Door knocks, phone calls on poll eve as Harris, Trump vie to get voters out

A presidential election unlike any other in US history enters its last full day on Monday with Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and their campaigns scrambling to get supporters to the polls in a contest each portrays as an existential moment for America.

Trump, a 78-year-old Republican, survived two assassination attempts, one by millimetres, just weeks after a jury in New York — the city whose tabloids first elevated him to national fame and notoriety — made him the first former US President to be convicted of a felony.

Harris (60) was catapulted to the top of the Democratic ticket in July, giving her a chance to become the first woman to hold the world’s most powerful job, after President Joe Biden (81) had a disastrous debate performance and three weeks later dropped his re-election bid under pressure from his party. For all of that turmoil, the contours of the race have changed little. Polls show Harris and Trump running neck and neck nationally and in the seven battleground states.

More than 77 million voters have already cast ballots, but the next two days will provide a critical test of whether Vice-President Harris' or former President Trump’s campaign does the better job of driving supporters to the polls. Voters, both Democrats and Republicans, have broken century-old records in the last two presidential elections, a sign of the passion that Trump stirs in both political parties.

In the final days of this campaign, both sides are flooding social media sites and TV and radio stations with a last round of ad campaigns, and racing to knock on doors and make calls. Harris’ campaign team believes the sheer size of its voter mobilisation efforts is making a difference and says its volunteers knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in each of the seven battleground states this weekend. The campaign says its internal data shows that undecided voters are breaking in Harris’ favour, particularly women in the battleground states, and that they see an increase in early voting among core parts of their coalition, including young voters and voters of colour.

Trump’s campaign has its own in-house canvassing operation, but has effectively outsourced most of the work to outside super PACs, allied political groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money. They have been more focused on contacting “low propensity” voters, or voters who often do not go to the polls, instead of appealing to middle-of-the-road voters who can flip to either side. Many in this category are Trump supporters, but they are not normally reliable voters.

Trump has promised “retribution”, spoken of prosecuting his political rivals and described Democrats as the “enemy within”. Harris has cast Trump as a “danger to democracy”. Analysts say Harris needs to win about 45 electoral votes in the seven swing states to win the White House, while Trump would need about 51.

Divided down the middle

Even after the blur of events in the last few months, the electorate is divided down the middle, both nationally and in the seven battleground states expected to decide the winner on Tuesday, though the closeness of the fight means it could take days for a winner to emerge