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Election Day 2024 arrived Tuesday — with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. The early turnout in Georgia, which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections, has been so robust — over 4 million voters — that a top official in the secretary of state’s office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls. As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote. Despite long lines in some places and a few hiccups that are common to all elections, early in-person and mail voting proceeded without any major problems.That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said. Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.” Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible. The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day. He has mischaracterized an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The investigation is into registration applications; there is no indication that ballots are involved. In Georgia, Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day, votes that are allowed under state law. A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekend. Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive. One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot. This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.” Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden’s win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year. Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements. On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted. Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same. Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass. While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states. On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast. Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections. “This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”

Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly delivered a fiery speech supporting Donald Trump during an event billed as his “closing message” on Monday night, a full-circle moment after the former president and the onetime Fox News star feuded bitterly during Trump's 2016 campaign. Invited to the stage in Pittsburgh, Kelly defended Trump against recent controversies, including his repeated pledge to be the “protector” of women, and pressed his case on border security and his opposition to transgender athletes participating in sports. “He got mocked by the left by saying he would be a protector of women,” Kelly said. “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 stood to the side, grinning and beaming, as he listened to the commentator he once called “nasty.” Afterward, she posted a selfie with the former president on X that was captioned in part: "God bless him. Go vote for him!" Kelly was a popular Fox News host in 2016 when she questioned Trump during the first debate of the Republican primary about whether he had the temperament to be president. Trump largely dismissed Kelly’s question at the debate, but later he went directly after her, first overnight on Twitter and later in interviews. “She’s not very tough and not very sharp,” Trump told CNN in a phone interview. “I don’t respect her as a journalist.” Referring to Kelly’s questions during the debate, Trump said, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” The comment was widely viewed as a sexist reference to menstruation. Trump later boycotted another debate on Fox because Kelly was one of the moderators. Kelly left Fox for NBC News. She was taken off the air following an uproar when she suggested it was OK for white people to wear blackface on Halloween. She now hosts a SiriusXM satellite radio show that she has built into one of the highest-ranked on Chartable’s list of news podcasts. “All that nonsense between us,” Kelly said last year, “is under the bridge.” Kelly’s appearance with Trump comes as early voting suggests a gender gap that favors Democrat Kamala Harris. Kelly was critical of some of the speakers who delivered crude and racist comments at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last month. One suggested that Harris, who is vying to become the first woman, Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be elected president, began her career as a prostitute. The speakers, Kelly said, “took what was an amazing celebration of Trump, exciting and well-attended and hugely enthusiastic, and gave themselves a big black eye.”

Donald Trump has spent nearly a decade bragging about his crowds. Lately, he’s been making the same boasts to swaths of empty seats. In his third presidential bid, Trump for the first time is facing an opponent who stages her own massive rallies, calling further attention to the fact that his crowds, however enthusiastic they are, sometimes have failed to fill large venues and often thinned out as he spoke. In North Carolina this weekend, the former president and Republican nominee spoke at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, where the lower level of the 22,000-seat arena remained unfilled, with the upper level blocked off altogether. “We've had the biggest rallies in history of any country. Every rally's full," he falsely claimed anyway. “You don't have any seats that are empty.” He began Monday, the eve of the election, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a late-arriving crowd came close to filling the venue but left a smattering of empty seats. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump took the stage in Santander Arena, where there were sections of empty seats in the 7,200-seat arena. The campaign hung a large American flag near the back of the arena, blocking the view of several seating sections that remained unfilled. He then went to PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, where the upper level seating was again blocked off. The former president’s crowds still routinely number in the thousands and they roared regularly as he spoke. And his supporters this year remain engaged enough that his final event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was inside a packed arena even though it started after 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, nearly two hours late. Some rallygoers told a reporter they arrived at 7 a.m. the day before. But the occasional scenes of empty seats offered a notable contrast to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' biggest events this fall — and to the volume and vibe of Trump's crowds eight years ago when he sought and won the presidency for the first time. To be sure, crowd sizes aren't necessarily predictive of electoral outcomes. Still, Trump has been drawing smaller crowds in the closing stretch of the campaign than he did in previous races, especially his first campaign, when his mass events became a political phenomenon. Trump’s crowds this fall also have often thinned out as the former president’s long stump speeches extend into their second hour. People routinely leave while he's speaking, sometimes in droves, after waiting several hours for a spot. There are reasons why some might be fatigued. Trump has been returning again and again to the same battleground states, sometimes speaking in the same places and even the same venues. Trump’s smaller Greensboro crowd, for example, came eight days after he had campaigned in the same city. He also often runs late, starting three hours behind recently in Traverse City, Michigan, after taping an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. But whatever the explanation, the former reality television star and consummate showman clearly remains invested in the performative aspect of presidential politics and obviously concerned that Harris, unlike Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020, can match and even exceed his signature campaign tactic. Harris, for example, recently filled the large coliseum in Greensboro. Democrats have embraced the dynamics as a way to get under Trump’s skin. Former President Barack Obama, the last national figure before Trump and Harris to make mass rallies a key part of his campaigns, noted Trump’s “weird obsession” with crowd size during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Obama added mocking hand gestures about size that evoked Trump's own comments during his first campaign on hand sizes and his implication that they reflected his manhood. Harris invoked crowd sizes during her lone debate against Trump, one of many times that she knocked the former president off course during their 90-minute exchange. She urged people to attend Trump's rallies as a way of understanding his time had passed. Trump on Monday night in Pittsburgh directed barbs toward Beyoncé’s appearance at a recent Harris rally that drew more than 30,000 people. The megastar introduced Harris in Houston but did not perform. Harris has campaigned with a bevy of celebrities and pop stars in the campaign's final days, ending with a Philadelphia rally featuring Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga. The star of Trump's show, meanwhile, remains the former president. In recent days, he's shown a wistful side both about the rallies and the crowds coming to see him — however big they really are. “I have one left,” he said in Pittsburgh, wistfully looking ahead to his late-night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And remember, the rallies are the most exciting thing. They’ll never be rallies like this. This is never going to happen again.” —— Barrow reported from Washington. Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix and Joey Cappelletti in Grand Rapids, Michigan contributed to this report.

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 push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day. Kamala Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. The vice president and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas including Allentown and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. About 77 million Americans already have voted early, but Harris and Trump are pushing to turn out many millions more supporters on Tuesday. Either result on Election Day will yield a historic outcome. A Trump victory would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become the second president in history to win non-consecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century. Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office, four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command. Harris goes to church while Trump muses about reporters being shot The vice president ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden's disastrous performance in a June debate set into motion his withdrawing from the race. That was just one of a series of convulsions that have hit this year's campaign. Trump survived by millimeters a would-be assassin's bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service detail foiled a second attempt in September when a gunman had set up a rifle as Trump golfed at one of his courses in Florida. Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of her candidacy, which materialized only after the 81-year-old president ended his reelection bid after his June debate against the 78-year-old Trump accentuated questions about Biden's age. Instead, Harris has pitched herself as a generational change, emphasized her support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court's 2022 decision ending the constitutional right to abortion services, and regularly noted the former president's role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and late in the campaign even embraced the critique that Trump is accurately described as a “fascist.” Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump. She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign's opening days when she embraced “the politics of joy” and the campaign theme “Freedom.” “From the very start, our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,” Harris said Sunday evening at Michigan State University. Trump, renewing his “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans, has made his hard-line approach to immigration and withering criticisms of Harris and Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration. He's hammered Democrats for an inflationary economy, and he's pledged to lead an economic “golden age,” end international conflicts and seal the U.S. southern border. But Trump also has veered often into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Biden's victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a “failed nation.” As recently as Sunday, he renewed his false claims that U.S. elections are rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn't have left” the White House in 2021 — dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.” Trump talks about reporters being shot and says he shouldn’t have left White House after 2020 loss The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map. Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020. Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure. This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters — and knocked on more than 3 million doors across the battleground states. Still, Harris aides have insisted she remains the underdog. Trump's team has projected confidence, as well, arguing that the former president's populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. The idea is that Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional GOP blocks — notably college-educated voters — become more Democratic.

Donald Trump delivered a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, talking about reporters being shot and suggesting he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. In remarks Sunday that bore little resemblance to the speech he’s been delivering at his recent rallies, the former president repeatedly cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and resurrected old grievances after trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump intensified his verbal attacks on what he cast as a “demonic” Democratic Party and the American media, steering his rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at one point to the topic of violence against members of the press. He noted the ballistic glass that is used to protect him at outdoor events after a gunman’s assassination attempt in July and pointed to openings between the panels. “I have this piece of glass here,” he said. “But all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.” It was the second time in recent days that Trump has talked about guns being pointed at people he considers enemies. He suggested former Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic, wouldn’t be willing to support foreign wars if she had “nine barrels shooting at her.” Facing criticism for suggesting violence against the media, Trump’s campaign later played down his comments. “The President’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. Instead he claimed that Trump was suggesting that reporters were in “great danger themselves, and should have had a glass protective shield, also. There can be no other interpretation of what was said. He was actually looking out for their welfare, far more than his own!” Trump wants to narrow his deficit with women but he's not changing how he talks about them Trump also revived falsehoods about elections and argued that he can only lose to Democrat Kamala Harris if he is cheated, even though polls suggest a very tight race. “It’s a crooked country,” Trump railed to his crowd on a chilly airport tarmac, returning to the grievance that had defined the early days of his campaign. “They’ll want to put you in jail because you want to make it straight. Think of it, think of it. They cheat in elections and you call them on it and they want to put you in jail.” Trump was indicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in both Washington and Georgia. Some of his allies, notably former chief strategist Steve Bannon, have encouraged Trump to prematurely declare victory on Tuesday night after polls close even if the race is too early to call. That’s what Trump did four years ago, kicking off months of denial and lies that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. For much of this year, Trump had run a relatively disciplined campaign, emphasizing the issues his aides believe can deliver him victory, even as he clung to false theories about voter fraud and frequently went on digressions, stirring controversy. But that discipline is increasingly collapsing. Trump in recent weeks has joked about golfer Arnold Palmer’s genitalia, continued using gendered or sexist language in his efforts to win over women and staged a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden with speakers who made crude and racist insults that continue to dominate the headlines. The darker and more profane tone of his campaign has comes as the former president, who has long been a fan of the masculine pageantry of the WWE, has been entering his rallies to the ominous tolling bell music once used by the wrestler known as “The Undertaker.” Trump had nonetheless been delivering what was a fairly consistent stump speech most days, aided by a series of videos that kept him on script, even as he veered from subject to subject in a discursive style he has labeled “the weave.” But outside the Lancaster airport, he completely abandoned his planned remarks, skipping his usual points on the economy, immigration and rote criticisms of Harris. Harris goes to church while Trump muses about reporters being shot Trump’s remarks in Pennsylvania were not planned according to a person familiar with them, who noted Trump is known to ad-lib. While it was unclear exactly what had set Trump off, his campaign had released a memo earlier in the day criticizing new polling from The New York Times again showing the race extremely close in the seven major swing states. Trump had spoken by phone before he took the stage with two reporters who had mentioned polling, including one who had asked him if he thought there was any way he could lose. Trump has been frustrated that the campaign remains locked in a close fight to the finish. He thinks Harris is an unworthy opponent and he cannot understand why he isn’t dominating, said one Republican familiar with the dynamics of the campaign who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss it. Another Republican blamed last-minute anxiety -- and Trump having to trust a system that he believes is rigged against him. Still, several Trump allies applauded his speech, saying that they were glad he was shining a light on concerns about fraud in the race’s final stretch. Harris pushed back at Trump’s characterizations of U.S. elections, telling reporters on Sunday that Trump’s comments are “meant to distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.” Those “good systems” were in place in 2020, Harris said, and “he lost.” The vice president said she trusts the upcoming vote tally and urged voters, “in particular people who have not yet voted to not fall for this tactic, which I think includes suggesting to people that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Trump, for his part, acknowledged that he was sidestepping his usual approach with his conspiratorial speech. He repeatedly talked about disregarding the advice of his aides, repeating their feedback in a mocking voice and insisting that he had to talk about election fraud despite their objections. In his next appearance a few hours later at an airport in Kinston, North Carolina, Trump returned to much of his usual script, alternating between prepared remarks and familiar stories. At one point, he said, “hopefully, we get rid of Mitch McConnell pretty soon,” undercutting the Senate Republican leader who endorsed Trump earlier this year despite blaming him for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. “Can you believe he endorsed me?” Trump added a minute later with a laugh. “That must have been a painful day in his life.” He took the stage a third time Sunday night in Macon, Georgia, sticking more closely to his prepared remarks and focusing heavily on immigration. Trump told his supporters that in two days, they were going to “save our country” and that they were “on the verge of the four greatest years in American history.” “You watch. It’s going to be so good. It’s going to be so much fun. It’ll be nasty a little bit at times, and maybe at the beginning, in particular,” he said. “But it’s going to be something.”

Donald Trump says he will be the “protector” of women, whether they like it or not. He’s campaigned with men who use sexist and crude language. He's expressed alarm at the idea that wives might vote differently from their husbands. And the former Republican president has suggested that Democrat Kamala Harris, who is trying to become the first woman to win the White House, would get “overwhelmed” and “melt down” facing male authoritarian leaders he considers tough. In the final days of his campaign, Trump has stuck to a gendered worldview that his critics consider dated and paternalistic, even as he acknowledges that some of that language has gotten him “into so much trouble” with a crucial group of voters. Trump and some of his most prominent allies have peddled outright sexism. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, at an event with the Republican presidential nominee, likened Trump to an angry father providing tough love to a “bad little girl” who, as Carlson put it, was "in need of a vigorous spanking.” Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, which is playing a key role in the campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation, has said that any man who votes against Trump is “not a man.” Kirk also has said wives who covertly vote for Harris “undermine their husbands” — describing a man “who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go and have a nice life and provide to the family.” On Saturday night, Trump laughed along with a crude joke about Harris, nearly a week after a speaker at his Madison Square Garden rally suggested the vice president was like a prostitute controlled by “pimp handlers.” As Trump repeated his claim, made without evidence, that Harris lied about working at McDonalds in her youth, someone in the crowd yelled, “She worked on the corner.” Trump laughed, looked around and pointed toward a section of the crowd. “This place is amazing,” he said to cheers. “Just remember, it’s other people saying it. It’s not me.” Trump has faced a persistent gender gap since Harris entered the race in July. Women are far more likely to say they’re supporting Harris than Trump — by a double-digit margin in some surveys. That could be enough to prove decisive in what both sides expect to be an extremely close race that ends Tuesday. Women generally vote at higher rates than men. In 2020, they made up 53% of the electorate, according to AP VoteCast. Among the nearly 67.2 million Americans who have already voted, about 53% are women, versus 44% men, according to TargetSmart, a political data firm. “This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they’ve got going,” said Nikki Haley, who competed with Trump for the GOP nomination this year, in a recent Fox News interview. “Women will vote. They care about how they’re being talked to. And they care about the issues.” Trump has not campaigned with Haley, who was U.N. ambassador during his administration, despite her offers to appear with him. Trump has been aggressively courting men. Trump's team has spent months trying to reach younger men, in particular, with a series of interviews on popular male-centric podcasts and appearances at football games and mixed martial arts fights. His campaign has been dominated by machismo, evident for example when former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt as he took the stage at the Republican National Convention and later at the Madison Square Garden rally. The song “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” often plays at Trump's events. Trump was always expected to face challenges with women this year after nominating three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion and ushering in a wave of restrictions across Republican-led states. But his efforts to win women back have often landed flat. Speaking Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, at his first of nearly a dozen rallies during the race’s final weekend, Trump acknowledged the blowback he has received for saying that, as president, he would “protect” women. He continued, nonetheless, to repeat the line as he insisted women love him and that he was right. “I believe that women have to be protected. Men have to be, children, everybody. But women have to be protected where they’re at home in suburbia,” he said. “When you’re home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and he’s got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you’d rather have Trump.” Trump’s campaign believes his focus on crime and illegal immigration will help him win over "security moms.” At his rallies, he has featured the stories of mothers whose children were killed by people in the country who are in the United States illegally. That includes Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, was killed by two suspected Venezuelan gang members. The campaign also believes that Trump's frequent denunciation of transgender rights holds sway. In Salem, Virginia, on Saturday, Trump brought to the stage female athletes from Roanoke College, where a transgender woman had asked and then withdrew her request to join the women’s swimming team. In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s approach. "Women deserve a President who will secure our nation’s borders, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families thrive – and that’s exactly what President Trump will do,” she said. Several attendees at his rallies said they welcome Trump’s promise to be a “protector.” “I want protection. I mean, we all do, right? We don’t want to feel like we’re not protected,” said Kim Saunders, 52, a small-business owner who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. “It’s that scary feeling. So for me, it makes me feel really good to have someone protect me and a man protect me.” She said she could not understand why women would support Harris, but thinks men are drawn to Trump because “he is that alpha male. And for me, I love the alpha male. I grew up with a dad that was an alpha male.” Harris, meanwhile, has seized on Trump’s remarks, highlighting them in speeches and online. The vice president has tried to address her own side of the gender gap, appearing on podcasts and doing interviews particularly geared toward Black men, a traditionally Democratic constituency where Trump appears to be making inroads. She was asked in an interview with CNN on Saturday whether she believes women will make the difference in this election. “I believe all Americans are going to make the difference. And I intend to be a president for all Americans,” she said. Trump has pushed back on a suggestion by top Harris surrogate Mark Cuban that Trump does not surround himself with strong, intelligent women. Trump notes that he hired women to lead his 2016 and 2024 campaigns. But as he has tried to undercut Harris, who is the first woman to be elected vice president, Trump has repeatedly turned to gendered language. “She certainly can’t handle (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, President Xi of China. She will get overwhelmed, melt down and millions of people will die,” he said Saturday. On Saturday night, he repeated his claim that he is the “father of fertilization,” awkwardly and falsely taking credit for a fertility procedure that was briefly outlawed in Alabama by a state Supreme Court ruling due to the overturning of Roe. And at recent rallies, Trump, who was found liable for sexual abuse and has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct, has noted female supporters in the audience and mused about how he cannot call them beautiful anymore. “You have to be very careful. Everything you say. You know, like there’s some women that are very beautiful in the audience. I would never say that,” Trump said. “If I said they were beautiful, that’s the end of my political career.”

Outside the major international sporting events, i.e. the Olympics and the football World Cup, the US presidential election may well lay claim to being the greatest show on Earth. Every four years, it captures the world’s attention (sometimes even its imagination, although that is becoming increasingly rare) unlike any other electoral race, and due to the particulars of the election calendar, we can now see it more or less dominate the news agenda for the entire year in which the election is held. When the race is as close as the one this year between Donald Trump, representing the Republican party on the ticket for the third time in a row, and vice president Kamala Harris, representing the Democrats, it makes for an even more engrossing contest. Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the country to rally voters in the states that matter most. They’re trying — with varying degrees of success — to stay focused on a clear and concise closing message. At the same time, each side is investing massive resources to drive up turnout for the final early voting period. And in these critical days, the flow of misinformation is intensifying. This time, the results on Election Day will come down to seven ‘battleground states’: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270. Nate Silver, the polling guru, writing in the New York Times, said that in an election where the seven battleground states are all polling within a percentage point or two, “50-50 is the only responsible forecast”. That is how close it is this time. With the US handling of the Israel-Hamas war and conflict in the Middle East looming over the White House race this time, many American Muslim voters — most of whom backed President Joe Biden four years ago — have been wrestling with who to cast their vote for this time. Read: When polls close in battleground states on Election Day After US support for Israel left many of them feeling outraged and ignored, some seek a rebuff of the Democrats, including by favouring third-party options for president. Others grapple with how to express their anger through the ballot box amid warnings by some against another Trump presidency. For voters in swing states like Georgia, which Biden won in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, the weight of such decisions can be amplified. In 2020, among Muslim voters nationally, about two-thirds supported Biden and about one-third supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast. That Biden support has left many feeling betrayed or even guilty. The reasons behind what is essentially a choice for the American electorate becoming a global hot button issue every four years, with stakeholders seemingly spread in every corner of the world, are many-faceted. What is common among them all is that they each derive from the US hegemony that still prevails in the world today. That means as the world’s most powerful nation, which is only one component of its hegemony, America is uniquely placed to involve itself in global hotspots, and frequently does so. As the world’s richest nation, or at least its biggest economy, the number of people looking in its direction for reasons of trade alone far outnumber any other nation. The occupant of the White House is often described as ‘the leader of the free world’, positioning itself as the world’s leading democracy, as well as its leading defender of democracies. This of course has also extended, controversially, to propagating democracy in other parts of the world, even at the barrel of a gun, with the overall record being mixed at best. Last but by no means least, the cultural hegemony or ‘soft power’ that America established over the course of the 20th century means that events in the American cultural or political calendar attract global interest. Having said that, what is also not deniable is that the gap between America and the rest of the world has been closing, with a new, multipolar order set to emerge on the horizon. US hegemony persisted through the bipolar era that emerged in the aftermath of World War II, and lasted till the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The unipolar era that followed has completely flipped the script in its manifestation, heralding a world of democratic backsliding, and capitalism beset by crises. Accordingly, despite its leading position, US power and influence around the world today are in relative decline. Read more: Harris and Trump focus on Sunbelt states during final weekend push for votes Throughout 2023, and in fact going back further, we saw the Biden administration deploy all the levers at its disposal, to impress upon the now deposed Awami League government that it needed to deliver a free-and-fair election, and by doing so return the country to the path of democracy. But in a sign of America’s relatively diminished stature, the government here was able to successfully resist these attempts and hold another farcical vote on January 7. One of the most salient features of the interim government in Dhaka is the almost unanimous show of support it has received from Western governments, particularly Washington. Yet a nagging concern among Bangladeshis has been whether a changeover in Washington may occasion a change in their Bangladesh policy as well. A tweet by Trump on Thursday, incorporating Indian talking points about the situation here, probably serves as the strongest indication yet, that such an expectation is not at all unfounded. But in choosing how to react to it, the IG will do well to also remember the limits on American power in this day and age. And instead of wedding itself to the result one way or another, the IG must forge ahead with its resolve undiminished.  

Kamala Harris told a Michigan church on Sunday that God offers America a “divine plan strong enough to heal division,” while Donald Trump gave a profane and conspiracy-laden speech in which he mused about reporters being shot and labeled Democrats as “demonic.” The two major candidates took starkly different tones on the final Sunday of the campaign. Less than 48 hours before Election Day, Harris, the Democratic vice president, argued that Tuesday's election offers voters the chance to reject “chaos, fear and hate,” while Trump, the Republican former president, repeated lies about voter fraud to try to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and suggested that the country was falling apart without him in office. Harris was concentrating her Sunday in Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, a reflection of how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states. When polls close in battleground states on Election Day “I see faith in action in remarkable ways,” she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. “I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.” She never mentioned Trump, though she’s certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that “there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos.” The election and “this moment in our nation,” she continued, “has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.” Harris finished her remarks in about 11 minutes — starting and ending during Trump's roughly 90-minute speech at a chilly outdoor rally at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, airport. Trump usually veers from subject to subject, a discursive style he has labeled “the weave.” But in Lancaster, he went on long tangents and hardly mentioned his usual points on the economy, immigration and rote criticisms of Harris. Harris and Trump focus on Sunbelt states during final weekend push for votes Instead, Trump relaunched criticisms of voting procedures across the nation and his own staff. He resurrected grievances about being prosecuted after trying to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, suggesting at one point that he “shouldn't have left” the White House. And he intensified his attacks of a “grossly incompetent” national leadership and U.S media, at one point musing about violence against members of the press. He noted the ballistic glass placed in front of him at events after a gunman nearly assassinated him at a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and talked about places where he saw openings. “I have this piece of glass here,” he said. “But all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.” His campaign later sought to clarify his meaning. Trump is using election lies to lay the groundwork for challenging 2024 results if he loses “President Trump was brilliantly talking about the two assassination attempts on his own life, including one that came within 1/4 of an inch from killing him, something that the Media constantly talks and jokes about,” campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. “The President’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else.” Trump also referred to John Bolton, his former national security adviser and now a strident critic, as a “dumb son of a b—.” And he repeated familiar and debunked theories about voter fraud, alleging that Democrats could only win by cheating. Public polls indicate a tight and competitive race between him and Harris. “It’s a crooked country," Trump said. “And we’re going to make it straight. We’re going to make it straight.” Trump acknowledged that he was sidestepping his usual approach. He repeatedly mentioned how he disregarded the advice of his aides, telling their side of the story in a mocking voice. Harris promises to 'represent all Americans' after Biden's remark on Trump supporters and 'garbage' Co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, long credited with bringing order to Trump's often-chaotic political operation, watched the former president silently from off stage. Trump at one point suggested that he wouldn’t deliver this version of his speech again: “I hope you’ve enjoyed this,” he said, “because I’m only doing this one time.”  

The results on Election Day will come down to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270.It will be a game of hopscotch to keep up with key times in each of the states, which stretch across four different time zones. Harris and Trump focus on Sunbelt states during final weekend push for votes A look at the Election Day timeline across the seven, with all listings in Eastern Standard Time: Arizona Polls open at 8 a.m. in Arizona, which Joe Biden carried in 2020 by 0.3%. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Polls will close at 9 p.m.Arizona does not release votes until all precincts have reported or one hour after all polls are closed, whichever is first.In 2020, The Associated Press first reported Arizona results at 10:02 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, Election Day, and declared Biden the winner at 2:51 a.m. ET on Nov. 4. Georgia Polls open at 7 a.m. in Georgia, which played a key role in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat in a White House race to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, defeating Trump by less than one-quarter of a percentage point, a margin of 11,779 votes.Since then, Trump’s efforts to overturn those results have been at the heart of a criminal case in Fulton County. It is on hold while his legal team pursues a pretrial appeal to have District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case and the indictment tossed. The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear those arguments after the election.Georgia's polls close at 7 p.m.In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia results at 7:20 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the state's winner at 7:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 19, more than two weeks after Election Day. Michigan Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Michigan, one of the “blue wall” states that went narrowly for Trump in 2016 after almost 30 years of voting for Democratic candidates. Biden won it back four years later. His margin was about 154,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million votes.Michigan covers two time zones, but polls in most of the state close at 8 p.m. ET, with the rest at 9 p.m. ET.In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 5:58 p.m. ET on Nov. 4. Trump is using election lies to lay the groundwork for challenging 2024 results if he loses Nevada Polls open at 10 a.m. ET in Nevada, the smallest electoral vote prize of the battlegrounds. But it has one of the best track records as a presidential bellwether. The candidate who won Nevada has gone on to win the White House in 27 of the past 30 presidential elections.Polls close at 10 p.m. ET. The state doesn’t release results until the last person in line has voted, so there’s usually been a wait between poll close and the first results.In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada results at 11:41 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 12:13 p.m. ET on Nov. 7. North Carolina Polls open at 6:30 a.m. ET in North Carolina, which has been carried by Democrats only two times in presidential elections since 1968. But the state has stayed competitive for both major parties. Trump’s 2020 victory in North Carolina, by about 1 percentage point, was his smallest winning margin in any state.Polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET.In 2020, the AP first reported results at 7:42 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Trump the winner at 3:49 p.m. ET on Nov. 13. Pennsylvania Polls open at 7 a.m. ET in Pennsylvania, another “blue wall" state. Biden’s 2020 margin in Pennsylvania was about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes. This year, it's the spot where Harris and Trump met for the first time at their sole debate in September in Philadelphia.Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in a state with more electoral votes, 19, than any of the battlegrounds.In 2020, the AP first reported results at 8:09 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 11:25 a.m. ET on Nov. 7. Biden suggests Trump supporters are 'garbage' after comic's insult of Puerto Rico Wisconsin Polls open at 8 a.m. ET in Wisconsin, the third “blue wall” state in this group. Wisconsin is no stranger to close elections; the margin of victory in the state was less than 1 percentage point in 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000.Polls close at 9 p.m. ET. In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin results at 9:07 p.m. ET on Nov. 3 and declared Biden the winner at 2:16 p.m. ET on Nov. 4. US Eastern Standard Time (ET) = Bangladesh Standard Time (BdST) minus 11, i.e. eleven hours behind.

  Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump zeroed in on the Sun Belt on Saturday as they embarked on one last weekend quest to sway every undecided voter in the battleground states. They pitched rival agendas on the economy — and more — that each insisted is what Americans want. “We have overcome every attack, every abuse and even two assassination attempts,” Trump said at a rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. “And now it all comes down to this.” Later, Trump headed to Virginia, which isn't considered a battleground state, but offered a similar message, telling supporters that there is no way he can lose and is on the cusp of “the greatest political victory in the history of our country.” Trump predicted he would win not just the Electoral College count, but a majority of votes cast across the country, which he failed to do in two previous tries. “We’re going to win the popular vote,” Trump told the crowd. “I think we have a really good chance to win the popular vote.” Harris, meanwhile, has been urging her supporters to vote early so she can be elected and provide the “new generation of leadership” that she argues she represents. “I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States of America,” she said during remarks in a rally at the Atlanta Civic Center parking lot. She had to pause a few times to allow medics to attend to people who had fainted after spending hours in the heat. “It's hot out here, Atlanta,” the vice president said. It was unclear whether Harris herself had voted early. Campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said Saturday that Harris plans to vote by mail, but he could not say whether she had returned her ballot to her home state of California. Trump confirmed Saturday that he'll vote in person on Tuesday in Florida, despite saying previously he'd vote early. “Anybody here already voted?” she asked the Atlanta crowd, which cheered loudly in response. “Oh wow. Oh my goodness. Thank you, thank you." It was part of a final, frenzied push by Harris, Trump, their running mates and their high-profile stand-ins to encourage people to vote early or in person on Tuesday, Election Day. Harris’ campaign hoped for a “high-impact” moment with a two-minute spot to air Sunday during NFL games on CBS and FOX, including the Green Bay Packers against the Detroit Lions, two swing state teams. It shows Harris interacting with people during the campaign and talking directly to viewers. “Now I’m asking for your vote because as president I will get up every day and fight for the American people,” she says at the end. Harris Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon projected confidence Saturday on a conference call with reporters as both sides embarked on that final sprint to get out the vote. “If you can hear the joy in my voice it is because we are in GOTV weekend,” she said. Trump, meanwhile, spoke wistfully, as he has at some of his recent rallies, about how after nearly a decade of campaigning, his final race is nearing its end. “We’re going to meet again many times I hope," the former president said in the first of two North Carolina rallies. "This has been the thrill of a lifetime for me and for you.” At the second rally, in Greensboro, he said he'll do two more days of rallies “and then we shut it down, never to happen again.” He said he'll then have “a different form of rally — a rally for our country.” Planes carrying Harris and Trump met on the tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the vice president ended her campaign day. She was joined there by actress Kerry Washington and rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who played a newer song “The People’s House” that he said he wrote shortly after the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. “We still have work to do,” Harris told her Atlanta rally, adding, “Make no mistake, we will win.” She also called her campaign and supporters “the promise of America." President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race this summer when it became clear he could not win, was doing his part for the Democrats by making what could be his final 2024 campaign stop. Biden, who turns 82 this month, struck a nostalgic tone as he tried to help get out the vote for Harris and running mate Tim Walz during an event at the carpenters' local in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And, as he's done frequently lately, Biden also went off script to offer some especially blunt statements. After slamming Trump and his supporters on policy issues, the president added, “I know some of you guys are tempted to think he’s this macho guy … but, I’m serious, these are the kind of guys you’d like to smack in the ass." Walz joined actress Eva Longoria at a get-out-the-vote event in Las Vegas before the Minnesota governor's events in Flagstaff and Tucson, Arizona. GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance was also in Arizona and Nevada. First lady Jill Biden was campaigning in Georgia and Hillary Clinton was appearing for Harris in Tampa, Florida. Walz visited a few homes in the Las Vegas suburbs. He and Democratic Rep. Dina Titus spoke with a couple who were excited to see both politicians — and were hopeful. “We're gonna win,” Walz said. “These last days matter and it will be on the margins.” Elsewhere, other voters sounded notes of cautious optimism about the election outcome. Marzella and Darrell Pittman said they canceled weekend plans after learning that Harris would be in Atlanta and drove four hours from Alabama to attend. Marzella thinks Harris will win, but Darrell is nervous because many of the young Black men in his life support Trump and are hesitant to vote for a woman for president. “It’s tight, and the other side, they got a lot of our people believing in that side, just like we believe in Kamala,” he said. Until the election, “we have nothing but voting on our mind and we’re talking to everybody,” Marzella Pittman said. Trump supporters were equally passionate about their candidate. “Mr. Trump came in a garbage truck. I came in a garbage bag,” said Elmer Baber, who lives in Gastonia, North Carolina and attended Trump's rally. It was a reference to Trump riding in a garbage truck after Biden said Trump's supporters were “garbage." Biden later said he was talking about rhetoric from a speaker at Trump's recent event at Madison Square Garden.