Election 2024 Live Updates: Harris, Trump Make Final Battleground Stops As Polls Show A Tied Race (Live Updates)

05 Nov 2024 by Sara Dorn · Forbes

Topline

Voters will head to the polls Tuesday after former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’ final battleground blitzes, as polls remain deadlocked in one of the most tumultuous presidential campaigns in history, ending with Americans choosing either the oldest president ever elected or the first woman president.

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (L), and Republican presidential ... [+] nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump (R). (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)Getty Images

Key Facts

The candidates spent Monday making their final pitches to voters in the battleground states: Trump held a rally in North Carolina Monday morning, before traveling to Pennsylvania and closing out his 2024 campaign with an evening rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Harris, meanwhile, zoned in on Pennsylvania, with campaign events in Scranton, Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

On Sunday, Harris campaigned in Michigan, while Trump held rallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

Harris, for the first time since she became the Democratic nominee, did not mention Trump in her East Lansing rally Sunday, a senior campaign official noted to NBC, as Trump continued to make headlines with his incendiary rhetoric—telling an audience in Pennsylvania he wouldn’t mind if a would-be assassin shot through the designated media area and that he shouldn’t have left the White House in 2021.

Key Background

Tuesday marks the culmination of one of the most chaotic election cycles in history: A former president, convicted of felonies and facing dozens of other criminal charges, challenges a vice president who was elevated to the top of the ticket after the primaries when President Joe Biden, 81, bowed out of the race following a pressure campaign from within his own party. Harris would be the first woman elected president, and Trump would be the oldest. Polls show the race is deadlocked nationally and in the seven swing states set to decide the election, after Trump led President Joe Biden in surveys before his exit and Harris carved out an early lead after her entrance into the contest. Trump has centered his most recent campaign around immigration—blaming Harris for the surge of border crossings and ramping up his dark rhetoric linking undocumented migrants (often without evidence) to crime and economic pitfalls. He’s also sought to tie Harris to the high inflation rate the country experienced under Biden. Harris, meanwhile, has focused her campaign on turning the tide on the political divisiveness the country has experienced under Trump, repeatedly highlighting Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, his promises to seek retribution against his political enemies and the barrage of damning portrayals of the former president from his former White House staff and from within his own party. Harris is widely viewed to have fallen short in explaining how she would differentiate herself from Biden, however, and her policy positions are sometimes light on details.

What To Watch For

Republicans are poised to retake the Senate, though the House is more of a toss-up. In the Senate, where Democrats have a razor-thin 51-49 seat majority, 23 Democrat-held seats are up for re-election, compared to just 11 held by Republicans, none of which are rated toss-ups by Cook Political Report. In the House, where Republicans hold a 221-214 majority, Republicans have a 51% chance of maintaining control, according to Five Thirty Eight, while Democrats would win control 49 times out of 100.

When Do Polls Close?