First results expected after 18.00 EST (15.00 PDT or 23.00 GMT)
How does the US election work?
The winner of the election is determined through a system called the electoral college.
What is the electoral college and how does it work?
Each of the 50 states, plus Washington DC, is given a number of electoral college votes, adding up to a total of 538 votes. More populous states get more electoral college votes than smaller ones.
A candidate needs to win 270 electoral college votes (50% plus one) to win the election.
In every state except two – Maine and Nebraska – the candidate that gets the most votes wins all of the state’s electoral college votes.
Electoral college votes correspond to electors from each state. These electors vote directly for the president, based on the results in the general election in their state. In early January, following the presidential election, Congress convenes in a joint session to count and certify the electoral votes.
How do people vote in the US election?
Elections in the US are administered by each state. Whether by mail-in ballots or voting in person on election day, people effectively vote in 51 mini-elections in the presidential election.
Due to the electoral college rules, a candidate can win the election without getting the most votes at the national level. This happened in 2016, when Trump won a majority of electoral college votes although more people voted for Hillary Clinton across the US.
A handful of races are run with a ranked choice voting system, whereby voters can rank candidates in their order of preference. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their supporters’ votes will be counted for their next choice. The Guardian has marked these elections where applicable above, and shows the results of the final result with redistributed votes.
How are the votes counted?
Vote verification and counting involves many processes to ensure oversight and security, and it runs before, during and after election day.
As soon as the polls close, local precincts count the ballots cast in person on election day, alongside any absentee or mail-in ballots that have been verified. Processes vary by state, but typically this involves verifying mail-in voter signatures and ensuring ballots are properly filled out. Provisional ballots, used when there are questions about a voter’s eligibility, are set aside for later verification.
Verified ballots are then counted, usually digitally but in some cases manually. The counts are then transmitted to county election offices for aggregation and verification.
This process involves thousands of local election officials who are either appointed or elected, depending on the state. Partisan and nonpartisan observers can monitor vote counting.
State election authorities then compile the county-level results and, after another round of verification, certify the final results.
Results are communicated through media – the Guardian receives results data from the Associated Press.
Official results can take days or weeks to be fully finalised. This is often because of the verification process of absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots. In some states, mail-in ballots can be received and counted several days after election day. High voter turnouts and potential recounts in close races can also slow down results publication.
How are the results reported?
The election results on this page are reported by the Associated Press (AP). AP “call” the winner in a state when they determine that the trailing candidate has no path to victory. This can happen before 100% of votes in a state have been counted.
Estimates for the total vote in each state are also provided by AP. The numbers update throughout election night and in the following days, as more data on voter turnout becomes available.
From Brazil to Ireland and Germany to the Caribbean, this year’s knife-edge – and more than usually momentous – US presidential vote will be watched at a multitude of election-night events, some with a particular interest in the outcome.
In St Ann Parish, Jamaica – and most particularly in Browns Town, where Harris’s father Donald was born and the Democratic candidate spent many happy childhood holidays – her supporters plan watch parties, drink-ups and other social gatherings.
“I certainly will be watching it with bated breath. I’m anticipating a close election, but expecting a win for Kamala Harris because she is a dynamite, and I’m praying that, in the interest of democracy, she wins,” said 74-year-old resident Delroy Redway.
Redway, whose brother will be hosting a watch party at his sports centre, said Browns Town was on a “knife edge” for Harris, who people consider a “little sister”.
“Her grandfather is buried in the Anglican church, right there in Browns Town … so we will celebrate [her] victory,” he said.
St Ann Parish’s mayor, Michael Belnavis, is also planning a celebratory watch party. A Harris win, he said, would be a signal that democracy is alive and well in the US. “As you know, St Ann is particularly close to her,” Belnavis said.
“So I feel particularly close to this election … and we want to watch it and make it a celebratory thing by having a drink-up and just watching the big screen at John Crow’s Tavern in Ocho Rios with some close friends. Whichever way it goes, it’s going to be historic, and we want to be a part of that.”
Also watching with more than the customary interest will be residents of Thulasendrapuram, Harris’s ancestral village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where her grandfather was born more than a century ago.
Excited preparations have long been under way for election day, with the women of the village creating kolam, colourful images made from rice paste, outside all the homes, seeking divine blessings for Harris in the election.
A special prayer (puja) is planned at the local Dharmasastha temple. “Our Dharmasastha [Hindu deity] will guarantee her victory,” was the confident prediction of temple trustee S Venkataraman.
In Berlin, the Democratic-friendly scene of the biggest rally of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, jazz club Donau 115 in the city’s Neukölln district, a favourite with the American community, is hosting a “@donau115 is brat” party, riffing on Charli XCX’s early endorsement of Harris.
A live feed of election coverage will begin just before midnight “and end when we know who the winner is and/or when we pass out from anxiety”, say the organisers, who also promise “dynamic” drink specials based on electoral college results, geopolitical trivia contests, and “a terrible sax solo every time a state gets called”.
Across town in east Berlin, Democrats Abroad will hold an election night at their traditional venue in the century-old cinema Kino Babylon with commentary from the stage, live music and “comedy – regardless of how the night turns out”.
In Paris, the legendary watering hole Harry’s Bar has held a ballot on the US election since 1924 and has only been wrong three times: in 1976, when drinkers backed Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter; in 2004, when they backed John Kerry over George W Bush; and in 2016 in favouring Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
The straw poll tradition dates back to before the days of proxy or postal ballots allowing Americans abroad to vote, when Harry MacElhone, the then owner of the bar that claims to have invented the Bloody Mary, wanted to bring the expat community in Paris together and allow them to express a view.
Any customers who can provide proof of US citizenship can vote in the poll, casting their ballots into a century-old wooden box at the end of the bar. The latest figures from the bar were 265 for Trump – and 302 for Kamala Harris.
In Brazil’s São Paulo, Latin America’s largest city, O’Malley’s Irish pub will be decked out for the occasion with flags, balloons, stars, and the stars and stripes, and will serve an eclectic menu of fish and chips, tikka masala, burritos and kebabs, plus nine different burger options (including the “big monster”: bacon, fried egg, three types of cheese, guacamole, jalapeños, baked beans and chilli).
Organised by Democrats Abroad but open to people “from both sides”, the event starts at 10pm local time and runs until 2.30am when exit polls are expected. “We held events at the same pub this year for the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and they were hugely successful,” said a Democrats Abroad official, Kelly Ann Kreutz.
In Ireland, by contrast, Donald Trump’s golf hotel in Doonbeg in County Clare will be closed as usual on Tuesday night, with no event planned to either celebrate or mourn the outcome of its owner’s third bid for the White House.
University College Dublin is holding two election watch parties, but with a general election pending in the next month and fears a Trump victory could threaten the significant US tech and pharma presence in Ireland, events are few and far between.
Reporting by Natricia Duncan, Anthony Lugg, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Deborah Cole, Kim Willsher, Tiago Rogero and Lisa O’Carroll
Donald Trump and top allies such as the multi-billionaire Elon Musk have created a blizzard of false voting misinformation portraying Democrats as bent on stealing the election, undermining trust in the voting process and leading to potential violence, voting experts and ex-federal prosecutors say.
To sow doubt about the integrity of the election and reprising his 2020 playbook of claiming that Democrats were trying to steal the election before he lost to Joe Biden and cried fraud, Trump has flatly and without evidence declared that Democrats are a “bunch of cheats”.
Similarly, Trump has baselessly charged that Kamala Harris could only win “if it was a corrupt election”.
The social media platform X, owned by Musk, who has donated over $120m to a Super Pac backing Trump with get-out-the-vote efforts in Pennsylvania and other swing states, has become a leading purveyor of falsehoods and conspiracies to his 200 million followers, say critics.
Musk, the world’s richest man with a fortune close to $260bn, has asserted without evidence that Trump’s campaign is heading for a “crushing victory” over Harris, and been chastised by key election officials in Arizona and Georgia for allowing X to disseminate false claims of election cheating by Democrats and phoney voting problems.
Bill Gates, a top election official from Maricopa county, Arizona, told the Guardian: “Elon Musk has made a number of false claims about Maricopa county that I and other officials have responded to. Given that Musk has such a large platform it’s of particular concern to us.”
Election experts warn that the growing volume of misinformation and false charges of Democratic voting fraud involving non-citizens, mail-in ballots, voting machines and more has grown rapidly and is increasingly hard to combat.
“When Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it as X, he complained that it had been unfairly censoring conservative viewpoints and he wanted to make it an uncensored marketplace of ideas,” ex-Federal Election Commission general counsel Larry Noble told the Guardian.
“It now appears that Musk is using his wealth and ability to reach hundreds of millions of followers with lies and debunked conspiracy theories about how elections are being administered.
“Now that he has fully and openly embraced Trump, he has joined Trump and his other minions in spreading the claim that the only way Trump can lose the upcoming election is if there is widespread fraud. Of course, they are already claiming, without credible evidence, that election fraud is already taking place.”
Other election experts voice similar concerns.
“Trump allies appear to be spreading a myth among his supporters that his election is inevitable, a landslide,” said David Becker who runs the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research.
“Given all the data available, it’s clear this race is very close, and no reasonable person should be surprised if either candidate wins. But if Harris wins, this strategy will likely amplify the sense of shock among many of Trump’s supporters, which could increase the chances of violence.”
Just last Thursday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said, “We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania” and quickly demanded criminal prosecutions in a case that appears to have been the result of some minor human errors that has been remedied, according to state officials.
At a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend in Lancaster county Trump, charged without evidence that “they are trying so hard to steal this damn thing … We should have one-day voting and paper ballots.”
X, too, has increasingly amplified false charges of voting fraud or problems in key states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, including a fake video that election officials in Georgia have linked to Russia disinformation of a Haitian in the state claiming he had voted in a few different counties.
Besides Musk, other key Trump allies such as Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk have used their large rightist audiences via podcasts and public events to push bogus claims about Democratic election fraud.
Former prosecutors and disinformation analysts say that the spread of baseless charges that Democrats are trying to steal the election for Harris carries grave risks
“We live in a time when influencers can spread false narratives on social media platforms and podcasts. Without any regulation to check their behavior, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and others are using their platforms to promote false narratives,” said Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor in eastern Michigan who wrote a book about disinformation entitled Attack from Within.
McQuade stressed: “We are seeing an orchestrated effort to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the election. There is no evidence that Republican strategies are coordinated with Russia efforts, but their interests align.”
Likewise, other ex-prosecutors see evidence that Trump and his allies are poised to charge election fraud if he loses again as the “Stop the Steal” movement did.
“Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in our election system, through baseless allegations of fraud, is one of the most dangerous things he has accomplished in his sustained assault on democracy,” said Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Department of Justice. “His failure to overturn the 2020 election has not deterred him one bit from trying the same thing this year. This will have profound and long-term consequences on our political and legal systems.”
“The incidence of election fraud is vanishingly small, and yet Trump, aided by his anti-democratic allies, has managed to persuade a significant percentage of Americans that our elections are riddled with fraud. A mountain of facts to the contrary seems to have no effect. Like many other falsehoods spread by Trump and his allies, Trump’s claims of election fraud are spread by media ecosystems that shape the view of millions of people.”
Bromwich’s fears are underscored by how election officials in key swing states have been inundated with false claims of suspect voting or Democratic fraud.
Falsehoods about Democrats cheating or exaggerating early voting glitches in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan have been growing with help from Trump and allies
Critics say that Musk’s X has been in the vanguard of amplifying false claims of fraud and fueling doubts about the security of voting. At the end of October, Musk told his followers to inform an “Election Integrity Community” on X about election problems, even though Musk’s pro-Trump America Pac oversees the feed, which included some claims of election cheating that state officials in Pennsylvania and Arizona had debunked.
Noble warns that democracy is endangered by false claims of election fraud by Trump and key allies.
“Musk’s efforts to undermine trust in the election are doing serious and possibly irreparable harm to our democracy. He is helping to bring what was once a fringe element of our politics into the mainstream and helping normalize irrational conspiracy theories and distrust in the legitimacy of our democracy.”
Further, Noble said that Musk’s “activities may be putting the safety and lives of election workers at risk by serving as justification for Trump’s followers to take aggressive and potentially violent acts against those trying to administer the election fairly”.
In Bromwich’s eyes, the deluge of falsehoods about Democrats seeking to steal the election is highly dangerous for election workers and democracy.
“One of the most disturbing results of Trump’s attacks on the integrity of our elections is the threat posed to election workers. Before Trump, election workers simply did not have to worry about threats to their safety and questions about their integrity. All that has changed because of Trump’s ability to marshal his supporters who support his unsupported claims of fraud based on fabricated allegations of cheating. It is a deeply disturbing development.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — A presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale on Election Day as Americans decided whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office.
Polls opened across the nation Tuesday morning as voters faced a stark choice between two candidates who have offered drastically different temperaments and visions for the world’s largest economy and dominant military power.
Harris, the Democratic vice president, stands to be the first female president if elected. She has promised to work across the aisle to tackle economic worries and other issues without radically departing from the course set by President Joe Biden. Trump, the Republican former president, has vowed to replace thousands of federal workers with loyalists, impose sweeping tariffs on allies and foes alike, and stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
The two candidates spent the waning hours of the campaign overlapping in Pennsylvania, the biggest battleground state. They were trying to energize their bases as well as Americans still on the fence or debating whether to vote at all.
“It’s important, it’s my civic duty and it’s important that I vote for myself and I vote for the democracy and the country which I supported for 22 years of my life,” said Ron Kessler, 54, an Air Force veteran from Pennsylvania who said he was voting for just the second time.
Harris and Trump entered Election Day focused on seven battleground states, five of them carried by Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020: the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona and Georgia. Nevada and North Carolina, which Democrats and Republicans respectively carried in the last two elections, also were closely contested.
The closeness of the race and the number of states in play raised the likelihood that once again a victor might not be known on election night. There was one early harbinger from the New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, which by tradition votes after midnight on Election Day. Dixville Notch split between Trump and Harris, with three votes for each.
In the 2020 presidential race it took four days to declare a winner. Regardless, Trump has baselessly claimed that if he lost, it would be due to fraud. Harris’ campaign was preparing for him to try to declare victory before a winner is known on Tuesday night or to try to contest the result if she wins. Four years ago, Trump launched an effort to overturn the voters’ will that ended in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump planned to vote in his adopted home state of Florida on Tuesday, then spend the day at his Mar-a-Lago estate in advance of a party at a nearby convention center. Harris already voted by mail in her home state of California. She’ll have a watch party at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.
The 2024 election is here. This is what to know:
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Each candidate would take the country into new terrain
Harris, 60, would be the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as president. She also would be the first sitting vice president to win the White House in 32 years.
A victory would cap a whirlwind campaign unlike any other in American history. Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket less than four months ago after Biden, facing massive pressure from his party after a disastrous debate performance, ended his reelection bid.
Trump, 78, would be the oldest president ever elected. He would also be the first defeated president in 132 years to win another term in the White House, and the first person convicted of a felony to take over the Oval Office.
A victory for Trump would affirm that enough voters put aside warnings from many of Trump’s former aides or instead prioritized concerns about Biden and Harris’ stewardship of the economy or the U.S.-Mexico border.
It would all but ensure he avoids going to prison after being found guilty of his role in hiding hush-money payments to an adult film actress during his first run for president in 2016. His sentencing in that case could occur later this month. And upon taking office, Trump could end the federal investigation into his effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
The election has huge stakes for America and the world
The potential turbulence of a second Trump term has been magnified by his embrace of the Republican Party’s far right and his disregard for long-held democratic norms.
Harris, pointing to the warnings of Trump’s former aides, has labeled him a “fascist” and blamed Trump for putting women’s lives in danger by nominating three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. In the closing hours of the campaign, she tried to strike a more positive tone and went the entire last day Monday without saying her Republican opponent’s name.
Heading into Election Day, federal, state and local officials expressed confidence in the integrity of the nation’s election systems. They nonetheless were braced to contend with what they say is an unprecedented level of foreign disinformation — particularly from Russia and Iran — as well as the possibility of physical violence or cyberattacks.
Both sides have armies of lawyers in anticipation of legal challenges on and after Election Day. And law enforcement agencies nationwide are on high alert for potential violence.
The outcome of the race was being closely watched around the world, with the future of American support for Ukraine, U.S. fidelity to its global alliances and the nation’s commitment to stand up to autocrats hanging in the balance.
Voters nationwide also were deciding thousands of other races that will decide everything from control of Congress to state ballot measures on abortion access.
More than 82 million people voted early — shy of the record set during the 2020 pandemic, when Trump encouraged Republicans to stick to voting on Election Day. This time, he urged his voters to lock down their ballots in advance and they complied in droves.
___
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, Darlene Superville and Eric Tucker in Washington, and Marc Levy in Allentown, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
A Donald Trump staffer who worked as a regional field director for the western Pennsylvania Republican party was fired on Friday after it was revealed that he was a white supremacist.
Politico reported it had identified Luke Meyer, 24, a Pennsylvania-based field staffer who worked for five months for the former president, as the online white nationalist who used the pseudonym Alberto Barbarossa.
Meyer reportedly co-hosts the Alexandria podcast with Richard Spencer, the organiser of the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and regularly shared racist views.
“Why can’t we make New York, for example, white again? Why can’t we clear out and reclaim Miami?” Barbarossa asked during a podcast recording in June.
“I’m not saying we need to be 100% homogeneous. I’m not saying we need to be North Korea or Japan or anything like that. A return to 80%, 90% white would probably be, probably the best we could hope for, to some degree.”
After being presented with evidence by Politico linking him to the Barbarossa alias, Meyer admitted the connection and confessed that he had been concealing his online identity from fellow members of Trump Force 47, the arm of the Trump campaign overseeing volunteer mobilisation efforts.
“I am glad you pieced these little clues together like an antifa Nancy Drew,” Meyer wrote in an email to Politico. “It made me realise how draining it has been having to conceal my true thoughts for as long as I have.”
Meyer was hired in June by the Pennsylvania Republican party, which fired him on Friday, in a move confirmed in a text message by the GOP to the Washington Post.
In an email to Politico, Meyer said: “Like the hydra, you can cut off my head and hold it up for the world to see, but two more will quietly appear and be working in the shadows. Slating Trump to speak at [Madison Square Garden], putting ‘poisoning the blood’ in his speeches, setting up Odal runes at CPAC, etc. In a few years, one of those groypers [slang for white supremacists] might even quietly bring me back in, with a stern warning for me to ‘be more careful next time’.”
Neo-Nazi groups and the online far right are latching on to the anti-immigration rhetoric used by Trump’s campaign for the White House in an effort to recruit new supporters and spread their extremism to broader audiences.
“And now, the end is near/ And so I face the final curtain.”
Before a roaring crowd on Monday, Donald Trump summoned sons Don Jr and Eric, daughter Tiffany, daughter-in-law Lara Trump and son-in-law Michael Boulos to the stage. Their faces threw the orangeness of the family patriarch into stark relief. Trump insisted that his son Barron and daughter Ivanka were watching from afar. “She loves the whole thing,” he said, not very convincingly.
It was election eve and the former US president gazed out at thousands of supporters gathered at an ice hockey arena in Pittsburgh and apparently ready to follow him through the gates of hell. Like a child awakening to mortality, he suddenly seemed to realise that The Trump Show was coming to an end.
‘Whoever wins, it’s going to be chaotic’: voters on the eve of the US elections – video
“It’s sad because we’ve been doing this for nine years,” he said, as the family looked on. “We’ve had hundreds of rallies, hundreds. Actually numbers that are not even conceivable. I’ve heard 800, 900 – I don’t know – but we don’t even count ’em. And they’re all like this, all these magnificent, magnificent rallies.”
This would be his last one in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania with one to follow in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Remember, the rallies are the most exciting thing. There’ll never be rallies like this. You’re going to have some leading candidate come in in four years and, honestly, if they’re successful they’ll have 300 or 400 people in a ballroom some place. This is never going to happen again.”
Yes, Donald Trump is already comparing his crowd sizes with whoever runs for president in 2028.
Still, was this a rare moment of wistful self-reflection from the man whom New Yorker writer Mark Singer once memorably described as leading “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul”?
Well, up to a point. In a characteristic brain swerve, Trump, 78, went from sweet nostalgia to a rant about “Barack Hussein Obama” as a “very divisive guy” whose wife, Michelle, was “hitting me” in a recent speech. Then he decried the Russia “hoax” and how Don Jr had been unfairly caught up in it, which led to letting rip at Democratic congressman Adam Schiff as “watermelon head”, “evil” and “human scum”.
Trump’s children laughed at the insults – hardly an uplifting closing argument just hours before polling day. The former president then gave his stream of consciousness full rein, talking fast as he freely associated from his economy to Covid, from the military to Isis, from the border wall to transphobia. It was vintage Trump, like a final episode recap of a long-running series.
But after his family departed – Lara giving a heart sign to the supporters wearing miners’ helmets – Trump pondered the passage of time again. “We have people that have come to hundreds of the rallies and we all love it. They all love the country. They don’t come to our rallies if they don’t love the country.”
Donald Trump greets his family members Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
There might be something achingly poignant and elegiac about it – a lion in winter departing the stage – but for the fact that Trump is a twice-impeached malignant narcissist with a knife at the throat of democracy.
Like Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes in A Face in the Crowd, the rallies were always more natural territory for this carnival barker than sitting behind a desk in the Oval Office. “Is there anything more fun than a Trump rally?” he has often asked rhetorically, even though some people flee before the end (and did again in Pittsburgh).
These are gaudy, raucous spectacles that combine cult-like worship of a demagogue with a church-like sense of community, the vibe of a rock concert with the fired up “us versus them” quality of a sports event.
The rallies are gathering places for the “Make America great again” (Maga) faithful who wear the team colours – red and white – on hats, T-shirts and other merchandise, sold by vendors who tour the country. Monday’s sampling included “I’m voting for the outlaw and the hillbilly” and “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president”, plus a photo of Trump with the legend “Pet Lives Matter” – a reference to his false claim that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
Greatest hits, and a few misses
One day a university academic somewhere will write a paper about the musical playlist at Trump’s rallies and what it said about the class, age and race of his crowds. On Monday it included Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, Nessun dorma by Luciano Pavarotti and It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World by James Brown. Other regulars are An American Trilogy by Elvis Presley, Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O’Connor and numbers from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals Cats and Phantom of the Opera.
The rallies have produced some of Trump greatest verbal hits. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” he told one in Sioux Center while campaigning in Iowa in 2016. None is complete without a swipe or two at the “fake news” media; the crowd turns and jeers as if playing a part.
It was at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, this summer that Trump survived an assassination attempt then, with face bloodied, raised his fist and urging his supporters to “Fight, fight, fight!” (A chant repeated by supporters in Pittsburgh.)
Having lived by the rally, he nearly died by the rally that day. And the rally might yet be his political undoing: what was once Trump’s greatest strength could prove his achilles heel. In Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he mused on the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s penis, giving fodder to critics of his mental stability.
When he fulfilled his lifelong wish to stage a mass rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, critics drew a parallel with a Nazi event there in 1939. A comedian described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”, upstaging Trump and potentially costing him vital Latino votes.
He said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2020 and joked that he wouldn’t mind if a would-be assassin had to “shoot through the fake news” to reach him. He revived a bizarre reference to fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
When Trump questioned Harris’s college job at McDonald’s, an attendee shouted: “She worked on the corner!” The former president responded: “Just remember, other people said it … not me.”
In Pittsburgh on Monday, Trump could not resist lying about Harris’s crowd size at a duelling rally across the city. “It’s quite embarrassing, it’s all over the internet, she’s screaming and the people – there’s about a hundred people – they’re not moving, they just want to go home, just be done with it.”
Stretching his arms wide, he added: “It’s not quite this!”
These antics have combined with a hypermasculine campaign that seemed intent on alienating women, failing to disown extremists like Laura Loomer and entrusting his fate to campaign neophytes such as Charlie Kirk, Elon Musk and daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
Spare a thought for those Trump campaign managers who tried to run a more professional operation this time and stay focused on inflation and immigration. They are like riders on a bucking horse, clinging on for dear life but bound to be thrown off and trampled in the end.
All of it has led to Tuesday and an all-or-nothing crossroads in Trump’s life. Go one way and he returns to the White House in one of the greatest political comebacks of all time. Go the other and there is the ignominy of two consecutive election defeats – and the prospect of prison. Comedian John Oliver told viewers on Sunday: “Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where he’s no longer an active threat? Just an annoyance?”
And yet, and yet. A gaffe or insult that many see as disqualifying is merely a laugh line to a Trump supporter. He still drew a big, rambunctious crowd in Pittsburgh, as passionate and committed as ever, many waving “Trump will fix it” signs and one holding a placard that said: “Trump chosen by God.” The former president seemed to feed off the energy.
He broke the news mid-rally that he had been endorsed by podcaster Joe Rogan. He was backed by an array of speakers including former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and rightwing media personality Megyn Kelly, who declared: “He got mocked by the left by saying he would be a protector of women. He will be a protector of women and it’s why I’m voting for him. He will close the border and he will keep the boys out of women’s sports where they don’t belong.”
Trump called Kelly “nasty” back in 2016.
Megyn Kelly speaks during a campaign rally by Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters
Among the crowd, Michael Barringer, 55, a fifth-generation coal miner, was wearing a miner’s helmet. “I love this country,” he said. “You’ve got millions and millions of illegal aliens crossing the border. They don’t speak English. They don’t say a pledge allegiance to the flag. They freeload off of us. I’m all for legal immigration but not coming across the border illegally, taking American jobs, undercutting us.
“I believe that Trump, his first term in office, he renegotiated Nafta, he’s for the American people and that’s why I vote him. I think he’s one of the greatest presidents ever to run for office and hold office.”
Lydia Williams, 40, who works in the oil and gas industry, rejected the gender gap that sees Harris dominating among women. “Her stance on LGBTQ is anti-women,” she said. “I’m a middle school track coach and the fact that my female athletes would have to compete against a male is absolutely asinine.”
The big day is upon us. The nation is on edge. The pollsters’ crystal balls are cloudy. But win or lose, Trump says this is his last campaign and there will never be rallies like this again. Some people, previously disconnected from politics, will miss these cauldrons of love and hate. Others, wary of where rallies have led herds throughout history, will hope that a line can be drawn under a decade of demagoguery.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
On Thursday, presidential candidates made a final push to energise voters in the western United States.
At rallies, Vice President Kamala Harris warned supporters that abortion rights are under threat. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump focused his campaign on immigration and border control.
What are the latest updates from the polls?
Recent polls from AtlasIntel, released on Thursday, show Trump holding a slight lead of one to two percentage points over his opponent. However, a separate poll from TIPP Insights indicates that the candidates are currently tied.
A recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals that about 70 percent of Americans feel anxious or frustrated regarding the election, with few expressing enthusiasm.
Both Democrats and Republicans share these sentiments, but Democrats report higher levels of anxiety: 80 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans express interest in the campaign, while only 54 percent of independents feel similarly. Furthermore, 79 percent of Democrats report feeling anxious, compared with 66 percent of Republicans.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s National Polls tracker, Harris maintains a narrow national lead of about 1.2 points as of Thursday. However, this lead has gradually decreased and falls within the margin of error, indicating a highly competitive race.
In critical swing states, which could determine the election outcome, the competition is even tighter.
Key battleground states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker indicates that Harris’s lead in Michigan remains slight, at approximately 0.8 points. However, she has lost her lead in Nevada, where Trump now leads by 0.3 points.
In Wisconsin, her lead has dropped to 0.6 points, down from 0.8 points on Wednesday.
On the other hand, Trump’s advantage in Pennsylvania has increased slightly, rising from 0.4 points to 0.7 points. His lead in North Carolina has returned to last week’s levels, now at 1.4 points. Trump is also gaining ground in Arizona, where he leads Harris by 2.4 points, and in Georgia, where his advantage is 1.8 points.
What was Kamala Harris up to on Thursday?
The Harris campaign has zeroed in on what Trump said last night at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he told an anecdote about telling his team that he intends “to protect the women of our country”.
“I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not,” Trump said.
“It actually is, I think, very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” Harris said before embarking on a day of campaigning in the Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.
In Phoenix, Mexican American band Los Tigres del Norte kicked off Harris’s rally with a song expressing a desire to eliminate the border and unite the two countries. Founded in the 1960s, the band has a deep resonance on both sides of the border and continues to captivate generations of devoted fans.
In Phoenix, her speech was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters in the first 10 minutes.
Harris paused briefly to acknowledge them. “Hey guys, you know what? Here’s the thing – let’s talk for a moment about Gaza,” she said. “We all want this war to end and get the hostages out, and I will work on it full-time when I am elected president, as I’ve been.”
Harris also contrasted her willingness to engage with those who disagree with her against Trump’s remarks about jailing his opponents. This was mentioned as several protesters were being escorted out, and she said: “Democracy can be complicated sometimes. It’s OK. We’re fighting for the right for people to be heard and not jailed because they speak their mind.″
Since winning the Democratic nomination earlier this year, Harris has at times adopted a confrontational stance towards protesters.
When a group of protesters interrupted her at an August event by chanting, “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, we won’t vote for genocide,” Harris responded directly: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
On Thursday, during her final stop of the day in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jennifer Lopez also spoke, and there was a performance by the Mexican rock band Mana.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris walks on stage as she arrives for a rally in Reno, Nevada [AFP]
What was Donald Trump up to on Thursday?
At his first rally in New Mexico, Trump urged the crowd to vote for him, promising to solve the border issue. The state, with five Electoral College votes, is widely expected to vote for Harris.
“One of the reasons we will win this state is you have one of the worst border problems of any state, and I’m the only one who will fix it,” he said.
In Henderson, Nevada, Trump accused Harris of operating a lax border policy and promised a mass deportation programme if he is elected.
He began by demonising migrants, saying some are “horrible, deathly” people. He also called Harris “horrible, the worst there is”, while urging his supporters to vote early.
“We’ll fix it fast, and we’re going to have an America that’s bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than ever before,” he added.
In Nevada, many of his supporters wore orange and yellow safety vests.
The fashion choice comes a day after Trump wore a similar ensemble to draw attention to recent comments by President Joe Biden that suggested his supporters were “garbage”.
Trump walks in front of his supporters during a rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, in Albuquerque, New Mexico [Brendan McDermid/Reuters]
Al Jazeera’s John Holman, who attended the rally, noted that while Trump concentrated on migration, the primary concern for voters in Nevada is the economy.
“Trump’s rally had a lot of talk about migration, but actually, the key issue here in Nevada for voters – according to polls – is the economy,” Holman said.
“This is the state with the highest unemployment in the US. It’s been hit hard with inflation. Gas prices, in particular, are high, and it’s a state that has never completely recovered from the pandemic,” Holman added.
During his rally, Trump also spoke about inflation, and “he briefly said that he was going to abolish a federal tax on tips,” Holman said.
Trump also spoke at Tucker Carlson’s live tour event in Glendale, Arizona.
Trump speaks during a rally in Henderson, Nevada [Mike Blake/Reuters]
What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?
Harris heads to Wisconsin
Harris is heading to Wisconsin, where she is expected to hold an event in the Appleton area at approximately 23:00 GMT, followed by another in Milwaukee at about 02:00 GMT.
The Milwaukee rally and concert features performances by GloRilla, Flo Milli, MC Lyte, The Isley Brothers, DJ GEMINI GILLY.
Cardi B is also anticipated to make an appearance at her rally, joining a growing list of celebrities who have campaigned for her in the final days of the 2024 election.
President Joe Biden will travel to Philadelphia and, on Saturday, to his hometown of Scranton, both in Pennsylvania, where he will aim to energise voters in this key swing state.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is expected to also campaign in the battleground state of Michigan.
Trump heads to Michigan and Wisconsin
Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Dearborn, Michigan – home to the largest Arab-majority population in the nation – on Friday, where he is expected to hold a rally at Macomb Community College in Warren at 20:30 GMT.
As the Arab American vote in Michigan has increased over the years, it has become a critical factor in major elections, such as Bernie Sanders’s primary victory in the state in 2016.
Consequently, Dearborn has drawn significant attention from national and international media during campaign season.
Trump is the first major 2024 candidate to visit the city.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who served in the state legislature as a Democrat, has not endorsed any candidates, urging residents to “vote their conscience” instead.
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is facing outrage after former President Bill Clinton – while campaigning for her – suggested that Zionism predates Islam and that Hamas “forces” Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.
Dearborn, Michigan – Abdullah Hammoud was pacing across his office, having an animated phone conversation about former President Bill Clinton’s claim that Hamas “forces” Israel to kill Palestinian civilians.
By the time the mayor of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn sat down for an interview, he had shaken off the anger – at least on the surface.
Hammoud, 34, appeared clear-eyed about the future of the city known as the capital of Arab America and the way forward for its bereaved community amid Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon.
“There’s a blanket of grief that has just covered this community, and people are just trying to manage, obviously, amidst the entirety of the presidential election with the backdrop of a genocide, the war in Lebanon, the bombing in Yemen and so on,” Hammoud told Al Jazeera.
Hammoud, one of the most prominent Arab American elected officials in the United States who served in the State Legislature as a Democrat, has not endorsed any of the candidates, urging residents to “vote their conscience” instead.
In a close race, the tens of thousands of Arab voters in Dearborn – a city of 110,000 people – and across Michigan may prove crucial for the outcome of the election in the state and possibly the country.
That’s not lost on the candidates: on Friday, Trump is expected to visit Dearborn, and Harris has met Hammoud previously during the campaign, but not in Dearborn.
Hammoud stressed the need to come out and vote for the community to make its voice heard.
“In this moment in time, what is more important than anything else is standing firm in our values and our principles and standing firm on the side of one another in the city,” he said.
But for Hammoud, the struggle to end Israel’s killing machine in Gaza and Lebanon – the ancestral home of thousands of Dearborn residents, including the mayor himself – does not end when the polls close on November 5 and a new president is elected.
“Whoever assumes that office, we’re prepared to hold their feet to the fire and hold them to account,” he said. “Everybody’s promising a ceasefire, but nobody’s saying how they’re going to deliver it.”
‘Pressure will be turned up’
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has said she would push for ending the war and her Republican rival Donald Trump has promised “peace” in the Middle East.
But both the vice president and former president are staunch in their support for Israel.
Hammoud noted that the two candidates have not articulated how they would deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pledged repeatedly to continue the carnage until “total victory”.
“But the pressure will be turned up from our end. And we’ll be leaning on the broader antiwar coalition that has been built – our union labour leaders, who have all stepped forward and called for not only a ceasefire, but also an arms embargo against Israel,” the mayor said.
“Heck, even at this point, I’ll be leaning on young Republicans who favour an arms embargo.”
For Hammoud, change is possible regardless of the outcome of the election. “The policy is there. Americans, by the millions, support this,” he said.
“And what you’re not going to see is 50 million, 100 million Americans move on their values and principles. I think it’s feasible for us to believe that millions of Americans can move a single person in the White House on this issue.”
Dressed in a blue blazer over a white shirt, Hammoud hit out at both major candidates over their stance on the Middle East as well as their approach to the Arab community in Michigan.
In his office hung a map of Lebanon over a Yemeni dagger, a firefighter’s helmet, an American football with the Detroit Lions logo, the city’s seal – featuring an old car owing to the city’s manufacturing history as the hometown of industrial pioneer Henry Ford – as well as other items representing Dearborn’s history and diverse communities.
‘Policy outcomes aren’t dissimilar’
Hammoud enumerated some of Trump’s anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian policies, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off humanitarian aid to Palestinians and recognising Israel’s claimed sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights.
He also invoked Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries as well as recent comments by the former president’s surrogate Rudy Giuliani, who proclaimed that Palestinians are “taught to kill us” at two years old.
“But I think the difficulty is you want to counter Trump with something that seems to be more welcoming,” Hammoud said.
“And so when you see the remarks of former President Bill Clinton, talking about how Israel is forced to kill civilians, and how the Israeli government’s claim to the land predates the existence of Islam, it gets extremely frustrating.”
Clinton was addressing Arab American voters at an official Harris campaign event in Michigan when he made those comments this week.
Earlier this month, Harris also campaigned in Michigan with ex-Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney – the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq and the so-called “war on terror”.
“When you have surrogates like Liz Cheney campaigning across the state of Michigan, talking about how even Dick Cheney – the war criminal – is supporting Vice President Harris, is that supposed to be a welcoming message to this community?” Hammoud asked.
He also noted that the Biden-Harris administration did not reverse Trump’s pro-Israel policies.
“Yes, rhetoric may be different,” he said, referring to the approach of Harris and Trump. “Sometimes policy outcomes aren’t dissimilar, and I think that’s been the frustration for many.”
‘Hope exists’
With the race for Michigan heating up, attention is turning to Dearborn, the country’s first Arab-majority city.
Campaign billboards can be seen across the city. Residents are getting piles of advertisements in their mailboxes daily, focusing on Arab issues and Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon.
But residents do not appear to match the enthusiasm of the campaign. The city’s Arab American community, especially its large Lebanese American population, is dealing with the anguish of watching the war that is destroying their homeland from afar.
The conflict is deeply personal to them. Their families are being displaced, home villages decimated and loved ones killed by mostly US-supplied bombs. The community lost a respected leader, Kamel Jawad, who was killed in an Israeli bombing in south Lebanon on October 1.
“We’re attending funerals far more frequently than celebratory events,” Hammoud said.
Across the city, Lebanese and Palestinian flags and yard signs for school board candidates far outnumber those for Trump and Harris.
Despite voters’ frustration and the growing sense of disenchantment with the political system, Hammoud warned against disengaging from the political process, calling it a “great fear”.
The mayor highlighted the importance of elections, especially at the local level. He cited the election of officials like himself and other representatives, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who have amplified the community’s demands around the conflict.
He said while people are struggling with the presidential question, “hope exists” on the ground.
“There are rallies happening all across this world, and the centre of America has moved on Israel-Palestine, and the centre of the world has moved,” he said.
“I think we are one generation away from having a generation of elected leaders who will be more reflective of the policy stances and the values and the principles of the broader electorate.”
In Michigan, Trump then goes on to talk insultingly about President Joe Biden, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and representative Adam Schiff, the lead investigator in Trump’s first impeachment.
“Joe Biden in one of his crazy moments said that we were all garbage,” Trump remarked adding “They stole the election from a president,” in apparent reference to Biden’s dropping out of the campaign to be replaced by Harris.
The crowd cheers as Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP
He then says of Pelosi “she’s a crooked person … evil, sick, crazy b… oh no! It starts with a ‘b’ but I won’t say it! I wanna say it.”
He said of “Adam Shifty Schiff”: “He’s got the biggest head, he’s an unattractive guy both inside and out.”
Key events
After touting Joe Rogan’s endorsement of him, Trump has invited his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the co-chair of the National Republican Committee, to take the mic.
She says “we send a loud and clear message” to “the mainstream media” and “the swamp” among other people “that it is we who get to choose the president”.
She says it has been “a very special night for our family”, adding “it has been my honour to be a part of this family, to be out speaking on behalf of a man whom I love … who is going to save this country and is going to save the world.”
It’s approaching 2am in Michigan.
Trump has now called his family up to the stage, including his sons Eric and Donald Jr, Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos and Eric’s wife Lara, who is the co-chair of the National Republican Committee.
His daughter Ivanka Trump, who was a White House advisor to him during his first term, and his wife Melania, are notable by their absence.
Trump has given shoutouts to a list of people supporting him, including Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the ambassador to Germany during his time in office, Rick Grenell.
He goes into a story about former chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that when Grenell “was taken out it was the happiest day of her life”.
At one point he adds as an aside, “We can’t let them forget that we stopped that big Chinese plant in Mexico!” and “Let’s put it this way if they build it theyre going to lose their ass”. It wasn’t clear who or what plant he was referring to – see our earlier post.
The crowds are reportedly beginning to thin out at Trump’s rally in Michigan. He’s been talking for over an hour now.
As the clock ticked past 1am in Grand Rapids, the crowd at this final Trump rally began to thin. Trump has brought much more energy here than he did in Pittsburgh but it’s getting laaaate.
It’s 1.30am in Michigan and Trump has now moved back to talking about cutting energy prices and the cost of groceries again.
He tells a familiar story about an old woman going into a shop to buy three apples but only being able to afford two and having to put one back in the fridge (“refrigeration”). It’s not clear where or when this happened.
“That shouldn’t be happening in our country,” he says.
After some more insults hurled at Kamala Harris and California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump begins making further inflammatory remarks about immigration, accusing Harris of wanting open borders and of allowing an “invasion” of immigrants including those from “mental institutions”.
“The day I take office the migrant invasion ends,” he says, later adding that we “live in an occupied country”.
He also repeats his call for the death penalty for any illegal immigrant who kills and American citizen and his plan to ban sanctuary cities.
Trump talks briefly about groceries (“People say ‘groceries,’ right? I haven’t used tha … it’s such a sort of an old term.”)
Then he talks for a while about the attempt to assassinate him in Pennsylvania in July. He calls his survival a “miracle” and at one point mentions that “illegal immigration saved me” although I didn’t catch how.
He then moves into an anecdote about visiting Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom with Melania Trump. He says that the assassinated president suffered from “melancholia” and adds that: “He was very tall, he was six foot six, that’s the equivalent of a Barron Trump today … the bed was very long.”
After a few asides about Melania’s book, he returns to the theme of the attempt on his life.
Trump has returned to the theme of plants and Mexico, telling a convoluted story about a businessman friend and China’s intention to build a plant in Mexico which was going “to destroy Michigan”.
He says that his threats to “put a 100% tariff on every single car coming out of that plant” had led to a decision not to build the purported plant.
“I saved Detroit and Michigan a lot and I did that without even being president,” he claims.
It’s not clear what plant he’s referring to. Newsweek has previously reported after similar remarks he made at the end of last month that his campaign could not confirm what plant it was but that it appeared to be one planned by auto manufacturer BYD and that there was no evidence the claim was true.
Trump and Harris get three votes each as election kicks off in New Hampshire
Jonathan Yerushalmy
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have tied with three votes each in the tiny New Hampshire town which traditionally kicks off voting on election day.
Since the 1960’s, voters in Dixville Notch, located close to the border with Canada, have gathered just after midnight to cast their ballots. Votes are then counted and results announced – hours before other states even open their polls.
According to CNN, four Republicans and two undeclared voters participated took part in the vote just after midnight on Tuesday.
Town Moderator Tom Tillotson, left, accepts the first ballot from Les Otten during the midnight vote on Election Day in Dixville Notch, N.H. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP
Trump then launches into some familiar insults of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton of whom he says, “She called me and conceded [presumably eight years ago] and then spent seven years saying how she was a good sport.”
He calls Harris a “low IQ person” and then begins on a long story about Elon Musk and his rockets.
Trump insults opponents at final Michigan rally
In Michigan, Trump then goes on to talk insultingly about President Joe Biden, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and representative Adam Schiff, the lead investigator in Trump’s first impeachment.
“Joe Biden in one of his crazy moments said that we were all garbage,” Trump remarked adding “They stole the election from a president,” in apparent reference to Biden’s dropping out of the campaign to be replaced by Harris.
The crowd cheers as Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP
He then says of Pelosi “she’s a crooked person … evil, sick, crazy b… oh no! It starts with a ‘b’ but I won’t say it! I wanna say it.”
He said of “Adam Shifty Schiff”: “He’s got the biggest head, he’s an unattractive guy both inside and out.”
In Michigan, Trump claims to have done 930 rallies during his campaign, which I can’t confirm. Then he continues:
If you make one slip up and you know I wrote a beautiful speech I haven’t even gotten to it yet … rarely do they ever catch me making a mistake!
Those ellipses are covering for a series of meandering comments which included remarks on his use of teleprompters and the state of the country.
Trump starts his rally in Michigan apparently talking about his first election run, saying “we were given a three per cent chance” in Michigan and then begins a series of rambling remarks about Detroit, (“I’ve heard a lot about Detroit”) and adds “We killed the plant in Mexico”. It’s not clear what he was referring to.
He then moved on to immigration, saying the US was suffering the “invasion of some of the biggest criminals in the world… we’re going to end that immediately.”
“We don’t have to live this way,” he adds.
Then he moves on to Kamala Harris, mocking her and claiming, “Nobody knew who the hell she was.” He then made some more inflammatory comments about transgender people .
Photograph: Carlos Osorio/Reuters
Trump has finally arrived at his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, almost two and a half hours behind schedule.
Rachel Leingang
A few dozen conservative voters gathered at a Phoenix park to launch a canvass with Turning Point Action the night before the election, pulling up an app to get names and locations of voters they could talk to and convince to head to the polls.
Turning Point, the conservative youth organization, has run its “chase the vote” program in Arizona and Wisconsin to reach low propensity voters. Monday’s “super chase” canvass involved a data-driven approach to a part of town that the group says has right-leaning voters who haven’t yet turned in ballots.
“We actually modeled this program around a lot of what the Democrats have built in years prior,” said Andrew Kolvet, the group’s spokesman.
People from 47 states have come to Arizona and Wisconsin to volunteer with the group to turn out voters, Kolvet said. At the Phoenix park, teams of at least two – often wearing red Maga hats and toting clipboards – set off to knock some doors.
“The job is not to convince a swing voter necessarily, or to convince a Democrat to vote Republican,” Kolvet said. “These are people that we know are probably our people that just haven’t got their vote in.”
Registered Republicans have so far turned in more ballots than their Democratic counterparts in Arizona, a reversal of the last two cycles when Republicans trailed in early voting (though Republicans before 2020 often had a lead in early votes).
“We’re feeling as good as we could feel,” Kolvet said. “I’m not predicting victory. I’m just saying we have done the hard work and set the state up to have a really good day tomorrow. Anything could happen.”
Harris ends campaign ‘with energy, with joy’ at final rally in Philadelphia
Lauren Gambino
Dispatch from Philadelphia: Kamala Harris has run a remarkable 107-day presidential campaign, the shortest in modern political history.
It began on a Sunday morning with a call from the president saying he was stepping down. On election eve, hours before polls opened, she finished the final speech of a campaign she cast as a fight for American democracy.
But Harris has also sought to inject hope and optimism into her campaign.
“Tonight, then, we finish, as we started with optimism with energy, with joy,” she said.
“Generations before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands,” she said.
“We need to get to work and get out the vote,” she concluded.
US vice-president Kamala Harris (R) and US second gentleman Doug Emhoff. Photograph: Matthew Hatcher/AFP/Getty Images
Georgia poll worker arrested over bomb threat, prosecutors say
A Georgia poll worker was arrested on Monday on US charges that he sent a letter threatening to bomb election workers that he wrote to appear as if it came from a voter in the presidential election battleground state. Reuters reports:
Federal prosecutors said Nicholas Wimbish, 25, had been serving as a poll worker at the Jones County Elections Office in Gray, Georgia, on Oct. 16 when he got into a verbal altercation with a voter.
The next day, Wimbish mailed a letter to the county’s elections superintendent that was drafted to appear as if it came from that same voter, prosecutors said. The letter complained that Wimbish was a “closeted liberal election fraudster” who had been distracting voters in line to cast ballots, according to charging papers.
Authorities said the letter, signed by a “Jones county voter,” said Wimbish and others “should look over their shoulder” and warned that people would “learn a violent lesson about stealing our elections!”
Prosecutors said the letter ended with a handwritten note: “PS boom toy in early vote place, cigar burning, be safe.”
Wimbish was charged with mailing a bomb threat, conveying false information about a bomb threat, mailing a threatening letter, and making false statements to the FBI, prosecutors said. A lawyer for Wimbish could not be immediately identified.
Georgia is one of seven closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election match up between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Concerns about potential political violence have prompted officials to take a variety of measures to bolster security during and after Election Day.
