Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is set to hold a rally in Minnesota amid a campaign blitz in the wake of President Joe Biden’s exit from the race and the emergence of the Democrat’s heir apparent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The event in St Cloud on Saturday comes as the former president crisscrosses the country to rally support in the run-up to the November 5 election, with polls showing him neck-and-neck with Harris.
On Friday, Trump raised eyebrows during a Florida event with the conservative Christian organisation Turning Point Action, telling those gathered they would not have to vote “any more” if they elect him in the November 5 poll.
“You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians,” said Trump, who led a campaign to overturn the 2020 election results and has been accused by Democratic opponents of being a threat to democracy.
On Saturday, Trump also said he would flout Secret Service advice to only hold indoor campaign events following an attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. He has also promised to return to Butler to hold a “big and beautiful” rally.
The assassination attempt, in which Trump was grazed by a bullet, was an inflection point in a presidential campaign season that had already seen several unprecedented twists and turns, including Trump’s historic conviction on felony charges related to hush-money payments made to an adult-film actress.
Coming just two days before the Republican National Convention, Trump swiftly embraced a message of defiance as he named Senator JD Vance as his running mate. The words “fight, fight, fight”, mouthed by Trump in the moments after the attack, have become the campaign’s rallying cry.
But Biden’s surprise withdrawal from the race earlier this week and the entrance of Harris as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee have again transformed the campaign season.
Several early polls have shown Harris improving upon Biden’s performance against Trump, while appearing to have neutralised an expected post-RNC bump for the former president.
In Minnesota, Harris is again expected to be Trump’s top target. A Republican presidential candidate has not won the Midwestern state in 52 years, but Trump’s team has repeatedly said it could be in play in November. Success in Midwestern battleground states is largely seen as the surest path to victory in the election.
Earlier this week, Trump derided Harris as “radical”, “ultra-liberal” and an extension of Biden’s policies on the economy and immigration during a campaign event in North Carolina, his first since Biden dropped out.
Trump has also taken aim at Harris’s recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after which Harris said she would “not be silent” on suffering in Gaza.
The statements were some of the firmest yet from the Biden administration, but have met scepticism from Palestinian advocates.
Harris was also set to hit the campaign trail on Saturday, attending an event in Pennsylvania before heading to a fundraiser in Massachusetts.
Earlier this week, Harris, who would be the first woman, Black woman, and person of South Asian descent to become president, received an endorsement from former President Barack Obama.
In her first speech since becoming the party’s presumptive nominee earlier this week, she pledged to unite the country and defeat Trump.
