Trump and Harris are taking a brief break from campaigning in
battleground states
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[September 18, 2024]
By MEG KINNARD
Presidential candidates typically focus much of their travel on
battleground states, but Donald Trump on Wednesday is taking his message
to a somewhat unlikely place: suburban New York.
The Republican presidential nominee and former president is heading to
Uniondale, on Long Island, an area that could be key to his party
maintaining control of the House. His party is trying to protect 18
Republicans in Democratic-heavy congressional districts that Joe Biden
carried in 2020, particularly in coastal New York and California, and
going on offense to challenge Democrats elsewhere.
Long Island in particular features one of the most closely watched
races, between first-term Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and
Democrat Laura Gillen. D’Esposito is a former New York Police detective
who won in 2022 in a district that Biden won by about 15 percentage
points in 2020.
Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform that the GOP has “a
real chance of winning” New York “for the first time in many decades."
In that same post, Trump also pledged that he would “get SALT back,”
suggesting he would eliminate a cap on state and local tax deductions
that were part of tax cut legislation he signed into law in 2017.
The so-called SALT cap has led to bigger tax bills for many residents of
New York, New Jersey, California and other high-cost, high-tax states,
and is an important campaign issue in those states, particularly among
those New York Republicans serving in districts Biden won.
On the Democratic side of the campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris is
expected to speak at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th
Annual Leadership Conference in Washington on Wednesday, and has trips
planned later in the week to Michigan and Wisconsin.
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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on
stage with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a town hall
event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in
Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Latino voters form a critical bloc in swing states such as Arizona,
Nevada and Pennsylvania. Speaking on the Nueva Network this week with
the personality known as “Chiquibaby,” Harris promoted her proposed tax
deductions for new small businesses, her experience prosecuting border
cases as California attorney general and her support for offering a
“pathway to citizenship for those who have earned it.”
On Tuesday, the vice president sat for an interview in Philadelphia with
members of the National Association of Black Journalists. She decried
Trump’s rhetoric and said voters should make sure he “can’t have that
microphone again.”
Trump is attempting to return to his campaign cadence after Sunday's
apparent assassination attempt as he golfed in Florida. On Tuesday, he
traveled to Flint, Michigan, and has not appeared to alter plans for
upcoming trips to the nation's capital and North Carolina later in the
week.
His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, is scheduled to hold an event in
Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
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