What Harris and Trump's travel say about state of razor-thin race
Want to know where the 2024 race is being decided? Just look at where the two candidates are spending their time.
With just two weeks left until Election Day, Vice President Harris and former President Trump must be selective about how they use their increasingly dwindling time and where they travel.
While strategists agree seven battleground states will determine the outcome of the presidential race, the two candidates’ travels are giving insight into which states they view as especially decisive.
“At this point in the campaign time is their most precious commodity,” said Doug Heye, a former GOP spokesperson. “They’re at a time now in the campaign that if they’re going to one place, they’re not going to another. So time on the ground will tell you what their priorities are.”
Where Harris is traveling
If Harris’s travels are any indication of how she views her path to victory, the Democratic nominee is banking on a strong showing in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris last week campaigned exclusively to those three states before a Saturday event in Georgia. This week, she hit all three states on Monday alone alongside former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).
The vice president will visit Pennsylvania again on Wednesday and Sunday, with a trip to Michigan sandwiched in between. The Michigan event on Saturday will feature former first lady Michelle Obama, arguably the party’s most popular surrogate, appearing alongside Harris for the first time on the trail.
“Harris took a lot of guff for not going to Al Smith dinner, but she was in Wisconsin,” said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist who has worked on past presidential campaigns, referring to a charity dinner last week that Harris skipped while Trump attended in person. “If she wins Wisconsin by 3,000 votes that’ll be a pretty smart decision.”
The “blue wall” strategy may come down to simple math for Harris and her campaign. If the vice president can win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she’d only need to win the electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District to hit the 270 threshold to clinch the presidency.
Beyond the “blue wall,” Harris has spent significant time in Georgia. She held a rally there last week, visited two churches on Sunday and will hold another event in the Peach State on Thursday alongside former President Obama.
The focus on Georgia is a sign the campaign likely views the state as its best opportunity to offset a potential loss in a place like Pennsylvania or Michigan. President Biden won the state in 2020 by roughly 11,000 votes, becoming the first Democrat to carry Georgia since 1992.
There is one outlier – Harris will campaign in Texas on Friday, a state that is not in play in the presidential race and where Democrats have a narrow chance at flipping a Senate seat. The vice president will highlight the risks of restrictive abortion bans if Trump wins, the campaign said.
“This is a smart way to draw attention to what access to abortion could look like across America if Trump wins,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama administration official, posted on X, calling it “a great way to get attention -- the most valuable resource at this stage.”
Where Trump is traveling
Trump’s approach has been less focused on any particular state and more about ensuring the former president gets to as many battlegrounds as possible in the closing stretch of the campaign.
This week alone, Trump will hold an event in six out of the seven battlegrounds expected to decide the winner of the White House. He held events Sunday in Pennsylvania and Monday and Tuesday in North Carolina. He had announced events for Wednesday in Georgia, Thursday in Arizona and Nevada and Friday and Saturday in Michigan.
He is scheduled to rally supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, another event that is less about boosting his chances in a particular state than about grabbing headlines and potentially aiding House candidates in the area.
"Between now and November 5, he will visit every battleground state at least once and is even expanding the traditional map,” senior Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement. “With him as our example, staff members, volunteers and MAGA supporters in every state are working harder than ever to win so we can begin the process of reversing the failure of Kamala Harris.”
If there is one place Trump has made a priority, it is Pennsylvania. Trump has held six events in the commonwealth since the start of October, more than any other battleground.
The former president and his team have made it no secret that they view the commonwealth as the likely tipping point of the election, and experts have argued whichever candidate carries Pennsylvania is likely to win the White House.
Trump has faced scrutiny from the Harris campaign and Democrats over his campaign schedule. Critics have highlighted how the former president has canceled multiple planned media appearances and questioned whether Trump, who is 78, is up to the task of serving a four-year term in the White House.
But the former president appears to be accelerating his rally schedule in the final weeks of the campaign. After holding three events on Monday in North Carolina, he held two events on Tuesday and is scheduled to hold two rallies on Thursday on the west coast.