Intent on firing up volunteers in Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris chants: “Let’s get out the vote.” Harris spoke to her supporters in Scranton, a key area that could decide whether she or former President Donald Trump wins the state.
Intent on firing up volunteers in Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris chants: “Let’s get out the vote.” Harris spoke to her supporters in Scranton, a key area that could decide whether she or former President Donald Trump wins the state.
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This combination of photos shows Vice President Kamala Harris, left, on Aug. 7, 2024 and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on July 31, 2024.
AP
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned around southwestern states this week as they sought to shore up the Latino vote with only five days until Election Day.
Latino voters account for %14.7 of all eligible voters in the upcoming election, according to Pew Research Center. New Mexico, where Trump campaigned on Thursday, has the highest share of Latino voters with around 45% the population. The states with the next largest share of Latino voters include California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada. While California is reliably blue and Texas reliably red, Arizona and Nevada, where Harris held her rallies, are battleground swing states.
Although Democrats tend to have a historical advantage among Latino voters, that advantage has declined over the past four presidential cycles, according to a national NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll from September, especially as Trump makes strides with Latino men. One of the big reasons behind this, according to experts, is inflation and the cost of living crisis, two issues on which voters tend to trust Trump over Harris.
“So I’m here for one simple reason. I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community,” Trump told the crowd in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Thursday, before asking them not to make him “waste a whole damn half a day here.”
The state is blue-leaning; President Joe Biden won in 2020 by 10.8 points and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won by 8.3 points in 2016. But Trump thinks he can shift it,
“We almost won it twice, and let me tell you, I believe we won it twice,” Trump said of the results of the presidential election out of New Mexico in 2020 and 2016, suggesting that the votes were rigged and that he believes he can win the state this year.
“One of the biggest reasons we will win this state is that you have among the worst border problems of any state in America, and I am the only one that knows how to fix it,” Trump said.
But the Trump campaign also found itself in the middle of a controversy this past week that could dampen his support among Latino voters, when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist remarks about Latinos at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
Hinchcliffe joked that Latinos “love making babies” and he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” And while campaign officials were quick to distance Trump from these remarks, the former President himself has yet to personally apologize for them.
US President Donald Trump arrives for a roundtable rally with Latino supporters at the Arizona Grand Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Arizona on September 14, 2020.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
Although Trump’s speech in New Mexico centered mostly around immigration and border security, a recent CNBC poll rated the issue as only the fourth most important area of concern for Latino voters, well behind inflation, jobs and threats to democracy. Even then, the poll showed that more Latinos believe immigration helps the country more than it hurts it. But the ratio was the smallest since 2006.
Meanwhile, Harris held three rallies in Phoenix, Arizona, and in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada, where she presented an economic pitch to the voters while also taking jabs at Trump’s stance on immigration.
“With five days left in this campaign, my opponent is also making his closing argument to America. It is an argument full of hate and division,” Harris told the crowd in Phoenix. “He insults Latinos, scapegoats immigrants, and it’s not just what he says, it’s what he will do if elected. You can be sure he will bring back family separation policies, only on a much greater scale than last time.”
Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Jennifer Lopez attend a campaign rally in North Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 31, 2024.
David Swanson | Reuters
Harris also had Latino musicians open for her on Thursday, most notably singer Jennifer Lopez in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lopez highlighted her Puerto Rican descent and appealed to immigrant and Latino voters as she introduced the vice president.
“[Trump] has consistently worked to divide us. At Madison Square Garden, he reminded us who he really is and how he really feels,” Lopez said. “It wasn’t just Puerto Ricans that were offended that day, it was every Latino in this country.”
Both campaigns have been amping up their Latino voter outreach efforts as Nov. 5 gets closer. Last week, Trump hosted a roundtable in Florida with Latino business leaders, while Telemundo aired a pre-taped interview with Harris.
Dearborn, Michigan – On a sunny but frigid afternoon, dozens of protesters stood on a street corner in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn and chanted against Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as well as her Republican rival Donald Trump.
“Trump and Harris, you can’t hide, no votes for genocide,” a keffiyeh-clad young woman chanted on a bullhorn. The small but spirited crowd echoed her words.
If not Trump or Harris for the next United States president, then who?
The Abandon Harris campaign that organised the protest has endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, demonstrating the growing disconnect that many Arabs and Muslims feel with both major parties over their support for Israel.
Stein has been gaining popularity in Arab and Muslim communities amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and Lebanon, public opinion polls show.
While the Green Party candidate is extremely unlikely to win the presidency, her supporters view voting for her as a principled choice that can set a foundation for greater viability for third-party candidates in the future.
Hassan Abdel Salam, a co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, said more and more voters are adopting the group’s position of ditching the two major candidates and backing Stein.
“She best exemplifies our position against genocide,” Abdel Salam said of the Green Party candidate, who has been vocal in supporting Palestinian rights.
The strategy
Abandon Harris has been urging voters against supporting the vice president over her pledge to continue arming Israel amid the US ally’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, which have killed more than 46,000 people.
Abdel Salam praised Stein as courageous and willing to take on both major parties despite recent attacks, especially by Democrats.
For the Abandon Harris campaign, backing Stein is not only about principles; it is part of a broader strategy.
“Our goal is to punish the vice president because of the genocide, to then take the blame for her defeat to send a signal to the political landscape that you should never have ignored us,” Abdel Salam told Al Jazeera.
In addition to the endorsement of the Abandon Harris campaign, Stein has won the backing of the American Arab and Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), a Dearborn-based political group.
“After extensive dialogue with both the Harris and Trump campaigns, we found no commitment to addressing the urgent concerns of our community, particularly the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon,” the group said in a statement last month.
“The need for a ceasefire remains paramount for Muslim and Arab American voters, yet neither campaign has offered a viable solution.”
AMPAC added that it is backing Stein “based on her steadfast commitment to peace, justice, and a call for immediate ceasefires in conflict zones”.
With support for Stein on the rise in Michigan’s Arab and Muslim communities, where President Joe Biden won overwhelmingly in 2020, Democrats are noticing and pushing back.
Jill Stein supporter Wissam Charafeddine. Support for the Green Party candidate has increased in Dearborn, where Arab Americans are angry at US support for Israel [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]
Democrats target Stein
The Harris campaign released an advertisement aimed at Arab Americans in southeast Michigan that took a dig at third-party candidates.
In the commercial, Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad Turfe says Harris would help end the war in the Middle East as the camera zooms in on a cedar tree – Lebanon’s national symbol – hanging from his necklace.
Turfe warns voters in the video that Trump would bring more chaos and suffering if elected. “We also know a vote for a third party is a vote for Trump,” he says.
Stein’s supporters, however, categorically reject that argument.
Palestinian comedian and activist Amer Zahr, who is running for a school board seat in Dearborn, argued that Democrats should be grateful that Stein is on the ballot and slammed the argument that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump as “paternalistic”.
“It assumes that if Stein wasn’t there, we’d be out there voting for you,” Zahr told Al Jazeera.
“If it really were two parties and there were no other parties, I think most of the Arab Americans who are voting for Stein would vote for neither. And in fact, if there were really only two choices, a lot of the people who are voting for Stein right now out of anger for the Democratic Party might go for Trump.”
Zahr, who was on a shortlist of candidates that Stein considered for her vice presidential pick, also dismissed the argument that a vote for the Green Party would be “wasted” because it is unlikely to win.
“I mean news flash: Voters vote for people who speak to their issues,” he told Al Jazeera, praising Stein for standing up to Israel and running as an “openly anti-genocide” candidate.
“Jill Stein, to me, is a noble vehicle to express our deep anger and the distrust and betrayal that we feel at the ballot box.”
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) released a separate commercial last month also proclaiming that “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump”.
Stein has pushed back against that claim, slamming the Democrats’ attacks as a “fear campaign and smear campaign”.
She told Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast last week that the Democratic Party is coming after her instead of “addressing the issues like the genocide, which has lost Kamala Harris so many voters”.
‘I am sick of the two-party system’
While foreign policy may not be a top priority for the average US voter, numerous Arab and Muslim Americans interviewed by Al Jazeera over the past week said Israel’s assault on Lebanon and Gaza is their number one issue.
And so, with both major-party presidential candidates voicing uncompromising support for Israel, some voters are looking to Stein to break away from the two parties and forge a new path.
“I am sick of the two-party system and their power play politics, where on both sides, they are unanimously agreeing on this bipartisan issue that they support Israel,” said Haneen Mahbuba, an Iraqi American voter.
With a keffiyeh-patterned scarf that says “Gaza” in Arabic around her neck, the bespectacled 30-year-old mother raised her voice in anger as she described the violence Israel is committing in Gaza and Lebanon with US support.
Mahbuba told Al Jazeera that she feels “empowered” by voting for Stein because she is not giving in to the “fearmongering” about the need to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. She added that it is Harris’s voters who are wasting their votes.
“They’re giving away their vote when they vote for the Democratic Party that has continuously dismissed us, disregarded us, silenced us and seen us as less important,” Mahbuba said.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks during a rally in Dearborn, Michigan, on October 6 [File: Rebecca Cook/Reuters]
‘Indistinguishable’
Stein ran for president in 2012, 2016 and 2020, but she failed to make a major impression on the elections.
However, Stein’s Arab and Muslim supporters say this year, the Green Party can put a dent in the results to show the power of voters who prioritise Palestinian human rights.
Wissam Charafeddine, an activist in the Detroit area, said backing Stein is the right choice both morally and strategically.
“I’m the type of voter who believes that voting should be based on values and not politics. This is the core of democracy,” he said.
Charafeddine, who has voted for Stein in the past, added that Arab Americans are fortunate to be concentrated in a swing state where their votes are amplified.
“When we vote for Dr Jill Stein, we are not only voting [for] the right, moral platform that actually is most aligned with our values, interests, desires and priorities, but also it accounts for the Palestine vote and to the anti-genocide vote,” Charafeddine told Al Jazeera.
Bottomline, advocates say the growing support for Stein shows that many Arab and Muslim voters have reached a tipping point with both the major parties’ support for Israel.
“Harris and Trump simply are indistinguishable to us because they passed a certain threshold that we cannot ever buy into the logic of lesser of two evils,” Abdel Salam told Al Jazeera.
“These are two genocidal parties, and we cannot put our hand with either of them.”
Democrat Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Iowa 47% to 44%, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.
A victory for Harris would be a shocking development after Iowa has swung aggressively to the right in recent elections, delivering Trump solid victories in 2016 and 2020.
The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.
Trump continues to lead with his core base of support: men, evangelicals, rural residents and those without a college degree.
Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa — a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states.
The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has abandoned his independent presidential campaign to support Trump but remains on the Iowa ballot, gets 3% of the vote. That’s down from 6% in September and 9% in June.
Fewer than 1% say they would vote for Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver, 1% would vote for someone else, 3% aren’t sure and 2% don’t want to say for whom they already cast a ballot.
The poll of 808 likely Iowa voters, which include those who have already voted as well as those who say they definitely plan to vote, was conducted by Selzer & Co. from Oct. 28-31. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
The results come as Trump and Harris have focused their attention almost exclusively on seven battleground states that are expected to shape the outcome of the election. Neither has campaigned in Iowa since the presidential primaries ended, and neither campaign has established a ground presence in the state.
The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” Selzer said.
Independent voters, who had consistently supported Trump in the leadup to this election, now break for Harris. That’s driven by the strength of independent women, who back Harris by a 28-point margin, while independent men support Trump, but by a smaller margin.
Similarly, senior voters who are 65 and older favor Harris. But senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63% to 28%, while senior men favor her by just 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%.
“I like her policies on reproductive health and having women choosing their own health care, and the fact that I think that she will save our democracy and follow the rule of law,” said Linda Marshall, a 79-year-old poll respondent from Cascade who has already cast her absentee ballot for Harris.
The registered Democrat said she identifies as pro-life but doesn’t think anyone should make that choice for somebody else.
“I just believe that if the Republicans can decide what you do with your body, what else are they going to do to limit your choice, for women?” she said.
One aspect where Trump does better than Harris: A greater share of his supporters than hers say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about their pick.
Seventy-six percent of Trump supporters say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about their choice, while another 23% say they are mildly or not that enthusiastic.
For Harris, 71% are extremely or very enthusiastic — down from 80% in September — while 29% are mildly or not that enthusiastic.
The poll shows few likely Iowa voters remain undecided, with 91% saying their minds are made up, compared with 80% in September.
That includes 96% of Harris supporters who are firm in their choice and 95% of Trump supporters.
This year, independents appear to be turning the other way toward Harris — a move fueled by a growing support among independent women.
Independent likely voters, who have supported Trump in every other Iowa Poll this year, now favor Harris, 46% to 39%.
Now, independent women choose Harris over Trump 57% to 29%. That’s up from September, when independent women gave her just a 5-point lead, 40% to 35%.
Independent men still favor Trump 47% to 37% — numbers that are largely unchanged from September, when independent men supported him 46% to 33%.
Overall, Harris holds a 20-point lead with women, 56% to 36%, similar to where she was in September.
But Trump’s lead with men has shrunk from 27 points in September (59% to 32%) to 14 points today (52% to 38%).
Mya Williams, an 18-year-old college freshman and poll respondent, said she doesn’t identify with either the Democratic or Republican parties. But she’s excited to be part of the effort to elect the country’s first Black female president.
“I like what she stands for and that she’s a female and the opposite of what Trump stands for,” Williams said. “She’s something new.”
Harris holds a small lead with likely Iowa voters who are younger than 35, 46% to 44% over Trump.
Harris’ larger support among likely voters 65 and older, who prefer her 55% to 36%, could be a boon, because older Iowans tend to be more reliable voters and show up at disproportionately higher rates.
The poll shows 62% of Iowans younger than 35 are likely voters, down from 73% in September.
But 93% of seniors say they are likely voters — even higher than the 84% who said so in September.
“If you want a horse to ride on, you want seniors, because they vote,” Selzer said.
Donald Trump holds on to base voters: Evangelicals, rural Iowans, men
Trump continues to lead with his core base of support: men, evangelicals, rural residents and those without a college degree.
He carries Iowa men 52% to 38% and evangelicals 73% to 20%.
Joel Funk, a 26-year-old poll respondent and Garden Grove resident, said he’s excited to cast an early ballot for Trump. The registered Republican said the economy is the biggest issue facing the country right now.
“We’ve lived through four years of him (Trump) being president, and I would say they are four of the best years economically that I have lived through,” he said. “Then we’ve gotten to see four years of the opposition, and we’ve had a lot of inflation and a lot of illegal immigration — a lot of things I would say aren’t the best for America.”
Trump leads with those living in rural areas (55% to 35%) and those living in towns (49% to 40%). But Harris carries those in cities (61% to 33%) and suburbs (59% to 36%).
Among those without a college degree, Trump leads 51% to 39%. And Harris gets those with a college degree, 61% to 31%.
Funk, an automation engineer, dislikes that Harris was nominated without going through the usual primary process.
“They kind of put her in place of Joe Biden after the actual primary polls,” he said. “So, I don’t think she was actually chosen by the people. … And based off of interviews both of them have done, she said she would maintain the same style of policies (as Biden). Which I don’t think have been that great for us.”
Different issues drive Democrats, Republicans
The issues driving Trump supporters are very different than those driving Harris supporters, the Iowa Poll finds.
Trump voters say the issue of inflation and the economy is what they’ve been thinking about most in their decision to support him. Forty-nine percent of his supporters cite it as their most important issue.
Another 25% say immigration is driving their decision.
The top issue for Harris supporters is “the future of democracy,” with 51% citing it as their most important issue. Another 22% say it’s abortion.
“The voting agenda is different for each of those groups of supporters,” Selzer said.
Some former Donald Trump supporters move away from him in 2024
Harris holds on to the support of nearly all Democrats, with 97% saying they will support her and 0% saying they will support Trump.
But she also gets 5% of Republicans who say they will vote for her over Trump. Trump holds 89% of Republicans.
The poll shows a small universe of people who say they previously supported Trump and have now switched their vote to someone else.
Among those not supporting Trump, 16% say there was a time when they supported him, while 81% say they have never supported him. Another 3% are not sure.
Ralph Newbanks, a 63-year-old poll respondent from Solon, said he is a lifelong Republican who plans to vote for Harris this year.
“It’s not what I like about her, it’s what I dislike about Trump,” he said. “Since 2020 and the Capitol riots, I couldn’t vote for Trump if he paid me, not for love nor money.”
He thought about casting a ballot for a third-party candidate, but he didn’t want to lodge a protest vote. He wants to make sure Trump doesn’t return to the White House.
“To me, the biggest part of democracy is the ability to compromise,” he said. “And with Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, there is no compromise, even within their own party.”
Of those not supporting Trump, 67% consider themselves “never Trumpers.” Another 26% say they are not “never Trumpers,” and 8% are not sure.
Among those who say they voted for Trump in 2020, 89% say they will do so again this year, and 4% will vote for Harris.
Among those who say they voted for Biden, 93% say they will now vote for Harris, and 4% will vote for Trump.
Among those who did not vote, Harris leads 47% to 44%.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She is also covering the 2024 presidential race for USA TODAY as a senior national campaign correspondent. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.
About the Iowa Poll
The Iowa Poll, conducted Oct. 28-31, 2024, for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 808 Iowans ages 18 or older who say they will definitely vote or have already voted in the 2024 general election for president and other offices.
Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted 1,038 Iowa adults with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Dynata. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex, and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent census data.
Questions based on the sample of 808 Iowa likely voters have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.
Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit and, on digital platforms, links to originating content on The Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a “When We Vote We Win” campaign rally at Craig Ranch Amphitheater on October 31, 2024 in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in Iowa by 47% to 44% among likely voters, according to a shocking new poll released Saturday night, just three days before Election Day.
Harris’ advantage is within the poll’s 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but her lead reflects a 7-point swing by voters in her favor since September.
The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll’s results came as a complete surprise to political observers, as no serious analyst has predicted that the Democratic nominee will defeat Trump in the state.
Neither candidate had campaigned in the state, which Trump has easily won in the past two presidential elections, since the presidential primaries concluded.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co told the Des Moines Register.
“She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
Selzer & Co. conducted the survey of 808 likely voters in Iowa from Monday to Thursday. Selzer’s company is highly respected by pollsters and her findings typically carry significant weight with political strategists.
Harris’ lead in the poll was powered by strong support from female voters, particularly older and politically independent ones.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” Selzer told the Register.
The poll found that 3% of respondents supported independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ended his campaign to back Trump. Kennedy remains on Iowa’s ballot.
The same poll in September showed Trump leading Harris, the current vice president, by 4 percentage points. Trump led President Joe Biden, the then-presumptive Democratic nominee, by 18 percentage points in June.
Trump won the state by 8 percentage points in 2020 and 9 points in 2016.
The Republican’s campaign issued a memo Saturday night that called the poll an “outlier.”
The memo noted that the new Emerson College poll of likely Iowa voters, released earlier Saturday, showed Trump leading Harris by 53% to 43%.
The Trump campaign memo said, “Des Moines Register is a clear outlier poll. Emerson College, released today, far more closely reflects the state of the actual Iowa electorate and does so with far more transparency in their methodology.”
Donald Trump began hurtling through four Maga rallies across three battleground states – and delivered a dark and dystopian speech about the supposed “migrant invasion” of murderers and drug dealers – while Kamala Harris put all her last chips on Pennsylvania in a frantic final day of campaigning from both candidates.
With the polls showing the contest essentially deadlocked between two vastly different political visions, both the ex-president and the vice-president were scrambling on Monday to drive home their message. Though early voting has smashed records across the country, there is still everything to play for in cajoling undecided and unengaged voters to the polls on election day.
Trump began in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he took to a sports arena on Monday morning to deliver what is likely to be one of his last speeches as a presidential candidate. In a 90-minute address dominated by his virulent stance on immigration, he announced that if elected he would impose a new round of tariffs against Mexico unless it stopped the passage of undocumented migrants across the southern border.
He threatened Claudia Sheinbaum, the newly ensconced Mexican president, that he would impose tariffs on all Mexican goods coming into the US. “I’m going to inform her on day one or sooner, that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into” the US, he said.
In an impressive display of stamina for a 78-year-old, Trump was scheduled to stage four rallies by the end of the final day of campaigning. After Raleigh he is set to address two back-to-back rallies in the supremely important battleground of Pennsylvania, in Reading and Pittsburgh.
During his address in Reading on Monday afternoon, Trump implored attenders to hit the polls on election day, saying “we have to turn out and vote tomorrow, we’re going to vote, vote, vote”.
“You built this country, I have to tell you, you’re going to save this country, too because you know, if we win Pennsylvania – not me – if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said later.
Trump asked those in attendance: “are you better off now than you were four years ago?” He then quickly swooped into promises of prosperity and invoked racist tropes about immigrants.
“With your vote tomorrow, I will end inflation. I will stop the invasion of criminals coming into this country, and I’ll bring back the American dream.”
He will close out his conversation with American voters with a late-night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In contrast to Trump’s three-state dash, Harris was putting all her last chips on Pennsylvania. She started in Scranton, a quizzical location to kick off the final day given it is the birthplace of Joe Biden from whom she has tentatively been attempting to disassociate herself in recent days.
Next, she appeared in Allentown, a majority Latino city in the heart of the Lehigh Valley, one of the most competitive parts of the state. Speaking in a college gymnasium, she was preceded by a series of speakers who appealed directly and bluntly to the area’s Puerto Rican population and asked them for their vote.
“I stand here proud of my longstanding commitment to Puerto Rico and her people and I will be a president for all Americans,” she said. Her Allentown rally was the first of three rallies in Pennsylvania on Monday, the only state she is visiting, underscoring its importance to her campaign.
Her comments came after almost all of the speakers directly appealed to Puerto Rican voters, highlighting the racist joke a comedian made at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rall in which he called Puerto Rico a floating “island of garbage”.
Harris did not mention Trump at all by name during her remarks, which lasted just under half an hour. But she did allude to ushering in a new era of politics, and she urged Pennsylvanians to make a plan to vote.
“We have the opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of politics that has been driven by fear and division – we’re done with that,” she said. “America is ready for a fresh start.”
Elizabeth Slaby, an 81-year-old, was the first person in line for the rally. She arrived at about 6am. She was a registered Republican for more than 50 years, but after the attack on the US Capitol, she changed her voter registration.
“I never thought I’d see a woman president and now I’m so, so excited,” she said.
Then she will make an appearance in Allentown and Pittsburgh, before culminating her unexpected bid for the White House in Philadelphia. Her last word will be issued from the legendary steps of the Museum of Art, immortalised by Sylvester Stallone in the 1976 film Rocky, where she will be joined by a host of celebrities including Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.
In the final hours of the race Trump has been showing signs of wear and tear. His voice is hoarse, he looks tired and his energy levels are relatively low.
“The voice is holding up, just about barely,” he told the Raleigh crowd.
Trump spent much of his Raleigh speech veering off his scripted remarks and embarking on long verbal rambles, which he has called his “weave” and claimed was a sign of his “genius”. His peregrinations included the anti-climb panels he ordered to build his border wall, his wife Melania’s bestselling book, Elon Musk’s rocket launches, the grass that was growing on Nasa runways before he came along, and air conditioning and steam baths for dogs.
Women cheer for Donald Trump during a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Monday. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Trump denigrated leading Democrats, starting with his presidential rival. He called Harris “low IQ” and in a bizarre riff imagined her “turning, tossing, sweating” in her sleep.
He also called Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the US House, “crazy as a bedbug”, Barack Obama the “great divider”, and said he was waiting to “hit back” against the former first lady Michelle Obama after she had criticised him.
But the thrust of his closing argument was focused on immigration, and the supposed 21 million unauthorised migrants – “many of them murderers” – whom he claimed had been let into the US by the Biden administration. Even for a presidential candidate who has centered his campaign in anti-immigrant rhetoric, his closing remarks were dire.
“They’re killing people. They’re killing people at will,” he said, giving gruesome details of specific murders committed by undocumented migrants. “They just walk right into our country and they kill people.”
Trump’s Raleigh stop marked his final appearance in North Carolina, a critical battleground state that he needs to win if he is to have a clear shot on returning to the White House. Though Democrats have only won the presidential race here twice since Jimmy Carter in 1976 (the other time being Barack Obama in 2008), Harris is running neck and neck against Trump.
The Guardian poll tracker shows Trump ahead by just one point – well within the margin of error.
In tune with the rest of the country, North Carolinians have been voting early in historic numbers. More than 4 million have already cast their ballots, substantially more than in 2020 and 2016, with the party alignment roughly evenly split between Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
As part of his last push to secure victory on election day, Trump repeated the lie that the Biden administration and the federal disaster agency Fema had done nothing to help stricken families in western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene. Even that falsehood was tied to immigration.
“Fema did a horrible job,” Trump said. “The administration, they’re still not there. You know why? Because they’ve spent all their money on bringing in murderers. They spent all their money on bringing in illegal migrants.”
In fact, Fema’s budget for housing undocumented migrants is ringfenced and has no impact on the agency’s work dealing with disasters. Fema is channeling millions of dollars of federal money to the hurricane-hit region.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
On 5 November 2024, millions of Americans will head to the polls to choose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for president of the United States. The two candidates have offered starkly different visions for the future of the nation. As the election enters the final stretch, the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring.
Latest polls
Polling average over a moving 10-day period
Guardian graphic. Source: Analysis of polls gathered by 538.
Latest analysis: Nationally, Harris has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well with the margin of errors of most polls. The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat.
But in a fractured political landscape that has featured threats of retribution from Trump, accusations of fascism and racism from Harris, and warnings that democracy itself is on the ballot, the bigger picture – that uniformity, over a prolonged period – has seasoned observers scratching their heads.
Polling average over a moving 10-day period. Each circle represents an individual poll result and is sized by 538’s pollster rating
Notes on data
To calculate our polling averages, Guardian US took a combination of head-to-head and multi-candidate polls and calculated a rolling 10-day average for each candidate. Our tracker uses polls gathered by 538 and filters out lower-quality pollsters for national polls. Our state polling averages use a lower quality threshold for inclusion due to the small numbers of state polls. If there were no polls over the the 10-day period, we leave the average blank. On 11 Oct Guardian US began rounding averages to the nearest whole number to better reflect the lack of certainty in the polling figures.
Polling averages capture how the race stands at a particular moment in time and are likely to change as the election gets closer. Averages from states with small numbers of polls are also more susceptible to errors and biases. Our averages are an estimate of the support that the candidates have in key swing states and on the national stage. The election is decided by the electoral college, so these averages should not be taken as a likelihood of winning the election in November.
A presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final sprint across a handful of states on Election Day eve.
A presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final sprint across a handful of states on Election Day eve.
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Betting markets have narrowed significantly on the eve of Tuesday’s presidential election, eroding Donald Trump’s lead over Kamala Harris as Americans cast their vote.
The former president and his allies have touted the betting market forecasts as more accurate than traditional polling in recent weeks, as the top platforms put him way ahead of Harris.
As election day nears, however, Trump’s victory odds have faded, and Harris even retook the lead on one platform this weekend.
Betting markets have surged in popularity during this election campaign, with prominent apps like Polymarket and Kalshi surging up the app stores.
Many betting market forecasts for who was most likely to win the election also diverged from typical opinion polls. While the polls pointed to an incredibly close contest for the White House, a few weeks ago betting platforms put Trump clearly ahead.
But Trump’s chances have apparently dwindled. Polymarket put them at 58% on Monday, down from 67% last week; Kalshi put them at 53%, down from 65%.
Another platform priced Harris’s odds as greater than Trump’s for the first time in almost a month. The Democrat had a 53% chance of victory, according to PredictIt, which gave Trump a 51% chance.
Bets in these markets are bids on political futures contracts. Buying a contract – like the prospect of a Harris, or Trump, presidency – drives the price of that contract, or the perceived probability of it happening, higher.
Should you have turned to Polymarket on Monday, for example, and bet on Trump, you would receive $1 for every 58 cents you wagered if he wins the election. If you bet on Harris, on the same platform, on the same day, you would receive $1 for every 43 cents wagered if she wins.
A striking poll in Iowa that unexpectedly put Harris ahead of Trump sent shock waves through America’s poll-watchers this weekend. Betting market experts say participants consider a range of factors when placing a wager, including the results of such surveys.
Questions have been raised in recent weeks over activity in the betting markets. When it emerged that one man had wagered more than $30m on a Trump victory on Polymarket, both he and the platform stressed it was not an attempt to manipulate the market.
“My intent is just making money,” the man, who called himself Théo, told the Wall Street Journal, claiming he had “absolutely no political agenda”.
