What to watch during the final weekend of the 2024 presidential campaign

NEW YORK (AP) — The 2024 presidential contest enters its final weekend with Democrats Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump embroiled in a razor-thin contest.

At this late stage of the campaign, every day is important. And while few voters can change their minds this late in a typical election, there is a sense that what happens in these final days could shift the vote.

Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the country to rally voters in the states that matter most. They try – with varying degrees of success – to stay focused on a clear and concise final message. At the same time, both parties are investing enormous resources to increase turnout for the latest early voting period. And in these critical days, the flow of disinformation is intensifying.

Here’s what we’re watching on the last weekend before Election Day, Tuesday:

Where will Harris and Trump be?

You only have to look at the candidate lists this weekend to know where these elections will likely be decided.

Please note that schedules can and likely will change without notice. But on Saturday, Trump is expected to make separate appearances in North Carolina, with an eyebrow-raising stop in Virginia in between.

Since then, no Democratic presidential candidate has carried North Carolina Barack Obama in 2008, although every election since has been decided by less than 3 points. Trump’s decision to spend Saturday there suggests Harris has a real chance in the state. But Trump is also trying to convey confidence by stopping in Virginia, a state that has been safely in the Democratic column since 2008.

There may be no more important swing state than Pennsylvania, where Trump is expected to campaign on Sunday. But in addition to Georgia, he also has an appearance planned in North Carolina, another Southern state that has leaned Republican for nearly three decades—that is, until Joe Biden fell by less than half a percentage point four years ago.

Meanwhile, Harris is expected to campaign in North Carolina and Georgia on Saturday, in a sign that her team senses real opportunity in the South. She plans to make several stops in Michigan on Sunday and transfer to a Democratic-leaning state in the so-called Blue Wall, where her allies believe she is vulnerable.

Do they stay on message?

Trump’s campaign wants voters to focus on one key question as they prepare to cast their ballots, and it’s the same question he opens every rally with: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Harris’ team wants voters to think about something else: Do they trust Trump or Harris to put the country’s interests above their own?

Whichever candidate can more effectively keep voters focused on their closing arguments in the coming days could ultimately win the presidency. Yet both candidates have had a challenging start.

Trump still opens the weekend with the fallout from his recent one Rally in New York City in which a comedian described Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of trash.” Things got tougher for Trump on Thursday after he raised the prospect of Republican rival Liz Cheney death by gunfire.

It was exactly the kind of inflammatory commentary his allies want him to avoid at this critical moment.

Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, is still trying to shift the conversation away from President Biden’s comments earlier this week who described Trump supporters as “trash.” The Associated Press reported late Thursday that White House press officials had changed the official transcript of the call in question, drawing objections from the federal employees who document such comments for posterity.

The spotlight of presidential politics always burns brightly. But perhaps it will burn brightest this final weekend, leaving the campaigns with virtually no room for error. In what both sides believe is a real tossup election, any missteps in the final hours could be decisive.

How will the gender gap play out?

Trump’s explicit attack on Cheney was especially troublesome given his allies’ heightened concerns about female voters.

Polls show a significant gender gap in the contest, with Harris generally receiving a much better rating among women than Trump. Some of that may be the result of the Republican Party’s struggle to restrict abortion rights, which has been disastrous for Trump’s party. But Trump’s divisive leadership has also pushed women away.

Early in the weekend, Trump allies, including conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, warned that many more women than men are casting their ballots early. While it’s impossible to know who they’re voting for, Kirk clearly believes this is bad news for Trump.

Trump isn’t helping his cause. A day before his violent rhetoric about Cheney, the Republican former president made waves by insisting he would protect women whether they “like it or not.”

Harris, who would become the country’s first female president, said Trump does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

It remains to be seen whether the Democrat’s argument can break through during this busy weekend. But Harris’ team believes a significant portion of persuadable voters still exists. And they say the undecided are disproportionately Republican suburban women.

What happens with early voting?

More than 66 million people have already voted in the 2024 election, which is more than a third of the total who voted in 2020.

They include significantly more Republicans compared to four years ago, largely because Trump has withdrawn his requirement that his supporters vote in person on Election Day.

And while early in-person voting has ended in many states, there will be a huge push for early voting in the final hours in at least three key states as campaigns work to gather as many votes as possible before Election Day.

That includes Michigan, where in-person early voting runs through Monday. Voters in Wisconsin can vote early in person through Sunday, though this varies by location. And in North Carolina, voters have until 3 p.m. Saturday to cast their ballots in person.

The early voting period officially ended Friday in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, questions remain about the Trump campaign’s presidential campaign, which has relied heavily on well-funded outside groups with little experience — including a group largely funded by billionaire Elon Musk, namely confronted with new questions about its practices.

Harris’ campaign, by contrast, is running a more traditional get-out-the-vote campaign, with more than 2,500 paid staffers and 357 offices in battleground states alone.

Will disinformation increase?

Trump’s allies appear to be intensifying baseless claims of voter fraud, some of which are being amplified by Trump himself. He has spent months sowing doubts about the integrity of the 2024 election if he were to lose — just as he did four years ago.

His baseless accusations are becoming increasingly specific in some cases as wild claims appear on social media.

Earlier this weekTrump claimed on social media that York County, Pennsylvania had “received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications from a third party.” He also pointed to Lancaster County, which he claimed was “caught with 2,600 counterfeit ballots and forms, all written by the same person.” Really bad ‘stuff’.

Trump referred to investigations into possible fraud related to voter registration applications. The discovery and research into the applications provide evidence that the system is working properly.

The Republican candidate has also made baseless claims about overseas ballots and voting by non-citizens, and suggested without evidence that Harris might have access to some sort of secret inside information about election results.

Expect such claims to increase in the coming days, especially on social media. And remember, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials, including many Republicans, concluded that the 2020 election was the decisive event. ‘most secure’ in American history.”

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AP writers Jill Colvin and Michelle Price in New York; and Zeke Miller and Will Weissert in Washington contributed.