Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are holding duelling campaign stops in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania this weekend, as new polling shows the US vice president making major gains ahead of her big moment at next week’s Democratic National Convention.
Trump will hold a rally in the small town of Wilkes-Barre on Saturday, while Harris is taking her tour bus on several stops around Pittsburgh on Sunday before heading to the convention in Chicago.
The momentum in the White House race has shifted dramatically since President Joe Biden abruptly pulled out on July 21, with Harris’s whirlwind entry energizing the Democratic Party base.
A survey by the New York Times and Siena College published Saturday had Harris storming back into contention in four critical battleground states that Trump had looked set to win comfortably against Biden.
The Republican has struggled to find an effective counter to the Harris surge, and the new poll will likely trigger further consternation in his campaign team, with the vice president now ahead in Arizona and North Carolina, and getting closer in Nevada and Georgia.
The stakes will be high for Trump to find some fresh impetus at Saturday’s public rally, after a series of distinctly low-energy events held at his Florida resort home and a golf club he owns in New Jersey.
