By Stephanie Kelly
(Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, will aim on Wednesday to appeal to Republican voters in this year’s presidential election, as she plans to visit a battleground county in Pennsylvania joined by Republican supporters and to appear on conservative-leaning Fox News.
In Bucks County, outside of Philadelphia, Harris is expected to emphasize her Republican challenger Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss four years ago, when he lost the White House to current President Joe Biden, a senior Harris campaign official said.
Over 100 Republicans will join Harris in Bucks County, including Adam Kinzinger, a former Congressman and member of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Trump.
Harris led Republican candidate Trump by a marginal 46% to 43% in a recent Reuters poll.
Trump on Wednesday will participate in a town hall hosted by Univision. And Fox News will air a separate Trump town hall with an all-women audience.
Harris has previously attempted to court voters disillusioned by Trump. Earlier this month, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter to former Vice President Dick Cheney, urged voters to put country over party and vote for Harris, saying that Trump was not fit to lead the U.S.
Wednesday’s speech, due to take place near where George Washington and thousands of troops crossed the Delaware River in the Revolutionary War, comes as early voting began in the area on Tuesday.
Biden beat Trump in Bucks County by about 17,000 votes in the 2020 election, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the 2016 election by under 3,000 votes, according to county data.
Also on Wednesday, Harris will be interviewed on Fox News, which paid a $787 million settlement in 2023 to a voting machine company that sued it over false claims by some Fox hosts of vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election.
She is also weighing joining the podcaster Joe Rogan, whose show reaches millions of men across the political spectrum, and who has joked that a “puppet master” was behind Harris’ strong debate performance against Trump.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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