North Carolina, where the party’s most recent presidential victory was former President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, despite the new GOP dominance.
Mr. Biden held a campaign event in Raleigh a day after a disastrous June debate with Trump. While he appears to be more powerful than he is on the debate stage, that doesn’t help raise concerns among party members about his ability to win the White House again.
With Harris now poised to take the position, he may turn to North Carolina for political help: state Governor Roy Cooper. was among the Democrats Harris’s campaign has been vetting to be able to pick as his vice presidential running mate.
Cooper is term-limited and cannot seek reelection. The highly competitive race to replace him pits Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a staunch Trump supporter who is North Carolina’s first Black gubernatorial candidate.
Charlotte Trump’s event is the second campaign rally since a July 13 attempted murder at the general assembly of Pennsylvania. The next day, Trump accepted the GOP presidential nomination and gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, where his ear – wounded in the shooting – was bandaged.
Wednesday’s rally was also the first since the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatlewho said he took “full responsibility for the security lapse” that led to the gunman being able to get close to Trump at an outdoor event in Pennsylvania.
Rally Charlotte, as it has been done weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, will be held in an indoor arena.
