Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sought to gain political support in what they see as must-voting constituencies on Sunday, with polls showing them in the running for the Nov. 5 presidential election.
With the election less than a month away, the Democratic vice president attended a black church in Greenville, North Carolina, as part of his campaign's “Souls Poll” push. His Republican opponent was in Arizona, where he sought black and Latino support for a second term in office after a rally in California a day earlier.
Both candidates are trying to gain a decisive edge among voters who are still undecided on whom to support. Studies show that early voting, which favors Democrats, is down 45% from previous election years – a sign that there may be millions of undecided voters.
From denouncing early voting as a Democratic conspiracy to engineer a loss to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has now urged people to vote early and by mail.
A recent ABC News-Ipsos poll showed support split along gender lines, with women voting for Harris 60-40 and men overwhelming Trump by the same margin.
Trump needs white women to support him in greater numbers in 2020 than in 2016 — but also black men. On Sunday, he argued that it was “deeply insulting” that fellow former President Barack Obama called on black men to support Harris last week, “based solely on the color of his skin rather than his principles.”
Democratic Georgia Senator Ralph Warnock told CNN on Sunday, “Black men are not going to vote for Donald Trump in any significant numbers.” But his fellow black Democrat, South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, told CNN, “Yes, I'm concerned,” about black men voting for Trump.
A New York Times poll released Sunday found that Harris is underperforming the last three Democratic candidates for the White House among Latino voters.
The election may result in a partial increase in support for each. An NBC News poll released Sunday showed the candidates in a “dead heat” nationally with 48% support. The poll found that voters are reevaluating Trump's first term more favorably — but voters see reproductive rights as a key motivational issue, which could hurt the former president.
A CBS News poll, also released Sunday, found the presidential race is about more than two conflicting ideologies — but a fundamental disconnect.
For example, most Trump supporters said relief for the victims of Hurricanes Helen and Milton was not reaching the affected population – Harris supporters noted that. Trump supporters say the economy is bad; Haris supporters said it was good. Trump's voters say US-Mexico border crossings are on the rise; Haris' electorate has declined.
Trump's voters, especially men, said gender equality efforts had gone too far; Harris voters said not enough. But both agreed that social media is unreliable, and has made it harder to tell truth from fantasy and find things to agree on.
But the Southeastern U.S. is a response to two recent hurricanes that have continued to dominate the Democratic campaign. On Sunday, Biden is scheduled to survey the damage caused by Milton along Florida's Gulf Coast, where he will announce $600 million in funding for damaged power grids.
Hurricane response is of political interest to Democrats. Harris was set to hold a post-church campaign rally in a state hit hard by Helen, where the pace of the federal disaster response to the storm has been deeply politicized. A day earlier, for the second time in a week, the vice president was photographed preparing disaster relief supplies.
“It takes a village,” remarked one volunteer as she loaded diapers into boxes. “You're right,” Harris replied.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the earlier responses to Helen came in the form of the Patriot Front, an organization that the Anti-Defamation League has decided is a white supremacist group — one that uses misinformation as a recruiting tool.
With Arizona, Nevada and Georgia going to Trump, and Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin going to Harris, a North Carolina loss would cost Trump the 16 Electoral College votes he needs to reach the 270 threshold. 2020
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday that he would reject Harris and Biden's call to bring Congress back to Washington to approve post-hurricane disaster relief funding.
“It can wait,” Johnson said, pointing to the $20bn in additional disaster funding recently approved. He said only 2% of that fund has been disbursed. Once states assess and calculate their “real needs” and submit them, “Congress will meet and in bipartisan fashion, we will address those needs.”
Johnson accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of being “slow to respond.” He said: “They didn't do the job that we all expected and hoped they would do, and there will be a lot of assessment of that in the coming days.”
But as Harris' support has appeared to slip in recent weeks, after a series of televised appearances, there have been reports of growing tensions between his campaign and Biden's White House. The president canceled a trip to Germany to focus on hurricane response. But he is now reportedly rescheduled for Friday's trip.
According to Axios, Biden aides have been hurt by being pushed out of the president's re-election bid amid questions about his age. He is 81 years old – only three years older than Trump.
When she held a rally in Michigan, Harris's team believed Biden upstaged her by holding an impromptu press conference.
On Sunday, Biden was expected to meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with whom Harris clashed earlier in the week. An aide to Harris, 59, told the outlet that the president's team was “very high in their sentiments.”
