HOUSTON, TX - With 11 days to go until Election Day and two leading national polls indicating a deadhead in the race for the White House between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the major party nominees hold campaign events in Texas where they'll elevate two combustible issues as they make their closing arguments.
Harris, who has long leaned into the issue of reproductive rights, will blame Trump for an extremely restrictive abortion law in Texas, as she holds what's expected to be a large rally in Houston.
Trump, who has spotlighted illegal immigration ever since he launched his first White House run nine years ago, was in Austin to make comments on border security.
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While Texas isn't one of the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden's 2020 victory over Trump and are likely to determine if Harris or the former president wins the 2024 election, it is home to a key Senate race that's among a handful that will decide if the GOP wins back the chamber's majority.
Conservative firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz joined Trump at the afternoon event in Austin, while Democratic challenger Rep. Collin Allred will speak at the Harris rally hours later.
The stop by Harris in Houston is the first time in decades that a Democratic Party standard-bearer will hold a major campaign event in Texas in the home stretch ahead of Election Day.
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The trip doesn't mean the Harris campaign thinks Texas is in play in the White House race. Even though Biden narrowed the gap to a five and a half point deficit in the 2020 presidential election, top Harris advisers don't harbor any illusions about flipping the state.
Instead, the trip is about elevating abortion, which has been a winning issue for Democrats ever since the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in the summer of 2022 overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had legalized abortion for decades.
Harris will reiterate her message that Trump, who named three conservative justices to the high court during his four years in the White House, is to blame for the abortion law in Texas, where the procedure is banned after six weeks of pregnancy.
Ahead of the rally, the Harris campaign unveiled a new ad that uses a clip of Trump taking credit for his role in the blockbuster Supreme Court abortion decision, as well as another commercial that features a Texas couple directly impacted by the state's ban.
And Harris will discuss the importance of reproductive rights in the 2024 election in an interview while in Texas with Brene Brown, a popular podcaster with a predominantly female audience.
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The Harris campaign says the vice president will be joined at the rally by a number of people who will share their stories of the consequences they have faced due to the Texas abortion ban.
Expected to perform at the rally are legendary singer, songwriter and guitarist Willie Nelson and entertainment superstar Beyoncé, who is considered a cultural icon. Beyoncé's hit song "Freedom" has been adopted by the vice president as her campaign trail anthem.
Trump, at his event in Austin, argued that Harris had "picked the wrong place" to visit as he alluded to her stop in Houston.
"Today she’s in Texas to rub shoulders with woke celebrities," he charged.
Harris, speaking with reporters in Houston on Friday afternoon, chided Trump for his comments, arguing that "it's just another example of how he really belittles our country."
For Trump and Republicans, immigration and border security has been a winning issue, as they have blasted President Biden and Harris for three and a half years for the influx of migrants across the southern border.
Trump, who has repeatedly pledged to conduct mass deportations if he wins back the White House, charged during a campaign event in Arizona on Thursday that as a result of Biden administration immigration policies, the U.S. is "like a garbage can for the world."
While in Texas, Trump will also sit for a recorded interview with extremely popular nationally known podcaster Joe Rogan.
