Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump launched campaign blitzes Thursday in swing states

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.

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

Different approaches in Arizona and North Carolina

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!”

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. The campaign is already concentrated on seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Path to victory

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. Trump, on the other hand, 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.

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