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Donald Trump is set to return to Pennsylvania for the first time since his assassination attempt at the state’s Butler township earlier this month.
The former president, who was wounded in the shooting, will hold a rally in Harrisburg on 31 July, located about 400km (251 miles) from the Butler campaign site.
Trump, 78, was holding a rally on 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania – a key state in the 5 November election – when shots rang out, hitting his right ear and leaving his face streaked with blood. Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing-home aide with an AR-15-style rifle got close enough to shoot at Trump from a rooftop. One person in the crowd was killed and two others wounded before Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspect.
This will be Trump’s first campaign in the keystone state since Joe Biden pulled out from the presidential race, endorsing vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Trump called for national unity in the immediate aftermath of the shooting but quickly returned to his old rhetoric on the campaign trail, taking shots at Democrats.
“The people of Pennsylvania are paying the price for the Democrats’ disastrous policies,” his campaign said in the release announcing the rally. “Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ pro-criminal and open border policies are wreaking havoc in Pennsylvania,” the release stated.
Ms Harris’s swift emergence as successor to Mr Biden has shaken up the presidential race, with polls showing her narrowing Trump’s advantage.
A series of polls conducted since Mr Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday, including one by Reuters-Ipsos, show Ms Harris and Trump beginning their head-to-head contest on roughly equal footing, setting the stage for a closely-fought campaign over the next three-and-a-half months.
A New York Times/Siena College national poll published on Thursday found Ms Harris has narrowed what had been a sizable Trump lead. Trump was ahead of Ms Harris 48 per cent to 46 per cent among registered voters, compared with a lead of 49 per cent to 41 per cent over Mr Biden in early July, following Biden’s disastrous debate performance that led to a wave of Democratic calls for him to step aside as candidate.
Trump on Wednesday night laid into Ms Harris in his first rally since she replaced Mr Biden atop the ticket, then continued his criticism online on Thursday.
"We’re not ready for a Marxist President, and Lyin’ Kamala Harris is a RADICAL LEFT MARXIST, AND WORSE!" Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Meanwhile, one of the men injured in the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania has been discharged from hospital, The Independent confirmed.
A spokesperson for Allegheny General Hospital said David Dutch, 57, a member of the Marine Corps League of Pennsylvania, had been discharged on Wednesday. Mr Dutch was shot in the chest and liver and was initially in a medically induced coma after the shooting, according to the corps. He serves as a Commandant of the Westmoreland Detachment in Pennsylvania.
Additional reporting by agencies
