Harris celebrates birthday at Georgia churches as Trump serves McDonald’s
LANCASTER, United States (AFP)— Kamala Harris turned 60 on Sunday in the final stretch of a knife-edge US election, making campaign stops at black churches in Georgia as her 78-year-old opponent Donald Trump served fries at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s in a bid to appeal to blue-collar voters.
Music legend Stevie Wonder accompanied Democrat Harris at one of her appearances in a suburb of Atlanta, singing the vice president his rendition of “Happy Birthday” while urging voters to “think about more than yourself when you vote.”
In brief remarks Harris echoed that sentiment, saying, “Ours is a country that is about doing things that are focused on the best interest of our children, our families, giving people the resources they need around assistance, helping people pull out of poverty.”
Earlier, speaking at a Baptist megachurch near Atlanta, she had urged a black congregation to embrace compassionate values while others “spread hate, sow fear and cause chaos.”
Harris did not mention Trump by name but the crowd nodded knowingly to her allusions to her Republican rival.
Georgia is one of the key states that are expected to decide the November 5 election. Both candidates also planned events later Sunday in Pennsylvania, which both sides see as a must-win.
With just over two weeks before Election Day, the Democratic vice president and the Republican billionaire are in a fierce race.
Harris, addressing the enthusiastic black churchgoers — normally a strongly Democratic demographic — delivered a temperate speech, telling the tale of the Good Samaritan but also using it to exhort the crowd to vote and “shine the light in moments of darkness.”
Indeed, Trump is using increasingly angry and dark language in the campaign.
He has likened undocumented migrants to animals, threatened revenge against his perceived enemies, praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin of Russia and described America as a ruined nation only he can fix.
But on Sunday he was all smiles as he scooped french fries at a McDonald’s franchise outside of Philadelphia, donning a black-and-yellow apron over his white shirt and red tie.
The campaign stop was intended as a jab at Harris, who has talked about working at the fast-food chain in her youth.
Trump has repeatedly said, without offering evidence, that Harris never worked at a McDonald’s.
A friend of Harris’s told The New York Times she recalled her having worked there.