There is no doubt that it is beneficial to be photogenic in American elections. After all, Richard Nixon’s sweaty face during a televised debate is considered one of the reasons for his defeat in the 1960 election. But the fight for the White House has never been a beauty contest. Now Republican candidate Donald Trump seems ready to compete on the basis of physical appearance: at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday he insisted three times that he is “much more handsome” than Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent.
The rally in Wilkes-Barre, an industrial area in northwestern Pennsylvania, was supposed to focus, at least according to the call, on the state of the economy, one of the priorities of the Republican campaign, which insists on the serious effects that inflation during the era of President Joe Biden has had on American pockets. The electoral event was also intended to compete against the campaign events that Harris has planned this Sunday, also in Pennsylvania. The Democrat leads the former president by 2.5 percentage points, 46.2% versus 43.7%, in the average prepared by the website. FiveThirtyEightwhich aggregates major US election polls.
Trump’s speech soon turned to a series of personal insults against the vice president, whom he often describes as “crazy” or “unintelligent.” “This woman is crazy (…) Have you heard her laugh? It’s the laugh of a crazy person. It’s the laugh of a madwoman. They have forbidden her to laugh, because as soon as she laughs, the election is over,” he attacked.
From there he moved on to something that seems to have particularly bothered him: the portrait of Harris, a photo-illustration signed by Neil Jamieson, which the magazine Time The former president, who for years before arriving at the White House in 2017 displayed a fake cover of the publication with his photograph in his offices, has referred to that illustration again and again since its publication, always praising the beauty of the portrait but complaining that the vice president comes out too favored.
This time, she went a bit further. She said that when she saw the cover, she thought, “Is that Sofia Loren? Is that Elizabeth Taylor, who they say was gorgeous? Who is this beautiful person?” She continued, “But they had to draw her. They took a bunch of pictures, but none of them worked, so they had to hire a sketch artist… This former Reagan speechwriter says that Kamala Harris has a huge advantage, that she is very beautiful… but I am much more handsome than Kamala Harris!”
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Trump has been referring to this illustration in his public appearances throughout the week. In his conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter last Monday, he compared the image of “Kamila” (he often intentionally mispronounces his rival’s name) with that of his wife, Melania.
“It’s terrible, but things are going well for her. I saw a picture of her in Time magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress who ever lived. It’s a drawing,” he explained in the conversation between the two millionaires. “She actually looked like our great first lady, Melania. She didn’t look like Kamila, really. But she’s a beautiful woman, so we’ll leave it at that,” he added, without clarifying whether he was referring to his wife or his political rival with that comment.
In a statement, Harris’ campaign replied to Trump: “a new rally, the same old show.” The Republican candidate, they said, “resorts to lies, insults and incoherent arguments” because he is unable to convince with his electoral platform.
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