What to look at over the ultimate weekend of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign

By Steve Peoples, Related Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The 2024 presidential contest speeds into its last weekend with Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump locked in a razor-thin contest.

At this late stage within the marketing campaign, daily issues. And whereas few voters would possibly change their minds this late in a typical election, there’s a sense that what occurs in these last days might shift votes.

Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the nation to rally voters within the states that matter most. They’re making an attempt — with various levels of success — to remain targeted on a transparent and concise closing message. On the similar time, either side is investing huge sources to drive up turnout for the ultimate early voting interval. And in these essential days, the move of misinformation is intensifying.

Right here’s what we’re watching on the ultimate weekend earlier than Election Day, which is Tuesday:

The place will Harris and Trump be?

You solely want to take a look at the candidates’ schedules this weekend to know the place this election will possible be determined.

Observe that schedules can and sure will change with out warning. However on Saturday, Trump is predicted to make separate appearances in North Carolina with one eyebrow-raising cease in Virginia in between.

No Democratic presidential candidate has carried North Carolina since Barack Obama in 2008, though it has been determined by lower than 3 factors in each election since. Trump’s resolution to spend Saturday there suggests Harris has an actual alternative within the state. However Trump can be making an attempt to convey confidence by stopping in Virginia, a state that has been safely within the Democratic column since 2008.

There may be maybe no extra vital swing state than Pennsylvania, the place Trump is predicted to marketing campaign Sunday. However he additionally has one other look scheduled for North Carolina along with Georgia, one other Southern state that has leaned Republican for nearly three a long time — that’s, till Joe Biden carried it by lower than a half share level 4 years in the past.

In the meantime, Harris is predicted to marketing campaign in North Carolina and Georgia on Saturday in an indication that her staff is sensing real alternative within the South. She’s planning to make a number of stops in Michigan on Sunday, shifting to a Democratic-leaning state within the so-called Blue Wall the place her allies imagine she is susceptible.

Do they keep on message?

Trump’s marketing campaign management desires voters to be targeted on one key query as they put together to solid ballots, and it’s the identical query he opens each rally with: Are you higher off immediately than you have been 4 years in the past?

Harris’ staff desires voters to be desirous about one other: Do they belief Trump or Harris to place the nation’s pursuits over their very own?

Whichever candidate can extra successfully maintain voters targeted on their closing arguments within the coming days could finally win the presidency. But each candidates are off to a difficult begin.

Trump opens the weekend nonetheless going through the fallout from his current New York Metropolis rally during which a comic described Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of rubbish.” Issues acquired more durable for Trump late Thursday after he raised the prospect of Republican rival Liz Cheney’s demise by gunfire.

It was precisely the type of inflammatory remark his allies need him to keep away from at this essential second.

Harris’ marketing campaign, in the meantime, remains to be working to shift the dialog away from President Biden’s feedback earlier within the week that described Trump supporters as “rubbish.” The Related Press reported late Thursday that White Home press officers altered the official transcript of the decision in query, drawing objections from the federal staff who doc such remarks for posterity.

The highlight of presidential politics all the time burns brightly. However it’s going to burn brightest, maybe, this last weekend, leaving the campaigns just about no margin for error. In what either side imagine is a real tossup election, any final-hours missteps might show decisive.

How will the gender hole play out?

Trump’s graphic assault in opposition to Cheney was particularly troublesome given his allies’ heightened considerations about ladies voters.

Polling reveals a big gender hole within the contest with Harris typically having a significantly better ranking amongst ladies than Trump has. A part of that could be the results of the GOP’s combat to limit abortion rights, which has been disastrous for Trump’s social gathering. However Trump’s divisive management has additionally pushed ladies away.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks throughout a marketing campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wis., Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. (AP Photograph/Paul Beaty)Going into the weekend, Trump allies, together with conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, are warning that much more ladies than males look like casting early ballots. Whereas it’s unimaginable to know whom they’re voting for, Kirk clearly believes that’s dangerous information for Trump.

Trump isn’t serving to his trigger. A day earlier than his violent rhetoric about Cheney, the Republican former president made waves by insisting that he would defend ladies whether or not they “prefer it or not.”

Harris, who can be the nation’s first feminine president, mentioned Trump doesn’t perceive ladies’s rights “to make selections about their very own lives, together with their very own our bodies.”

It stays to be seen whether or not the Democrat’s argument can break by way of on this packed weekend. However Harris’ staff believes there’s nonetheless a big chunk of persuadable voters on the market. And so they say the undecideds are disproportionately Republican-leaning suburban ladies.

What occurs with early voting?

Greater than 66 million individuals have already solid ballots within the 2024 election, which is greater than one-third the whole quantity who voted in 2020.

They embody considerably extra Republicans in contrast with 4 years in the past, largely as a result of Trump has backed off his insistence that his supporters should solid ballots in individual on Election Day.

And whereas early in-person voting has resulted in many states, there will likely be an enormous push for final-hours early voting in not less than three key states because the campaigns work to financial institution as many votes as attainable earlier than Election Day.

That features Michigan, the place in-person early voting runs by way of Monday. Voters in Wisconsin can vote early in-person by way of Sunday, though it varies by location. And in North Carolina, voters have till 3 p.m. Saturday to solid early ballots in-person.

The early voting interval formally ended Friday in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, questions stay concerning the Trump marketing campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation, which is relying closely on well-funded exterior teams with little expertise — together with one group funded largely by billionaire Elon Musk that’s going through new questions on its practices.

Harris’ marketing campaign, in contrast, is working a extra conventional get-out-the-vote operation that options greater than 2,500 paid staffers and 357 workplaces in battleground states alone.

Will misinformation intensify?

Trump’s allies look like intensifying baseless claims about voter fraud, and a few are being amplified by Trump himself. He has spent months sowing doubts concerning the integrity of the 2024 election within the occasion he loses — simply as he did 4 years in the past.