Former president Donald Trump adopted extreme rhetoric at a rally in Pennsylvania, while Vice President Kamala Harris visited a historically Black church and Arab Americans in the key swing state of Michigan to bestow the finishing touch to her efforts for the US presidency.
With only a few hours left in the US presidential elections, both candidates are in intense deadlock as demonstrated by opinion polls, with Trump, 78, having primary support among Hispanic voters. At the same time, Vice President Harris’s core support is among female voters.
Voters overall view both candidates unfavorably, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, but that has not dissuaded them from casting ballots.
More than 77 million Americans have already done so ahead of Tuesday’s Election Day, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, opens new tab, approaching half the total 160 million votes cast in 2020, in which US voter turnout was the highest in more than a century.
Control of Congress is also up for grabs on Tuesday, with Republicans favored to capture a majority in the Senate while Democrats are seen as having an even chance of flipping Republicans’ narrow majority in the House of Representatives. Presidents whose parties have not controlled both chambers have struggled to pass major legislation over the past decade.
“In just two days we have the power to decide the fate of our nation for generations to come,” Harris told parishioners at Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit. “We must act. It’s not enough to only pray; not enough to just talk. We must act on the plans He has in store for us, and we must make them real through our works, in our daily choices, in services to our communities, in our democracy.”
‘Trump goes of script’
Trump, at his first of three rallies on Sunday, frequently abandoned his teleprompter with off-the-cuff remarks in which he denounced opinion polls showing movement for Harris. He called Democrats a “demonic party,” ridiculed Democratic President Joe Biden and complained about the price of apples.
Trump, who survived an assassination attempt in July when a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday complained to supporters about gaps in the bulletproof glass surrounding him as he spoke and mused that an assassin would have to shoot through the news media to get him.
“To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and I don’t mind that so much,” said Trump, who has long criticized the media and sought to rile public sentiment against them.
Last week he suggested prominent Republican critic, former congresswoman Liz Cheney, should face gunfire in combat over her hawkish foreign policy, leading an Arizona prosecutor to open an investigation.
Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement saying Trump was not directed toward the media but rather, “It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats.”
Trump later spoke in Kinston, North Carolina, and was due to end his day with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia.
Of the seven US states seen as competitive, Georgia and North Carolina are the second-biggest prizes up for grabs on Tuesday, with each holding 16 of the 270 votes a candidate needs to win in the state-by-state Electoral College to secure the presidency. Pennsylvania is first with 19 electors.
Near the end of his Pennsylvania speech, Trump – whose false claims that his 2020 loss was the result of fraud inspired his supporters’ January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol – mused that he would have preferred not to have handed over power.
“We had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left. I shouldn’t have left. I mean, honestly, because we did so, we did so well,” Trump said.
Trump said during his remarks that election results should be announced on Election Night, despite warnings by officials in multiple states that it could take days to ascertain the final outcome.
Democrats say they have plans in place should Trump try to prematurely claim victory this time.
