Both Harris and Trump will make closing arguments in swing states
The 2016 Campaign in the Blue Wall: Puerto Rico and the Importance of Border Security Problems for the U.S., Mexico, and New Mexico
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Harris will head into the final weekend of the campaign with stops in “Blue Wall” swing states, with both candidates holding Friday night rallies in Milwaukee.
With five days to go until voting closes on Election Day, the candidates are expected to make a pitch to Latino voters in the two states — and talk about border security, one of the biggest issues for the campaign.
In New Mexico, a state that has not elected a Republican to the White House in a decade, Trump is making an unusual campaign stop. His run for the White House has made it difficult for him to return to New Mexico, a reliably Democratic state.
One of the most close states in this year’s election is Arizona, which Trump lost by less than 11,000 votes in 2020. Republicans are hoping the ballot measure that would make it a crime to enter the country through a border state will convince people to vote for Trump, while Democrats want people to vote against the ballot measure because it supports abortion.
Both candidates will be returning to a state where they want to eliminate taxes on tips for hourly workers, since that’s where the majority of service industry workers reside.
In Arizona, Latinos make up 25% of the eligible voter population while in Nevada they represent just over one in five eligible voters, according to the Pew Research Center. Democrats have traditionally won significant shares of the demographic, but polling has shown the Republican nominee chipping away at that advantage.
The Solar Belt Dash: The First State Trip for the U.S. Supreme Court of the Sun Belt and the Third State of the Blue Wall
The Sun Belt dash comes as both candidates continue to navigate the fallout from a comedian’s crude joke referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last weekend.
The remark initially brought a wave of backlash against Trump, but by Wednesday Harris was cleaning up comments made by President Biden during a video call in which he sounded like he was calling Trump supporters “garbage.” Trump responded in Wisconsin on Wednesday by speaking to the press from inside a garbage truck.
Harris is scheduled to attend an event in Appleton before her rally in Milwaukee. She is almost certain to mention that Trump said violent things about Liz Cheney in his late night speech. Trump has been highlighting comments from Biden that sounded like he was calling Trump supporters “garbage.”
Blue-collar workers are a significant portion of the electorate in both states, which Harris and Trump are expected to emphasize in their messages Friday. Together with Pennsylvania — the third of the “Blue Wall” states — Michigan and Wisconsin are home to a higher eligible-voting population of white voters without college degrees than the four other swing states up for grabs.
The Associated Press reported that the first trip for Trump will be to the state of Michigan. The city’s Arab-American voters are angry with the way the Biden administration has handled Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon, and Harris has struggled to maintain support in that community.