Donald Trump declared victory over Joe Biden on Wednesday night, promising thousands of supporters in North Carolina that there would be no more “Mr. Nice Guy” as he vowed to make Kamala Harris his next victim.
He took a lap of honor at his first rally since Biden dropped out of the race and revealed his new attack strategy for Harris.
And he laughed at reports that he was a changed man after nearly being killed.
“I was supposed to be nice. They say something happened to me when I got shot,” he said at a Charlotte sports stadium. “I became nice.
“When you’re dealing with these people you can’t afford to be nice. So if you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice.”
This election was supposed to be boring: two old men, when men faced each other just like they did in 2020.
Donald Trump turned his attention to “radical left lunatic” Kamala Harris, telling the crowd that the time for being “nice” was over at his first rally since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
But Trump has already survived an assassination attempt and is now adjusting to a new contest. Biden is gone, after a sensational fall on Sunday, and must now recalibrate his strategy to take on the first black woman (in all likelihood) to be his party’s nominee.
“As you know, three days ago we officially defeated the worst president in the history of our nation,” he said, drawing a deafening roar from more than 10,000 supporters.
“Now we have a new victim to defeat: the liar Kamala Harris.”
He recounted his career as a prosecutor in California, mocked his work on immigration and claimed that “fake news” had quickly changed his tune about a vice president he had previously dismissed as ineffective.
“Everything Kamala touches turns into a total disaster,” he said. “Look at San Francisco: 20 years ago it was the greatest city in our country. Now it’s uninhabitable.”
Her supporters believe the change of candidate will do little to change the race, although Harris’s campaign reports an influx of money and volunteers.
“It would be fine if it was just her,” said Susan Putnam, a retired office worker, as she waited for Trump to appear. “But it’s not like that. He’ll have the support of the deep state.”
The race is likely to be close. A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed Harris with a two-point lead over Trump, 44 percent to 42 percent, although other polls have shown the former president with a slight advantage.
North Carolina voted for Trump by narrow margins in the last two elections.
Democrats, however, see it as a potential win, and the state’s term-limited governor, Roy Cooper, is among the potential running mates Harris is considering.
His campaign and allies have quickly pivoted to attacks against the vice president, linking her to the administration’s struggles to control inflation and a crisis at the border.
A super PAC launched television ads on Monday accusing Harris of covering up Biden’s apparent mental decline.
“But Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it,” says the narrator of the ad, funded by MAGA Inc.
“Look what she did: a border invasion, runaway inflation, the death of the American dream. They created this mess. They… no, Kamala owns this failed record.”
And on Tuesday, Trump said he was not afraid of the change in candidates. He said his campaign for the presidency imploded in 2020.
“If she campaigns like that now, it’s only going to be harder, even though she has a lot of support from the fake news community. There’s no doubt about that,” he told reporters in a telephone news conference.
“But if she campaigns like she did then, you know, I suspect she won’t be too tough.”
“They say something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice… If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice. OK?” the former president told the enthusiastic audience in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Republican candidate called Harris the “most incompetent and far-left” vice president in history and said she had “defeated” Biden when he announced he would end his 2024 bid on Sunday.
Huge crowds lined up in the North Carolina heat to see Trump speak in Charlotte, in his first rally since Biden dropped out
Trump supporters applaud after singing the National Anthem and before taking the stage
Harris was in Milwaukee on Tuesday for her first campaign rally since Joe Biden dropped out.
The change of candidate has also been a boost for Democrats.
Harris’ campaign said Wednesday it has raised $126 million since Sunday, with 64% of donors making their first contribution of the 2024 campaign.
Harris held her first rally since becoming the presumptive nominee a day earlier in Milwaukee, where she warned that Trump would take the nation “backwards.”
“Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and the rule of law, or in a country of chaos, fear and hatred?” he asked.