Donald Trump looked to reset his flailing campaign in the Civil War battlefield town of Gettysburg, while Hillary Clinton told voters she alone could unite a divided nation.
With 17 days to go before Election Day, the Republican billionaire and his Democratic rival barnstormed Pennsylvania and Ohio — two key swing states that could determine the result on November 8.
Both are part of America’s so-called “Rust Belt” — an area once dotted with steel mills that is now suffering from higher unemployment, with the nation’s industrial boom a thing of the past.
Trump’s team promised he would deliver his “closing arguments” on Saturday in the race for the White House, delivering a major policy speech in Gettysburg — where Abraham Lincoln delivered his key Civil War speech to try to unite the nation.
The 70-year-old Manhattan real estate mogul indeed expanded on some of his plans for the first 100 days of his presidency in his 45-minute “Gettysburg address,” vowing to create 25 million jobs over a decade and cut middle-class taxes.
“Change has to come from outside our very broken system,” Trump told a room of several hundred supporters, hitting on many of his usual stump speech themes.
He called for tougher curbs on illegal immigration, Congressional term limits, a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement — and a repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform.
“Hillary Clinton is not running against me, she’s running against change,” he said.
But he also unleashed fresh attacks on his critics, threatening to sue the “liars” who have accused him of sexual assault, and saying Clinton should have been barred from running for office at all.
“The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,” he said to cheers.
He also revisited his claims of vote “rigging” — comments that have outraged even fellow Republicans and drawn scorn from President Barack Obama for breaking with political decorum — and blamed the media for his dip in the polls.
He invoked the legacy of Lincoln, saying the nation should look to heal sharp divides. He even repeatedly used the words of the late president to champion government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
But the dark vision of an America on its knees that he offered was far from the optimism embraced by the 16th president in his historic Gettysburg Address.
– ‘Anger is not a plan’ –
Invigorated by both her commanding poll numbers and Trump’s eyebrow-raising declarations, the candidate vying to become America’s first female president campaigned in Pennsylvania on Saturday along with running mate Tim Kaine.
“Unlike our opponent, we do not believe we can do this alone,” she told supporters at a rally in Pittsburgh with Kaine at her side. “We believe that we’ll do this by working with all of you.”
“A lot of Republicans have had the grit and the guts to stand up and say ‘He does not represent me,'” she said. “Anger is not a plan.”
“I understand that they need a president who cares about them, will listen to them and I want to be their president.”
Clinton, the 68-year-old former secretary of state, is leading in the national polls by an average of more than 5.3 percentage points in a two- or four-way contest, according to RealClearPolitics.
She is also ahead in 10 of the 13 battleground states, notably Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.
Trump has seen his campaign spiral downward in recent weeks after a number of women made allegations that he sexually assaulted them.
Adult film actress Jessica Drake held a news conference Saturday in Los Angeles, alleging that Trump had kissed her without her consent a decade ago. His campaign called her account “false and ridiculous.”
Those allegations came on the heels of the release of a 2005 video, in which Trump is heard making lewd comments about women to a television talk show host and saying his fame entitles him to grope them at will.
Firmly in the campaign driver’s seat, Team Clinton is hoping for a landslide win on November 8, and even holding out hope of winning back control of at least one of the two houses of Congress from the Republicans.
All of the Democratic Party’s heavy hitters have hit the campaign trail for the final stretch.
Former president — and possibly the country’s first First Gentleman — Bill Clinton launched a two-day bus trip in Florida, and Obama will be in Nevada on Sunday.
The White House said the president planned to step up his campaign activities in the build-up to Election Day to cut down on any risk of voter apathy.
Read more: Trump to lay out what he would do in first 100 days if elected president
