On election night, Harris and Trump are holding dueling rallies in the biggest battleground

PHILADELPHIA — Vice President Kamala Harris makes a last-minute pitch to her supporters in the biggest battleground.

“We need your vote, Pennsylvania. We need your voice,” Harris stressed last week as she addressed a large crowd in the Keystone State’s capital, Harrisburg. “No one can sit on the sidelines.”

The vice president and Democratic presidential candidate returns to Pennsylvania on Monday and will hold rallies in Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on election night.

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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at a campaign rally at the PA Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Her rival for the White House, Republican nominee for former President Donald Trump, held a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday.

“A very, very special hello to Pennsylvania…What a great place. And I’m happy to be back in this beautiful Commonwealth with thousands of proud, hard-working American patriots,” the former president told the crowd at his rally in Lititz.

Trump's message to his supporters: “Pennsylvania, go vote.”

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On Monday, the last full day of campaigning before Election Day, Trump returns to the state to hold rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh.

It's no surprise that both major party candidates are focusing their final campaign plans heavily on Pennsylvania.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP/Matt Rourke)

With 19 electoral votes up for grabs, it is the biggest prize among the seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden's 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine whether Trump or Harris succeed Biden in the White House become.

“Pennsylvania is the only state where it's difficult to imagine someone losing the presidential race and then still winning,” Mark Harris, a Pittsburgh-based longtime Republican national strategist and ad maker, told Fox News. “It’s clearly ground zero.”

Harris, a veteran of several Republican presidential campaigns, called Pennsylvania “a major turning point state.”

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Harris pointed to the state's major cities – Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – its electorally important suburbs and its sprawling rural counties, emphasizing: “I think it's a good microcosm of America.”

The former president, current vice president and their running mate — Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance and his Democratic counterpart — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — as well as top surrogates have made repeated stops in the state this summer and fall.

For the first time since the vice president named the governor of Minnesota as her running mate, Harris and Walz are campaigning together

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz team up on the campaign trail for the first time, just hours after the vice president named Walz as her running mate on the Democratic ticket, August 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

While the campaigns and their allied super PACs have poured resources into all seven battleground states, more money has been spent providing seats in Pennsylvania than all other swing states, according to numbers from AdImpact, a leading national advertising tracking firm.

Pennsylvania, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, are the three Rust Belt states that form the so-called “Blue Wall” of the Democrats.

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The party reliably won all three states for a quarter century before Trump narrowly won them in the 2016 election and won the White House.

Four years later, in 2020, Biden carried all three states by a razor-thin margin, bringing them back into the Democratic fold and defeating Trump.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of Pennsylvania last Tuesday through Saturday and released Sunday showed Harris and Trump deadlocked at 48% among likely voters in the state. It was the last poll to suggest a tie or a race with a margin of error.

Senior Harris campaign officials answered questions from reporters Sunday evening, noting that about three-quarters of voters in the Keystone State will cast their ballots on Tuesday “because in Pennsylvania, unlike other states, the guidelines and ability to vote early are more limited.” .”

However, they added that when it comes to early voting in the state, “we really like what we see.”

They predicted that “we are expecting a very strong Election Day in Pennsylvania.”

However, Pennsylvania is also the state where Trump survived an assassination attempt in July – two days before the start of the Republican National Convention. In addition, the former president returned to the Butler site in the western part of the state last month for a large rally.

Former President Donald Trump returns to Butler, PA. to hold another rally on October 5th

A large crowd awaits the arrival of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, October 5, 2024. The rally is being held at the same location as on July 13, when an attempt was made on Trump's life. (Matthew McDermott for Fox News Digital)

Ahead of his two rallies in Pennsylvania, Trump is kicking off his Monday campaign schedule in North Carolina, where he will hold his fourth rally since Saturday, which has caused a stir among political activists.

“We were very lucky in North Carolina. We won it twice,” Trump said Sunday in Kinston. “We’re going to win North Carolina.”

A day earlier, at another rally in North Carolina, he warned his supporters: “If you win by a big margin, you can still lose by a little.”

Polls point to a margin of error race in North Carolina, the only one of the seven key battlegrounds that Trump narrowly won over Biden four years ago. A source close to the former president's political circle confided in Fox News that there are concerns about a possible backlash in the Tar Heel State.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures at a campaign rally at the Kinston Regional Jetport on Sunday, November 3, 2024 in Kinston, North Carolina. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

While Harris wraps up her campaign with a late-night rally in Philadelphia, Trump will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for his final rally. For Trump, it's tradition. He ended his 2016 and 2020 campaigns in the southwest Michigan city.

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Trump argued again Sunday, as he has in recent days, without providing evidence that Democrats were trying to cheat.

“They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” the former president demanded at his rally in Pennsylvania.

Later, at his rally in North Carolina, he also reiterated his claim: “We have a big lead. We have a big lead. The fake news, they don't tell you that. We have a big, nice lead.”

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in a dead heat with just days until Election Day. (AP)

In response, Harris told reporters on Sunday: “I would especially ask people who haven't voted yet not to fall for his tactics, which I think include suggesting to people that their vote doesn't matter.” , if they would vote. Suggesting to people that “somehow the integrity of our electoral system is broken, so they won’t vote.”

“It is intended to distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country,” Harris argued. “We achieved that in 2020. He lost.”

The Harris campaign also touted its impressive voter turnout effort Sunday evening, highlighting that more than 90,000 volunteers mobilized voters over the weekend and knocked on more than three million doors in battlegrounds.

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital Election Center.

Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in New Hampshire.

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