2024 Elections: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's Final Push Takes Them to the Same Piece of Pennsylvania

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (WPVI) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump held their final pitches to voters in the same part of Monday PennsylvaniaAt about the same time, they spent the last full day of the presidential campaign in a state that could make or break their chances.

Focusing on the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania, Trump took the stage Readingabout 30 miles from Allentownwhere Harris held her own event about half an hour later.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said. “It’s over.”

A Trump victory in Pennsylvania, flipping the 19 Electoral College votes, would break the Democrats’ “blue wall” and make it harder for Harris to win the necessary 270 votes.

Live 2024 election updates in the Philadelphia region with a focus on Pennsylvania

Harris, the Democratic nominee, spent all of Monday in Pennsylvania, the biggest prize among the states expected to decide the Electoral College outcome, and delivered an equally blunt assessment.

“We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote,” she said. “You are going to make a difference in these elections.”

In addition to Allentown, Harris visited Scranton – President Joe Biden’s hometown – and had planned a stop in Reading before ending with a late-night meeting in Philadelphia that would be attended by Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

“Are you ready to do this?” Harris shouted Monday in Scranton, with a large handmade “VOTE FOR FREEDOM” sign behind her and a similar “VOTE” banner at her side.

Trump first went to North Carolina before visiting Reading. He will head to Pittsburgh, on the other side of the state, before ending in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he will hold his final campaign rally in the same place where he concluded his 2016 and 2020 runs.

Southeastern Pennsylvania is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizable Puerto Rican population. Harris and her allies have repeatedly attacked Trump for a comedian in Puerto Rico during the former president’s major Madison Square Garden event. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash.”

“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people – even a lot of Republicans. It was wrong, and I think Trump should have apologized. for Latinos.”

But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to take a photo of Trump’s motorcade. He rejected the comments about Puerto Rico, despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and will therefore vote for Trump.

‘Will the border be safe? Will you reduce crime? That’s what I care about,” he said.

Harris told the crowd, “I stand here proud of my longstanding commitment to Puerto Rico and its people.”

2024 Voter Guide: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware

“And I will be a president for all Americans,” she said, adding that “the momentum is on our side.” Can you feel it?’

Trump, meanwhile, continued to talk about his proposed crackdown on immigration. He called to the stage Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after going missing while hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the U.S. illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador.

About 77 million Americans voted early. A victory for either side would be unprecedented.

If Trump wins, he would be the first new president to be charged and convicted of a crime, following his hush-money trial in New York. He will have the power to end other federal investigations against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

Harris is vying to become the first woman, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command.

The vice president rose to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s disastrous performance in a June debate triggered his withdrawal from the race — one of a series of convulsions to hit this year’s campaign.

Trump survived an assassination attempt by millimeters during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service hand foiled a second attempt in September, when a gunman set up a rifle while Trump played golf at one of his courses in Florida.

Harris, 60, has presented herself as a generational change from the 81-year-old Biden and Trump, who is 78. She has and has emphasized her support for abortion rights following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion services. frequently noted the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Assembling a coalition that ranges from progressives like New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and even embraced criticism late in the campaign that Trump is being accurate described as a ‘fascist.”

Heading into Monday, Harris has largely stopped calling Trump by name, instead calling him “the other guy.” She promises to solve problems and seek consensus.

Harris campaign chairman Jen O’Malley Dillion said on a call with reporters that not saying Trump’s name was intentional because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.”

Harris also offered some insights into her personal formation as a politician that she doesn’t often reveal. In Scranton, she talked about how she was once a longshot when she ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and how she “campaigned with my ironing board.”

“I walked to the front of the grocery store, outside, and I set my ironing board up because, you know, an ironing board is a really great standing desk,” the vice president said, recalling how she would record her shots. posters on the outside of the sign, fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me as they walk in and out.”

In Allentown, Harris gathered with rapper Fat Joe, and she planned to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with the leading progressive voice of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez, are of Puerto Rican descent.

While standing in line for the Allentown rally in Harris, 54-year-old Ron Kessler, an Air Force veteran and Republican-turned-Democrat, said he planned to vote for the second time in his life . Kessler said he didn’t vote for a long time because he thought the country would “vote for the right candidate.”

But “now that I am older and much wiser, I think it is important, it is my civic duty. And it is important that I vote for myself and for democracy and the country.”

On Sunday, Trump renewed his false claims that US elections were rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 – dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument. : “Kamala broke it. I’ll fix it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.