GREEN BAY, Wisconsin--Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris accused each other of deepening the discord of a deeply polarized nation as the U.S. presidential campaign entered its final week on Wednesday.
The Republican former president donned an orange reflective safety vest and climbed into the passenger seat of a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to call attention to a Tuesday comment by Democratic President Joe Biden that he said revealed the disdain Democratic leaders feel towards Trump's supporters. Taking questions as he sat in the truck, Trump said Biden "should be ashamed of himself" and that Harris was guilty by association. Trump supporters "are not garbage," the former president said. Trump, however, distanced himself from the comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, Tony Hinchcliffe, who triggered this week's political firestorm by saying Puerto Rico is "a floating island of garbage." "I don't know who he is...I know nothing about him," said Trump, adding, "I love Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico loves me."
Vice President Harris, meanwhile, urged voters in North Carolina to "turn the page" on Trump, who she said was focused on his own grievances, rather than Americans' needs. "If he is elected, on Day One Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list. When I am elected, I will walk in with a to-do list," she said. The race has tightened in its final weeks, and a Tuesday Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump by just 44% to 43% among registered voters nationally, well within the poll's margin of error. Other opinion polls show tight margins in the seven battleground states that will decide the Nov. 5 election. Tensions are running high. Election workers in competitive states are bracing for violence, and authorities in Florida arrested a man for menacing voters with a machete.
Polarization in America has fostered distrust. According to a March Reuters/Ipsos poll, some 38% of Republicans said they viewed the Democratic Party as an "imminent threat" to the U.S., while 41% of Democrats said that of Republicans. Trump continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud and has signalled that he will challenge a 2024 defeat if he deems it unfair, having filed along with supporters a wave of lawsuits this year objecting to various election rules around the country. Much of the legal effort has focused on the risk of voting by noncitizens, though private and state reviews have repeatedly shown that the illegal practice is very rare.
The campaign to focus on the issue won a victory on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Virginia's decision to purge from its voter rolls 1,600 people who state officials concluded may not be citizens, a claim that Biden's administration disputed. Biden's Tuesday comment, in which he appeared to describe one or some Trump supporters as "garbage," undercut Harris' pitch to work with those who disagree with her and move past the bitter divisions that define U.S. politics. Biden, an 81-year-old incumbent who ended his reelection bid in July after a disastrous debate performance against Trump, has a history of misspeaking. He said he was referring to racist comments made by a single speaker at a Sunday Trump rally, while Trump accused Biden of referring to all those who support him. "We're 'garbage.' And I call you the heart and soul of America," Trump said.
