Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Kamala Harris said Monday that Florida voters will decide November's election at voter turnout events in Jacksonville and Orlando on the state's first day of early voting.
Under an umbrella in a light rain in Jacksonville, a traditionally Republican stronghold, Harris told people seated in their cars in a socially distant parking lot rally that Florida voters would be making a historic precedent.
"Let me tell you something," Harris said. "The voters of Florida, you guys, are going to determine the outcome of this election."
With 15 days to go until the Nov. 3 election, the Trump and the Biden campaigns have both made repeated trips to campaign in Florida, with its 29 electoral votes.
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Harris criticized President Donald Trump who she said "has spent his full time trying to sow hate and division between us" in the United States. "That's not who we are. We know we all know that in the beauty and diversity of who we are, the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what divides us," Harris said.
She said voters had a "clear choice" between Joe Biden's commitment to the Affordable Care Act and its protection of pre-existing medical conditions and Trump's attempts to end the program.
"Right now Trump and his boy Bill Barr are trying to sue in the Supreme Court against the Affordable Care Act, and if they are successful, they will get rid of coverage that came to over 20 million people," Harris said.
Harris criticized state officials who have purged the voter lists, changed rules on drop boxes and are trying to "suppress the vote."
"You have to sit back and ask, 'Why are these powerful people making it so difficult for us to vote? And here is the answer: Because they know our power. When we vote, we win," Harris said, as supporters honked car horns.
"We need to vote to honor all our ancestors who fought for the right to vote, people like the late-great (Sen.) John Lewis," she said. Harris also gave a shoutout to the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment which allowed the first U.S. women's suffrage in 1920.
"And we also fight for those who understand that Black women didn't get to vote until 1965," added Harris, who is the nation's first vice presidential candidate of color.
"We know we will vote every day until election day and get this thing done," Harris said.
Earlier in Orlando, Harris told a crowd at the Central Florida Fairgrounds that Florida voters would right the country.
"What you will do here in Florida and Orlando by early voting, you will be the first to put our country back on the right track," Harris said.
Harris has resumed campaigning after suspending her public appearances when two members of her staff tested positive for COVID-19.
Trump has campaigned across the country appearing every day at a new rally in battleground states after having been released for treatment of COVID-19.
Joe Biden appeared in North Carolina on Sunday.
Long lines of voters waited at numerous locations for several hours in heavy rain in the Sunshine state Monday. The county supervisor of Orange County in Orlando said a glitch, not a computer hack, temporarily shut down the county's election website.
Since 1980, Florida has swung Republican in seven elections, favoring Ronald Reagan twice, both George Bush presidencies and Donald Trump by a slim margin of 112,911 votes, or 1% of 9 million votes cast in 2016. Florida voted for Bill Clinton in his second term in 1996 and both Barack Obama elections in 2008 and 2012.
But on the state level, Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governor's office, with Gov. Ron DeSantis a loyal supporter of President Donald Trump. Both U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio are Republicans and only a single statewide office, Commissioner of Agriculture is held by a Democrat, Nikki Fried.
Watch Kamala Harris's speech in Jacksonville here:
