Donald Trump tries to blunt Democrats’ momentum in North Carolina

FAYETTEVILLE, Oct 04 (Agencies): Donald Trump is heading to North Carolina for the fourth time in a month, as the Republican presidential candidate tries to firm up support in a state he was winning handily a few months ago but is now among the most competitive in the race.

The former president's visit to Fayetteville, home to a large military community, comes as the state has been convulsed by literal and political storms.

Once-in-a-generation floods triggered by Hurricane Helene killed dozens in the state's western mountains, while the Republican candidate for governor has faced damaging reports about past inflammatory and lewd comments.

Some Trump allies privately say the race in North Carolina, which Trump won in the 2016 and 2020 elections, is too close for comfort, even as they think he still has a slight leg up on Democratic rival Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

By some metrics, the vice president is doing marginally better here than she is in Arizona and Georgia, even though Trump lost both of those states in 2020. Those three states are among a handful of battlegrounds that both candidates have a legitimate shot of winning next month.

Meanwhile, US Democratic candidate Kamala Harris campaigned Thursday with Liz Cheney, a high-profile Republican opponent of Donald Trump who urged Americans to reject the ex-president's "depraved cruelty" and elect his rival.

Vice President Harris was joined onstage in the swing state of Wisconsin by the former congresswoman as the daughter of conservative former vice president Dick Cheney pleaded with moderate Republicans and independents to put patriotism over partisanship.

With just 33 days left in the extraordinary 2024 campaign, Harris "is standing in the breach in a critical moment in our nation's history," Cheney told the crowd in Ripon, the symbolic birthplace of the Republican Party in 1854.

"I ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump. And I ask you instead to help us elect Kamala Harris for president," she said, to loud cheers and chants of "Thank you Liz!"

Calling Cheney a "true patriot," Harris thanked the Republican for her courage and "the conviction to speak truth."

Hours before the pair took the stage, Trump rallied supporters in another closely-fought Midwestern battleground, Michigan, where he reprised the false claims of election fraud that led to the deadly violence.

His appearance came in the wake of a bombshell filing Wednesday in his prosecution for an alleged criminal plot to subvert the 2020 election, which argued that he had no presidential immunity for the "private criminal effort" and provided new evidence of his alleged misconduct.

"We did great in 2016 -- a lot of people don't know. We did much better in 2020 -- we won. We won, we did win. It was a rigged election," Trump said of his seven-million-vote defeat to Joe Biden in a now-familiar refrain. Trump has been spreading debunked conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 election since before it was conducted.