Kamala Harris courted supporters outraged by the Gaza war, while Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a remark about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign neared its conclusion.
With less than 36 hours until polls open on Election Day on Tuesday, the Democratic vice president and the Republican former president blitzed several swing states in an attempt to win over the final holdout.
Trump predicted a “landslide”, while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s on our side.”
The 2024 race is down to the wire, with more critical states functionally deadlocked at this stage than in any previous election. More than 77.6 million people have voted early, accounting for over half of all ballots cast in 2020.
With the time ticking, Harris, 60, spent the day in Michigan, where she risked losing the support of a 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has condemned the US handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza,” Harris said at the start of her speech at Michigan State University, noting that there were leaders of the community present.
‘Demonic’
But the rest of the speech was upbeat, with Harris spending more time on urging people to get out and vote than on attacks on Trump.
“We got two days to get this done,” she said.
Earlier, Harris quoted scripture in a majority-Black church in Detroit, Michigan and urging Americans to look beyond Trump.
“Let us turn the page and write the next chapter of our history,” she said.
On Sunday, Trump zigzagged through Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, the three most important swing states in the Electoral College system, which allocates weight to US states based on population.
The 78-year-old Trump, the oldest major party candidate in US history, heightened his increasingly gloomy tone by telling supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania, that he wouldn’t mind if journalists were shot.
When asked about his near-miss assassination attempt in July, he laughed and stated that if he was targeted again, “somebody would have to shoot through the fake news — and I don’t mind that so much.”
Trump referred to Democrats as “demonic” and, despite the lack of evidence of any significant election fraud thus far, stated that Democrats in Pennsylvania “are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing.”
Adding to fears that he would not accept a defeat in 2024, Trump added that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he lost his 2020 reelection effort to Joe Biden.
RFK Jr Controversy
Meanwhile, in Macon, Georgia, Trump stated that he had requested vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who quit his own presidential campaign to back Trump, to focus on “women’s health” and “pesticides.”
His remarks come a day after Kennedy sparked outrage by stating that a Trump administration would require US water utilities to remove fluoride from public water sources.
Later, in a rambling address in Kinston, North Carolina, Trump declared, “We’re going to have a landslide on Tuesday that’s too big to rig.”
However, polls suggest that the outcome will be historically close.
A final New York Times/Siena survey released on Sunday revealed minor changes in swing states, but all seven findings remained within the margin of error.
Harris got a boost Saturday as the final Des Moines Register poll for Iowa — seen as a highly credible test of wider public sentiment — showed a stunning turnaround, with Harris ahead in a state won easily by Trump in 2016 and 2020.
In the last hours, both candidates are desperately trying to shore up their bases, and win over any undecided voters.
Pollsters have noted an erosion in Black support for Harris.
But with abortion rights a top voter concern, her campaign has hailed the large proportion of women turning out among early voters.