Kamala Harris barnstorms Rust Belt as Trump campaigns in North Carolina

Kamala Harris was set to barnstorm through the three “Blue Wall” swing states while former President Trump campaigned in battleground North Carolina as the presidential campaign enters the final two weeks.

With polls effectively deadlocked, Harris showed off her strategy to peel off Republican-leaning voters with an appearance alongside conservative ex-Rep. Liz Cheney in the leafy Philadelphia suburb of Malvern before jetting off to similar areas of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Harris warned against laughing off Trump’s outrageous comments, like his profanity laced attacks on her.

“In many, many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of him being president of the United States are brutally serious,” Harris said, “Words have meaning coming from someone who aspires to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”

Cheney underlined her grave concerns about Trump’s scheme to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, which culminated with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The onetime GOP heavyweight, who opposes abortion, also told her Republican supporters that Trump and his MAGA allies have also gone too far in restricting women’s reproductive rights.

“What has happened is women … cannot get the care they need,” Cheney said. “That’s not sustainable for us as a country and it has to change.”

Trump, meanwhile, planned three separate events in North Carolina, a surprising battleground where Republicans are on the defensive after he won the state twice in 2016 and 2020.

Trump started with an event near Asheville, in the heart of the mountainous region devastated by Hurricane Helene.

He repeated disinformation that the Federal Emergency Management Agency diverted disaster relief funds to assistance for undocumented immigrants and unfounded accusations that first responders failed to save victims.

“They don’t have any money for the people,” Trump said, flanked by local officials. “It’s a disgrace what happened with FEMA. Their rescue effort was nearly non-existent.”

The appearances by the two candidates showcase their divergent strategies to win the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Harris’ most straightforward path to victory involves winning the three Rust Belt blue wall states that Biden won, which would likely clinch the race for her.

If she were to lose any one of those states, she could still win by picking up one or more of the Sun Belt states won by Biden, a list that includes Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

Trump’s focus on North Carolina is a potentially troubling sign for his campaign because it’s a state he would have liked to have wrapped up a while ago.

He won North Carolina by a narrow 1% margin four years ago, making it the only one of the seven battleground states that he won.

This time, polls show Trump doing slightly better in neighboring Georgia, a demographically similar state that he narrowly lost to President Biden four years ago.

Most realistic assessments of Trump’s paths to 270 electoral votes involve winning both states while also sweeping the Sun Belt swing states and picking off one of the Rust Belt states.