Vice President Kamala Harris will give her final address Wednesday night at CNN Town Hall in Chester Township, Pennsylvania, to voters whose early voting has already begun, with less than two weeks until the election.
The event, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET, comes on the day CNN proposed a second debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump, which Harris accepted but Trump rejected. .
Harris has stepped up her attacks on Trump’s basic mental abilities in the final stages of the campaign, calling him incoherent and “unfit to be president of the United States.” She also focused more sharply on his role in stripping the federal government of abortion rights, calling his often callous discussion of the issue a symbol of “atrocity.”
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to take a fierce stance against Ms. Harris, and in recent weeks has seen fit to question and sometimes attack Jewish, black and Latino voters who support the Democratic Party. .
But for all the rhetoric, organizing, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign advertising, the race has become more of a coin flip. Both sides have shown signs of dissatisfaction with the relative stability of national and swing state polls.
Here are five things to keep in mind during Harris’ town hall, moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Trump’s speech: Over the past few weeks, Harris’ campaign has increasingly questioned whether Trump is mentally and physically healthy for another four years in the White House.
“He’s becoming increasingly unstable and insecure, and we need to address that,” Harris told reporters in Detroit over the weekend. “I think the American people are better than people who actually look unstable.”
It’s a reversal of the strategy Trump and his Republican allies used to insult President Joe Biden for years until the 81-year-old incumbent dropped out of the 2024 race in July. . Harris, who just turned 60, has maintained a frenetic campaign schedule and has mocked Trump for skipping scheduled news conferences, with some reports citing “fatigue” as the reason. She’s also seen the 78-year-old Republican recently shut down a town hall and swayed and danced for 39 minutes in front of a confused-looking South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, who was scheduled to host the event. , and seems to actively mention strange behavior. event.
At the same time, surveys of undecided voters continue to show they want to learn more about Harris and her policy plans. She has already proposed one of the most ambitious elder care expansions in modern U.S. history, but it rarely receives a thorough hearing.
Harris doesn’t necessarily have to choose between promoting herself and mocking Trump, but questions at town halls often give candidates more room to steer the conversation. Where she ends up will provide new insight into how she and her camp view the race.
Keep reading for more highlights ahead of tonight’s CNN Town Hall.
