Harris rallying with anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney in swing state battle

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris will rally Thursday with Liz Cheney, a staunch Republican opponent of Donald Trump, as both Harris and former president Trump hit crucial Midwestern swing states.

Trump is on the campaign trail in Michigan hours after his wife Melania added more spice to an already tense race by defending abortion, in stark contrast to her husband's position on the key issue.

Harris is heading to the symbolic birthplace of the Republican Party in Ripon, Wisconsin, with Cheney, the former congresswoman who has switched sides to back Harris along with her father, former vice president Dick Cheney.

Trump has chosen a deeply strategic venue, the rust-belt Michigan county of Saginaw that he won in 2016 and then lost to Joe Biden by a narrow margin in 2020.

The three "Rust Belt" states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are among seven battleground states that are expected to decide an agonizingly close 2024 election that's just over a month away.

Current vice president Harris will be using her rally to reach out to Republicans whom Democrats hope are turned off by Trump's extreme rhetoric on subjects ranging from abortion to migration and democracy.

The conservative Liz Cheney was one of only 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump over the January 6, 2021 attacks on the US Capitol by Trump supporters trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Harris said in September she was "honored" by the endorsements of the Cheneys, saying they showed the need to "put country over party."

Liz Cheney was thrown out of the leadership of the U.S. House for her opposition to tycoon Trump.

Dick Cheney's support meanwhile came as a surprise from the former right-hand man to President George W Bush.

Trump will be fighting for votes in Saginaw, one scene of the battle to win over the disaffected and mostly white working class in cities hollowed out by globalization.

Harris has a narrow lead in polls in Michigan but both candidates know that all the swing states could go either way and are hitting them relentlessly with just 33 days until the election.

The Trump campaign said his remarks were expected to focus on the economy, although most of his recent rallies have veered wildly off topic as he attacks favorite targets like illegal migrants.

One subject he may be tempted to avoid is former first lady Melania Trump's new memoir and her comments on the hot-button election issue of abortion.

According to The Guardian, which said it had accessed a copy of the memoir ahead of publication next week, Melania wrote that "restricting a woman's right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body."

Her opinion diverges from Trump, who often brags that his Supreme Court justice picks paved the way for the end of the national right to abortion in the United States.

The Harris campaign responded that "sadly for the women across America, Mrs Trump's husband firmly disagrees with her."

The former first lady's opinion diverges from that of her husband, who often brags that his picks of justices for the Supreme Court paved the way for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the end of the national right to abortion.

Since that 2022 court ruling, at least 20 U.S. states have brought in full or partial restrictions, with Georgia banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion is a major issue for voters in the tight presidential election race, and the Harris campaign jumped on the apparent disconnect.

"Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump's husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom and their lives," Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.

"Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women and restrict women's access to reproductive health care."

Trump told Fox News on Thursday that opinions on abortion differ across the country, and he had encouraged his wife to express herself honestly.

"We spoke about it, and I said, 'You have to write what you believe. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You have to write what you believe'," he told the network at a rally in Saginaw.

"There are some people that are very, very far right on the issue, meaning, without exceptions. And then there are other people that view it a little bit differently than that."

Melania Trump, who has been barely seen on the campaign trail as her husband seeks a White House comeback, also posted a slick black-and-white video on social media, though she didn't mention abortion directly.

"Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard. Without a doubt there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth," she said, backed by the strains of sweeping classical music.

Her statements triggered fury from anti-abortion activists.

"It's hard to follow the logic of putting out the former First Lady's book right before the election undercutting President Trump's message to pro-life voters," Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America said on X. "Abortion ends an innocent life and is the opposite of empowerment."

© 2024 AFP