Harris, Trump barnstorm Michigan, spar over who has stamina to be president
GRAND RAPIDS/DETROIT, Michigan — Democrat Kamala Harris raised questions about Republican Donald Trump’s physical stamina to serve effectively as president as the two rivals tore through the deadlocked battleground state of Michigan on Friday, with Trump lashing back about the energy he’s shown on the campaign trail.
Harris, who turns 60 on Sunday, pressed the case to raise doubts about the 78-year-old Trump. Age had been an issue when President Joe Biden, 81, was still in the race, but had faded after he dropped his election bid.
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Harris on Friday said news reports that former president Trump was skipping interviews because he was tired and had passed on the chance of a second debate with her raised questions about his fitness for office.
“It should be a concern. If he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?” she told reporters before a rally in Grand Rapids. “That’s a legitimate question.”
Trump has skipped some appearances, but his campaign has not provided reasons.
Trump, talking to reporters as he arrived in Detroit, rejected such talk.
“I’ve gone 48 days now without a rest,” he said.
“I’m not even tired. I’m really exhilarated. You know why? We’re killing her in the polls, because the American people don’t want her.”
Polls in the election’s most competitive states are effectively tied.
In a Fox & Friends interview, Trump also griped about negative television ads on Fox about him and said he would ask Rupert Murdoch, the founder of Fox News parent company News Corp , to ensure that such ads are not broadcast until Election Day on Nov. 5.
“I’m going to say, ‘Rupert, please do it this way and then we’re going to have a victory, cause everyone wants that,’” Trump said.
Trump visited a campaign office in Hamtramck, where he heard praise from the Detroit suburb’s first Muslim mayor, Amer Ghalib. Trump was seeking support from Arab Americans in Michigan disenchanted with Democrats, Vice President Harris and Biden over U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.
“We all ultimately want one thing. We want peace in the Middle East. We’re going to get peace in the Middle East. It’s going to happen very fast. It can happen with the right leadership in Washington,” Trump said, without elaborating.
In the evening, Trump returned to Detroit. Michigan’s largest city, for a rally after saying on Oct. 10 that the rest of the U.S. would turn into Detroit if Harris won.
Harris after speaking in Grand Rapids, the heart of more conservative western Michigan, was heading east to Lansing and then Oakland County, encompassing suburbs northwest of Detroit, on Friday night.
The Midwestern state has about 8.4 million voters and would bring the winner 15 Electoral College votes out of the 270 needed to win, which could be a decisive number. Harris and Trump are battling fiercely for the state’s Arab American, senior, union and working-class voters.
On Thursday, Harris said Trump was “gaslighting” the American public about the deadly attack by his loyalists on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump recently called the assault a “day of love.”
Public and internal campaign polls show razor-thin margins for either Harris or Trump in Michigan and other battleground states. That’s worrying Democrats.
Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes in 2016. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 155,000 votes.
Harris is shifting the strategy of her whirlwind campaign to win over more Republicans and men of all races. She’s also enlisting popular former first lady Michelle Obama, who will campaign for Harris in Michigan on Oct. 26.
Nationally, Harris’ edge has narrowed from a late September lead of 7 percentage points over Trump to just 3 points, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with high food and rent prices still worrying Americans and Trump amplifying fears related to migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with increasingly extreme rhetoric.
