Trump and Harris hitting battleground states even as Sunday’s attack continues to roil the race
Sep 17, 2024, 7:17 AM | Updated: 7:52 pm
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at Harry Reid International Airport to board a plane after a campaign trip, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential election campaigning revs back up Tuesday, with Donald Trump heading to Michigan and Vice President Kamala Harris answering questions at a forum for Black journalists in Pennsylvania — even as authorities continue to investigate a second apparent assassination attempt against Trump that’s roiled the race.
Trump is holding a town hall in Flint, Michigan, and has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington and North Carolina. Harris will participate in a Philadelphia gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists. She skipped the group’s recent gathering in Chicago, but an openly antagonistic appearance there by Trump sparked an uproar when he questioned the vice president’s racial identity.
Harris has her own stops in Washington, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin, planned in coming days, with both sides zeroing in on the industrial Midwest and Pennsylvania and North Carolina — all battleground areas that could swing an election expected to be exceedingly close.
Trump has claimed, without evidence, that months of criticisms against him by Harris and President Joe Bideninspired the latest attack. That’s despite the former president’s own long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies.
Both Biden and Harris have so far avoided politics in reacting to the attack. Harris has condemned political violence while Biden has called on Congress to increase funding to the Secret Service.
Authorities say Ryan Wesley Routh camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach, where Trump was playing on Sunday, for nearly 12 hours with food and a rifle but fled without firing shots when a Secret Service agent spotted and shot at him.
Subsequently arrested, Routh’s past online posts suggest the suspect has not been consistent about his politics in terms of supporting Democrats or Republicans.
That attack came barely two months after Trump was wounded during a rally in Pennsylvania. In fundraising emails, he’s implored supporters, “Fear not.” During an interview on the X social media platform, Trump recounted his experience Sunday, saying he was golfing with a friend and heard “probably four or five” shots being fired in the air.
