‘Healing over hate’: Harris and Trump end campaign duel with opposing messages
Philadelphia: Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have closed out one of the most chaotic presidential campaigns in history with opposing visions of how to unify a nation at loggerheads over everything from abortion rights to immigration and election integrity.
As millions of Americans head to the polls, both candidates spent the campaign’s final hours focused on Pennsylvania, the biggest electoral college prize out of the seven swing states that will ultimately decide who becomes the next president.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have made their last pitch to voters.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
While Trump painted a bleak picture of a nation “destroyed” under the Biden-Harris administration, his Democratic rival’s message was one of unity and “a fresh start”.
As Harris criss-crossed the state with rallies in the two major left-leaning cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, she also deliberately avoided using Trump’s name – referring to him only as “the other guy” while meeting voters in President Joe Biden’s childhood home of Scranton, and not at all for the rest of the day.
“We are all in this together,” she said in Philadelphia with the famous “Rocky steps” and a giant sign reading “A President for Everyone” in the background.
“Our campaign has tapped into the ambitions and the aspirations and the dreams of the American people. We are optimistic and we are excited about what we can do together. And we know it is time for a new generation of leadership in America.”
About 15,000 people attended Harris’ rally and concert in Philadelphia, some of whom had taken their place at the front of the line about 12 hours before she was due to take the stage.
Oprah Winfrey introduced Kamala Harris at her final rally.Credit: AP
But thousands more continued to line up for multiple blocks around the city throughout the night hoping to get into the event, which was also part of a concert series featuring Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Fat Joe and Oprah Winfrey.
Winfrey appeared on stage with 10 first-time voters, in another sign of the Harris campaign’s strategy to mobilise young people who, like women, have traditionally leant more towards Democrats.
But in a blunt warning to anyone who was thinking of not taking part in the election, the influential talk show queen told the crowd: “We don’t get to sit this one out. If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again.”
Donald Trump arrives for his closing campaign event at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Credit: Bloomberg
“All the anxiety and the fear you’re feeling, you’re feeling that because you sense the danger,” Winfrey said. “And you change that with your vote. We are voting for healing over hate.”
Tuesday’s election is the first to take place since the January 6 attack at the US Capitol and the first to take place after Trump’s conservative judges on the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights – an issue that continues to resonate among female voters.
America is bracing for potential violence and unrest if Trump doesn’t win the election, with shops in Washington, DC, boarding up windows and doors as the former president amplifies claims of rigged ballots and lays the groundwork to challenge the outcome if Harris defeats him.
On Monday, a Georgia poll worker was arrested and charged with mailing a bomb threat to election officials, while the Proud Boys and other Trump-supporting extremist groups have signalled that they will be at polling centres on the day.
Trump began his day with a rally in North Carolina describing former House speaker Nancy Pelosi as “crazy as a bedbug” and lashing out, yet again, at Michelle Obama, who has been highly critical of Trump while campaigning for Harris.
“She hit me the other day. I was going to say to my people, ‘Am I allowed to hit her now?’” Trump said. He added that he was talked out of it by advisers.
Trump also made a last-minute election promise to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on Mexico, one of America’s biggest trading partners, until it closes off its border with the United States.
Harris started her marathon four-stop day in Pennsylvania with a pitstop for Senate candidate Bob Casey, whose race for re-election is crucial to maintain the Democrats’ 51-49 control of the Senate, before door-knocking in Reading.
She also held a rally in Allentown, an area with a high number of Puerto Ricans outraged by a racist joke made at Trump’s Madison Square Gardens rally last week, and made a surprise appearance at a Puerto Rican restaurant with progressive firebrand congresswoman of Puerto Rican descent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
At the 60-year-old vice president’s final stops in Pittsburgh and finally Philadelphia, she told the crowd that her campaign has finished how it started: “With optimism, with energy, with joy.”
Harris left the Philadelphia stage, hand in hand with her husband, Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman who could also soon be making history as the nation’s first ever first gentleman. Once they left, Lady Gaga returned to the stage to perform one more track: The Edge of Glory.
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