A presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final sprint across a handful of states on eve.
is spending Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. The vice president and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas, including Allentown, and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes and .
kicked off four rallies across three states by addressing a roaring crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he declared: 鈥淲ith North Carolina, I鈥檝e always gotten there.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 ours to lose,鈥 he said.
Trump spoke on his tough immigration policies and ticked through some of his complaints on his Democratic opponents. He also seemed to reference as he expressed amazement at two giant mechanical arms that caught Elon Musk鈥檚 reusable rocket 鈥 鈥渓ike you grab your beautiful baby.鈥
鈥淪ee, I鈥檝e gotten much better. Years ago, I would have said something else. But I鈥檝e learned,鈥 Trump said, prompting laughs from the crowd. 鈥淚 would have been a little bit more risqu茅.鈥
The late stages of the 2016 campaign saw the surfacing of the 鈥淎ccess Hollywood鈥 tape, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitals.
Trump has two stops planned later in Pennsylvania, with events in Reading and Pittsburgh, both areas Harris is also visiting. The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late-night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
There were plenty of empty seats at the J.S. Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue with additional seating on the floor in the Raleigh arena where Trump kicked off his campaign day. One attendee, Ebony Coots, said she regretted voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is now backing Trump 鈥 but is nervous about Tuesday鈥檚 election.
鈥淵ou know, actually, I might try to go to another planet,鈥 Coots, a 48-year-old delivery driver, said if Harris were to win.
About 77 million Americans early. Either result on Election Day will yield a historic outcome.
A Trump victory would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his . He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win non-consecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland .
Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office 鈥 four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden鈥檚 second in command.
The vice president ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden鈥檚 disastrous performance in a June debate set into motion his 鈥 one of a series of convulsions that have hit this year鈥檚 campaign.
Trump survived by millimeters a would-be assassin鈥檚 bullet at a . His Secret Service detail , when a gunman had set up a rifle as Trump golfed at one of his courses in Florida.
Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of her candidacy, which materialized only after the 81-year-old president ended his reelection bid following his June debate against the 78-year-old Trump accentuated questions about Biden鈥檚 age.
Instead, Harris has pitched herself as a generational change, emphasized her support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court鈥檚 2022 decision ending the constitutional right to abortion services, and regularly noted the former president鈥檚 role in the .
Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives such as Rep. of New York to Republican former Vice President , Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and late in the campaign even embraced the critique that Trump is accurately described as a 鈥 .鈥
Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump. She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign鈥檚 opening days when she embraced 鈥渢he politics of joy鈥 and the campaign theme 鈥淔reedom.鈥
In Allentown, home to tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans, Harris will hold a rally with rapper Fat Joe before visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez, are of Puerto Rican heritage. The stops come after a comic at a suggested that Puerto Rico was a 鈥渇loating island of garbage.鈥
Trump, renewing his 鈥淢ake America Great Again鈥 and 鈥淎merica First鈥 slogans, has made immigration and withering criticism of Harris and Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration. He鈥檚 hammered Democrats for an inflationary economy and pledged to lead an economic 鈥済olden age,鈥 end international conflicts and seal the U.S. southern border.
But Trump also has veered often into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Biden鈥檚 victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a 鈥渇ailed nation.鈥
As recently as Sunday, he renewed , mused about violence against journalists and said he 鈥 鈥 dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument: 鈥淜amala broke it. I will fix it.鈥
The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map.
Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020.
Harris鈥 team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure. This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters 鈥 and knocked on more than 3 million doors across the battleground states. Still, Harris aides have insisted she remains the underdog.
Trump鈥檚 campaign says it鈥檚 feeling confident as well, arguing that the former president鈥檚 populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. The idea is that Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional GOP blocks 鈥 notably college-educated voters 鈥 become more Democratic.