Partisan divide persists until Election Day

As the tumultuous US presidential election season approached a climax on Tuesday, the pitched battle between the two major candidates showed no signs of abating.

Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, and Republican candidate Donald Trump, the former US president, both made several appearances in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday.

Focusing on Pennsylvania's southeast corner, Trump took the stage in Reading, about 30 miles from Allentown, where Harris held her own event about a half-hour later.

"If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax," said Trump, who was headed to Pittsburgh later Monday.

A Trump victory in Pennsylvania with its 19 Electoral College votes would puncture the Democrats' "blue wall" and make it harder for Harris to win the required 270 votes.

"We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote," Harris said. "You are going to make the difference in this election."

She also visited Scranton — the birthplace of President Joe Biden — and Reading, and had a stop planned in Pittsburgh before concluding with a late-night rally in Philadelphia that was to include Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

Throughout the campaign, both candidates have not relented on personal attacks. Their supporters also seem convinced that the opposing candidate is bad for the country.

Harris has called Trump a fascist, and Trump has repeatedly questioned her intelligence.

Trump held a rally on Oct 27 at Madison Square Garden in New York, the heavily Democratic city where he was born, at which a comedian called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage". Trump said he had no prior knowledge of what the comedian would say.

Biden, in speaking about the comedian's remark, said: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his (Trump's) supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American."

The president later said he was referring to the comedian, not all Trump supporters.

Seizing on Biden's comments, Trump, wearing an orange-and-yellow safety vest, took a ride in the passenger seat of a garbage truck, preceding a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Oct 30.

"How do you like my garbage truck?" Trump said. "This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden."

Harris made a surprise appearance on NBC's Saturday Night Live over the weekend, playing herself as the mirror image of Maya Rudolph's portrayal of her in the comedy show's cold open.

Rudolph and Harris said supporters need to "Keep Kamala and carry-on-ala," and delivered the show's signature opening line, "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"

Harris' appearance raised an objection by the top Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who questioned whether it was a violation of the FCC's "equal time" rule, which ensures that one candidate doesn't get significantly more air time than the other, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"The purpose of the rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct — a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert its influence for one candidate on the eve of an election," Brendan Carr, who was appointed to the commission by Trump, posted on X. "Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns."

NBC notified the FCC on Sunday that Harris "appeared without charge" on Saturday Night Live "for a total period of 1 minute and 30 seconds".

On Sunday, NBC gave Trump 90 seconds of equal time, showing him addressing voters during a NASCAR auto-racing event and a National Football League game.

A significant factor in this year's election is early voting. Tens of millions of ballots have been cast before Election Day.

As of 4 pm EST Monday, more than 80 million early votes had been cast, with over 44 million of those made in person, according to the website of the Election Lab at the University of Florida, which extensively tracks voting in the US.

The lab found that there have been more than 36 million mail ballots returned out of more than 67 million requested.

Jim Messina, campaign manager in 2012 for former president Barack Obama, said on MSNBC on Sunday that the Harris campaign was concerned about early-voting data that showed Republicans gaining ground in battleground states compared with 2020.

Mail-in ballots, a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, also are playing a large role in the election process.

Republicans had less trust in early voting in the past, and many still maintain that Biden's election in 2020 wasn't legitimate due to voting irregularities in certain states.

Democrats have attacked those claims, and initiated legal actions against Trump and other Republicans for challenging the results.

Of early voting, Beth Conway, 74, who lives outside Pittsburgh, told The New York Times: "This goes against everything I believe — I'm ready to cry. I just feel not secure with the whole thing. It doesn't matter, really, if I go do it this way or I do it on a machine. I just pray to God that my vote is going to be for who I voted."

Her husband, Larry Conway, told the Times: "On Election Day, it's ‘The machine's not working' or ‘We're out of ballots' or ‘We didn't get ballots.' There's so many pitfalls to this thing."

What makes this election unique is that Harris, 60, became the nominee when Biden, 81, decided not to seek reelection following a halting debate performance against Trump, 78, in June.

Whether Biden, who was the winner in the Democratic Party primaries, willfully stepped down and wasn't led to withdraw by party leaders is still a topic of political debate in the United States.

In Michigan, another battleground state, both candidates have looked to appeal to the state's Muslim population. The Israel-Hamas war is a highly contentious issue in the Midwestern state, and some have contended it affected Harris' choice of a running mate.

The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, was among the leading contenders for the vice-presidential spot, but many pundits said he was not chosen because he is Jewish, arguing that Harris did not want to lose support from Muslim voters, with tensions high over the yearlong Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

On the other hand, Harris' decision could affect the backing of Jewish voters, who traditionally have voted largely for Democrats. Trump has emphasized his staunch support for Israel, while the Biden administration has aimed to find a middle ground in its stance on the war.

At a campaign rally in East Lansing, Michigan, on Sunday, Harris said: "We are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan. And I want to say this year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon, it is devastating."

The RealClear Politics (RCP) national average of all polls had the contest tied on Monday evening, with each candidate at 48.5 percent.

The election in six battleground states remained tight, according to the RCP website. Trump was ahead in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, while Harris led in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Trump took a barnstorming approach to campaigning, while Harris has been selective with her interviews. Trump recently did a three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan and spoke on Oct 17 at the traditional Alfred Smith dinner in New York City, hosted by the city's Catholic Archdiocese. Harris did not attend but filmed a comedic video that aired at the dinner.

On the issues, Trump has hammered the Democrats on illegal migration and inflation, both of which have soared during the Biden administration.

Harris has embraced abortion rights in a bid for women voters following the Supreme Court's overturing in 2022 of the 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling, which had established a constitutional right to abortion.

Harris has argued that Trump and Republicans seek to ban abortion, which Trump has denied. The issue has resonated with single women and women in affluent suburbs. Harris also has repeatedly argued that Trump is not worthy of the office of the president.

There have been signs of some shifting in voting preferences among black and Hispanic voters — in particular, men — who have largely favored Democrats in the past.

Former president Barack Obama has called for black men to support Harris, who is of Jamaican and Asian Indian descent. Some black men, however, have expressed support for Trump, particularly on social media.

On China, Trump has floated the idea of 60 percent tariffs on all imported Chinese goods. Harris hasn't specified what approach she would take on tariffs, but the Biden administration has kept in place most of Trump's tariffs and substantially raised some duties on Chinese products such as electric vehicles and batteries, and solar panels.

On Saturday, Harris' and Trump's planes shared the tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina. The close encounter illustrated how the two candidates are focusing on a handful of states where the election could be won or lost.

It was the fourth day in a row that the candidates campaigned in the same state.

A Des Moines Register poll released on Saturday showed Harris holding a surprise lead in Iowa, a state Trump easily won in the last two elections.

Harris campaigned Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina, with rock star Bon Jovi, while Trump held a rally in suburban Gastonia, where he said at a rally, "We have overcome every attack, every abuse and even two assassination attempts."

Trump said he would deport millions of migrants if elected and warned that if Harris wins, "Every town in America would be turned into a squalid, dangerous refugee camp."

Campaigning in Atlanta, Harris said Trump would abuse his power if he returns to the White House.

"This is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and the man is out for unchecked power," she said. "We still have work to do. Make no mistake, we will win."

In North Carolina, the western counties that were devastated by Hurricane Helene appeared to be voting at roughly the same rate as the rest of the state, according to Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer.

Agencies contributed to this story.