Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump head to North Carolina yesterday to try to clinch support in the southeastern battleground state just three days before Tuesday’s US presidential election.It will be the fourth day in a row that Vice-President Harris and former president Trump visit the same state on the same day, underlining the critical importance of the seven states likely to decide the race, which opinion polls show to be on a knife’s edge.More than 70mn Americans have already cast ballots, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida, below the record early-voting pace in 2020 during Covid-19, but still indicating a high level of voter enthusiasm.Yesterday also marked the last day of early voting in North Carolina, where over 3.8mn votes have been cast, while the state’s western reaches are still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s deadly flooding.Harris plans appearances with rock star Jon Bon Jovi in Charlotte, the biggest city in North Carolina, which is tied with Georgia for the second-biggest prize of the swing states. Each has 16 votes in the Electoral College, where 270 are needed to secure the presidency.North Carolina backed Trump in 2020 by a narrow margin of less than 1.5 percentage points, and elected a Democratic governor on the same day, giving hope to both parties.“It is my plan and intention to continue to invest in American manufacturing, the work being done by American workers, upholding and lifting up good union jobs,” Harris said last morning in Wisconsin, as she left for North Carolina. “That is the way we are going to win the competition with China for the 21st century.”Trump was to hold a rally in Gastonia, west of Charlotte, at noon before returning to the state in the evening, where he is due to speak at the 22,000-seat First Horizon Coliseum arena in Greensboro.“This election is a choice between whether we…have four more years of gross incompetence and failure, or whether we will begin the four greatest years in the history of our country,” Trump told a crowd in Michigan on Friday.Harris and Trump have very different policies on major issues including support for Ukraine and Nato, immigration, taxes, democratic principles and tariffs, which reflect that schisms between the Democratic and Republican parties.Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday that if Trump wins and Republicans control Congress, his party would “probably” repeal the CHIPS Act, passed under Joe Biden’s administration, which gave over $50bn in subsidies to companies for semiconductor chip manufacturing and research in the United States.Democrats have seized on the remarks. “It is further evidence of everything I’ve actually been talking about for months now, about Trump’s intention to implement project 2025,” Harris said yesterday, referring to a conservative blueprint to remake US government and policies that was written with the help of many of Trump’s closest advisers.
