In swing states, Harris touts Republican endorsements while Trump leans into incendiary rhetoric

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump launched campaign blitzes Thursday with dramatically different approaches to attracting swing-state voters who will decide the presidential contest.

In North Carolina, Democratic nominee Harris used rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro to tout endorsements from Republicans who have crossed the aisle to back her. She also promised to protect access to health care and abortion, while delighting her partisan crowds with celebrations of her debate performance Tuesday, taking digs at Trump and cheerleading for her campaign and the country.

“We're having a good time, aren't we?” Harris declared, smiling as her boisterous crowd chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”

In the border state of Arizona, the Republican Trump pitched a tax exemption on all overtime wages, adding it to his previous proposals to not tax tips or Social Security income. But the former president squeezed those proposals, along with a nonspecific pledge to lower housing costs, into a stemwinding speech marked by his most incendiary rhetoric on immigration and immigrants themselves, name-calling of Harris and others, and a dark, exaggerated portrait of a nation Trump insisted is in a freefall only he can reverse.

“I was angry at the debate,” Trump said, mocking commentators' description of his performance Tuesday. “And, yes, I am angry,” he said, because “everything is terrible” since Harris and President Joe Biden are “destroying our country.” As he repeated the word “angry,” Trump's crowd in Tucson answered with its own “USA! USA! USA!” chants.

The competing visions and narratives underscored the starkly different choices faced by voters in the battleground states that will decide the outcome. Harris is casting a wide net, depending on Democrats' diverse coalition and hoping to add moderate and even conservative Republicans repelled by the former president. Trump, while seeking a broad working-class coalition with his tax ideas, is digging in on arguments about the country — and his political opponents — that are aimed most squarely at his most strident supporters.

That could become a consistent frame for the closing stretch of the campaign after Trump shut the door on another debate. That potentially could have been another seminal moment during a year that already has boomeranged around milestones like Trump's criminal conviction by a New York jury, Trump surviving an assassination attempt, Biden ending his reelection bid amid questions about his age, and Harris consolidating Democratic support to become the first woman of color to lead a major-party ticket.

“There will be no third debate,” Trump said Thursday, counting his June matchup against Biden in the total, and insisting he had won his lone encounter with Harris on Tuesday in Philadelphia.

The post-debate blitz reflected the narrow path to 270 Electoral College votes for both candidates, with the campaign already having become concentrated on seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Harris’ itinerary Thursday put her in a state Trump won twice, but his margin of 1.3 percentage points in 2020 was his closest statewide victory. Arizona, meanwhile, was one of Trump’s narrowest losses four years ago. He won the state in 2016.

In North Carolina, Harris took her own post-debate victory lap, and her campaign already has cut key moments of the debate into ads. But Harris warned against overconfidence, calling herself an underdog and making plain the stakes.

“This is not 2016 or 2020,” she said in Charlotte. “Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

She touted endorsements from Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, both of whom have deemed Trump a fundamental threat to American values and democracy.

“Democrats, Republicans and independents are supporting our campaign," Harris said in Charlotte, praising the Cheneys and like-minded Republicans as citizens who recognize a need to “put country above party and defend our Constitution.”

Yet she also made a full-throated defense of the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law commonly called “Obamacare” and passed over near-unanimous Republican opposition. She mocked Trump, who has spent years promising to scrap the ACA but said at their debate that he still has no specific replacement in mind.

“He said, ‘concepts of a plan,’” Harris said. “Concepts. Concepts. No actual plan. Concepts. ... Forty-five million Americans are insured through the Affordable Care Act. And he’s going to end it based on a concept.”

She saddled Trump again with the Supreme Court’s decision to end a woman’s federal right to abortion, paving the way for Republican-led states to severely restrict and in some cases effectively ban the procedure.

“Women are being refused care during miscarriages. Some are only being treated when they develop sepsis,” Harris said of states with the harshest restrictions.

The vice president added her usual broadsides against Project 2025, a 900-page policy agenda written by conservatives for a second Trump administration. Trump has distanced himself from the document, though there is a notable overlap between it and his policies — and, for that matter, some of the policy aims of Republicans like the Cheneys.

Harris’ approach in Charlotte and Greensboro tracked perhaps her widest path to victory: exciting and organizing the diverse Democratic base, especially younger generations, nonwhite voters and women, while convincing moderate Republicans who dislike Trump that they should be comfortable with her in the Oval Office, some policy disagreements notwithstanding. That’s the same formula Biden used in defeating Trump four years ago, flipping traditionally GOP-leaning states like Arizona and Georgia and narrowing the gap in North Carolina.

Trump, meanwhile, appears to bet that his path back to the White House depends mostly on his core supporters, plus enough new support from working- and middle-class voters drawn to his promises of tax breaks.

A raucous crowd cheered his new promise to end taxes on overtime wages. The Harris campaign quickly labeled the proposal a “snake oil sales pitch,” noting the Trump administration abandoned Obama administration plans to vastly expand the number of workers eligible for overtime pay in favor of a less generous expansion. In a state where rising housing prices has been an acute issue since the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump also pledged to reduce housing construction costs by “30 to 50 percent” — a staggering drop that he did not detail beyond pledging to cut regulations and ban mortgages “for illegal aliens."

“We are going to bring back the American dream bigger, better and stronger than ever before,” Trump said, beaming.

But he reserved most of 75 minutes at the podium for, in his words, anger. Mostly about an influx of migrants across the U.S. Southern border, but also about the ABC debate moderators he said were unfair in the debate he insisted he won. He singled out Linsey Davis, calling her “nasty” — the same word he would use to describe his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump ticked through many of his usual immigration bromides, arguing that migrants in the U.S. illegally have “taken over” cities and suburbs. He again alluded to the debunked claims — fueled by right-wing actors on social media — that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating domesticated pets and fowl in public parks. Trump invoked the approval of Hungary's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban, and he elicited roars when he promised “largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

Throughout his remarks, the former president mispronounced Harris’ first name, and he insisted she is both a Marxist and a fascist — ideologies that rest on opposite ends of the left-right political spectrum.

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Cooper reported from Tucson, Arizona. Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump departs after speaking at a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Supporters listen as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris departs after speaking at a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Thursday, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump visits the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company in Shanksville, Pa., Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at LaGuardia Airport in East Elmhurst, N.Y., Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Florida gas stations struggled to keep up with demand Tuesday as long lines and empty pumps compounded the stress for residents planning to hunker down or flee as Hurricane Milton approached the state's western coast.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a morning news conference that state officials, including the Florida Highway Patrol, were working with fuel companies to continue bringing in gasoline ahead of Milton's expected landfall on Wednesday. Troopers escorted 27 fuel trucks to stations Monday night, DeSantis said.

Patrick De Haan, an analyst for GasBuddy, said “replenishments are happening,” but about 16.5% of Florida stations were out of fuel as of Tuesday afternoon — up from 3.5% a day earlier. More than 43% of the stations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area had no gasoline as of late Tuesday morning, according to GasBuddy.

DeSantis outlined replenishment efforts during his morning news conference.

“We have been dispatching fuel over the past 24 hours as gas stations have run out,” DeSantis said. “So we currently have 268,000 gallons of diesel, 110,000 gallons of gasoline. Those numbers are less than what they were 24 hours ago because we’ve put a lot in, but we have an additional 1.2 million gallons of both diesel and gasoline that is currently en route to the state of Florida.”

DeSantis stressed that there wasn't a fuel shortage.

“That’s technically correct. Fuel is flowing, but stations can’t keep caught up,” De Haan said. “But it’s hard to tell somebody that's at a pump with a bag over it that there’s no shortage.”

“You've got to have patience,” Stephanie Grover-Brock, a Tampa resident in line for gasoline in the Riverview area, said Tuesday morning. “It's a little aggravating. You've got to be patient, be determined and just have grace.”

Nearby, motorist Ralph Douglas said some gas stations in Ruskin, where he lives, ran out of gas, but he was able to find fuel elsewhere.

Also in line was Martin Oakes of Apollo Beach.

“I was able to get some gas yesterday, but then they ran out,” Oakes said, waiting in a slow-moving line. “So now I'm trying to get gas here again and, you know, long lines, trickling gas pumps.”

Oakes and Grover-Brock said they were not in evacuation zones and did not plan to leave.

Ned Bowman, spokesperson for the Florida Petroleum Marketers Association, said the situation was typical for a Florida hurricane — with demand peaking and some stations temporarily running dry. He said suppliers are “constantly” moving fuel to stations.

“Have patience,” Bowman said. “It's out there.”

AAA told The Associated Press it would advise Floridians to “take only what you need” and if evacuating, to avoid letting one's gas tank get too low before looking for a place to fill up.

DeSantis said during his news conference there is enough gasoline for those who are evacuating.

“You do not have to get on the interstate and go far away,” DeSantis said. “You can evacuate tens of miles. You do not have to evacuate hundreds of miles away. You do have options.”

McGill reported from New Orleans.

This story corrects that more than 43% of the stations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area had no gasoline as of late Tuesday morning, not Wednesday morning.

Motorists wait in line to fill gas tanks Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Riverview, Fla., before Hurricane Milton makes landfall along Florida's gulf coast. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 12:15 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Milton in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (NOAA via AP)

A sign on a home lists hurricane names in preparation for Hurricane Milton on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in New Port Richey, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Gas pumps are covered at a station Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Clearwater Beach, Fla., ahead of the possible arrival of Hurricane Milton. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Highway signage announces the impending arrival of Hurricane Milton and the evacuations zones on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in Port Richey, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)