Former US President Barack Obama has made an impassioned plea to black men to get behind the Democratic nominee.
In an unannounced stop at a Harris campaign field office in the swing state of Pennsylvania, he chided male voters “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” not to support a woman for president.
Obama later mocked Donald Trump for “crazy conspiracy theories, the two-hour speeches, word salad” as he debuted on the 2024 campaign trail.
Also on Thursday, the Republican nominee spoke in battleground Michigan, warning of “a mess” for the whole country if Harris is elected.
With only 25 days to go until election night in America, the presidential race is as tight as ever – and a winner will likely be determined by ballots in a handful of closely contested states in the mid-west and south-west.
Harris has been seeking to shore up support among black voters, but a poll by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in September indicated that one in four black men under 50 said they would support Trump over Harris in November.
Obama, the nation’s first black president, suggested that sexism was at play for why hesitation “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers”.
“I’ve got a problem with that,” he said. “Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
Running through Harris’s policy proposals, Obama added she was “somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences”, while Trump “has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person”.
But Democrat Nina Turner, a former Bernie Sanders surrogate, questioned why black men were “being lectured to” and “belittled in ways that no other voting group is”.
“Now, a lot of love for former President Obama, but for him to single out black men is wrong,” Turner told CNN.
The ex-president remains a popular figure within the Democratic Party and, headlining a Harris campaign rally in Pittsburgh later, he sought to energise supporters with a sharp-tongued attack on Trump.
Comparing him at one point to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Obama said “Trump’s behaviour, the bullying and the putting people down… is not what real strength is and has never been”.
“Get off your couch and vote. Put down your phone and vote. Grab your friends and family and vote,” he said.
Harris herself campaigned on Thursday in Nevada, where she is trying to boost support among Latino voters who could tip the contest in her favour there.
Meanwhile, Trump brought his own campaign message to Detroit, Michigan’s largest city and a hub of US auto manufacturing.
Addressing an audience at the Detroit Economic Club, he spoke for over an hour about a wide range of topics from voting rules to tariffs on China, with much of his speech focused on a claim that the domestic auto industry is failing.
He accused the Biden-Harris administration of “destroying our country”, adding that several years of weak leadership had allowed large companies to “come in and raid and rape our country”.
Trump also presented a new policy of tax deductions on auto loan interest, one in a flurry of populist-friendly economic proposals he has suggested in the closing stretch of the campaign.
But the remarks were overshadowed by a moment in which the three-time Republican candidate bashed the city he was in and from whose voters he is seeking support.
“I don’t think anything that we’re talking about today is high on [Harris’s] list. The whole country is going to be like, you want to know the truth?” he said.
“It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
State and local leaders slammed the comments, with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer defending the city as “the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities – something Donald Trump could never understand”.
“So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November,” Whitmer, a Harris ally, said.
The Trump campaign later clarified to US media that Trump was arguing the city had “suffered from globalist policies championed by Kamala Harris” and that “his policies will usher in a new era of economic success and stability for Detroit, helping the city reach its fullest potential”.
On Friday, Trump will home in on illegal immigration – a topic that polls suggest voters trust him to handle better than Harris – as he visits Aurora, Colorado – a city that some Republicans have claimed is being overrun by Venezuelan migrant gangs.
He will also speak in Nevada, while Harris plans to speak in adjoining Arizona.
