Former President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this morning before heading to Walker, Michigan, for a campaign event, where he criticized Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, hammering her over reports about the number of migrants with criminal histories in the country. He again promised “the largest deportation operation in American history.” He also repeated his baseless claim that the only way he’ll lose is if Democrats cheat. “They beat us by a whisker,” he said, referring to the 2020 election. “It’s the only thing they’re good at. They’re good at cheating in elections.”
Then, after nearly half an hour, he turned to discuss Michigan manufacturing and the auto industry, again promising to impose steep tariffs on foreign goods and to cut the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products in the United States. He slammed Harris’s tax plans and touted his own plan to have billionaire Elon Musk lead a government efficiency commission. “He’s going to be our cost-cutter,” Trump said. “I think he can save trillions.”
Harris, meanwhile, was looking to go on offense on the immigration issue with a visit to the southern border in Douglas, Arizona, where she embraced a tough stance on border restrictions and blamed Trump for tanking a bipartisan Senate deal tilted toward conservatives earlier this year. “The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris said in her prepared remarks.
Harris is trying to close the gap with Trump on the immigration issue in much the way she appears to have done on the economy.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of swing-state voters published Thursday evening finds that Harris has narrowed Trump’s edge on the economy to just 4 percentage points, down from 6 points last month. And on the question of which candidate voters trust more to deal with the cost of everyday goods, the two candidates were essentially tied, with 47% saying Trump and 46% pointing to Harris. Voters also gave Harris an 11-point edge on the question of who they trust more to help the middle class.
“The results suggest that Harris is benefiting from a campaign that focuses on her economic agenda, including pledges to build more affordable housing, offer down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, and a promise to make the wealthy pay more in taxes,” Bloomberg’s Gregory Korte and Mark Niquette report. “Trump’s economic messaging has lately taken a backseat in his campaign, with his speeches often straying from the subject and his advertisements prioritizing immigration and crime.”
The same poll finds that Harris has surged to a lead in six of seven swing states, up 7 percentage points in Nevada, 5 points in Pennsylvania, 3 points in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin and 2 points in North Carolina. The poll shows Harris and Trump tied in Georgia. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points in six of the states and 4 points in Nevada.
