Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Thursday launched an effort to build on her strong debate performance, with her campaign pledging to step up efforts to woo voters in battleground states deemed crucial to winning the White House.
Meanwhile, Harris’ opponent, Donald Trump, whose performance in the debate has been criticized even by some of his supporters, said he would refuse to debate Harris again. “There will be no third debate,” Trump wrote in an angry post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Celebrating his debate victory, the US Vice President visited the key battleground state of North Carolina, holding rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro, before heading north to another key battleground in the campaign, Pennsylvania, where he is due to hold two more events on Friday.
Harris is in a close race with Donald Trump in seven battleground states that are key to victory in the November election. When Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee, Trump had solid leads in many of these states, but Harris has now narrowed the gap, once again boosting the party’s chances of victory.
Meanwhile, Trump, who has claimed victory in Tuesday’s debate with Harris in Philadelphia despite widespread doubts among his supporters, held a rally in Arizona, another state where the candidates are closely contested and where Biden narrowly won the 2020 presidential election.
While recent polls have shown Harris holding a small but consistent lead nationally, the outcome of the November election will almost certainly depend on which candidate wins in seven key battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada.
“Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning to capitalize on her decisive victory in Tuesday night’s debate against Donald Trump, maintaining the momentum and making the electoral choice clearer to voters that the debate made,” a Harris campaign memo released Thursday said.
Campaign staffers on Wednesday combed through the 105-minute debate looking for key moments that could be used in television and digital ads targeted at battleground states, according to the memo.
He also promised that Ms. Harris, who has been criticized for shying away from the media since becoming the Democratic nominee, will do a series of interviews with local media in battleground states, including a meeting next week in Georgia with the National Association of Black Journalists, which hosted Mr. Trump in August, a public relations disaster for the Republican candidate.
Harris won widespread praise for her performance in Tuesday night’s debate, where she was seen as successfully baiting and baiting Trump, while he repeatedly veered off message with sharp accusations about rally attendance and baseless tirades about immigration.
Some Trump supporters blamed Trump’s mediocre performance on the influence of Laura Loomer, a prominent conspiracy theorist who accompanied Trump to the debate and spread a false rumor about Haitian immigrants eating their cats and dogs – a rumor that Trump repeated during the debate.
Authorities in Springfield, Ohio, where the practice allegedly took place, have denied the story, which appears to have been circulated on far-right internet forums and has no evidence.
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But in a sign of its continuing impact, police were reportedly evacuated from Springfield City Hall on Thursday after a bomb threat.
Ms. Harris has requested another debate with Mr. Trump, and her campaign, reflecting their confidence that Ms. Harris had won a landslide victory, posted footage of the first debate as an “ad” on X, toying with Mr. Trump. A CNN poll conducted immediately afterwards confirmed this belief, with 63% of viewers expecting Ms. Harris to win.
But Trump’s social media posts, in which he frequently ranted in all-caps on a range of issues and claimed victory in the debate, appeared to end any hope of a rematch. “Kamala should focus on what she should have done for the last nearly four years: There will be no third debate!” Trump said, calling the first debate a showdown with Biden and the second with Harris.
An estimated 67.1 million people watched the debate, about 16 million more than tuned in to watch Trump face off against Biden in June.
Harris, meanwhile, reiterated her desire for another showdown, despite Trump’s apparent refusal to do so. “I think we owe it to the voters to have another debate because this election and what’s at stake couldn’t be more important,” she said at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A new disaster for President Trump occurred on Thursday when Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under George W. Bush, endorsed his opponent as the Republican nominee and accused him of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol while he was president.
“As our nation approaches a crucial election, I cannot stand by and watch as Donald Trump seeks to return to the White House, posing perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “That is why, although I am a Republican, I have decided to support Kamala Harris for president.”
“President Trump failed to exercise his executive powers in his duty to protect lawmakers, law enforcement and the Capitol from the (January 6) attack,” he added.
