WASHINGTON, Aug 17 — Republican Donald Trump will hold a rally in Pennsylvania today, followed closely by Kamala Harris taking a bus tour through the crucial battleground state ahead of her big moment at the Democratic National Convention.

Trump’s rally in the small town of Wilkes-Barre will give him a chance to take the spotlight off the vice president, who has enjoyed a whirlwind entry into the race since her boss President Joe Biden abruptly pulled out on July 21.

Trump will highlight his dark vision of a failing America, which he blames in increasingly drastic terms on Harris.

"Hard-working Americans are suffering because of the Harris-Biden administration’s dangerously liberal policies,” his campaign said ahead of the rally.

"Prices are excruciatingly high, cost of living has soared, crime has skyrocketed, and illegal immigrants are pouring into our country,” it said, although a recent crackdown on the Mexico border has stemmed much of the flow of undocumented workers and asylum seekers.

The campaign also insisted that "in Kamala Harris’s America, crime runs rampant” — even if statistics show that violent crime has dropped sharply.

Trump will take the same message to another small Pennsylvania town, York, on Monday.

With polls showing the head-to-head race against Harris very close, it’s the swing states — especially Pennsylvania — that will decide the final result in the US electoral college system. Trump lost the state by a narrow margin against Biden in 2020 but has strong support in the rural areas and small towns.

Harris will be close on Trump’s heels over the weekend before heading to the Democratic convention.

The celebratory bash in Chicago will feature three days of speeches from party leaders, including Biden and former president Barack Obama, before her own speech Thursday to accept the nomination.

But first, Harris and running mate Tim Walz, the down-to-earth governor of Minnesota, will be joined by their spouses on a bus tour around western Pennsylvania on Sunday, the campaign said.

Their route will start in the Democratic urban stronghold of Pittsburgh before threading through the "critical battlegrounds” of Allegheny and Beaver counties, the campaign said.

The goal will be to expand on Biden’s 2020 success, the campaign said, by seeking to drive up turnout in Democratic Allegheny "while simultaneously making inroads in historically conservative counties like Beaver.”

The Harris campaign touted its sophisticated ground game, noting it has 36 field offices in Pennsylvania and "the Trump campaign still has little to no public presence.”

Also this weekend, volunteers and organisers will fan out nationwide, "talking to the voters who will decide this election about Vice President Harris’s vision to take this country forward by putting the middle class first, in contrast with Donald Trump’s dangerous, extreme” agenda, the campaign said.

Fight over economy

With the November 5 election day rapidly approaching, Harris is trying to distance herself from unpopular Biden policies, while getting ahead of Trump’s attempts to brand her in extreme terms, like "communist.”

This week has seen the two sides home in on voters’ worries about the economy.

Trump hammered Harris on Thursday, saying she has a "very strong communist lean” that would bring the "death of the American dream.”

Yesterday, Harris held an event in North Carolina — another vital state in the electoral college math — to unveil a series of proposals for easing the burden of post-Covid pandemic inflation.

She noted that the US economy is booming while conceding that "many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives.”

But "Donald Trump fights for billionaires and large corporations,” she said. "I will fight to give money back to working and middle-class Americans.” — AFP