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Harris and Trump are in a close race

Harris and Trump are in a close race
Posted on | Posted on angela

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There are still three days until election day. Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will make their final addresses to voters this final weekend.

Trump will be in the Sun Belt with stops in North Carolina and Virginia on Saturday afternoon. In the evening he returns to North Carolina for a rally.

In the meantime, Harris will also stop in the south. The vice president has a rally planned in Atlanta this afternoon, followed by an event later in Charlotte.

Stay on top of the campaign trail with USA TODAY Network's live coverage.

Women have outpaced men in early voting turnout by nearly 10 percentage points, a trend that Kamala Harris' campaign and Democrats see as cause for optimism.

But Republican candidate Donald Trump's campaign insists he is not worried, arguing that the gap is simply because male Democratic voters have stayed home so far.

Four days after Election Day, as of Friday, 53% of early voters nationwide were women and 44% were men, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic-leaning company that tracks data on early voters.

The margin is roughly in line with the 2020 election won by Joe Biden, when the early voting gap at that time was also 53% to 44%. But Democrats are optimistic because women – with polls showing Harris leading Donald Trump by a wide margin – have maintained the 9-point lead, even though Republican voters made up a larger share of the provisional vote this year.

“Democratic women in particular just seem more enthusiastic. Even as Republican vote share increases, these gender gaps still exist,” said Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart.

–Joey Garrison

Here's how the candidates perform in swing states and polls

With just three days until Election Day, the race is still razor-thin in a number of key swing states that could determine the winner.

In Pennsylvania, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump tied at 49%.

The two are also deadlocked in Michigan at 47% each, according to another exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk poll.

A UMass Lowell/YouGov poll released this week shows Trump with a narrow lead within the margin of error in North Carolina.

— Sam Woodward

A star-studded Saturday for Harris in North Carolina, Georgia

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has a busy Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, two key battleground states, where she will campaign at star-studded rallies.

In Atlanta, the vice president will be joined by director Spike Lee and singer Victoria Monét as well as performances by rappers 2 Chainz, Big Tigger, Monica and Pastor Troy.

In Charlotte, actress and campaign surrogate Kerry Washington will speak and artists Jon Bon Jovi, Khalid, Brittney Spencer and The War and Treaty will perform.

— Sam Woodward

Walz wants to advertise with actress Eva Longoria Saturday

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz will campaign with actress Eva Longoria on Saturday morning in Las Vegas, Nevada, a key swing state that is poised to win next week to secure a victory.

Longoria, a Democratic political operative, has been present on and off the campaign trail for the Harris-Walz ticket and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

— Sam Woodward

As Election Day approaches, protecting against misinformation is more important than ever.

In the coming days and weeks, election officials across the country will count millions of ballots and announce winners and losers. This means your social media feed will likely be filled with unfounded allegations of fraud – many of which we've seen before. Some common tales:

  • The election was stolen due to voter fraud
  • Non-citizens vote in large numbers
  • Due to the “hacking” of machines, votes were added/subtracted
  • Altered vote totals prove fraud occurred
  • Partisan election officials falsify the vote count
  • There were more votes than registered voters

USA TODAY has debunked dozens of such claims in recent election cycles. Here's a rundown of what's missing from these tales so you can be prepared when they resurface. Read more here.

A Pennsylvania court on Friday ordered the Erie County Board of Elections to provide new mail-in ballots to nearly 20,000 voters who did not receive them and to remain open for extended office hours through Election Day to accept them.

Judge David Ridge of the Court of Common Pleas ordered the relief after holding a hearing Thursday about problems the elections office and its vendor, ElectionIQ, had in delivering ballots through the U.S. Postal Service.

The number of missing ballots in just one county in the key battleground state is potentially significant. Former President Donald Trump won the state by about 40,000 votes in 2016 and President Joe Biden won it by about 80,000 votes in 2020.

–Bart Jansen

Harris will be in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon for a “Get Out the Vote” campaign rally. She travels alongside Charlotte to a similar event in the evening.

− Savannah Kuchar

Trump will stop at a rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, at midday. The former president will then travel to Salem, Virginia, a few hours north of the Tar Heel State border.

On Saturday evening, Trump is back in North Carolina, this time at a rally in Greensboro.

− Savannah Kuchar

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