Trump takes election pitch to storied New York arena

NEW YORK: Donald Trump rallies supporters Sunday at a famous New York arena while Kamala Harris goes neighborhood to neighborhood in Philadelphia just over a week before America votes in an extraordinarily close White House race.

Trump’s gathering at the nearly 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden was expected to draw a blitz of coverage in the Republican’s home city, which is a stalwart Democratic stronghold.

Both candidates are making closing pitches in one of America’s most divisive and suspense-filled electoral fights, with polls suggesting a dead heat in the November 5 vote. Harris, 60, has a packed day of campaigning in the biggest city in must-win Pennsylvania, including stops at a Black church and barbershop as well as a Puerto Rican restaurant.

Sunday’s visit will be the vice president’s 14th trip to Pennsylvania since she jumped to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden’s shock withdrawal in July.On Tuesday, she will hold a major rally in Washington near the White House in the park where Trump fired up his supporters before they stormed the US Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election result.

Harris told CBS on Sunday that “it is very important for the American people to see and think about who will be occupying” the president’s house next year.“It’s either going to be Donald Trump or it’s going to be me sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,” she said.

Trump’s New York rally at a venue dubbed “The World’s Most Famous Arena” is set to include backers like billionaire Elon Musk, who has personally hit the campaign trail for the ex-president.

It is a storied arena in US sporting and cultural life that has hosted the Rolling Stones, Madonna and U2, as well as Democratic and Republican presidential conventions.However, the venue also hosted a far-right, pro-Hitler rally in 1939, complete with eagles, Nazi insignia and salutes -- an association that has generated darker headlines.

Trump appears at Madison Square Garden just days after one of his top former officials, John Kelly, said the Republican fits the definition of a fascist -- something Harris says she agreed with.

The latest high wattage Harris ally, former first lady Michelle Obama, aired her “genuine fear” on Saturday that Trump could soon be back in power.She said Harris would make an “extraordinary president,” but Obama also spoke of a sense of frustration and anxiety that few on the vice president’s team dare express after she lost some momentum in recent weeks.

“My hope about Kamala is also accompanied by some genuine fear,” Obama said, ripping into Trump’s record and asking, “Why is this race even close?”Harris some good news Sunday with ABC News/Ipsos poll suggesting she had regained a slight lead among likely voters nationally.

Trump got his own boost when some Arab and Muslim community leaders joined the former president on stage Saturday at a rally in Michigan -- where the Muslim vote could be key to who wins the critical swing state.

With more than 40 million people already casting early ballots, Americans are deciding between electing the country’s first woman president or a convicted felon who is the oldest major candidate ever.

Trump, 78, still refuses to accept his defeat in the vote four years ago and is expected to reject the result if he loses again -- potentially pitching the United States into chaos.

He swept Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in his shock victory in 2016 only to see Biden reclaim them four years later. Trump’s vice president pick J.D Vance on Sunday defended Trump’s first term in a bad-tempered CNN interview.

“Kamala Harris doesn’t have as many people criticising her is because she doesn’t fire people who fail,” Vance said.“Donald Trump fires them, and I’d much rather have the president who fires people who screwed up.”