Kamala Harris will stage a star-studded rally Thursday alongside Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, as she launches a series of battleground state concerts to juice support in the final days of a nail-biting US presidential election.
The Atlanta rally, Harris’s first campaign stop with the only Black president in American history, comes as an already bitter campaign is reaching new heights with the Democrat openly calling her Republican rival, Donald Trump, a “fascist” who presents a clear and present danger to US national security.
The contest remains a toss-up, with polling in all the swing states within the margin of error, and both campaigns have been pulling out the stops to win over undecided Americans and bank early votes ahead of November 5.
The Harris campaign said it planned gigs in all seven of the swing states expected to determine who wins the White House, with Springsteen back out on the campaign trail Monday in Philadelphia with Obama.
The rock legend, whose socially conscious paeans to working-class struggle have made him one of the most popular artists in America, has long lent his blue-collar appeal to Democratic campaigns.
Biden walked out to the Springsteen song “We Take Care of Our Own” when he accepted victory in the 2020 election. The rocker — known as “The Boss” — has campaigned for John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Obama in the past.
Obama has been making his own headlining appearances in support of Harris and other Democrats in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, five of the country’s most closely-fought states.
Party chiefs hope the former president, still one of the most popular Democrats on the national stage eight years after leaving office, will reverse eroding support among Black voters, which is behind where it was for Biden in 2020.
Obama, 63, shared the stage with Grammy Award-winning rapper Eminem at a Harris rally in Detroit Tuesday, and quoted from the rapper’s 2002 hit song “Lose Yourself.”
– ‘A real jerk’ –
Polling released Tuesday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows Trump with a narrow lead over Harris in Georgia, although eight percent of voters are still undecided, meaning the race could break either way.
In a CNN town hall on Wednesday, the vice president called Trump a “fascist” and warned that Trump was “increasingly unstable” as she addressed his reported praise for Adolf Hitler at a town hall event.
The Democrat’s fierce criticism came as she acknowledged voters’ concerns on a variety of top election issues.
“They also care about our democracy and not having a president United States who admires dictators and is a fascist,” she said.
As she seeks to draw a contrast with an opponent who is a generation older, Harris has brought a series of music and movie stars to Georgia, including a performance by Megan Thee Stallion at her July rally and an appearance by Usher on Saturday.
Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry and DJ Mix Master David will complete the bill in Atlanta.
Trump, 78, is expected to address Harris’s economic policy at an afternoon rally in Tempe, Arizona, his campaign announced in a statement that said the vice president had “made the American Dream of homeownership unreachable for young Americans and families.”
The pro-Trump Turning Point political action committee will then host the Republican ex-president at a Las Vegas rally aimed at recruiting volunteers and celebrating the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
“These are voters whose values closely align with the conservative platform but have been given too little attention by our movement,” Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk said in a statement.
Trump told supporters in North Carolina on Tuesday that Obama was “a real jerk” and shrugged off his support for Harris.
“Over the last couple of days I’ve watched him campaign,” said the Republican, who held a spate of stops across Georgia on Wednesday. “What a divider he is. He divides this country. He couldn’t care less, him and his little group of people.”
Harris and former first lady Michelle Obama are set to hold a rally this Saturday in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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