Harris says Trump is ‘out for unchecked power’ in penultimate pitch to Wisconsin voters

In one of her final rallies in battleground Wisconsin, Vice President Kamala Harris’ pitch to voters was straightforward: she’s not former President Donald Trump. 

Ms. Harris pledged to be the opposite of Mr. Trump during a stop in Little Chute, Wisconsin, and touted her career as California’s attorney general to hammer home the point that she was a fighter who would not back down. 

Conversely, she said Mr. Trump was “not someone who is thinking about how to make your life better.” 

“He is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance,” Ms. Harris said. “And the man is out for unchecked power. He’s out for unchecked power.”

“Imagine that for a minute, right, January 20, Oval Office,” Ms. Harris said. “It’s either going to be him sitting in there, pouring over and stewing over his enemies list, or when I am elected, it will be me walking in there on your behalf, working on my to-do list.”

Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump were both rallying in Wisconsin on Friday night in what is likely their last visits to the swing state before election day. The former president was in downtown Milwaukee while Ms. Harris was in Little Chute, a town of roughly 10,000 outside of Appleton, Wisconsin. 

Later, she’ll trek to West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee roughly seven miles from Mr. Trump’s rally. 

During her stop in Little Chute, Ms. Harris touted her economic plan, including a tax cut for middle-class Americans and a proposed federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries, vowed to make home health care for seniors part of Medicare.

She also hit the former president on his economic plan, accusing him of wanting to slash corporate tax rates and install a 20% “Trump sales tax” with tariffs on imported goods. She said he wants to dissolve the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Trump has denied despite trying to repeal the ACA during his term in the White House. 

Ms. Harris swiped at Mr. Trump on abortion, a common tactic for Democrats throughout this election cycle, and accused him of pushing for a federal abortion ban. Mr. Trump has argued that he would allow states to decide their own abortion laws, which has happened throughout the country since the fall of Roe v. Wade two years ago. 

“They did as he intended, and now over 20 states have a Trump abortion ban,” Ms. Harris said. “Imagine in America today, one in three women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban, many with no exceptions, even for rape and incest, which is immoral.” 

Wisconsin is crucial for both candidates’ White House ambitions. President Biden won the state by just over 20,000 votes in 2020, while Mr. Trump won the state by roughly the same vote total four years earlier. 

Ms. Harris will look to replicate Mr. Biden’s performance to capture the state’s 10 electoral votes, and so far holds an average lead of less than half a point, according to polling aggregate Real Clear Polling. The most recent polls have had Ms. Harris ahead by as much as two points or tied with Mr. Trump.

Ms. Harris was joined by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is locked in a tight reelection bid against Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde. Ms. Baldwin, who is seeking a third term in the upper chamber, is ahead by one point against Mr. Hovde, according to Real Clear Polling. 

Before her rally in Little Chute, the vice president rallied in Janesville, Wisconsin, where she tried to boost her support with union workers at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

There, she cast herself as a friend to unions while characterizing Mr. Trump as “an existential threat to America’s labor movement.”

• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.