One day before Election Day, Trump and Harris focus on swing states as they aim to sway undecided voters.
With just one day remaining until the US presidential election, campaigning has hit overdrive.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump are on a tour of swing states aiming to sway undecided voters. On Sunday, Harris was in Michigan, while Trump focused on North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Describing the 2024 US election as close would be an understatement, as national polls indicate a neck-and-neck race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll shows that Trump and Harris are effectively tied in Pennsylvania, each receiving 48 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, according to FiveThirtyEight’s National Polls tracker, Harris holds a narrow lead of 1 percentage point over Trump.
However, this lead is shrinking, indicating that either candidate has a strong chance of winning.
In critical swing states, the competition is intensifying, with candidates frequently alternating their lead based on the latest polls.
Key battleground states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
Both campaigns have been vigorously targeting key swing states, even holding competing campaign rallies on the same day in Las Vegas, Nevada and Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week. In Milwaukee, both campaigns managed to rally more than 10,000 voters each.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily tracker, Harris holds a narrow lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, with margins of approximately 0.8 points and 0.6 points, respectively.
On the other hand, Trump is gaining ground in Arizona, where he currently has a 2.5-point advantage over Harris. In North Carolina and Georgia, his lead hovers at about 1.5 points. Additionally, Trump maintains a 0.9-point advantage in Nevada and holds a slim margin of 0.3 points in the crucial state of Pennsylvania.
Harris made her first stop in Detroit, where she spoke to a church congregation.
“We heard Harris speak about the need to unite the country, to help it heal after a polarising election,” Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Detroit, Michigan, said.
“She’s certainly appealing to the African American voters in Michigan, a crucial swing state. Recent polls show that she’s lagging behind, especially among African American men. Many people we have spoken to say they are not going to vote because they don’t believe it will impact their lives,” Bo said.
Later in the day, Harris mentioned that she had submitted her mail-in ballot for the 2024 election, sending it to California. She continued her campaign in Michigan in efforts to earn the support of Arab American voters.
“I have been very clear [that] the level of death of innocent Palestinian children is unconscionable. We need to end the war, and we need to get the hostages out. And as president of the United States, I will do everything in my power to achieve that end,” she said.
Many Arab Americans, who have historically favoured Democrats, have shifted towards the Republican presidential candidate this election amid widespread anger and frustration over US support of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Trump consistently refers to Ms Harris as a “dummy” and a “low IQ individual”. Meanwhile, Kamala has also been upfront about criticisms of her opponent.
At a massive rally in Washington DC last week, Vice President Harris slammed Trump, calling him a “wannabe dictator” as an estimated 100,000 supporters gathered to back her. She has depicted Trump as “unstable”, “obsessed with revenge”, and intent on initiating widespread deportations and rolling back women's rights should he be victorious in the election.
A recent Arab News/YouGov poll found Trump leading Harris among the group 45 percent to 43 percent.
The former president started his campaign in Lititz, Pennsylvania where he said he felt he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 election loss, which he has yet to concede.
The Republican presidential candidate also launched into a tirade against the voting process, accusing his opponents of “fighting so hard to steal this damn thing”. He also lashed out at the press.
“I have this piece of glass here,” said Trump, referring to the ballistic glass placed in front of him at events following a gunman’s attempt to assassinate him at a July rally. “But all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.”
Reporting from a Trump rally in North Carolina, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher noted that Trump appeared tired during his speech in Kinston.
“It’s a very low-energy sort of performance for Donald Trump, understandably, since he’s been on the road for a long time,” Fisher said.
“He started the day in Pennsylvania, is here in North Carolina, and has still one more rally to do in Georgia. He’s already running about two hours behind.
For those keen to follow the unfolding drama of the US election, here's all you need to know – including details about the exit poll, which will differ significantly from what we're accustomed to in the UK.
In Georgia, Trump slammed the Biden-Harris administration on immigrants and the economy. “I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
On Sunday he also told NBC News that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent remark about removing fluoride from public water “sounds OK to me”. Trump has hinted that Kennedy, who has been a vocal proponent of unfounded public health conspiracy theories, could play a role in shaping health policy in a future Trump administration.
With the polls neck and neck, it seems highly improbable that a winner will be announced on Wednesday, or even within a week after the election. However, there is mounting concern that Trump might prematurely claim victory on election night, mirroring his actions in 2020.
Harris will spend the final day before the election at a series of campaign events in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
She will be joined by several celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Just Blaze and Oprah Winfrey at a Get Out the Vote event in Philadelphia on Monday night.
Harris will also campaign with D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day in Pittsburgh.
In Pennsylvania, which holds 19 Electoral votes, all eyes are on what many see as the “tipping point” in the race for the White House.
According to FiveThirtyEight, the race in Pennsylvania is nearly deadlocked. A recent poll by Univision and YouGov shows that more than 60 percent of Latino voters in Pennsylvania say they plan to support Harris in the election.
While campaigns typically concentrate their efforts on mobilising voters in the final stretch, the Trump team has redirected staff and funds towards “election integrity” operatives in search of reasons to challenge the fairness of the vote.
Trump will hold a rally in North Carolina in the morning before travelling to Pennsylvania for events in Reading, west of Philadelphia, and in Pittsburgh.
He will end the day with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he will seek to energise his base to vote on November 5.
Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020. But according to Al Jazeera’s Fisher, Trump needs to win again in the swing state.
“The fact that four of his last 10 events have been here in the state tells us his campaign is not certain it is a done deal,” Fisher added.
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Regardless of who is ultimately declared the victor on Tuesday, the saga of the 2024 US election is likely to continue well beyond that point.
Exit polls are conducted on a state-by-state basis and can be reported from 10pm UK time, but they won't predict the winner. Instead, they'll provide insights into which demographic groups have voted for each candidate and what issues have been important to them.
The closing times of the polls vary from state to state and there are seven 'swing' states which could vote either way.
Here's a list by closing time, with swing states highlighted:
Midnight: Georgia , Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia
12.30am: North Carolina , Ohio, West Virginia
1am: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington DC
1.30am: Arkansas
2am: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan , Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin , Wyoming
3am: Montana, Nevada , Utah
4am: California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington
5–6am: Alaska, Hawaii
The rust belt, encompassing Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, is historically known for its coal mining, steel production and manufacturing industries. These states were crucial to Trump's 2016 White House victory, but Biden reclaimed them in 2020.
The Sun Belt includes 15 states, with Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia being the main focus.
What do the latest polls suggest? As of now, FiveThirtyEight's poll of polls reveals a neck-and-neck race.
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The US Vice President will spend all of Monday in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, while Mr Trump will attend rallies in three states.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are set for one final push in the race for the White House, on the eve of US election day.
A campaign that has included a felony trial, an incumbent President being pushed off the Democratic ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to one final push across a handful of states.
Ms Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the electoral college outcome.
The US Vice President and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas including Allentown, and her day will end with a late-night rally in Philadelphia that includes star support from Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.
Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh.
The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended his first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
About 77 million Americans already have voted early, but Ms Harris and Mr Trump are pushing to turn out many millions more supporters on Tuesday. Either result on election day will yield a historic outcome.
A Trump victory would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York.
He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Mr Trump would also become the second president in history to win non-consecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.
Ms Harris is vying to become the first woman, first black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office, four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second-in-command.
The Vice President ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Mr Biden’s disastrous performance in a debate in June set in motion his withdrawal from the race. That was just one of a series of convulsions that have hit this year’s campaign.
Mr Trump survived a would-be assassin’s bullet by millimetres at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
His Secret Service detail foiled a second attempt in September when a gunman had set up a rifle as Mr Trump played golf at one of his courses in Florida.
Ms Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of her candidacy, which materialised only after the 81-year-old President ended his re-election bid after his June debate against the 78-year-old Mr Trump accentuated questions about Mr Biden’s age.
Instead, Ms Harris has pitched herself as a generational change, emphasised her support for abortion rights after the US supreme court’s 2022 decision ending the constitutional right to abortion services, and regularly noted the former president’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives like representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Republican former vice president Dick Cheney, Ms Harris has called Mr Trump a threat to democracy, and late in the campaign even embraced the critique that Mr Trump has been accurately described as a “fascist”.
Heading into Monday, Ms Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Mr Trump. She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign’s opening days when she embraced “the politics of joy” and the campaign theme “Freedom”.
“From the very start, our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,” Ms Harris said on Sunday at Michigan State University.
Mr Trump, renewing his “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans, has made his hard-line approach to immigration and withering criticisms of Ms Harris and Mr Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration.
He has hammered Democrats for an inflationary American economy, and pledged to lead an economic “golden age”, end international conflicts and seal the US southern border.
But Mr Trump also has veered into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Mr Biden’s victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a “failed nation”.
As recently as Sunday, he renewed his false claims that US elections are rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 – dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.”
The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Mr Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Mr Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map.
Mr Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020.
Ms Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure.
This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters — and knocked on more than three million doors across the battleground states. However, Ms Harris’ aides have insisted she remains the underdog.
Mr Trump’s team has projected confidence, arguing that the former president’s populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines.
The idea is that Mr Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional Republican sections – notably college-educated voters – become more Democratic.
