Donald Trump and Kamala Harris again took their presidential campaigns to battleground states Friday, as a racially charged row over Haitian immigrants intensified with the Republican leader promising "large deportations."
Trump, 78, was due to hold a rally later Friday in Nevada, where his campaign says he will focus on voters' economic worries, including inflation.
Harris, coming off what many news outlets and pundits called a solid performance in Tuesday's televised debate against Trump, was headed to Pennsylvania -- arguably the most crucial of the swing states that decide the winner in close U.S. presidential elections.
A taped interview with the Democratic vice president was also set to air on an ABC television affiliate in Philadelphia, the state's largest city.
Opinion polls have been suggesting a near dead heat with only seven weeks until Election Day.
Stung by some punditry, even among some prominent Republicans, that Harris may have won Tuesday's debate, Trump is doubling down on potent immigration-related rhetoric.
A day after telling a rally that "young American girls (are) being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens," on Friday he returned his attention to the small Ohio town of Springfield. (He mentioned the city during the debate, repeating reports, challenged by local officials, that some immigrants were stealing residents' pets and consuming them.)
The city has risen to national attention following the viral conspiracy theory.
Amid growing tensions in Springfield, where some 20,000 Haitians have settled in recent years, authorities evacuated schools for a second day over unspecified threats.
Trump claimed Friday that immigrants in Springfield were "destroying their way of life," and pledged to do "large deportations."
"We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump said from his golf club near Los Angeles.
President Joe Biden, who dropped out of his own reelection campaign amig age and fitness concerns, called Friday for Trump to stop inflaming tensions, saying "there's no place in America for this."
As November 5 election day nears, Trump has been forced to pivot his campaign to fight Harris, rather than Biden, who at 81 was seen by his own Democratic Party as unlikely to win.
Harris' team is keen to build on what it has characterized as solid campaign momentum, announcing she will participate in a live-streaming rally event with television icon Oprah Winfrey on Thursday.
- 'Turn the page' -
Harris, 59, has largely avoided responding directly to Trump's personal attacks, choosing to pitch herself as a leader from a new generation who will end the constant drama and division that characterized Trump's presidency and post-presidential career.
When Trump brought up the story about pets being eaten by migrants in their debate, she shook her head disbelievingly.
On Thursday, Harris told rally-goers in North Carolina, "It's time to turn the page."
Democrats also hope the issue of abortion will boost their odds in November, the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to the procedure.
Pope Francis weighed into the issue on Friday, equating Harris' support of abortion to Trump's "sin" of turning away migrants.
"One has to choose the lesser of two evils... Everyone has to think and make this decision according to their conscience," Francis told reporters.