US Elections 2024: In a presidential election that each candidate depicts as a crucial moment for America, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and their campaigns are vying for supporters as the election enters its final full day on Monday.
While the campaign is so tight that it could take days to determine a winner, the electorate is split evenly, both nationally and in the seven key states that will select the winner on Tuesday, despite the startling turn of events over the past several months.
The 78-year-old Republican Trump narrowly avoided two assassination attempts, including one that was millimeters away, just weeks after a jury in New York, the city whose headlines first brought him national attention, found him convicted of a felony, making him the first former US president to be found guilty.
Following the disastrous debate performance of President Joe Biden (81), who three weeks later resigned his reelection bid due to pressure from his party, Harris (60) was thrown to the top of the Democratic ticket in July, giving her the opportunity to become the first woman to hold the most powerful job in the world.
In the past two presidential elections, voters—Democrats and Republicans alike—have shattered century-old records, demonstrating the fervor that Trump arouses in both parties.
Both parties are rushing to knock on houses and make phone calls as the campaign comes to a close, and they are saturating social media platforms, TV stations, and radio stations with a final round of advertisements.
The Harris campaign team claims its volunteers called on hundreds of thousands of homes in each of the crucial states this weekend and believes the sheer volume of its voter mobilization activities is having an impact.
While Trump’s campaign has its own internal canvassing team, it has essentially contracted out the majority of the labor to outside super PACs, which are affiliated political organizations with limitless financial resources.
Rather than trying to win over middle-of-the-road voters who could switch sides, they have been more interested in reaching “low probability” voters, or those who rarely cast ballots.
Although many in this group support Trump, they are typically unreliable voters.
Trump and his staff claim that by selectively targeting the voters they wish to reach, they are being frugal with their expenses and delivering door knockers to locations where they have an impact.
