WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the final hours before polls close across the country, Vice President Kamala Harris is making her last pitch to voters.
Radio stations from Philadelphia and Raleigh to Phoenix and Las Vegas featured Harris as a guest during programming on Tuesday, who utilized her Election Day appearances as a final opportunity to push voters to the polls.
“During the day, I’ll be, today, all day, talking with folks and reminding them to get out to vote,” Harris told the “Big K Morning Show” in Pittsburgh.
By midday Tuesday, Harris’ campaign said she had also logged appearances on Power 99 in Philadelphia, “The Big Tigger Morning Show” in Atlanta and Foxy 107.2 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Later in the day, she’s expected to call into shows in battlegrounds Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
During her Pittsburgh radio hit, Harris said she’ll eat dinner with her family — a “tradition,” she said — before heading to Howard University in Washington, where her campaign is hosting tonight’s watch party.
On campus, metal fencing surrounds the perimeter and a significant police presence is on hand. The university’s classes were held remotely on Monday; on Tuesday, all classes were canceled.
The first batch of election returns will come no earlier than 7 p.m. ET (5 p.m. MT), when Georgia’s polls close.
A winner could be declared tonight — but due to how close the polls are, it is possible that several days could pass before that occurs. Polls show razor-thin margins in several battleground states. Nate Silver’s election forecast ran 80,000 simulations in the early hours of Election Day; Harris won in 50.015% of the cases. FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregator shows Trump ahead in three swing states, Harris ahead in two and a tie in two — and the margin is not larger than 2 percentage points in any of them.
Over 78 million Americans cast votes before Election Day, and 35% of them were Republicans — marking a significant increase in GOP early voting compared to past cycles.
Harris’ supporters are confident she will outperform the polls. “I feel good,” said Mark Gilbert, a former U.S. ambassador and Harris donor. “Early reporting states will let us know a lot. I believe (Harris) wins most if not all of the swing states — and outperforms everywhere else.”
Harris, too, knows the result will come down to a handful of battleground states — and she spent her final hours of the campaign speaking directly to voters there.
“I would urge everyone to just remember that in our democracy, the people get to decide, and your vote is your power,” she said Tuesday on the “Big K Morning Show.”
This story will be updated.
