Trump, Harris campaigns race to get vote out on US election eve

By Muhammad JuniadPublished On 04 Nov 2024

Even after the astonishing blur of events the last few months, the electorate is divided down the middle, both nationally and in the seven battleground states expected to decide the winner on Tuesday, although the closeness of the contest means it could take days for a winner to emerge.

Donald Trump, a 78-year-old Republican, survived two assassination attempts, one by millimeters, just weeks after a jury in New York – the city whose tabloids first elevated him to national fame and notoriety – made him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony. Kamala Harris, 60, was catapulted to the top of the Democratic ticket in July – giving her a chance to become the first woman to hold the world’s most powerful job – after President Joe Biden, 81, had a disastrous debate performance and three weeks later dropped his reelection bid under pressure from his party.

For all of that turmoil, the contours of the race have changed little. Polls show Harris and Trump running neck and neck nationally and in the battleground states.More than 77 million voters have already cast ballots, but the next two days will provide a critical test of whether Vice President Harris’ or former President Donald Trump’s campaign does the better job of driving supporters to the polls.

Voters, both Democrats and Republicans, have broken century-old records in the last two presidential elections, a sign of the passion that Trump stirs in both political parties.

In the final days of this campaign, both sides are flooding social media sites and TV and radio stations with a last round of ad campaigns, and racing to knock on doors and make calls.

Harris’ campaign team believes the sheer size of its voter mobilization efforts is making a difference and says its volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in each of the battleground states this weekend.”We are feeling very good about where we are right now,” campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters.