It was the final Sunday of the campaign for President, and Vice-President Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump were continuing to race across battleground states in their search for support. But in message and demeanour, Harris, the Democrat, and Trump, the Republican, could not have been more different.

Harris began her day at a Black church in Detroit where she told congregants that the nation was “ready to bend the arc of history toward justice”, invoking the words of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Trump began his at an outdoor rally at an airport in Pennsylvania where, his shoulders slumped and his voice subdued, he threw out his prepared remarks to tell supporters that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his loss to President Biden in 2020.

The duelling scenes offered a contrast that captured just how differently these two candidates were using the final days of a campaign that a last round of polls suggested remained as tight as it was when their contest began in August.

Trump went to Lititz, Pennsylvania, where, after announcing he was discarding his prepared speech so the “truth” could come out, he proceeded to deliver dark, rambling and at times angry remarks in which he attacked polls, assailed Democrats as “demonic”, and suggested he would not mind if reporters were shot.

“To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don’t mind that much, ’cause, I don’t mind. I don’t mind,” he said as he called attention to the bulletproof glass barriers that have surrounded him at outdoor rallies since he was shot in July in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. (His spokesman, Steven Cheung, later claimed the comments had “nothing to do with the media being harmed” but rather “actually looking out for their welfare”.)

Trump argued that the country had declined since his presidency, pointing to the economy and immigration, and said he should not have left the White House in 2020 — when he fought to upend the election results after he was defeated.

“We had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump continued. He added: “We did so well, we had such a great—” and then cut himself off.

The setting for Harris was the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ, in Detroit, as she took a more conventional campaign route on the last Sunday of the race, invoking notes of optimism and unity. “It’s so good to worship with you today,” she said after being introduced to a swell of cheers as “the next President of the United States”.

“In these next two days, we will be tested,” said Harris, who had flown in to Detroit after a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live in New York. “These days will demand everything we’ve got,” she said. “But when I think about the days ahead and the God we serve, we were born for such a time as this.”

Harris hailed “Americans from so-called red states to so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice”. She urged people to “turn the page and write the next chapter of our history”.

Polls have suggested that Trump has been pulling some support from Black voters who traditionally have voted for the Democrats. A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Sunday showed Harris in a tight race with Trump in Michigan, an important battleground state.

In these final days and hours, both candidates have been racing through rallies and impromptu appearances in the battleground states. Trump appeared particularly tired on Sunday morning; his voice was hoarse and his pace was slow as he delivered remarks marked by grievances and the occasional vulgarity.

Trump was relatively subdued at his second stop of the day, in Kinston, North Carolina, sticking more closely to the script of his prepared remarks, with occasional diversions, though coughing at times. At one point, he called out to Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate candidate from the stage, then corrected himself, realising he was elsewhere. At his third rally, in Macon, Georgia, he used harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and made somewhat milder claims about election integrity.

Even as his campaign professed confidence of his victory on Tuesday, Trump used his rally in Pennsylvania to complain about polls — in particular one in The Des Moines Register showing him behind in Iowa, a state he was widely expected to win. His campaign was quick to dispute its accuracy.

Trump, continuing what has been a dominant theme of his appearances in the past few weeks, devoted his most expansive comments to his unsupported claims of voter fraud in the final stretch of the election, raising questions about the integrity of a result that has yet to be determined. In so doing, he reinforced Democratic fears that he and his supporters are trying to sow doubts about the election now so he can dispute the outcome — as he did in 2020 — should he lose.

Harris was markedly more upbeat at a rally on Sunday evening in East Lansing, Michigan. “Michigan, two days to go!” she told the crowd. This, she said, is “one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, and we have momentum. It is on our side”.

She opened her remarks in East Lansing, in a state with a significant population of Arab Americans, by acknowledging the devastation of the Gaza war. That is an issue that hits home for the many Arab American and Muslim voters who live in Michigan, many of whom are angry about the Biden administration’s support for Israel. “This year has been difficult given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon,” she said, adding that “as President, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza”.

As she often does, she iterated her view that the war must end with the return of those taken hostage from Israel during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, and in a way that Israelis and Palestinians are secure.

On Sunday Harris’s campaign also released its final major ad, a two-minute spot running during NFL games, including the rivalry matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions, two swing-state teams.

On this final weekend, some of her most prominent candidate surrogates went on the road as well — notably Barack Obama, the former President. Obama, speaking in Milwaukee, appealed to voters on the fence, particularly Black and Latino voters, arguing they would be worse off should Trump win.

“If you’re Black or Latino and you feel like too often your community is overlooked by politicians except around election time, I get how you feel,” Obama said. “But why would you think that the answer is to vote for someone who has a long history of demeaning and disregarding your communities?” Trump and Harris are now preparing for the final day of the campaign.

And they will, of course, both be in Pennsylvania,the place that both campaigns have always viewed asthe make-or-break state of 2024.

New York Times News Service