WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AFP) — Kamala Harris and rival Donald Trump were campaigning in battleground states Sunday, seeking 11th-hour advantages in a deadlocked White House race as new polling shows the vice-president underperforming among some traditional Democratic voter demographics.

Harris was in North Carolina — a state hard-hit by a hurricane two weeks ago that devastated several communities and left more than 235 people dead across the US south-east — as she seeks to counter Trump’s claims that federal agencies have done little to help storm victims.

“Moments of crisis, I believe, do have a way of revealing the heroes among us,” she said during a speech at a church in Greenville, a North Carolina city where African American students staged the historic 1960 sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in a fight for civil rights.

Without naming the former president, Harris then called out those who had been “lying about people who are working hard to help folks in need, spreading disinformation”.

Trump, who was holding a rally in Arizona later on Sunday, earlier used a Fox News interview to float the idea of using military force against Americans he described as “the enemy from within”.

“We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” he said without specifying whom he had in mind. “And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”

Federal law generally bars use of the military for civilian law enforcement, though there are exceptions.

While Harris was campaigning in North Carolina, her boss, President Joe Biden, was in Florida assessing the damage from the more recent Hurricane Milton, highlighting the federal government’s commitment to rescue and recovery efforts.

With just 23 days before the November 5 election, Republican candidate Trump and his running mate Senator JD Vance continue to thrust the federal disaster response squarely into the presidential race.

Asked on ABC Sunday talk show This Week whether Trump has been accurate in describing the federal response as incompetent, Vance said, “it’s to suggest that Americans are feeling left behind by their Government, which they are”.

Biden took an aerial tour of the devastation in Tampa Bay and nearby St Petersburg, and received a briefing of storm response efforts.

While he described the impact as “cataclysmic” in some neighbourhoods, Biden said Florida is fortunate the damage is not worse.

Recent polling shows Harris has so far failed to stanch the flow of Latinos from the Democratic fold toward Trump, even as he pushes his sharply anti-immigration message.

Data from the latest The New York Times/Siena College poll show Harris underperforming, in comparison to other recent Democratic nominees, among likely Latino voters, currently earning just 56 per cent of the demographic compared to Trump’s 37 per cent — a margin of 19 points.

Biden’s 2020 advantage among Latinos was 26 points, while Hillary Clinton’s was 39 points in 2016.

And while Harris has large advantages with women, particularly women of colour, she is struggling to gain traction with black male voters, a growing number of whom are leaning toward the brash Republican.

Polling shows Harris and Trump neck and neck, including in the seven swing states that are likely to determine the outcome of the election.

An NBC News national poll released Sunday shows a 48-48 per cent tie.

“As summer has turned to fall, any signs of momentum for Kamala Harris have stopped,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt who conducted the survey with a Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

Speaking at a rally in Greenville later on Sunday, Harris accused Trump of “not being transparent with the voters”, pointing to his refusal to release his medical records, or sit down for an interview with
CBS’s 60 Minutes news programme.

“It makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away?” she said. “Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America?”

A Harris heavyweight surrogate, Democratic ex-president Bill Clinton, was also on the trail Sunday in battleground Georgia where he spoke at Mount Zion Baptist Church that is home to a historically black congregation.

Both candidates hold campaign events in the biggest swing state prize of all, Pennsylvania, today (Monday).

Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Calhoun Ranch in Coachella, California, on Saturday, October 12, 2024.