A presidential election unlike any other in US history is entering its last full day with Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and their campaigns scrambling to get supporters to the polls.
The electorate is divided down the middle, both nationally and in the seven battleground states expected to decide the winner on Tuesday.
Trump, a 78-year-old Republican, survived two assassination attempts, just weeks after a jury in New York – the city whose tabloids first elevated him to national fame and notoriety – made him the first former US president to be convicted of a felony.
Harris, 60, was catapulted to the top of the Democratic ticket in July – giving her a chance to become the first woman to become president – after President Joe Biden, 81, had a disastrous debate performance and dropped his re-election bid under pressure from his party.
Polls show Harris and Trump running neck and neck nationally and in the battleground states. More than 78 million voters have already cast ballots, according to Election Lab at the University of Florida.
In the final days of this campaign, both sides are flooding social media sites and TV and radio stations with a last round of campaign ads, and racing to knock on doors and make calls.
Harris’s campaign team believes the sheer size of its voter mobilisation efforts is making a difference and says its volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in each of the battleground states this weekend.
“We are feeling very good about where we are right now,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters.
The campaign says its internal data shows that undecided voters are breaking in their favour, particularly women in the battleground states, and that they see an increase in early voting among core parts of their coalition, including young voters and voters of colour.
Trump’s campaign has its own in-house canvassing operation, but has effectively outsourced most of the work to outside super PACs (political action committees), which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money.
They have been more focused on contacting “low propensity” voters, or voters who often do not go to the polls, instead of appealing to middle-of-the-road voters who can flip to either side.
Many in this category are Trump supporters, but they are not normally reliable voters. However, Trump has had success in getting them to turn out in the past.
By cherry-picking the voters they want to contact, Trump and his team say they are sending door knockers to places where it makes a difference and being smart about spending.
US voters will also cast their ballots for thousands of local, state and federal officials and weigh in on crucial referendums.
This includes all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 34 seats or one-third of those in the US Senate, 11 elections for state governors, as well as abortion rights in 10 states.
‘Everything will work out well’
Trump has promised “retribution”, including prosecuting his political rivals, and described Democrats as the “enemy within”.
On Sunday, he complained about gaps in the bullet-proof glass surrounding him as he spoke at a rally and mused that an assassin would have to shoot through the news media to get him.
Harris has cast Trump as a danger to democracy but sounded optimistic at a Detroit church on Sunday.
“As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states to so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history towards justice,” Harris said. “And the great thing about living in a democracy, as long as we can hold on to it, is that we have the power, each of us, to answer that question.”
Voters responding to a late-October Reuters/Ipsos poll ranked threats to democracy as the second-biggest problem facing the US today, just behind the economy.
Trump believes concerns about immigration, the economy and high prices, especially for food and rent, will carry him to the White House.
His final day of campaigning on Monday will include stops in three of the seven battleground states expected to determine the winner.
“This is really the end of a journey, but a new one will be starting,” said Trump, speaking at his first rally of the day in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“Hopefully, everything will work out well. We’re way leading,” he said, urging people to “get out and vote”.
Trump will also visit Reading and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the Arab-American vote could be crucial. He then plans to return to Palm Beach, Florida, to vote and await election results.
Harris started off Monday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she urged a room of campaign workers to “enjoy this moment” as she thanked everyone for volunteering.
“Let’s get out the vote. Let’s win. Let’s get to work. Twenty-four hours to go,” she said. “We are all in this together. We rise and fall together.”
Harris also plans to spend Monday campaigning in Pennsylvania’s Allentown, one of the most competitive parts of the state, with a large Puerto Rican electorate energised by pejorative remarks made during a recent Trump campaign rally. Then, she will visit a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, before heading on to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Her evening rally in Pittsburgh will feature performances by DJ D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day, before she rallies at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, famous for the “Rocky Steps” and featuring a statue of the fictional Hollywood movie boxer.
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