With the night-lit columns of the White House behind her as a metaphor for the bright future she claims to embody, Kamala Harris vowed on Tuesday to write a "new chapter" while launching a scathing indictment of Donald Trump, AFP reported.
A week before perhaps the most murky and tense election in United States history, the Democratic vice president described the former Republican president in the darkest way possible, as “unstable, revenge-obsessed, consumed by resentment and in search of unlimited power.
Everything in this long-awaited speech was built on the foundation of contrast.
The place: Tens of thousands of people - 75,000 according to her campaign team - gathered in Washington, where the Republican nominee addressed her supporters on January 6, 2021, before storming the Capitol to try to block the certification of the election Joe Biden's victory.
So, the rhetoric: Kamala Harris tried to paint an optimistic and peaceful vision of the world's leading power, "big enough to hold all our dreams, strong enough to withstand rifts and divisions, fearless enough to imagine a future , full of hope.”
As Donald Trump projected a bleak vision of a country in decline that he said had been overrun by migrants, the vice president began: “Let's fight for this beautiful country and in seven days we'll have power. Each of you has the power to turn the page and write the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told."
This election campaign, full of unprecedented twists and turns, is taking place in an atmosphere of extreme tension and quiet fear of violence, while Donald Trump is the target of two assassination attempts
- Early voting -
For the vice president's supporters, this meeting in Washington is "a way to clean up what happened on January 6," 2021, confides Mitzi Maxwell, 69, who came from Florida with her mother in search of "love, passion and enthusiasm."
She has already voted, like more than 50 million Americans who mailed in their ballots or voted in advance without waiting for Nov. 5.
In 2020, a total of around 160 million people voted.
The vice president, who entered the race late after the withdrawal of Joe Biden in the summer, relied on this solemn address to introduce herself, since Americans still do not know her very well and who many equate with the unpopular current president.
Kamala Harris has assured that if she wins, she will pursue a "different" policy focused on the "cost of living", particularly with housing benefits and access to health care.
She also promised to restore federal protections for abortion rights that were "blown up" in 2022 by the Supreme Court, which has become very conservative following Donald Trump's judicial appointments.
- Tie game -
The two candidates, who are diametrically opposed to each other, are tied in the polls, especially in the seven key states where the 60-year-old Democratic candidate and her rival have been campaigning tirelessly.
The former president also visited one of them on Tuesday: Pennsylvania. At 78 years old, Donald Trump is running for the White House for the third time.
The state is home to a large Puerto Rican community, many of whose members say they are outraged after a comedian compared Puerto Rico to a "floating island of trash" this weekend at a Donald Trump rally in New York.
Her challenger is counting on the protest to grab a few precious votes in a runoff that could be narrowly decided in any of the "swing states": Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.
President Joe Biden responded to the controversy on Tuesday by responding that the "only garbage" he saw "floating" were Donald Trump's "supporters," drawing the ire of Republicans. The Democrat then assured social media that he was actually referring to the comedian's "rhetoric" and said of the former president, "His demonization of Latinos is unacceptable."
In Pennsylvania on Tuesday, the Republican candidate renewed his fierce criticism of immigration, repeating that the United States has become a "trash bin" because of the influx of migrants.
He stated: “Nobody can ask for that. How can you win an election with that? In that situation, you can only win by cheating." All this is fueling fears of a repeat of the chaos of four years ago. I BGNES
