- Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are holding rallies in North Carolina.
- Harris will hold multiple events in the swing state of Michigan today.
- Trump rallies with supporters in Georgia and Pennsylvania ahead of the election.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump dueled across battleground states on Saturday in the final weekend of one of the most tense US elections in modern times.
The Democratic presidential candidate urged voters to “turn the page” on Republicans’ scorched earth policy.
according to Agence France-Presse75 million people have already cast their ballots early as the hours approach the peak of Election Day on Tuesday.
The country — and the world — may then face an intense wait to find out whether Harris will become the first female president of the United States or whether Trump will secure a stunning return to power after his unprecedented and sometimes violent campaign to overturn his 2020 reelection loss in his favor. Joe Biden.
The two rivals met literally on Saturday, with Harris’ official vice president sharing Air Force One and Trump’s personal plane on the tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Both held rallies in North Carolina, while Harris also spoke to supporters in Georgia, another of the seven swing states seen as the keys to victory in a nationwide contest that was dead. Trump added during a stop in Virginia.
The high-stakes rounds of speaking engagements in front of thousands of people at each stop continue Sunday when Harris holds several events in the swing state of Michigan and Trump rallies with supporters in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Most polls show that Trump, 78, and Harris, 60, are within a margin of error of each other across swing states.
However, there was a surprise boost for Harris when one of the country’s most respected pollsters dropped a new poll into the Des Moines Register showing the Democrat with a three-point lead over Trump in Iowa — a state he won handily in a triumphant 2016 victory. presidential campaign and again in his narrow 2020 defeat.
Women and dark discourse
For Harris, the key voters are women voters angry at the ruling by then-President Trump-appointed justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the decades-old constitutional right to abortion.
“Donald Trump is not finished yet,” Harris said in Atlanta, Georgia. “He will ban abortion across the country.”
She described Trump as “increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge” and “unrestrainedly seeking power.”
“We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on Donald Trump’s decade-long history of spending his entire time trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” she said.
Trump, galvanizing his right-wing base, continued to deliver an increasingly bleak rhetoric.
In Salem, Virginia, he began his speech by saying, “I come today with a message of hope for everyone.”
But he quickly returned to recalling the horrific vision he had presented hours earlier in North Carolina.
He called his opponent “low IQ” and “stupid,” said Harris would go into an economic “depression,” and asked the audience: “Do you want to lose your job and maybe your house and your pension?”
In later statements, he indulged in far-right rhetoric with a promise to “preserve American citizenship for American citizens.”
“We will have Americans in our communities now,” he said.
Trump has gone out of his way to appeal to men, appearing on podcasts with martial artists, spending time in barbershops and meeting with cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. With Harris receiving a significant increase in support from women, some expect a significant gender gap in the results.
Electoral conspiracy theory
Trump refuses to say whether he will accept the loss, raising fears of unrest.
Businesses in the US capital have begun closing storefronts as city authorities warn of a “fluid and unpredictable security environment.”
Trump is already alleging fraud in swing states like Pennsylvania, as he did in 2020 before his unprecedented attempt to overturn the election, which culminated in his followers’ attack on the US Capitol.
He announced on Saturday that he could win Virginia, despite the lack of any polls indicating this, and said that even Democratic-majority California would vote for him “if we have a fair election.”
The candidates’ hectic schedules will continue through Monday, culminating with late-night rallies — in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Trump, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Harris.