The 2024 presidential race is set to enter a critical new juncture, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump set to debate and the first swing state ballots hitting mailboxes shortly after the Labor Day holiday.
With the calendar turned to September, both campaigns are narrowing their focus on key battleground states — with Harris eyeing an expanded map and Trump digging in across the upper Midwest states that delivered him the presidency in 2016 and ousted him from it in 2020.
It all comes as voting is set to begin this week:
- The first ballots of the 2024 election will go out Friday in North Carolina, one of a handful of potentially critical Sun Belt states.
- Then, two weeks later, early in-person voting starts in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia.
Harris last week focused on the Sun Belt, with a bus tour in Georgia and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also visiting North Carolina.
Trump, meanwhile, turned his attention to the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, holding events in all three states late in the week and promising an economic revival.
