The presidential campaign comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day.
Kamala 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. Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh.
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Here’s the latest:
Trump: The presidential race is ‘ours to lose’
Trump has taken the stage to roaring applause in Raleigh, North Carolina — and the arena is now much fuller than it was an hour ago, with only a smattering of empty seats.
He sounds a little hoarse after a busy campaign schedule that will include another three stops later Monday.
Trump says of the presidential race: “It’s ours to lose.”
Top state election officials say Americans can ‘have confidence the election is secure’
The joint statement Monday by the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors said election officials have been working for four years to prepare for the Nov. 5 presidential election and have devoted “extensive time, energy and resources to safeguard America’s elections.”
They cautioned that “operational issues” could happen, such as polling places opening late or long lines at voting locations, but election officials have contingency plans to address these.
They also urged the public to be patient, saying “accurately counting millions of ballots takes time” and noting recounts may be needed for close races.
Conservative activists submit thousands of voter challenges in several Pennsylvania counties
More than a dozen counties in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania have received bulk challenges from conservative activists to voters’ mail-in ballot applications that voting rights lawyers and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration say are illegal.
The deadline to challenge a voter based on their residency in Pennsylvania was Friday, but voting rights lawyers say such challenges must be individualized and be supported by credible evidence.
The challenges — to more than 4,000 voters total — are based on “theories that courts have repeatedly rejected and appear to be two separate, coordinated efforts to undermine confidence in the Nov. 5 election,” Shapiro’s Department of State said in a statement.
Many of those voters also received form letters from the activists urging them to cancel their registration. Some challenges target voters living overseas, while others target voters who appeared in the U.S. Postal Service’s change-of-address database.
Trump supporter says
there was ‘no way’ he would vote for Harris because of foreign policy issues
RALEIGH, N.C. — From what Noah Frederick, 23, has seen in the lead-up to Election Day, he thinks Trump is going to win the presidency. He attends Duke University as an electrical engineering student but cast his mail-in ballot for his home state of Pennsylvania about two weeks ago.
Something Frederick said surprised him is that several friends from his hometown of Pottsville who used to be more “Democrat-friendly” are now pro-Trump. His decision to cast his ballot for Trump came a few months ago when former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris.
“Their supporting (of) Kamala kind of tells kind of tells you all you need to know about her foreign policy and Trump’s,” he said.
Frederick said there was “no way” he would have voted for Harris because of foreign policy issues and the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘I feel like Trump already beat Kamala. I feel like now we have to beat the people we can’t see’
RALEIGH, N.C. — A smattering of Trump’s supporters are once again wearing yellow and orange safety vests to his rally — copying the uniform Trump donned last week when he climbed aboard a garbage truck to draw attention to President Joe Biden’s comments calling his supporters “garbage.”
Among them was Trey Gainey, 21, a barber from nearby Clinton.
“Joe Biden called us supporters ‘garbage’ so I decided to show up like I saw Trump do,” he said as he waited for the former president to take the stage in Raleigh.
Gainey, who said he cast his ballot for Trump on the first day of early voting, said he’s confident Trump will emerge the winner, but is worried about a nebulous force interfering.
“I feel like Trump already beat Kamala. I feel like now we have to beat the people we can’t see,” he said.
On the ground in Raleigh
RALEIGH, N.C. — There are plenty of empty seats at the Raleigh, North Carolina, arena where Trump is kicking off a busy last day of campaigning, with four rallies planned across three battleground states.
Trump was scheduled to take the stage at 10 a.m. at the J.S. Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue with additional seating on the floor.
Trump has held events in North Carolina each of the past three days, underscoring the importance of a state he carried in both 2016 and 2020.
More people are still filing in so the arena could fill up more by the time Trump takes the stage.
Trump supporter says she ‘might try to go to another planet’ if Harris wins
RALEIGH, N.C. — Ebony Coots is excited for Trump to win but says she’s tired of seeing all the negative political ads. Coots also feels a bit nervous — not about Trump’s chances of winning but rather what Democrats “might try to do,” she said.
In 2016, Coots cast her ballot for Hillary Clinton because of the “girl power” sentiment, which she now says was a mistake.
Wearing a shirt memorializing Corey Comperatore — the volunteer firefighter who was shot and killed at Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — the 48-year-old delivery driver said animosity toward police during the widespread protests against the killing of George Floyd pushed her to vote for Trump in 2020 and support him since.
Monday’s rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, was her ninth since 2022, Coots said.
If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, Coots summed up what she’ll do in one sentence.
“You know, actually, I might try to go to another planet,” she said.
On the ground in Raleigh
RALEIGH, N.C. — There are plenty of empty seats at the Raleigh, North Carolina, arena where Trump is kicking off a busy last day of campaigning, with four rallies planned across three battleground states.
Trump was scheduled to take the stage at 10 a.m. at the J.S. Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue with additional seating on the floor.
Trump has held events in North Carolina each of the past three days, underscoring the importance of a state he carried in both 2016 and 2020.
More people are still filing in so the arena could fill up more by the time Trump takes the stage.
A presidential campaign unlike any other ends on Tuesday. Here’s how we got here
It’s the election that no one could have foreseen.
Not so long ago, Donald Trump was marinating in anger at Mar-a-Lago after being impeached twice and voted out of the White House. Even some of his closest allies were looking forward to a future without the charismatic yet erratic billionaire leading the Republican Party, especially after his failed attempt to overturn an election ended in violence and shame. When Trump announced his comeback bid two years ago, the New York Post buried the article on page 26.
At the same time, Kamala Harris was languishing as a low-profile sidekick to President Joe Biden. Once seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, she struggled with both her profile and her portfolio, disappointing her supporters and delighting her critics. No one was talking about Harris running for the top job — they were wondering if Biden should replace her as his running mate when he sought a second term.
▶ Read more about how we got here
Star power to fuel Harris’ final day of campaigning
The vice president is holding a rally in Allentown with rapper Fat Joe before visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
She’ll also hold an evening Pittsburgh rally featuring performances by DJ D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day, before rallying at Philadelphia’s Museum of the Arts’ “Rocky Steps,” featuring a statue of the fictional boxer.
The final event includes remarks from DJ Cassidy, Fat Joe, Freeway and Just Blaze, as well as Lady Gaga, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ricky Martin, The Roots, Jazmine Sullivan and Adam Blackstone, and Oprah Winfrey.
Where will Trump be on the eve of Election Day?
Former President Donald Trump is closing out what he says will be his last campaign day for the White House with a jam-packed schedule that includes four rallies across three battleground states.
He’ll begin Monday in Raleigh, North Carolina, underscoring the significance of a state he has visited the past three days.
He then heads to Pennsylvania — perhaps the biggest prize on the electoral map — for rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh.
He will end his night — and likely spend the early hours of Election Day morning — in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That’s a campaign tradition for the former president who also held last-day rallies there during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Harris to focus on heavily Puerto Rican areas as she campaigns across Pennsylvania
After a visit to Scranton, Harris will speak in Allentown — a majority Hispanic city that’s home to tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans — at an event with rapper Fat Joe, whose parents were of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent.
Pennsylvania is a swing state that could decide the election. But the stop also comes after a comic at a recent Donald Trump rally suggested that Puerto Rico was “garbage.”
Harris later heads to Reading, where she plans to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
