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:
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.
Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some Republican-led states say they will block the Justice Department’s election monitors from going inside polling places on Election Day, pushing back on federal authorities’ decades-long practice of watching for violations of federal voting laws.
Officials in Florida and Texas have said they won’t allow federal election monitors into polling sites on Tuesday. And on Monday, Missouri filed a federal lawsuit seeking a court order to block federal officials from observing inside polling places.
The Justice Department announced last week that it’s deploying election monitors in 86 jurisdictions across 27 states on Election Day. The Justice Department declined to comment on Monday on the Missouri lawsuit and the moves by other Republican-led states.
The race between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump is a dead heat, and both sides are bracing for potential legal challenges to vote tallies. The Justice Department’s election monitoring effort, a long practice under both Democratic and Republican administrations, is meant to ensure that federal voting rights are being followed.
Here’s a look at election monitors and the states’ actions:
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Who are the election monitors?
Election monitors are lawyers who work for the Justice Department, including in the civil rights division and U.S. attorney’s offices across the country. They are not law enforcement officers or federal agents.
For decades, the Justice Department’s civil rights division has sent attorneys and staff members to monitor polling places across the country in both federal and non-federal elections. The monitors are tasked with ensuring the compliance of federal voting rights laws.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division enforces a number of statutes protecting the right to vote. That includes Voting Rights Act, which prohibits intimidation and threats against those who are casting ballots or counting votes. And it includes the Americans with Disabilities Act, which mandates that election officials ensure people with disabilities have the full and equal opportunity to vote.
Where are election monitors being sent?
The 86 jurisdictions that the Justice Department will send monitors to on Tuesday include Maricopa County, Arizona and Fulton County, Georgia, which in 2020 became the center of election conspiracy theories spread by Trump and other Republicans. Another place on the list is Portage County, Ohio, where a sheriff came under fire for a social media post in which he said people with Harris yard signs should have their addresses recorded so that immigrants can be sent to live with them if the Democrat wins the presidency
Other areas where federal monitors will be sent include Detroit, Michigan; Queens, New York; Providence, Rhode Island; Jackson County, South Dakota; Salem, Massachusetts; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Manassas, Virginia; Cuyahoga County, Ohio and Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska. The Justice Department’s monitors will be in St. Louis, Missouri; four jurisdictions in Florida and eight jurisdictions in Texas.
What to know about the 2024 Election
What’s happening in Missouri?
In filing the lawsuit on Monday, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said state law “clearly and specifically limits who may be in polling places.” He also accused the federal government of “attempting to illegally interfere in Missouri’s elections.”
The lawsuit states that Missouri law “permits only certain categories of persons to be present in voting locations, including voters, minor children accompanying voters, poll workers, election judges, etc.,” and not federal officials.
The Justice Department also sought to monitor polling places in Missouri in 2022. The agency planned to have officials at Cole County, which includes Jefferson City, the state capital. County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer had said he wouldn’t let them in if they show up.
The federal agency backed down after Ashcroft showed Justice Department officials the state law, Ashcroft said. He says the Justice Department is now “trying to go through the back door” by contacting local election officials for access.
Messages were left Monday with the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners.
The St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners reached a settlement in 2021 with the Justice Department aimed at ensuring people with mobility and vision impairments can access to polling places after federal officials found problems, such as ramps that were too steep and inaccessible parking, according to the court papers. The settlement, which expires next year, says the board must “cooperate fully” with Justice Department’s efforts to monitor compliance, “including but not limited to providing the United States with timely access to polling places (including on Election Day).”
What are the other states saying?
In a letter to the Justice Department on Friday, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said wrote that “Texas law is clear: Justice Department monitors are not permitted inside polling places where ballots are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted.”
“Texas has a robust processes and procedures in place to ensure that eligible voters may participate in a free and fair election,” Nelson wrote.
In a similar letter Friday, Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd told the Justice Department that Florida law lists who is allowed inside the state’s polling places and that Justice Department officials are not included. Byrd said that Florida is sending its own monitors to the four jurisdictions the Justice Department plans to send staff to and they will “ensure there is no interference with the voting process.”
__ Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee contributed reporting, Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
