Trump and Harris hold final campaign rallies on eve of US election | News about the 2024 US election

A presidential election unlike any other in U.S. history is entering its final full day, and Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and their campaigns are struggling to rally supporters to the polls.

The electorate is split down the middle both nationally and in the seven battleground states that are 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 propelled him to national fame and fame – made him the first former US president to be convicted of one was convicted of a crime.

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, delivered a disastrous debate performance and abandoned his re-election bid under pressure from his party.

Polls show Harris and Trump tied nationally and in battleground states. According to the University of Florida's Election Lab, more than 78 million voters have already cast their ballots.

In the final days of this campaign, both sides are flooding social media sites and television and radio stations with a final round of campaign ads and racing to knock on doors and make calls.

Harris' campaign team believes the sheer size of its voter mobilization effort is making a difference, saying its volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in each of the battleground states this weekend.

“We feel very good about where we are right now,” campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters.

The campaign says its internal data shows that undecided voters, particularly women in battleground states, are breaking in its favor and that it is seeing an increase in early voting among core members of its coalition, including young voters and voters of color.

Trump's campaign has its own internal fundraising department, but has effectively outsourced most of the work to outside super PACs (political action committees), which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.

They have focused more on reaching out to “low propensity” voters, or voters who often don’t vote, rather than targeting middling voters who can switch to either side.

Many in this category are Trump supporters, but they are not typically reliable voters. However, Trump has succeeded in the past in getting them to vote.

By choosing the voters they want to contact, Trump and his team are sending door knockers where it makes a difference and being smart about spending.

U.S. voters will also cast ballots for thousands of local, state and federal officials and participate in key referendums.

This includes all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 34 seats or a third of them in the U.S. Senate, 11 state gubernatorial elections, and abortion rights in 10 states.

“Everything will go well”

Trump has promised “retaliation,” including criminal prosecution of his political rivals, and called Democrats the “enemy within.”

On Sunday, he complained about gaps in the bulletproof 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 called Trump a threat to democracy but expressed optimism at a church in Detroit on Sunday.

“As I travel, I see Americans from the so-called red states to the so-called blue states ready to bend the arc of history toward justice,” Harris said. “And the great thing about living in a democracy is that we, each of us, have the power to answer that question as long as we can hold on to it.”

Voters who took part in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in late October ranked threats to democracy, second only to the economy, as the biggest problem facing the U.S. today.

Trump believes concerns about immigration, the economy and high prices, particularly 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 that are expected to determine the winner.

“This is truly the end of one journey, but a new one will begin,” Trump said at his first rally of the day in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Hopefully everything goes well. “We are leaders,” he said, urging people to “go out and vote.”

Trump will also visit Reading and Pittsburgh, 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 the election results.

Harris kicked off Monday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she urged a group of campaign workers to “enjoy this moment” while thanking everyone for their volunteer work.

“Let’s vote. Let's win. Let's get to work. Twenty-four more hours,” she said. “We are all in this together. We rise and fall together.”

Harris also plans to campaign Monday in Allentown, Pennsylvania, one of the most competitive parts of the state, where a large Puerto Rican electorate has been energized by disparaging remarks during a recent Trump campaign rally. She will then visit a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with progressive New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before traveling to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Her evening rally in Pittsburgh will feature DJ D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day before meeting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, famous for the “Rocky Steps” and home to a statue of the fictional Hollywood movie boxer.