It's the last day of election campaigning in the United States. Kamala Harris will spend it all in Pennsylvaniawhose 19 electoral votes represent the largest prize among the states expected to determine the outcome. The vice president and Democratic candidate will visit blue-collar areas, including Allentown, and end with a late-night rally in Philadelphia, featuring Lady Gaga e Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump has four rallies scheduled in three states, starting in Raleigh, IN North Carolina, and then stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. The Republican candidate and former president concludes his campaign as he concluded his first two, with an event late Monday evening in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In the last few days, Harris has all but stopped mentioning Trump. He promises to solve problems and pursue consensus, with a very optimistic tone reminiscent of the early days of the campaign, when he embraced the “politics of joy” and the campaign theme “Freedom”. “From the beginning, our campaign was not a campaign against something, but for something,” Harris said last night at Michigan State University. In Allentown, where tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans live, Harris will hold a rally with rapper Fat Joe before visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez are of Puerto Rican descent. At a recent rally, Donald Trump suggested that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.” Over the weekend, Harris posted a video on social media showing that she had voted by mail. “Yes, this race will be very close, but we will win. And one of the reasons is that you will vote,” he said.
Trump plans to vote in Florida on Election Day, despite previously saying he would vote early. Yesterday the former president repeated his false claims the election was rigged against him, spoke of violence against journalists and said he “should not leave” the White House in 2021 – dark turns that overshadowed another fixed point of his speech: “Kamala broke everything. I'll fix it”.
Harris' team was confident in recent days, highlighting the wide gender gap in early voting data and research showing that late-deciding voters have been leaning her way. They also believe in the strength of their election infrastructure. This weekend, Harris' campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping reach voters — and they knocked on more than 3 million doors across swing states. However, Harris' aides have insisted that she remains an underdog. Trump's team also appeared confidentarguing that the former president's appeal will appeal to younger and working-class voters, across racial and ethnic divides.
