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00:00The candidates are in their last chance saloon of campaigning in the U.S. presidential election.
00:08Both candidates know this is the final curtain, if you like, to persuade the undecided Kamala
00:13Harris.
00:14Spending the day in Pennsylvania, the state that has 19 electoral votes, that state will
00:19be decisive.
00:20She's attending rallies at Scranton, Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
00:24And there, she'll be joined by star supporters such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Ricky Martin,
00:29Oprah Roots and Oprah Winfrey.
00:31Donald Trump, meanwhile, will attend a rally at the aptly named Rally in North Carolina,
00:36then two events in Pennsylvania, and then a final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
00:43The 47 states that have early voting options have, of course, been exercising those.
00:48It means that more than 75 million Americans have already cast their vote.
00:53Here at France 24, Eliza Herbert examines what this could mean for the election.
00:58Early voting centres are teeming across the United States, but despite the long queues,
01:04the spirit of democracy remains high.
01:06We've been here for two and a half hours and the mood is still great.
01:10We are almost there.
01:11We're in the homestretch.
01:13We got in line around 2pm and now it's 6pm Eastern time and we did it.
01:18And I'm proud that, you know, we added our voice.
01:21With the polls neck and neck, Americans appear anxious to make their votes count.
01:26Already more than 75 million people have cast early ballots, particularly in crucial
01:31battleground states.
01:33Records have been broken in Georgia and North Carolina, with some 4 million and 4.5 million
01:39votes cast respectively.
01:41In Michigan, nearly 3 million people have already voted, and in Arizona, 2.3 million.
01:47Wisconsin and Nevada have also returned high numbers.
01:50So far, statistics show that women have voted more than men, and there has been a larger
01:54portion of rural voters showing up early.
01:58But it is still not quite clear which party will benefit.
02:01Four years ago in 2020, a record-breaking 70 per cent of the overall turnout voted early,
02:07either by mail or in person.
02:10Democrats were urged to vote by mail to avoid the spread of COVID-19, and ultimately the
02:14party gained votes in the counties that returned more mail ballots.
02:19Scenes of chaos then unfolded after Donald Trump doubled down on unsubstantiated claims
02:24of voter fraud, and refused to accept the election result.
02:28A scenario these expert worries could be repeated.
02:31The more voting at a distance or voting early, voting sort of out of the regular schedule
02:38there is, the more challenges there are going to be.
02:42If everything happens on the same day, it's harder for the loser, I think, to complain
02:49because everybody's following the same rules on the same day, depending on which state
02:53they're in.
02:54Both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have encouraged early voting
03:00this election.
03:01Why is it Herbert there?
03:03Let's bring in Fraser Jackson, our correspondent in Washington, watching all developments for
03:07us.
03:08He joins us, I'm going to guess, at his usual location near the White House, or somewhere
03:12White House adjacent.
03:13There he is, that smile.
03:14He wouldn't forget it anywhere.
03:15Great to see you, sir.
03:16A good guess.
03:17Personal question, are you OK?
03:18You've had a very tough few weeks, haven't you?
03:21It's been a good story, but it's been quite tiring, I imagine.
03:25Yeah, it's been an election unlike any other.
03:29This, of course, is my first US election, covering it as a correspondent, but it somewhat
03:34soothes the nerves and the anxiety when you talk to some of my colleagues who have been
03:38doing this for decades, some of them.
03:40One of my colleagues from Reuters, this is his sixth president, and even he says that
03:44he's not seen anything like this.
03:45So it does calm the nerves slightly that way.
03:47It is a remarkable contest, this one, isn't it?
03:49The Iowa poll, let's start with that.
03:51The Iowa poll gave Kamala Harris a lead over Trump in what is usually a strongly Republican
03:58state.
03:59Tell us about that.
04:01Yeah, Iowa hasn't actually voted for a Democrat since Barack Obama in 2012.
04:07It is kind of seen as a bit of a Republican stronghold, and it was deemed that way.
04:12And this poll, we knew was coming, but wasn't really expected to throw up anything surprising.
04:17And then we got it as it dropped over the weekend that Kamala Harris was three points
04:20ahead of Donald Trump in this poll, which I must say is inside the margin of error.
04:26But this poll is seen as the gold standard of polls in Iowa.
04:30The team that do it have a very rigorous methodology and have been doing this since the mid-'90s
04:35and are very, very rarely wrong.
04:37So it kind of came as a bit of a bolt out of the blue.
04:40The reason for that, really, is because of the older section of the population, especially
04:45older women.
04:46Over 65s in Iowa, especially women, went for Kamala Harris by over two to one.
04:53It was 63 percent to 28 percent who went for Donald Trump.
04:58So there was a massive change there that we were not really expecting.
05:03And consider the fact that this took place without any of the Democrats or really the
05:08Republicans spending any money in Iowa, because it was seen as a sure thing almost, that the
05:14candidates had not spent any money within the state.
05:17So this was effectively a kind of grassroots change and a natural change over the course
05:22of the last few weeks.
05:23One of the main reasons for that, we believe, is because in the summer, Iowa had a six-week
05:29abortion ban that came into effect.
05:31And we think it's taken some time to filter down into the popular opinion that actually,
05:37obviously, a lot of women don't even realize that they're pregnant by the time they get
05:40to six weeks.
05:42So this abortion ban has become deeply unpopular, especially with the older generation of women
05:47who want to protect the rights of women for the future generations, for their daughters
05:53and their granddaughters as well.
05:54So a really interesting poll that the Democrats are heralding, but are cautiously, well, they
06:00say nauseously optimistic.
06:03And the Republicans are pushing back, saying that this poll was unfairly weighted towards
06:09the Democrats.
06:10Indeed, the swing states, all seven of them, aren't really showing either candidate sort
06:15of anywhere outside of the margin of error that you talk about, Fraser.
06:20So it is at this stage, as the phrase goes, too close to call.
06:25We're seeing both candidates, as we would expect, in the swing states in this final
06:30day of campaigning.
06:32Harris choosing to stay in Pennsylvania, Trump going on a kind of mini tour, North Carolina,
06:36Penn State, and Michigan.
06:39Yeah, and of course, the polls do have, national polls, I should say, have Harris with a slight
06:45lead over Donald Trump.
06:47But of course, this is not a popular vote election.
06:50It comes down to who wins the individual states, and those seven battleground states are being
06:54seen as the key to this election, of course.
06:56So that is why the candidates are spending all their time focusing on those states.
07:00So Donald Trump has a bit of a travel journey today, where he started in North Carolina
07:05with a crowd that, it must be said, looked much thinner than what we've seen from Donald
07:10Trump rallies in the past.
07:11He then headed to Pennsylvania, where he's holding a couple of rallies before he ultimately
07:16ends in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the end of the evening.
07:19And that, notably, is where he finished his campaign in 2016 and 2020.
07:25Donald Trump, somewhat of a superstitious person, believes that that's the place to
07:28finish his campaign.
07:29Well, Kamala Harris is choosing to spend her entire day within Pennsylvania.
07:35She's had five events going on in Pennsylvania.
07:37Of course, those 19 Electoral College votes that Pennsylvania has are widely seen as the
07:42key to this election for either candidate.
07:44So she's spending most of her time there.
07:46She'll be live-streaming a series of events across the battlegrounds, joined by some star
07:50power, including Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
07:53Some critics, I must say, have said that that is a bit of a repeat of 2016, when Hillary
07:57Clinton did a very similar thing, and that didn't go down well with the people in rural
08:02parts of Pennsylvania.
08:03So we'll see whether that impacts people's votes tomorrow on Election Day.
08:08Fraser Jackson, on the last day of campaigning, looking as fresh as you did on day one.
08:13Great to see you, sir.
08:14Looking forward to hearing from you, of course, on November the 5th, tomorrow, Voting Day.
08:19But, of course, many people have voted early, as we heard earlier on.
08:22Over 70 million Americans have already cast their votes, so we are following everything
08:26for you.
08:27And please make a note, our special coverage starts at 7 p.m., 1900 hours Paris time, and
08:33we'll be with it until the results are known and confirmed.
08:35A long night indeed is in store, and we're in place in Paris, across the U.S., and around
08:40the globe to cover all the angles for you.