Vice President Harris speaks during a moderated conversation with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on Monday. They spoke in front of a banner that read “Country Over Party.”

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GREENVILLE, N.C. — With just over two weeks until Election Day voting ends, Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump spent Monday campaigning in swing states focused on a voting bloc that was crucial to victory: the Republicans.

In North Carolina, Trump touted early voter numbers as he toured storm damage near Asheville, railed against Harris while promoting tough immigration policies at a rally in Greenville and wooed evangelical voters at a faith-based event just outside Charlotte .

“As I look back on my life’s journey and events, I now realize that it was the hand of God that led me to where I am today,” Trump said at an event with faith leaders in Concord. “And my faith took on new meaning on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I was essentially thrown to the ground by a seemingly supernatural hand. And I would like to believe that God saved me for a reason, and that was to make our country greater.”

Meanwhile, Harris held several moderated town hall-style discussions with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney in suburban Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the vice president described the election as a decision about the future of democracy that has more at stake than about partisan labels.

“I’ve said it before and it bears repeating every time: There are moments in our country’s history that challenge us, each of us, to truly make a choice,” Harris said in Malvern, Pennsylvania. “Do we stand for the things we talk about, especially country rather than party?”

Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has made little effort to moderate his message beyond his base within the Republican Party, and has instead sought to expand that base by making lower-propensity voters receptive to and of his message to be disillusioned with the current democratic government.

The coalition that enabled President Biden’s narrow victory in 2020 consisted of a significant number of anti-Trump conservatives and right-leaning independents who supported his campaign but otherwise supported Republicans. After Harris took over as the Democratic nominee this summer, he stepped up his campaign efforts to walk down the aisle and expand the party’s tent to defeat Trump.

While polls continue to suggest that there will likely be a close race in the seven swing states that will decide the election, Monday’s events underscore once again how important it is for both campaigns to get all districts to the polls .

Trump remains Trump

Former President Trump speaks to the media in Swannanoa, North Carolina, on Monday after observing the cleanup following Hurricane Helene.

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North Carolina is the only one of the seven swing states that Trump won in 2020 and is an important part of his path to victory in 2024.

After Hurricane Helene hit the South in late September, Trump frequently used the storm as an opportunity to denigrate Harris, President Biden and the federal government’s response — attributing it all to his views on immigration.

Speaking to reporters in a hard-hit area of ​​Swannanoa, Trump repeated false claims about funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“They spent a lot of money bringing in and taking in illegal migrants, people who came into our country illegally,” Trump said. “And all the money they spent – ​​numbers no one can believe. So they have no money for the people who live here.”

Trump also declined to denounce threats of violence against FEMA and other federal workers after a North Carolina man was arrested on threats earlier this month.

“Does that mean we shouldn’t say it when they do a bad job?” Trump asked.

He also dramatically exaggerated the number of pre-screened supporters he served at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday and praised the early voting numbers from the Tarheel State.

At his rally in Greenville, Trump reiterated his calls for mass deportations and closing the U.S.-Mexico border and attacked Harris as enabling what he called an “invasion” of America.

“So you’re either stupid, you hate our country, or you’re trying to get them to vote, right?” he said of Harris’ immigration policies. “And it’s probably the third one. It turns beautiful small towns into (a) third world landfill.”

There is no evidence to support the claim that non-citizens voted illegally, and Trump himself admitted that he had yet to see any evidence that the election would not be fair. “Unfortunately I know the other side and they are not good. But I didn’t see that,” Trump said.

His suggestion that the final vote could be affected fits with another part of Trump’s final message that is not based in reality: that he can only lose if there is fraud.

At the faith rally, Trump largely stuck to his usual campaign speech, pledging to “keep men out of women’s sports” but also promising that “we will proudly say Merry Christmas again,” while baselessly accusing Harris, who is a Baptist, of being against it – Christian bias.

Trump has another rally planned for Tuesday in Greensboro, North Carolina. He will also participate in a roundtable with Latino leaders in Florida.

Harris, Cheney and abortion rights

Harris’ campaign pitch to Republicans is at the completely opposite end of the spectrum than Trump’s, both ideologically and rhetorically.

She spent Monday touring the blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Cheney delivering a message to suburban voters that support for Harris is not incompatible with conservatism, even for those who are anti-abortion.

“I think there are many of us across the country who were pro-life but have since watched what is going on in our states Dobbs “I made this decision and watched state legislatures pass laws that result in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said in Pennsylvania, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision, which abolished the constitutional right to abortion. “So I think this is not an issue that we think cuts across party lines.”

The bulk of Harris’s GOP outreach has been less about taking a more conservative stance on policy issues and more about providing a permission structure for those who identify as Republicans – but not Trump Republicans – to feel so , they could support their campaign against the former president.

“At this moment there are millions of good and honorable people who Donald Trump has just fundamentally betrayed,” Cheney said in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “The decision to give someone the power of the presidency is to give someone the most impressive and significant power of an office anywhere in the world, and you have to choose people of character, people of good faith.”

Harris is scheduled to conduct interviews with NBC and Telemundo on Tuesday. She is also scheduled to campaign with former President Barack Obama in Georgia later this week and attend a town hall with CNN.