Harris marks birthday with church visit after Trump’s crude rhetoric at rally

Democratic governors from three states in the so-called blue wall that is key to their party's aspirations for an electoral college victory delivered closing pitches for Kamala Harris on Sunday as their presidential nominee celebrated her 60th birthday with a visit to church.

Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tony Evers of Wisconsin and Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer barnstormed the Sunday morning political shows to talk up the vice-president's policy agenda - and highlight differences with Republican candidate Donald Trump, 16 days before an election that polls suggest is still on a knife edge.

Acolytes of Trump, meanwhile, attempted to defend the former president's extraordinary and vulgar rhetoric during a Saturday night rally in Pennsylvania, when he called Harris a "shit vice-president" and exalted the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer's penis.

"I don't want to go back to Donald Trump when he was in charge of the country," Shapiro told NBC's Meet the Press.

"Remember the record? I know there's still some people that have maybe a little brain fog, they don't remember what it was like under Donald Trump. You had more chaos, you had less jobs, and you had a whole lot less freedom.

"I don't think we want to go back to a time of chaos. I want a stable, strong leader, and that's Kamala Harris."

It also emerged Sunday that Harris has no plans to campaign with Joe Biden before election day on 5 November, a development appearing to confirm recent reports of friction between the two after the 81-year-old president was pressured out of running for re-election over age-related questions.