Nearly 25 million votes cast as Harris, Trump hit battlegrounds

PHILADELPHIA/DULUTH, Georgia — US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told a town hall in Pennsylvania on Wednesday her administration would be different from that of President Joe Biden's, as Republican Donald Trump campaigned in Georgia, another battleground state.

Nearly 25 million voters have already cast ballots, either through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots, according to tracking data from the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Several states, including the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia, set records on their respective first day of early voting last week.

Harris' attempt to distance herself from Biden comes as several polls show the president is a drag on her candidacy and that voters are eager for a new direction with less than two weeks to go until the Nov 5 election.

Harris has mostly brushed off questions on the campaign trail over how — and to what extent — she would break from Biden on policy.

"My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration," Harris said during a televised CNN town hall. "I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe that we have to actually take new approaches."

Harris' town hall in Chester Township was an attempt to persuade the dwindling number of undecided voters to support her in a closely divided race where even a small percentage of votes could be critical.

Fielding several questions from attendees, Harris vowed to tackle high grocery prices, said it was time to end the conflict in the Middle East and called Trump a "danger to the well-being and safety of America".

Trump, who made campaign rallies a staple of his political career starting back in 2015, said in Zebulon that "in many ways, it's sad" that his time as a political candidate is coming to a close. If he wins on Nov 5, he will serve his second and final term.

"We've been doing this for nine years, and it's down to 12 days," he said.

After Zebulon, Trump was speaking in Duluth, Georgia, for a rally with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson and former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. Also present was country music star Jason Aldean, who encouraged attendees to vote early, a message that Trump is slowly embracing after denouncing the practice for years.

Pennsylvania and Georgia are among the seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency, and both candidates are likely to spend much of the rest of their campaigns visiting them.

Harris held a marginal 46 percent to 43 percent lead nationally over the former president in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Agencies via Xinhua