CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With the first, and likely only, debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump over, candidates from both major parties are back stomping around key battleground states in the general election.
“It's going to be a close race all the way to the end,” Harris told supporters on Thursday at a rally in Charlotte, N.C. “We're behind … we have hard work ahead of us … but hard work is good work.”
Harris arrived in North Carolina's largest city on Thursday afternoon, ahead of an evening rally in Greensboro, the first of a back-to-back rallies in key southeastern battleground states.
The vice president will hold two campaign events Friday in Pennsylvania, the site of Tuesday's debate and the battleground state with the most electoral votes.
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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Bojangles' Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin) (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
With less than eight weeks until Election Day on November 5 and early voting beginning in many key states, Harris' campaign says it is entering a new, more aggressive phase, aiming to build on what many political observers considered a strong performance in the vice presidential debates.
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“This is the final stretch. The pace of the campaign is going to get much more hectic,” Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic strategist and former Democratic National Committee chair, told Fox News.
“I'm not taking my foot off the gas,” said Brazile, who ran then-Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and is a close ally of Harris.
Vice President Harris and former President Trump shake hands during a debate in Philadelphia on September 10, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Harris will speak in Charlotte while Trump is in the key Southwest battleground state of Arizona, before traveling to another battleground state, Nevada, on Friday.
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, as well as Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin are seven states that determined the outcome of the 2020 election, when Biden narrowly defeated Trump, and are likely to determine whether Harris or the former president wins the White House this year.
The latest national polls and surveys in battleground states show the race between Harris and Trump remains within the margin of error.
Harris arrived in North Carolina at the time, and the latest Fox News Power Rankings, released on Thursday, showed that Trump had lost his lead in North Carolina and neighboring Georgia, with both states now viewed as close battlegrounds in the race for the White House.
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An hour before Harris arrived in Charlotte, Trump denied there would be another debate with the vice president in a social media post.
“I believe we have an owe it to the voters to hold another debate because this election and what's at stake couldn't be more important,” Harris told supporters at the start of the rally.
For the second day in a row, Harris' campaign launched new digital ads featuring clips from her performance in the debate with Trump, highlighting key policy differences between her and the former president.
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Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has run a new ad in Pennsylvania targeting Harris on the issue of fracking.
Harris has been criticized by the Trump campaign and Republican allies for giving just one major interview and never holding a press conference since becoming the Democratic leader, and the Trump campaign announced this week that the former president will hold another one in Los Angeles on Friday (though it's worth noting that Trump didn't answer any questions at the previous event, billed as a press conference).
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Mosinee, Wisconsin, on September 7, 2024. Recent polls have shown Trump lagging behind Democratic candidate Vice President Harris in battleground states. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The vice president is scheduled to speak to the media in the coming days and weeks, according to a political source close to Harris. This month, she will participate in a roundtable with journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists. She was criticized for not attending an earlier meeting with the group that Trump himself attended.
Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is continuing a week of campaigning in battleground states, visiting Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday and Friday.
Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump's running mate, led two big-ticket fundraisers in New York City on Thursday but is expected to return to the campaign trail within days.
“This is a time for people to get involved wherever they are and to be proactive about what matters,” Brazile said, pointing to the calendar.
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital's Election Hub.
