GREEN BAY, Wis. — In Green Bay on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump donned an orange vest and rode in a garbage truck to try to highlight a blunder made by President Joe Biden just the day before.

Nearly 100 miles away, in Madison, Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage before thousands of screaming students and vowed she would chart a new path forward.

The split-screen took place in the swing state six days before the election, as both campaigns rushed to the battlegrounds to rally their voters in what is expected to be a winnable race.

Each camp says it couldn’t be closer here — the state where Biden won by just over 20,600 votes in 2020. Wisconsin is among a handful of states almost certain to decide the election – a vital piece of the “blue wall” that is essential to Harris’ path to the White House. Trump is trying to relive what happened in 2016, when he denied victory to Democrat Hillary Clinton by capturing each of the Blue Wall states, including Wisconsin.

Harris and Trump will return here Friday to hold dueling rallies in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city.

While Harris’ team specifically targeted young voters at the University of Wisconsin on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign had a trash-themed day.

He decided to capitalize on a comment Biden made on Tuesday who seemed to call Trump supporters “trash.” Amid immediate backlash, Biden and the White House rushed to clarify his comments, saying they were specifically referring to the “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico” that comedian Tony Hinchcliffe used during a Trump rally this weekend Madison Square Garden in New York.

The White House also released a transcript attempting to show what Biden meant, adding an apostrophe to the word “partisans”: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters – his – his demonization of Latinos is unacceptable, and it is unacceptable. American.”

But the political damage was done.

Trump didn’t just focus on Biden’s comments during a gathering in North Carolina Wednesday afternoon; he was also sitting in a garbage truck at the Green Bay airport when he arrived later that evening for a rally.

“Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself, if he knows what he’s doing,” Trump said from the garbage truck.

The message also became a major theme at the Green Bay rally, where Trump took the stage in a fluorescent vest similar to what a garbage truck driver wears. Several speakers also brought up the issue, including legendary former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

“I can assure you we’re not all trash,” Favre said. who is beinGinstudied in his home state of Mississippi following allegations of welfare fraud. “How dare you say that.”

In his remarks, Trump also emphasized that he wants to close the southern border, sometimes airing news stories about undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes while in the United States illegally. He praised Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who became one of his biggest financial backers, and said he would protect women whether or not they wanted protection from him.

“I want to protect the women of our country. … I’m president, I want to protect the women of our country,” Trump said. “I’m going to do it whether women like it or not.”

Harris’ camp aimed to push voters to the polls on Wednesday. A series of speakers — from Gov. Tony Evers to Sen. Tammy Baldwin to singer Gracie Abrams — urged the arena to head to the polls.

Abrams was among the musical acts, led by Mumford & Sons, to captivate an enthusiastic crowd of more than 13,000 people, according to the campaign, before Harris arrived.

With a banner backdrop that read “Badgers for Harris-Walz,” Harris portrayed Trump as obsessed with grievances and seeking unchecked power. She took a moment to address the students in the arena.

“I see the promise of America and all young leaders who are voting for the first time. And I love your generation. I love you guys,” she said, smiling. “You now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers (and) stand for freedom, and what I know about you is that these questions are not theoretical. It’s not political for you. It’s your lived experience, and I see you, and I see your power and I’m so proud of you.

A roaring crowd held red and white signs reading “Vote,” and in one section of the audience, a group of people unfurled a banner reading “Freedom,” a theme Harris embraced in her campaign from the start. There were also two brief interruptions by protesters seeking to end the war between Israel and Gaza.

Rep. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, attended the rally after being on the trail with Baldwin. Schiff said in a brief interview with NBC News that Harris crystallized the path forward in his speech on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, Tuesday evening. He evaded a question about Biden’s remarks Tuesday and Trump’s garbage truck gag response, saying he wasn’t focused on the issue.

A Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday puts Harris ahead of Trump 50 to 49 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error. This is a little lower for Harris, who in September weighed 52% against 48% for Trump in the same survey.

“It’s so close that even the slightest change in these last six days could tip the race, whether it’s the seven swing states, most of which are on the knife’s edge, or Wisconsin,” Charles said. Franklin, the poll director. “It’s a race that could really go either way, and we shouldn’t be particularly surprised.”

Trump’s dress-up piece was the second time in recent weeks that he hosted an event for the cameras, after to worke a McDonald’s uniform and served fans at the drive-thru.

It remains to be seen whether these actions will resonate.

But for Harris supporters, Trump’s outrage over Biden’s comments rang hollow.

Linda Gator, who lives in the Sheboygan area, scoffed when asked about it.

“Give me a break,” she said. “You have a man who continually spews hate, and Biden makes a mistake, and we all know that man has a stuttering problem. We all know that we get it wrong sometimes, but once you misspoke it gets blasted, frankly, by your peers? »

Cyrus Obut, a father of three who attended the rally with two of his daughters, said he believed Trump would not gain any traction with his trash talk. He addressed the Madison Square Garden event, calling the comments “racist” and full of “bigotry.”

“At least for Biden, he apologized, he said he misspoke. But on the other side, right? No,” Obut said.

Matt Dixon reported from Green Bay and Natasha Korecki and Shaquille Brewster from Madison.