Harris, Trump hit southern states in final weekend push for votes

The fate of the election is expected to be determined by the seven battleground states, which are being heavily courted.

United States presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are touring southern swing states as they try to attract voters with just three days left until Election Day.

The Democratic and Republican leaders headed to the southern battleground state of North Carolina on Saturday.

It marked the fourth day in a row that Vice President Harris and former president Trump visited the same state on the same day, further emphasising how votes will likely decide the election outcome in a few key states that polls have projected will be close.

They were both in North Carolina on Wednesday, Nevada on Thursday and Wisconsin on Friday, at one point holding events just a few kilometres from each other as they fought over the swing states.

The two candidates took big hits against each other, focusing on how the other party would be bad for the US while also touching on a string of issues like the economy and immigration.

“We win this state, we’re gonna win the whole ball game,” Trump said in his Gastonia, North Carolina speech. “We won it twice before, and we’re gonna win it easily.” He also repeated the false claim that there had been “cheating” in the 2020 presidential election vote.

Trump was planning a visit to Salem, Virginia,  before heading back to North Carolina.

Harris said there is an opportunity to “turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump” in a speech.

“This is not someone speaking about how to make your life better,” she told the crowd in Georgia’s Atlanta, saying she plans to improve standards of living.

The vice president also tried to strike a message of unity, saying her priorities would include a middle-class tax cut and bringing down the cost of living for Americans.

After the Georgia speech, Harris will head to a rally in North Carolina where the rock star Jon Bon Jovi is expected to make an appearance.

In one of the latest clashes among the two parties, which brought highly differing takes on major issues, Democrats hit out at US House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Republican suggested that the GOP would probably try to cut government subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing if it wins.

Johnson later walked back his comments, claiming he meant that Republicans would “streamline” the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that has injected billions of dollars into producing computer chips in the US.

In the national polls, Harris is holding on to a slight lead. In polls of the seven key swing states, Trump is ahead in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, while Harris maintains single-point leads in Michigan and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania and Nevada are even.

The election looms on November 5, but millions have already cast their ballots in recent weeks.

As of Saturday, more than 72 million votes had already been cast, according to a tracker maintained by the University of Florida, which said that more than half of all voters are expected to cast their ballots before election day.