Kamala Harris and Donald Trump hold final campaign events to woo voters a day before crucial election

Washington, November 4:  In their final full day of campaigning, Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump were campaigning in the key battleground states that could determine who wins the presidency in Tuesday's exceptionally close race for the White House.

Harris, the Democratic Party's candidate, is crisscrossing Pennsylvania on Monday, with campaign events in Allentown, Reading and Pittsburgh followed by a star-studded concert and rally in Philadelphia.

Trump began his day in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is heading to Pennsylvania for rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh, and ends with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  

 

In one of his final pitches to Pennsylvania voters, former president Trump once again raised unfounded claims about Democrats cheating in the 2024 election, asserted that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden and suggested he would not mind if a gunman were to “shoot through the fake news” to get to him. The 78-year-old Republican leader also lashed out at an Iowa poll showing him in a close race with Harris in a state he won twice. 

"The overall message and mood from Trump highlights how he has embraced dark rhetoric, vulgar attacks and baseless conspiracies as cornerstones of closing argument instead of drawing a contrast with his Democratic rival on policy areas where polls still show him with advantages among voters," CNN commented.

By contrast, Harris, 60, avoided any mention of Trump in her final pitch to Michigan voters on Sunday, instead anchoring her message around a call to “turn the page on a decade of politics driven by fear and division.” 

"The emphasis on “a new way forward” offered a clear contrast by Harris without amplifying her more direct appeal in recent days of presenting the election as a choice between a president who will focus on a to-do list for the American people and another who would be guided by an enemies list,” CNN noted.

At his final rally in the battleground state of North Carolina, Trump called on his supporters to elect him in a “landslide that is too big to rig.” 

Trump called November 5 “the most important day in the history of our country” as he offered his closing argument in a presidential race that remains incredibly close, with polls showing Trump and Harris remain tied in many battleground states.

The final pre-election NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, released on Monday, says that Harris has a narrow lead over Trump among likely voters nationally, 51 per cent to per cent.

The poll finds likely voters saying, 55 per cent to 44 per cent, that Trump is mainly making proposals he intends to carry out, rather than ones intended to get votes; by contrast, they’re split 49 per cent to 49 per cent on whether or not Harris intends to carry out her proposals. 

Likely voters in the survey are about evenly split on which candidate can better handle the economy —50 per cent say Trump, 49 per cent Harris — and give the vice president more positive personal ratings than Trump (50 per cent rate her favourably, compared with 45 per cent for Trump).

With the results of the new poll incorporated, the latest CNN Poll of Polls average finds that an average of 49 per cent of likely voters nationwide back Harris and 47 per cent support Trump. Of the five surveys included, two show an edge for Harris, while three show no clear leader in the race, the network reported.

Meanwhile, more than 78 million ballots have already been cast in 47 states and the District of Columbia, according to data published by US media. This means that more than half of the 150 million Americans who are eligible to cast their ballot have already done so. However, it is not the highest ever - there were 101.5 million early ballots in 2020. But that was largely due to COVID-19 keeping many voters away from crowded polling stations.

Whoever wins, the result of Tuesday's presidential election will be historic.

If Harris wins, she will be the first female US president, the first black woman and Asian American (Indian-origin) president.

If Trump wins, he could be the first president since the 19th century to win having lost a re-election bid, and the first of a major party with a criminal conviction. Anyway, let us wait and see the outcome, which will have global ramifications. (ENDS)