CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Donald Trump made a campaign return on Wednesday with a stop in the key battleground state of North Carolina, where he repeatedly attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, his newest opponent in the 2024 presidential election.
“Now we have a new victim to defeat: liar Kamala Harris,” the Republican presidential candidate said at a mass rally at an arena in Charlotte, the state’s largest city.
Republican presidential candidates are facing a dramatically altered 2024 campaign as they speak at their first rally since President Biden’s shock announcement on Sunday that he was giving up reelection and endorsing Harris to succeed him as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer.
The president’s immediate endorsement of Harris sparked a flurry of support for her from Democratic governors, senators, representatives and other party leaders. By Monday night, the vice president announced that she had secured the party’s nomination with the support of a majority of the roughly 4,000 delegates at next month’s Democratic National Convention.
The race for error between Trump and Harris
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at West Allis Central High School during her first campaign rally in Milwaukee on July 23, 2024. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump first attacked Harris, calling her “incompetent” and “the worst vice president in American history.”
The former president also repeatedly tried to portray the vice president as a “far-left lunatic.”
Trump said Harris ” [Sen.] “Bernie Sanders. Can you believe it?”
Pointing out that Biden’s shocking announcement came at a time when calls for him to withdraw from the Democratic Party were growing following his disastrous defeat in last month’s debate with President Trump, the former president claimed he “withdrew because he was losing badly in the polls.”
Trump called the Democrats’ pressure on Biden to end his reelection bid an “undemocratic move” and accused them of being a “despicable bunch.”
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump headlines a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on July 24, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Before the rally, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said the GOP’s strategy remains “absolutely unchanged” despite Trump having a new rival at the top of the Democratic field.
“We’ve been fighting this campaign and we’re going to keep fighting this campaign,” Whatley, the former chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party who was appointed Republican National Committee chairman by Trump in March after winning the GOP nomination, said in an interview with Fox News.
Now that Harris has secured the Democratic nomination, what’s next for her?
Speaking at the rally at Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, Watley noted that President Trump and the RNC will persistently tie Harris to Biden’s policies on border security, fighting inflation, combating crime and other key issues in the 2024 election.
“The Democratic Party not only has a messenger problem, it has a messaging problem, and Kamala Harris is doubling down on every single one of Joe Biden’s failed policies. That’s the Biden-Harris administration, that’s the Biden-Harris campaign, and she’s taken over that role,” Whatley argued.
The Republican National Committee chairman stressed that Trump “has fully unified the Republican Party in a way not seen in generations. Now is the time to unite the country behind the vision of Making America Great Again.”
A crowd gathers at Bojangles Coliseum before former President Trump attends a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on July 24, 2024. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)
Although Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden, he narrowly won North Carolina, giving Democrats an opportunity to flip the state in November.
This will be President Trump’s second visit to North Carolina in two months. He last visited the state over Memorial Day weekend, when he was at a NASCAR race in Concord.
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The state is one of seven key battleground states that determined the 2020 election and is likely to again have a major impact on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
“We remain focused on the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, where the VP’s advantages with young, black and Latino voters are critical to multiple paths to winning the 270 electoral votes,” said a memo from the Harris campaign sent out hours before Trump arrived in North Carolina.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Speaking in North Carolina, Whatley said Trump “needs to continue to speak to every American family, speak to every American voter about his vision for a better America. He will be the person who will fix our southern border, fix our economy, restore our standing in the world and truly deliver on that vision.”
But Trump is expected to target Harris as well, as he has stepped up his fierce attacks on the vice president in posts on the Truth Social platform since Sunday.
Among other things, the former president called her “stupid as a stone” and a “completely failed, inconsequential vice president.”
Harris has also spoken out, previewing her rebuttal to Trump by pointing to her own law enforcement background and highlighting his legal troubles.
“As many of you know, before I was elected vice president, before I was elected senator, I served as attorney general of California. Before that, I was a trial prosecutor. In that role, I took on criminals of all kinds,” Harris said Monday, repeating her remarks the next day.
“A predator who abuses women, a conman who deceives consumers, a conman who breaks the rules for his own personal gain. So, we know what type of person Donald Trump is,” she emphasized, pointing to Trump’s multiple lawsuits and criminal cases, many of which are still ongoing.
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
Fox News’ Jennifer Johnson contributed to this story.
