Harris hits critical battleground Pennsylvania six days before election

Kamala Harris continued to make her closing argument to voters just six days before voting ends, reminding Americans in what is perhaps the most critical battleground state that two very different futures for the United States could be around the corner.

“We know who Donald Trump is. This is someone who is not thinking about how to make your life better,” she said in remarks that lasted about half an hour to a packed crowd at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.

“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.”

“In less than 90 days, either he or I will be in the Oval Office,” she added.

Harris spoke in Harrisburg, the state capital, which is one of the few counties in the middle of the state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. A faint whiff of livestock hung over the packed rally, which included people holding signs saying “Harris-burg” and “If Kamala was a man, she’d be THE MAN”, a reference to a Taylor Swift song.

The event was part of a campaign blitz for the vice-president before voting ends 5 November. She and Tim Walz, her vice-presidential candidate, were both in Pennsylvania on Wednesday. Harris also traveled to North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Polls show a tied race in Pennsylvania, which both campaigns are competing fiercely for. The path to winning 270 electoral votes is much more difficult for the candidate who loses Pennsylvania.

Harris did not mention a racist remark about Puerto Rico made by a comedian before Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Pennsylvania has a sizeable Latino and Puerto Rican population and could be a decisive voting bloc in the election.

At the rally, Harris did not directly mention Joe Biden’s comments on Tuesday in which he appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage”. Biden later clarified that he had “meant to say” that a pro-Trump comedian’s “hateful rhetoric” about Puerto Rico was “garbage”. But before getting on Air Force Two on Wednesday, Harris said: “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they voted for.”

Harris seemed to allude to the controversy at the end of her remarks, saying: “In these next six days, let us be intentional about building community. Let us please be intentional about building coalitions and let us remember we have so much more in common than what separates us.”

Minerva Ortiz-Garcia, a 68-year-old flight attendant who lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, carried a small Puerto Rican flag as she wandered through the crowd before Harris spoke.

“I feel horrible. I’m Puerto Rican I actually started to cry” after hearing the comments at Trump’s rally, she said. “How could someone say that about an island that is trying to survive [Hurricane] Maria?” Ortiz-Garcia said she thought many Latino voters were waiting for Harris to speak to them.

“I think that people want her to say something directly,” she said.

Harris was also briefly interrupted several times by protesters, who could be heard screaming “genocide” and “war criminal”.

As cheers of “USA! USA! USA!” nearly drowned out the protests, Harris said “ours is about a fight for democracy and your right to be heard. That is what is on the line in this election,” she said. “Look, everybody has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.” When a protester again interrupted a few minutes later, Harris again emphasized the stakes of the election, saying: “At this particular moment, it should be emphasized that unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy from within. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”

The event in Harrisburg was the first political rally Corine Wherley, a 38-year-old librarian from Harrisburg, had ever attended. She said that she was so alarmed after watching Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally that she wanted to come.

“A lot of it was the rhetoric around ‘this secret’ and other things like that they’re planning on doing,” she said, referring to Trump’s comment that he has a “little secret” with House Speaker Mike Johnson, that many took to be a plan to contest the election. “They’re like: ‘I can do whatever I want’ and I think that’s what scares me.”

Shawna Barnes, a 45-year-old healthcare worker from Philadelphia, said she’s concerned that men aren’t supporting Harris in this election. When she’s knocked on doors, she’s noticed that the women are often all-in, but the men are “iffy”.

“Black and brown women are going to come out and support. White women of course are going to support. The men are just kind of like afraid,” she said as the song Mr Brightside by the Killers blasted on the sound system. “I don’t think it’s about gender. I just think it’s fear.”