Harris and Trump in final push ahead of Tuesday vote

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00:00The candidates are in their last chance saloon of campaigning in the U.S. presidential election.

00:08Both candidates know this is the final curtain, if you like, to persuade the undecided Kamala

00:13Harris.

00:14Spending the day in Pennsylvania, the state that has 19 electoral votes, that state will

00:19be decisive.

00:20She's attending rallies at Scranton, Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

00:24And there, she'll be joined by star supporters such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ricky Martin,

00:29Oprah Roots and Oprah Winfrey.

00:31Donald Trump, meanwhile, will attend a rally at the aptly named Rally in North Carolina,

00:36then two events in Pennsylvania, and then a final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

00:43The 47 states that have early voting options have, of course, been exercising those.

00:48It means that more than 75 million Americans have already cast their vote.

00:53Here at France 24, Eliza Herbert examines what this could mean for the election.

00:58Early voting centres are teeming across the United States, but despite the long queues,

01:04the spirit of democracy remains high.

01:06We've been here for two and a half hours and the mood is still great.

01:10We are almost there.

01:11We're in the homestretch.

01:13We got in line around 2pm and now it's 6pm Eastern time and we did it.

01:18And I'm proud that, you know, we added our voice.

01:21With the polls neck and neck, Americans appear anxious to make their votes count.

01:26Already more than 75 million people have cast early ballots, particularly in crucial

01:31battleground states.

01:33Records have been broken in Georgia and North Carolina, with some 4 million and 4.5 million

01:39votes cast respectively.

01:41In Michigan, nearly 3 million people have already voted, and in Arizona, 2.3 million.

01:47Wisconsin and Nevada have also returned high numbers.

01:50So far, statistics show that women have voted more than men, and there has been a larger

01:54portion of rural voters showing up early.

01:58But it is still not quite clear which party will benefit.

02:01Four years ago in 2020, a record-breaking 70 per cent of the overall turnout voted early,

02:07either by mail or in person.

02:10Democrats were urged to vote by mail to avoid the spread of COVID-19, and ultimately the

02:14party gained votes in the counties that returned more mail ballots.

02:19Scenes of chaos then unfolded after Donald Trump doubled down on unsubstantiated claims

02:24of voter fraud, and refused to accept the election result.

02:28A scenario these expert worries could be repeated.

02:31The more voting at a distance or voting early, voting sort of out of the regular schedule

02:38there is, the more challenges there are going to be.

02:42If everything happens on the same day, it's harder for the loser, I think, to complain

02:49because everybody's following the same rules on the same day, depending on which state

02:53they're in.

02:54Both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have encouraged early voting

03:00this election.

03:01Why is it Herbert there?

03:03Let's bring in Fraser Jackson, our correspondent in Washington, watching all developments for

03:07us.

03:08He joins us, I'm going to guess, at his usual location near the White House, or somewhere

03:12White House adjacent.

03:13There he is, that smile.

03:14He wouldn't forget it anywhere.

03:15Great to see you, sir.

03:16A good guess.

03:17Personal question, are you OK?

03:18You've had a very tough few weeks, haven't you?

03:21It's been a good story, but it's been quite tiring, I imagine.

03:25Yeah, it's been an election unlike any other.

03:29This, of course, is my first US election, covering it as a correspondent, but it somewhat

03:34soothes the nerves and the anxiety when you talk to some of my colleagues who have been

03:38doing this for decades, some of them.

03:40One of my colleagues from Reuters, this is his sixth president, and even he says that

03:44he's not seen anything like this.

03:45So it does calm the nerves slightly that way.

03:47It is a remarkable contest, this one, isn't it?

03:49The Iowa poll, let's start with that.

03:51The Iowa poll gave Kamala Harris a lead over Trump in what is usually a strongly Republican

03:58state.

03:59Tell us about that.

04:01Yeah, Iowa hasn't actually voted for a Democrat since Barack Obama in 2012.

04:07It is kind of seen as a bit of a Republican stronghold, and it was deemed that way.

04:12And this poll, we knew was coming, but wasn't really expected to throw up anything surprising.

04:17And then we got it as it dropped over the weekend that Kamala Harris was three points

04:20ahead of Donald Trump in this poll, which I must say is inside the margin of error.

04:26But this poll is seen as the gold standard of polls in Iowa.

04:30The team that do it have a very rigorous methodology and have been doing this since the mid-'90s

04:35and are very, very rarely wrong.

04:37So it kind of came as a bit of a bolt out of the blue.

04:40The reason for that, really, is because of the older section of the population, especially

04:45older women.

04:46Over 65s in Iowa, especially women, went for Kamala Harris by over two to one.

04:53It was 63 percent to 28 percent who went for Donald Trump.

04:58So there was a massive change there that we were not really expecting.

05:03And consider the fact that this took place without any of the Democrats or really the

05:08Republicans spending any money in Iowa, because it was seen as a sure thing almost, that the

05:14candidates had not spent any money within the state.

05:17So this was effectively a kind of grassroots change and a natural change over the course

05:22of the last few weeks.

05:23One of the main reasons for that, we believe, is because in the summer, Iowa had a six-week

05:29abortion ban that came into effect.

05:31And we think it's taken some time to filter down into the popular opinion that actually,

05:37obviously, a lot of women don't even realize that they're pregnant by the time they get

05:40to six weeks.

05:42So this abortion ban has become deeply unpopular, especially with the older generation of women

05:47who want to protect the rights of women for the future generations, for their daughters

05:53and their granddaughters as well.

05:54So a really interesting poll that the Democrats are heralding, but are cautiously, well, they

06:00say nauseously optimistic.

06:03And the Republicans are pushing back, saying that this poll was unfairly weighted towards

06:09the Democrats.

06:10Indeed, the swing states, all seven of them, aren't really showing either candidate sort

06:15of anywhere outside of the margin of error that you talk about, Fraser.

06:20So it is at this stage, as the phrase goes, too close to call.

06:25We're seeing both candidates, as we would expect, in the swing states in this final

06:30day of campaigning.

06:32Harris choosing to stay in Pennsylvania, Trump going on a kind of mini tour, North Carolina,

06:36Penn State, and Michigan.

06:39Yeah, and of course, the polls do have, national polls, I should say, have Harris with a slight

06:45lead over Donald Trump.

06:47But of course, this is not a popular vote election.

06:50It comes down to who wins the individual states, and those seven battleground states are being

06:54seen as the key to this election, of course.

06:56So that is why the candidates are spending all their time focusing on those states.

07:00So Donald Trump has a bit of a travel journey today, where he started in North Carolina

07:05with a crowd that, it must be said, looked much thinner than what we've seen from Donald

07:10Trump rallies in the past.

07:11He then headed to Pennsylvania, where he's holding a couple of rallies before he ultimately

07:16ends in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the end of the evening.

07:19And that, notably, is where he finished his campaign in 2016 and 2020.

07:25Donald Trump, somewhat of a superstitious person, believes that that's the place to

07:28finish his campaign.

07:29Well, Kamala Harris is choosing to spend her entire day within Pennsylvania.

07:35She's had five events going on in Pennsylvania.

07:37Of course, those 19 Electoral College votes that Pennsylvania has are widely seen as the

07:42key to this election for either candidate.

07:44So she's spending most of her time there.

07:46She'll be live-streaming a series of events across the battlegrounds, joined by some star

07:50power, including Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

07:53Some critics, I must say, have said that that is a bit of a repeat of 2016, when Hillary

07:57Clinton did a very similar thing, and that didn't go down well with the people in rural

08:02parts of Pennsylvania.

08:03So we'll see whether that impacts people's votes tomorrow on Election Day.

08:08Fraser Jackson, on the last day of campaigning, looking as fresh as you did on day one.

08:13Great to see you, sir.

08:14Looking forward to hearing from you, of course, on November the 5th, tomorrow, Voting Day.

08:19But, of course, many people have voted early, as we heard earlier on.

08:22Over 70 million Americans have already cast their votes, so we are following everything

08:26for you.

08:27And please make a note, our special coverage starts at 7 p.m., 1900 hours Paris time, and

08:33we'll be with it until the results are known and confirmed.

08:35A long night indeed is in store, and we're in place in Paris, across the U.S., and around

08:40the globe to cover all the angles for you.

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