By STEVE PEOPLES, AP National Political Editor

NEW YORK (AP) — The 2024 presidential race moves into its final weekend with Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. caught in a very fine contest.

In this last stage of the campaign, every day counts. And while few voters would change their minds that late in a typical situation choiceThere is a feeling that what happens in these last few days could change the votes.

Here’s what we’ll see the last weekend before Election Day, which is Tuesday:

Where will Harris and Trump be?

You only have to look at the candidates’ agendas this weekend to know where this election will likely be decided.

Please note that hours can, and likely will, change without notice. But on Saturday, Trump is expected to make separate appearances in North Carolina with a surprising stop in Virginia in between.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina since Barack Obama in 2008, although it has been decided by less than 3 points in every election since. Trump’s decision to spend Saturday there suggests Harris has a real chance in the state. But Trump also tries to convey confidence.

There is perhaps no more important swing state than Pennsylvania, where Trump is expected to campaign. Sunday in Lititz, Lancaster County.

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance plans to be in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Monday. Rumors of a Sunday event in York have petered out.

He also has another appearance scheduled in North Carolina, as well as Georgia, another Southern state that has leaned Republican for nearly three decades — that is, until Joe Biden won it by less than half a percentage point four years ago.

• Further: Sen. Cory Booker touts Harris’ economic plan at campaign stop in Harrisburg

Harris, meanwhile, is expected to campaign in North Carolina and Georgia on Saturday, in a sign that her team is sensing a genuine opportunity in the South. She is planning to make several stops. in Michigan on Sunday, moving to a Democratic-leaning state in the so-called Blue Wall, where his allies believe he is vulnerable.

she plans be in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Monday.

Vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz and his wife plan to be in Harrisburg on Election Day.

Do they stay on message?

Trump’s campaign leadership wants voters to focus on one key question as they prepare to cast their ballot, and it’s the same question they open every rally with: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Harris’ team wants voters to think about something else: Do they trust Trump or Harris to put the nation’s interests before their own?

Whichever candidate can keep voters focused most effectively on his closing arguments in the coming days could ultimately win the presidency. However, both candidates are off to a challenging start.

Trump enters the weekend still dealing with the fallout from his recent rally in New York, in which a comedian described Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of garbage.” Things got tougher for Trump on Thursday night after he raised the possibility of Republican rival Liz Cheney shot to death.

It was exactly the kind of incendiary comment his allies want him to avoid at this critical moment.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is still working to steer the conversation away from President Biden’s comments earlier in the week that described Trump supporters as “trash”.” The Associated Press reported Thursday night that White House press officials altered the official transcript of the call in question, drawing objections from federal workers who document such comments for posterity.

• Further: Voters view each other across partisan divide with growing animosity

The spotlight of presidential politics always shines brightly. But perhaps it will burn more intensely this final weekend, leaving the campaigns with virtually no margin for error. In what both sides believe is a truly volatile election, any missteps in the final hours could prove decisive.

How will the gender gap develop?

Trump’s graphic attack on Cheney was especially problematic given the intensifying pressure from his allies. concerns about women voters.

Polls show a significant gender gap in the race, with Harris generally rating much better among women than Trump. Part of that may be the result of the Republican Party’s fight to restrict abortion rights, which has been disastrous for Trump’s party. But Trump’s divisive leadership has also alienated women.

Heading into the weekend, Trump allies, including conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, warn that many more women than men appear to be cast early votes. While it’s impossible to know who they’re voting for, Kirk clearly thinks it’s bad news for Trump.

Trump is not helping their cause. A day before his violent rhetoric about Cheney, the former Republican president caused a sensation by insisting that he would protect women whether they like it or not.

Harris, who would be the country’s first female president, said Trump does not understand the rights of women “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

It remains to be seen whether the Democrat’s argument can carry the day on this packed weekend. But Harris’ team believes there is still a significant portion of persuadable voters. And they say the undecided are disproportionately Republican-leaning suburban women.

What about early voting?

More than 66 million people have already voted in the 2024 elections, which is more than a third of the total number of people who voted in 2020.

They include many more Republicans compared to four years ago, largely because Trump has backed off his insistence that his supporters must cast their ballots in person on Election Day.

And while early in-person voting has ended in many states, there will be a big push for early voting in the final hours in at least three key states as campaigns work to rack up as many votes as possible before polling day. elections.

That includes Michigan, where early in-person voting extends through Monday. Voters in Wisconsin can vote in person from early to Sunday, although it varies by location. And in North Carolina, voters have until 3 p.m. Saturday to cast their early ballot in person.

The early voting period ended Friday in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. In Pennsylvania, mail-in ballots are due Tuesday at 8 p.m.; postmarks do not count.

Meanwhile, questions remain about the Trump campaign’s vote-getter operation, which relies heavily on well-funded and inexperienced outside groups, including a group largely funded by billionaire Elon Musk who facing new questions about their practices.

Harris’ campaign, by contrast, is running a more traditional get-out-the-vote operation that has more than 2,500 paid employees and 357 offices in the battleground states alone.

Will misinformation intensify?

Trump’s allies appear to be escalating baseless allegations of election fraud, and some are being amplified by Trump himself. He has spent months sowing doubt about the integrity of the 2024 election should he lose, just as he did four years ago.

Their baseless accusations are becoming more specific, in some cases, as wild claims begin to appear on social media.

• Further: Suspicious Pennsylvania Voter Registration Forms Linked to Arizona City Councilman’s Company

Earlier this week, Trump claimed on social media that York County, Pennsylvaniahad “received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications from a group of third parties.”

he also has noted Lancaster Countywho according to him had been “caught with 2,600 fake ballots and forms, all written by the same person. “Really bad ‘things’.”

Trump was referring to investigations into possible fraud related to voter registration applications. Application discovery and investigation provides evidence that the system is working as it should.

The Republican candidate has also raised unfounded claims about foreign votes and non-citizen voting, and has suggested, without evidence, that Harris could have access to some type of privileged and secret information about the election results.

Expect these types of claims to increase, especially on social media, in the coming days. And remember that a broad coalition of top government and industry officials, many of them Republicans, concluded that the 2020 election was the “most secure” in American history.”