RALEIGH, NC — A presidential campaign marred by a felony trial, the ouster of an incumbent president, and multiple assassination attempts reaches its final sprint across a handful of states. Election day the day before
Kamala Harris Monday is being spent in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among states that will determine the outcome of the Electoral College. The vice president and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas, including Allentown, and conclude with an overnight rally in Philadelphia. Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.
Donald Trump He began four rallies across three states to roaring crowds in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he said, “With North Carolina, I’ve always arrived.”
“It’s ours to lose,” he said.
Trump talked about his tough immigration policies and flagged some of the complaints about his Democratic opponents. He also seemed to make a reference The video that nearly sank the 2016 campaign While Elon Musk marveled at the two giant mechanical arms that gripped Musk’s reusable rocket, “like you’re holding your beautiful baby.”
“See, I’ve improved a lot. Years ago, I would have said something else. But I’ve learned,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I would have been a little more risky.”
In the latter stages of the 2016 campaign, the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals.
Trump has two stops planned later in Pennsylvania, with events in Reading and Pittsburgh, both areas Harris is also visiting. The Republican candidate and former president ends his campaign the same way he ended the first two, with a night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
There were plenty of empty seats in the JS Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue, as Trump began his campaign day with additional seats on the floor of the Raleigh venue. One attendee, Ebony Coots, said she regretted voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is now rooting for Trump, but is nervous about Tuesday’s election.
“You know, I might actually try to go to another planet,” said Coots, a 48-year-old delivery driver, if Harris won.
About 77 million Americans they have already voted early On election day, the two results will give a historic result.
A victory for Trump would make him the first president since him to be impeached and convicted of a crime. New York hush money trial. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations against him. Trump would also become the second president in history to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, after Grover Cleveland. at the end of the century.
Harris is vying to become the first woman, the first black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office, four years after she broke the same barriers to national office, becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command.
The vice president rose to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s disastrous performance in his inaugural debate in June. withdrawal from the race — One of the silences during this year’s campaign.
Trump survived a would-be-killer bullet by mere millimeters concentration in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service detail a second attempt was thwarted in SeptemberTrump was playing golf at one of his courses in Florida when a gunman set off a rifle.
Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of his candidacy, after the 81-year-old president ended his re-election bid only after a June debate against the 78-year-old Trump fueled questions about Biden’s age.
Instead, Harris has presented himself as a generational changer, highlighted his support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to end constitutional abortion services, and has regularly touted the former president’s role. The attack on the US Capitol on January 6.
Assembling a coalition of progressives like the Republic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez To the former Republican Vice President of New York Dick CheneyHarris has called Trump a threat to democracy and even accepted the criticism described as Trump at the end of the campaign. fascist“.
Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump. He is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while striking an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of the early days of his campaign when he embraced the “politics of joy” and “Freedom” campaign theme.
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. Stops come after a comic a Donald Trump’s latest rally He suggested that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”
Trump, renewing his slogans of “Make America Great Again” and “America First,” has made immigration and his scathing criticism of Harris and Biden the anchor of his argument for a second administration. He has hammered Democrats for an inflationary economy and pledged to lead an economic “golden age”, end international conflicts and seal the US southern border.
But Trump has often come under fire after trying to overturn Biden’s victory, and has repeatedly disparaged the country he wants to lead as a “failed nation.”
As on Sunday, he renewed False claims that US elections are rigged against himHe reflected on the violence against journalists and ” he shouldn’t have gone” from the White House in 2021 — the dark twists that have extinguished another anchor of his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.”
The election is likely to be decided in seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add to the Sun Belt portion of the presidential battleground map.
Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. In 2016 he won Arizona and Georgia, but in 2020 they went for the Democrats.
Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a strong gender disparity in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken ground. They also believe in the robustness of the campaign infrastructure. This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers help turn out voters, knocking on more than 3 million doors in battleground states. Still, Harris aides insist it remains understated.
Trump’s campaign says it also feels confident, arguing that the former president’s populist appeal will appeal to young and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. The idea is that Trump could create an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional GOP blocs — especially college voters — turn more Democratic.
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Barrow reported from Washington. Makiya Seminera of The Associated Press in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Will Weissert and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
