US to make history either way

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump launched a final frenzied campaign blitz yesterday, hitting must-win Pennsylvania on the last day of a volatile US presidential race that polls say is hurtling towards a photo finish.
At his first rally of the day in North Carolina, Trump, 78, shrugged off accusations that his age and the grueling election schedule had left him physically and mentally exhausted.
“I don’t even sleep. I’ve gone through 62 days without a day off,” he said in an insult-laden 90-minute stump speech that he has delivered dozens of times in recent weeks.
“It’s ours to lose,” Trump told supporters. “If we get everybody out and vote, there’s not a thing they can do.”
Harris said she was “feeling good” and gave a thumbs-up as she boarded her plane to her first event of the day in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Republican Trump, a convicted felon, has promised a “landslide” as he seeks a sensational return to the White House, while Democrat Harris said “momentum” was on the side of her bid to be America’s first woman president.
But the polls suggest a deadlock nationally, and also in the seven swing states where the winner is expected to be decided.
The world is anxiously watching as the outcome is set to have major implications for conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s war in Ukraine, and for tackling climate change, which Trump has called a hoax.
US democracy could also be tested as Trump is expected to reject the result if he loses, raising the prospect of political chaos, civil unrest and violence.
After many dramatic twists, including two bids to kill Trump and Harris’s shock late entrance, the race is coming down to Pennsylvania, the most fought-over battleground state.
Trump and Harris will hold duelling rallies in the industrial city of Pittsburgh, highlighting how Pennsylvania is the single biggest swing state prize under the US Electoral College system.
Harris will spend the whole day campaigning in the state, culminating in a rally in Philadelphia featuring singer Lady Gaga. Trump will travel from North Carolina to Pennsylvania and then Michigan.
Both sides say they are encouraged by early turnout, with over 78 million people having voted already, around half of the total number of ballots cast in 2020.
The closeness of the 2024 White House race reflects a divided United States, as it chooses between two candidates whose visions could scarcely be more different.
Former president Trump has doubled down on his dark and violent rhetoric in his pursuit of a second term which would make him the first convicted felon and the oldest major party candidate ever elected.
Vice President Harris, 60, has meanwhile made an astonishing rise to the top of the Democratic ticket after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July.
Harris is hoping abortion is a key issue that can hurt Trump, especially with woman voters, while Trump has focused on migrants and the economy and dubbed political opponents the “enemy from within.”
Trump said this weekend that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he lost his 2020 reelection bid to Biden, and then tried to overturn the results, culminating in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
After months of building tensions, the states of Oregon, Nevada and Washington, have activated the National Guard in case of trouble.
Harris, after some more encouraging recent polls, told a noisy rally in Michigan on Sunday that “we have momentum — it’s on our side.”
Harris also courted the large Arab-American community in Michigan that has denounced the US handling of the Israel-Hamas war, saying she would do “everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.”