CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris made an aggressive move Friday to try to narrow Donald Trump’s lead in the polls on immigration, becoming the first Democratic candidate to travel to the southern border on Friday to address issues she has long been unable to resolve. announced plans to address the issue. Decades.
During a visit to Arizona, a key battleground state, Harris slammed President Trump for his role earlier this year in blocking a border security bill that was the product of months of bipartisan negotiations.
It was one of Harris’ more concrete policy speeches since becoming the Democratic nominee, using her past as California’s attorney general to attack Trump on his signature issues. I was trying to prove something.
“This was the strongest border security bill in decades. It was supported by Border Patrol unions. And it goes into effect today and should produce real-time results for our country.” spoke at a rally in Douglas, a town on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“But Donald Trump ruined that. He picked up the phone and called his friends in Congress and said, ‘Stop the bill,'” she said. “He prefers to deal with problems rather than solve them, and the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than political gamesmanship or his personal political future.”
The former president doubled down on his comments on immigration in response to Harris’ border visit. President Trump highlighted violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants, telling a crowd in Walker, Michigan, that Harris “conveyed these fears.”
“She unleashed these atrocities and has blood on her hands at a level that probably no one in this country has ever seen,” he said.
President Trump also falsely once again accused Democrats of allowing illegal immigration “because they want votes.” Noncitizens cannot vote in U.S. elections, a reality ignored by President Trump, who has lied for years about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Democrats’ attacks on immigration and border security are an attempt to cut into one of President Trump’s clearest political advantages. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS released this week found that 49% of likely voters trust the former president on his handling of immigration, compared to 35% who trust Harris. did.
Harris also proposed Friday to tighten regulations that would all but prevent immigrants from applying for asylum in the United States. He said he would seek a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
“They are Americans in every way. But still, they don’t have a path to citizenship. And this issue has remained unresolved for decades at this point,” Harris said. said.
The battle over immigration and border security comes at an unusual time in this late stage of a presidential campaign, when attention has shifted from candidates of both parties.
Hurricane Helen hits the Southeast, causing massive flooding and killing dozens of people. Meanwhile, Israel intensified its fighting with Hezbollah, attacking a building in Lebanon that it said was storing missiles.
And next week, vice presidential candidates from both parties are preparing to take center stage, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance holding the only debate on Tuesday night.
Less than six weeks from Election Day, the 2024 presidential map remains a mess, with seven battleground states coming into focus.
CNN’s latest poll conducted by SSRS on Friday shows Harris with a comfortable lead in Nebraska’s single electoral vote, which could have a big impact.
Nebraska awards one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. Polls from the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District showed Ms. Harris leading in the state’s most liberal region with 53% to Mr. Trump’s 42%.
If Harris wins the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but loses the Sunbelt battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, that one electoral vote will be lost to her. may become extremely important. That leaves her with 269 electoral votes, but one more vote from Nebraska could give her the 270 needed to win the White House.
A separate CNN poll conducted by SSRS released Friday found both candidates tied in North Carolina at 48% each. Trump’s path to victory will be limited unless he can hold on to North Carolina, the state he won by the narrowest of margins in 2020. And a CNN poll found Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the scandal-plagued Republican gubernatorial candidate, with a wide lead. Democrats face questions about whether Mr. Robinson could damage the overall Republican field in November.
The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee held a press conference Friday ahead of Harris’ trip to Arizona, featuring undocumented immigrants and three mothers of people who died from accidental fentanyl overdoses, and calling for accountability in border security. accused the Vice President of lacking. .
“This is not a safe time for Americans. Kamala Harris has not acknowledged her daughter’s death,” said Patti Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, who was raped and murdered by a 23-year-old Salvadoran national. Rachel Morin was herself a mother of five children.
“She’s been slow to come to the table on this. She could always do something about it,” said Anne, a Southern California mother who lost her 15-year-old son, Weston, to a fentanyl overdose. Fundner said.
The call was an attempt to cast doubt on Harris’ proposals to tackle border security, which Trump says she and President Joe Biden have had four years to do but have failed.
After a dramatic decline, the number of people crossing the border is now at its lowest since 2020. U.S. officials have been touting low border crossings for months in a row, citing recent executive actions to curb asylum access at the southern border.
Republicans have labeled Harris the Biden administration’s “border czar,” touting the president’s more limited mandate for her in 2021 to tackle the root causes of migration in Central America.
Harris on Friday sought to capitalize on another part of her resume: her time as California attorney general. He highlighted efforts to prosecute members of transnational criminal organizations, including a visit to Mexico City with other attorneys general to share information on gangs and cartels.
“Stopping transnational criminal organizations and strengthening our borders is not new to me and has been a long-standing priority of mine,” she said. “I got the job done and I’m going to continue to treat it as a priority.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Ari Main, Ariel Edwards-Levy and Kit Maher contributed to this report.