Kamala Harris and Donald Trump duelled across the swing states on the final weekend of the tensest US election of modern times, with the Democrat urging voters to “turn the page” on the Republican’s scorched-earth brand of politics.
Seventy-five million people have already cast early ballots as the hours tick down to the Election Day climax Tuesday.
The country – and the world – could then face a nail-biting wait to know whether Ms Harris becomes the first US woman president or Mr Trump secures a spectacular return to power after his unprecedented and at times violent campaign to overturn his 2020 re-election loss to Joe Biden.
The rivals literally crossed paths yesterday, with Ms Harris’s official vice-presidential Air Force Two and Mr Trump’s personal jet sharing the airport tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Both held rallies in North Carolina, while Ms Harris also spoke to supporters in Georgia, another of the seven swing states seen as the keys to victory in an otherwise dead-even nationwide contest. Mr Trump added in a stop in Virginia.
The rounds of high-stakes speeches before thousands of people at each stop continue Sunday when Ms Harris holds multiple events in the swing state of Michigan and Mr Trump rallies with supporters in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Most polls show Mr Trump, 78, and Ms Harris, 60, within the margin of error from each other across the swing states.
However, there was a surprise boost for Ms Harris when one of the most respected pollsters in the country dropped a new survey in the Des Moines Register that shows the Democrat three points ahead of Mr Trump in Iowa – a state he won easily both in his victorious 2016 presidential campaign and again in his narrow 2020 defeat.
Reflecting Ms Harris’s drive to hit every possible target before Tuesday, her plane unexpectedly took a detour to New York for an appearance on the legendary Saturday Night Live television comedy show.
“Keep Calm-ala and carry on-ala,” Ms Harris said in unison with the actor who plays her on the show, Maya Rudolph.
It was Ms Harris’ first time on the show, which has had other presidential candidates over its decades-long run.
Women and dark rhetoric
For Ms Harris, a key electorate is women voters angered over the ruling by justices appointed by then-president Trump to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, ending a decades-long constitutional right to abortion.
“Donald Trump’s not done. He will ban abortion nationwide,” Ms Harris said in Atlanta, Georgia.
She painted Mr Trump as “increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge” and “out for unchecked power.”
“We have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump who spends full time trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” she said.
Mr Trump, stirring up his right-wing base, continued to deliver increasingly dark rhetoric.
In Salem, Virginia, he began his speech by saying “I’ve come today with a message of hope for all.”
But he was soon back to conjuring the apocalyptic vision he had laid out hours earlier in North Carolina.
Calling his opponent “low IQ” and “stupid,” he said Ms Harris would usher in an economic “depression,” asking the crowd: “Do you want to lose your job and maybe your house and pension?”
Earlier, he warned women that without him in the White House, violent criminals would threaten them in their homes.
Mr Trump has worked hard to appeal to men, appearing on podcasts with martial artists, spending time in barbershops and meeting with crypto entrepreneurs. With Ms Harris getting a surge in support from women, some predict a dramatic gender gap in the results.
Thousands demonstrated yesterday in central Washington for a Women’s March.
Sheridan Steelman, a 74-year-old part-time English teacher, said she had previously been on the sidelines but was voting now for Ms Harris.
“There’s too much at stake,” she said, noting her worries over reproductive health issues but also “being ignored and silenced.”
Election conspiracy theory
Mr Trump refuses to say whether he would accept a loss, sparking fears of unrest.
Businesses in the US capital have begun boarding up storefronts as city authorities warn of a “fluid, unpredictable security environment.”
Mr Trump is already alleging fraud and cheating in swing states such as Pennsylvania, much as he did in 2020 ahead of his unprecedented attempt to overturn the election, culminating in the attack by followers on the US Capitol.
On Saturday he claimed he could win in Virginia, despite no polls indicating this, and said even heavily Democratic California would vote for him “if we had an honest election.”
The candidates’ frantic schedules will run right into Monday, culminating with late-night rallies – in Grand Rapids, Michigan for Mr Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for Ms Harris.