As polls showed a neck-and-neck contest, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned in the swing states. Trump held rallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Mr Trump said America is overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, whom he described as “savages” and “animals”. “If she ever won, she would have open borders the following day after the election,” he said.
Ms Harris started with a rally in Scranton and will be joined by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Oprah Winfrey at a rally on the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps made famous in the “Rocky” movie. While hitting out at abortion bans, she also told voters that she would “listen to people who disagree with me.”
At a rally in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Alicia Keys campaigned for Ms Harris, emphasising the critical importance of voting to protect women’s rights. While Keys refrained from directly naming Donald Trump, she criticised the opposing platform, stating, “If you don’t vote for her, or you don’t vote at all, you’re voting for the chaos and the hate.”
A Pennsylvania judge declined to halt billionaire Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaways to registered voters in US election battleground states. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, had asked that the daily giveaways be shut down, but Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta declined to do so after a day-long hearing, featuring Mr Musk’s lawyers and prosecutors.
Panic buttons for poll workers, special weapons teams deployed on rooftops, and the National Guard on standby are among the security arrangements for the November 5 election, for which 80 million people have already cast their votes. The states of Oregon, Washington and Nevada have activated the National Guard, the FBI has set up a command post to monitor threats, and security has been bolstered at many of the nation’s nearly 100,000 polling stations.
Pennsylvania’s Department of State said its preparation includes multi-layered defences of infrastructure and partnerships with security and law enforcement agencies, although it did not provide details.
Officials are warning of major cyber and hacking threats, particularly from abroad. Russia, Iran and China are conducting influence operations to undermine American confidence in election legitimacy and “to stoke partisan discord,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly recently told NBC News.
Attention is also focused on social media sites like Telegram, which The New York Times reports is being used by rightwing groups to organise poll watchers and prepare them to possibly dispute votes in Democratic areas.
US cybersecurity agency director Jen Easterly said that her department has not seen evidence of any activity that could impact the outcome of the election, despite a surge in disinformation. She added that the 2024 election has faced an “unprecedented” amount of disinformation from foreign adversaries.
Wall Street stocks finished lower following a choppy session as markets gird for volatility connected to the US presidential election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.6 percent at 41,794.60. The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.3 percent to 5,712.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 0.3 percent to 18,179.98.