With 45 days to go until the US presidential election, Kamala Harris is going to the state of Georgia on Friday to speak about abortion rights, while in several other states voters are starting to cast early ballots.
His opponent Donald Trump is in Miami for a fundraising meeting closed to the press. Money remains the lifeblood of a campaign that is expected to see the candidates spend a total of $1 billion.
Since the US Supreme Court, reshuffled by the Republican, ended federal protection of abortion in June 2022, Democrats have considered this issue to be extremely electorally viable for them. It is therefore often exploited by Kamala Harris, who is much less comfortable on other issues such as rising prices.
On Thursday evening, the vice-president insisted on this theme at length while being received by the pope of American television, Oprah Winfrey, on a talk show set entirely devoted to the candidate.
Several stars gave him their support on this occasion, including the singer Jennifer Lopez, the actresses Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts and the actors Bryan Cranston and Ben Stiller.
The outcome of the presidential election remains more uncertain than ever, with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris neck and neck in several of the seven key states where everything will probably be decided.
“Boosting” enthusiasm
Among these seven hotly contested battlegrounds is Georgia, won by Joe Biden in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes over the Republican billionaire. He is now being prosecuted by the state’s justice system for the pressure he is accused of having exerted to reverse the result.
In the state’s capital and largest city, Atlanta, Harris will address the case of Amber Thurman, a woman whose death was a direct result of a draconian anti-abortion law passed in Georgia, according to an investigation published this week by the news site ProPublica.
In a further sign that the election date is approaching, polling stations opened Friday in three states that offer early physical voting.
The aim of this arrangement is to improve voter turnout by allowing people who are unable to do so due to personal circumstances to vote and to reduce crowds on election day.
The three states affected are Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota, with others to follow in the coming days and weeks.
The American presidential election, which is an indirect vote, is taking place with multiple modalities offered to voters, including postal voting, accused by Donald Trump of having favored alleged fraud in 2020, of which he has never been able to provide proof.
“It’s good to have early voting, to give people lots of opportunities to vote. I’m a big proponent of it, to get as many people voting as possible,” Madison Granger, a candidate in a local election in Arlington, a Virginia city bordering Washington, told AFP.
Also present Friday at a polling station in Arlington, Michelle Kilkenny, 55, confided that she was “excited” by this start to the electoral process.
“I vote to encourage people to vote. Voting early, especially on the first day, helps the campaign and boosts the level of enthusiasm,” she says.