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What to watch during the CNN forum with Kamala Harris?

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()— The vice president of the United States, Kamala Harriswill give a final speech to voters this Wednesday night, less than two weeks before the elections and with early voting already underway, in a forum in Chester Township, Pennsylvania.

The event, which will begin at 9 pm Miami time, coincides with the date on which proposed a second debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump, which the Democratic candidate accepted but Trump rejected.

Harris, in the final stretch of the presidential race, intensified her attacks on Trump’s basic mental capacity, increasingly describing the former president as incoherent and “unfit to be president of the United States.” He also focused more attention on her role in dismantling federal abortion rights, calling her often insensitive discussion of the issue a display of “cruelty.”

Trump, in turn, continued to attack Harris and, in recent weeks, has questioned – and sometimes attacked – Jewish, Black and Latino voters who support the Democrat.

But for all the rhetoric, organizing and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, the presidential race appears to be a toss-up as both campaigns show signs of frustration with the relative stability of the polls. national and key states.

Here are five things to watch for during the forum with Harris, moderated by ‘s Anderson Cooper:

The Harris campaign has increasingly questioned in recent weeks whether Trump is mentally and physically fit for another four years in the White House.

“It’s becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged, and that requires a response,” Harris told reporters last weekend in Detroit. “I think the American people deserve better than someone who seems unstable.”

It is, in many ways, a reversal of the strategy that Trump and allied Republicans used for years to criticize US President Joe Biden before the 81-year-old outgoing president withdrew from the 2024 presidential election. in July. Harris, who just turned 60, has maintained a hectic campaign schedule and has ridiculed Trump for pulling out of scheduled interviews, with one report citing “exhaustion” as the cause. She has also been more willing to address strange behavior, like when the 78-year-old Republican stopped a recent forum to sway and dance for 39 minutes in front of a confused-looking Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who was supposed to moderate the event. .

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump enter the final stretch of the electoral contest

At the same time, polls of undecided voters continue to indicate that they want to know more about Harris and her policy plans. He has already proposed one of the most ambitious expansions of elder care in modern US history, yet it is rarely given enough attention.

Harris doesn’t necessarily need to choose between presenting herself and criticizing Trump, but forum questions often give candidates the freedom to direct the conversation. Where she goes will provide new insight into how she and her campaign view the presidential race.

Harris has walked carefully around the Biden issue, delicately balancing loyalty to the president she serves for with the political reality that Democrats pushed him out of the race.

The Trump campaign took advantage when, earlier this month on ABC’s “The View,” Harris was asked what she would have done differently than Biden and responded, “There’s nothing that comes to mind.”

A week ago, in an interview with Fox News where she was asked a similar question, Harris took the opportunity to show some distance from Biden by highlighting their differences in age (she is 60; he is 81) and political background (his resume was built in California; he spent 36 years in the Senate). He has also said he would have a Republican in his cabinet.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris told Fox News.

The economy poses perhaps the biggest challenge for Harris. Biden has been at pains to highlight his economic record, arguing that the United States’ recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is a success story. But Harris must face the reality that many Americans continue to feel the pressure of inflation, something she has sought to address with policy proposals aimed at combating price gouging, helping first-time home buyers and more.

Although polls showed that Americans had deep concerns about Biden’s age, he can make a single claim: He is the only person to have defeated Trump. Harris is seeking to rebuild Biden’s 2020 coalition, which included strong support from Black voters and gains among suburban moderates. Needing the support of those voters could answer why she hasn’t put even more distance between Biden and her.

Facing Trump’s attacks

Trump has unleashed a barrage of sometimes profane attacks on his Democratic rival and his allies in the final stretch of the presidential race.

He said Harris has been a “shit” vice president. He called former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who has campaigned with Harris, “dumb as a rock.”

Will Harris respond directly to those attacks or ignore them?

The vice president has increasingly cited Trump’s own words on the campaign trail, sometimes even playing clips of Trump’s incendiary comments, his verbal stumbles and bizarre moments at his own rallies. He has used those moments to portray Trump as unhinged.

Abortion rights have been perhaps the best issue for Democrats since the Supreme Court, with a majority made up of three conservative Trump appointees, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

It’s a theme Harris will emphasize in the final weeks of the presidential race, particularly with polls showing a historic gender gap, with a clear majority of women supporting the Democratic candidate and men backing Trump.

Harris could look for ways to emphasize her support for abortion rights while pointing out the practical problems caused by Trump’s call for states to decide their own policies. She has done so on the campaign trail in recent days, highlighting individual cases of women who were affected by states’ restrictive abortion laws.

In Georgia on Saturday, he cited the case of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after her medical care was delayed because of the state’s abortion laws.

Last month, a report from nonprofit news outlet ProPublica revealed that Thurman died in 2022 from a treatable infection due to delays in her medical care stemming from the state’s restrictive abortion law. Thurman tried to schedule a surgical abortion four hours away in North Carolina, but due to traffic, she was late for the appointment. Instead, she had a medication abortion — two pills approved to end a pregnancy up to 10 weeks gestation — but developed rare and ultimately fatal complications.

“Donald Trump still refuses to take responsibility, to take any responsibility for the pain and suffering he has caused, or even to acknowledge the pain and suffering that has actually occurred,” Harris said.

Courting undecided Republicans

US Vice President Kamala Harris answers questions from the press before a forum with former Representative Liz Cheney at the Royal Oak Music Theater on October 21, 2024, in Royal Oak, Michigan.

On Monday alone, Harris was accompanied at three events in three different states, across the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, by former Rep. Liz Cheney, a hardline conservative who, as she has repeatedly said, has never voted. for a Democratic presidential candidate, but is supporting the vice president because of what he describes as the existential stakes of the upcoming election.

Harris has not backed away from her own liberal leanings, but she has sent a consistent message to Republican voters upset by Trump but unsure about breaking with the tribe that she wants to be “a president for all Americans.” Harris is not the first candidate to use that line, or some version of it. But by sitting next to Cheney, the daughter of Iraq War architect and former Vice President Dick Cheney, who will also vote for Harris, the vice president is betting that there is a significant group of GOP-leaning Republicans and independents who can be convinced to leave. to Trump.

This is broad-based coalition politics in its purest form, the kind frequently found in European parliamentary elections but rarely seen in the US presidential campaign. If Harris fails, her campaign will be criticized for wasting valuable time and resources. If he wins, it could signal a potentially historic realignment of American politics.

First, however, you must present a final argument that lives up to the moment.

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