By Jeff Mason and James Oliphant
PHOENIX/ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) -Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris warned voters on Thursday that Republican Donald Trump and his allies would scale back healthcare programs if he wins the White House and said his comments at a Wednesday rally were offensive to women.
In a brief press conference, Vice President Harris reminded voters that former President Trump had tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, during his 2017-2021 presidency.
“Healthcare for all Americans is on the line in this election,” she told reporters in Madison, Wisconsin, before flying to Arizona and Nevada as both candidates took the campaign to the Southwest.
In response, Trump said he never wanted to get rid of the program. “I never mentioned doing that, never even thought about such a thing,” he posted on his Truth Social platform after she made the remark.
Opinion polls show a historically close contest between Harris and Trump, with the outcome of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election likely to be decided in seven battleground states.
Reuters/Ipsos polling in October found the race to be sharply divided along gender lines, with Harris leading among women by 12 percentage points and Trump leading among men by seven percentage points.
More than 63 million people have already voted through in-person early voting and mail-in ballots, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
With both candidates campaigning in the Southwest on Thursday, they made their pitches to Hispanic voters.
Harris, who has been receiving a slew of celebrity endorsements, got an A-list boost from pop star and movie actress Jennifer Lopez in Las Vegas, after Mexican rock band Mana played a brief set to introduce them and basketball great LeBron James endorsed her earlier in the day.
“I like Hollywood endings. I like when the good guy, or in this case the good girl wins,” said Lopez, born in New York to Puerto Rican parents.
Trump, while in Albuquerque, New Mexico, argued he could win over the state’s large Latino population, even polling the crowd to see whether they preferred to be called “Latinos” or “Hispanics.” The response “Hispanics” won handily.
OBAMACARE AGAIN AT ISSUE
Once again a campaign issue, the 2010 Affordable Care Act provides coverage to roughly 40 million Americans as part of the country’s patchwork of health insurance programs. A political liability for Democrats when signed into law in 2010, it is now broadly popular.
In his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal Obamacare and following his election, when the House voted to do just that, he welcomed Republican representatives to the White House for a celebration. But the repeal effort died in the Senate in July 2017 when the late Sen. John McCain cast the deciding vote with a thumbs-down gesture.
Trump has downplayed the issue during this campaign, though on Thursday he reiterated he would as president push insurers to cover the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
When asked about healthcare in the Sept. 10 televised debate with Harris he repeated his contention that “Obamacare was lousy healthcare” but acknowledged he has yet to propose a comprehensive alternative, saying he has “concepts of a plan.”
Harris has made abortion rights a cornerstone of her campaign, while Trump has vowed to dramatically scale back immigration.
Democrats made an issue of Trump’s comment at a Wisconsin rally on Wednesday when he said, “Whether the women like it or not, I’ve got to protect them. I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in.”
Harris told reporters she found the “like it or not” comment offensive.
“It actually is, I think, very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” she said.
FOCUS ON SOUTHWEST
Trump made stops in New Mexico, a traditionally Democratic state, and the swing state of Nevada while Harris campaigned in Arizona and Nevada.
Trump predicted he would defy experts who said campaigning in New Mexico was futile.
“They all said ‘Don’t come. You can’t win New Mexico.’ I said, ‘Look, your votes are rigged. We can win New Mexico,'” Trump said.
In Phoenix, where Arizona Democratic senate candidate Ruben Gallego warmed up the crowd with remarks fluidly switching between English and Spanish, Harris criticized rhetoric from Trump that she called “full of hate and division.”
“He insults Latinos, scapegoats immigrants,” Harris said.
Hispanic voters have traditionally been an area of strength for Democrats, but Trump has been gaining ground in the nationally and religiously diverse U.S. Latino population.
Nationally, Trump had the support of 38% of registered Hispanic voters in a series of Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted this month, up from 32% at the same point in 2020. Harris’ share of Hispanic voters was at 50%, compared with Democratic President Joe Biden’s 54% in October 2020.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, James Oliphant and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Katharine Jackson, Eric Beech, Doina Chiacu, Andy Sullivan, Stephanie Kelly and Alexandra Ulmer; Writing by Andy Sullivan, Costas Pitas and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Scott Malone, Howard Goller, Diane Craft and Lincoln Feast.)
