Rancho Palos Verdes (United States) (AFP) - 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 a strong 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 US 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 show a near dead heat with only seven weeks until election day.

Stung by widespread agreement, including among some prominent Republicans, that Harris won Tuesday’s debate, Trump is doubling down on harsh anti-immigration rhetoric.

A day after telling a rally that “young American girls (are) being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens,” the billionaire on Friday returned his attention to the small Ohio town of Springfield.

The city has risen to national attention following a viral conspiracy theory – quickly debunked by local authorities but pushed by Trump – that Haitian immigrants had stolen and eaten residents’ pets.

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 and endorsed Harris, called Friday for Trump to stop inflaming tensions, saying “there’s no place in America for this.”

- Far-right entourage -

There was also mounting controversy over the presence of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer in Trump’s entourage.

She traveled with him to the debate Tuesday and also accompanied him to Ground Zero on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks – despite having claimed that the deadliest terrorist attack in US history was an “inside job.”

“I don’t control Laura, Laura says what she wants,” Trump told reporters in Los Angeles, claiming he had never heard she had spread ⁹⁄₁₁ conspiracy theories.

Loomer has drawn fire from even hard-right Republicans over her comment that Harris, whose mother was Indian, would make the White House “smell like curry.”

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’s team is keen to build on campaign momentum, announcing she will participate in a live-streaming rally event with television icon Oprah Winfrey on September 19.

Trump’s struggles have been increasingly visible, including his televised remarks at the golf course Friday.

He spoke defensively about the polls, which he claimed showed him far ahead, and insisted again he had dominated Harris at the debate. He has also refused to hold another debate.

On Thursday, Trump was in the toss-up state of Arizona, while Harris held two rallies in North Carolina, likewise a battleground.

- ‘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 false 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’s 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.