Washington, Oct 29 (IANS): US Vice President Kamala Harris has said that former President Donald Trump demonstrated at his rally in New York that he is "focussed and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country".
Harris also said that in her closing arguments on Tuesday, she will show there is "a big difference between he and I".
The 2024 presidential election is coming close with Election Day on November 5. The two candidates will not stop campaigning after their so-called closing arguments, but they will be in wind-down mode, summing up their respective pitch to voters, 44 million of whom had already voted by Monday, either through in-person early voting or postal ballot.
Harris is scheduled to deliver her closing remarks at the Ellipse, a corner of the US Capitol grounds where Trump had addressed a rally on January 6, 2020, after which his supporters had marched to the US Congress to prevent a joint sitting from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and the next president. He is facing federal charges in this connection.
The race is currently tied, according to polls. Harris is at 48.0 per cent while Trump is at 46.7 per cent in the FiveThirtyEight weighted average of national polls. In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Trump is at 48.6 per cent and Harris is at 48.4 per cent.
The race will be determined, however, not by national polling numbers, but by seven battleground states -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
Harris spoke to reporters on Monday about Trump's rally at New York's iconic Madison Square Garden. "I think, last night, Donald Trump's event in Madison Square Garden really highlighted a point I've been making throughout this campaign," she said, adding, reprising a key theme from her campaign, "He is focussed and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself, and on dividing our country."
The Vice President also said: "What he did last night is not a discovery. It is just more of the same, and maybe more vivid than usual. Donald Trump spends full-time trying to have Americans point their finger at each other, fans the fuel of hate and division, and that’s why people are exhausted with him. That's why people who formerly supported Donald Trump, have voted for him, are supporting me, voting for me. People are literally ready to turn the page. They are tired of it."