WASHINGTON- A campaign that has led to a serious crime convictiona televised attempted murder and one afternoon withdrawal The election of a sitting president has entered its final weekend with the same chasm that has dominated American politics for the past decade: between voters who fear former President Trump will destroy the country and those who believe he has already lost the course.

“We have a wonderful system of government,” said Susan Markowitz, a 72-year-old lawyer from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, who recently attended an event for Vice President Kamala Harris. “That’s in jeopardy if Mr. Trump returns to office.”

“He’s not the status quo,” said Dave Duncan, a 58-year-old salesman from Macomb Township, Michigan, who supports Trump. “And I think that’s often what people like about him.”

Supporters arrive before former President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, on Saturday.

(Chris Carlson/Associated Press)

Trump and Harris spend the final weekend of the campaign pressuring voters to turn out both say is a existential choice. Polls show the race is essentially tied, within a margin that has moved little since Harris replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee in late July.

It’s an unusual race, and not just because Biden, 81, dropped out with less than four months left amid growing concerns that he wasn’t up to the job at his age.

Trump could become the first president elected as a criminal and the first to try to overturn an election and incite a insurrection – the rare candidate, in any democracy, who has openly threatened to use the military and the courts to persecute the political enemies he calls “the enemy from within.” However, he has managed to turn those normally disqualifying facts on their head, positioning himself alongside roughly half of the electorate as the definitive agent of change for a system he describes as corrupt.

Less than a third of voters believe the country is on the right path, according to center. – a finding that would normally spell doom for the Democrats as the ruling party. Concerns about Trump’s fitness for office have kept the race competitive.

Voters’ desire for change has complicated Harris’ task as she attempts to become the first woman (and first woman of color) to win the White House. He has struggled to answer how he would govern differently from Biden, who is deeply unpopular. Although she is acting vice president, she has tried to position herself as the candidate to “turn the page” by presenting Trump and his rhetoric as the cause of this national unrest.

“People are tired of him,” Harris said last week.

Kamala Harris supporters demonstrate at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis on Friday.

(Jacquelyn Martín / Associated Press)

He has highlighted dire warnings from his Republican rival’s former closest advisers that a second Trump term would be more dangerous than his first, with little to stop him from avenging his enemies using the courts and the military, or aligning himself with autocrats against American allies and disrupting fundamental American rights while fulfilling his promises to be a “dictator from day one” in office.

“Or it’s Donald Trump, sitting there, arguing, reflecting on his list of enemies; or me, with your help, working for you, checking off my to-do list,” Harris said at a recent rally.

Trump has disparaged Harris’ intelligence and has stated that immigrants have turned the United States into “an occupied country” and a “garbage bin for the world” promising that his election would mean a “day of liberation” when he imprisons “these vicious, bloodthirsty criminals.”

“This election is a choice between having four more years of blatant incompetence and failure or whether we will begin the greatest four years in the history of our country,” Trump said in his closing speech at Madison Square Garden last week.

The two candidates have dedicated most of their time and effort just to seven states in battle expected to decide the election: Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.

A recent monmouth The poll in Pennsylvania, the most populous swing state, showed why the race is so difficult to predict: Trump leads by 1 percentage point among registered voters, and maintains that lead when the poll results are based on voter pool who voted in 2020. Harris leads when the poll is based on turnout in the 2022 midterm elections. A final model, “extremely motivated voters,” ties the race.

Supporters listen to Harris speak at a campaign rally in Milwaukee on Friday.

(Paul Beaty/Associated Press)

Both candidates visited Wisconsin on Friday, while Trump was scheduled to visit Virginia and North Carolina on Saturday and Harris was headed to North Carolina and Georgia.

In swing states, voters are acutely feeling the enormous attention. Nearly every corner of Phoenix and its suburbs is dominated by a colorful collection of campaign signs from every political persuasion.

Voters flocked to a Scottsdale voting center last week, greeted by activists from both major parties who flanked the parking lot entrance to hand out voter guides: a red-shirted conservative on the right and two progressives dressed in blue on the left.

Surrogates from both campaigns have fanned out across Arizona in recent days, appealing to the different target groups Trump and Harris need to flip the divided state.

Jeff Flake, who served in the U.S. Senate and was ambassador to Turkey, joined other prominent Arizona Republicans for a “Republicans for Harris-Walz” news conference. Harris has been deliberately courting Republicans unhappy with her nominee, and Flake told attendees he supported her “not despite being a conservative Republican, but because of it.”

Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona, defends Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

A passerby threw a comment in Flake’s direction: “RINO!”

Both Harris and Trump are “targeting the same last-minute undecided group,” said Celinda Lake, Biden’s 2020 pollster, who is conducting focus groups for Democrats aligned with Harris’ campaign.

The remaining persuadable voters (about 4% of the electorate) tend to consume less information about politics. Many are non-college-educated women who don’t like Trump’s rhetoric and style but see him as a businessman who would be better for the economy, Lake said. They know less about Harris, but see her as risky, in part because she is a woman and of color, Lake said.

Trump has tried to appeal to undecided voters by raising fears about crime, immigration, social issues and the economy, along with gender- and race-based attacks on Harris’ intelligence.

The outcome will likely depend on whether Harris can persuade at least some of these voters not only that she can handle the job, but also that Trump represents a fundamental threat.

“A lot of people just think, ‘Oh, I can survive.’ I’m not sure, so I’m going to go with Trump because of the economy,’” Lake said of her focus group findings. “She has to make it as risky as she is.”

Republicans supporting Harris for president gather at an event outside the Indian Bend Wash Visitor Center on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Trump and his allies believe Harris’ message will not resonate as much as immigration and the economy.

“To say that democracy is under attack is a more amorphous thing,” said Sean Spicer, who was one of Trump’s White House press secretaries.

Polls and history suggest voters want change, largely because inflation early in Biden’s term, along with high interest rates, made many worry about buying food and housing. Other economic indicators, including low unemployment and lower inflation in recent months, suggest a healthy economy. But many voters don’t see it that way.

“The only thing I’m worried about is the economy, nothing else,” said Joe Rice, a 60-year-old cashier from Philadelphia.

Rice is black and a lifelong Democrat, but he was considering a change because he has struggled to live on his $18-an-hour wage.

“Trump lived a little easier when he was there, even though there is a division with the little skinheads and all that,” Rice said.

Harris has tried to win over voters like Rice with proposals aimed at securing the middle class, such as stipends for first-time home buyers, an expansion of Medicare for in-home nursing, an expansion of the child tax credit. He has pointed to a consensus among economists that Trump’s plans to impose large tariffs would substantially raise the price of everyday goods, essentially calling them an increase in the sales tax.

Some polls show Harris has drawn closer to Trump when voters are asked who would best handle the economy, but Trump has led on the issue in most polls. Harris’ efforts to narrow that gap could mitigate her deficits among male voters. Her substantial lead with female voters, many of them animated by anger over the loss of abortion rights, could propel her to victory.

Harris has emphasized that issue almost as much as Trump has talked about immigration, often drawing attention to women who have been denied medical care during problematic pregnancies and miscarriages.

Trump has less detailed plans. But in addition to proposing record tariffs on imported goods, he has promised or floated ideas to eliminate a variety of taxes, including tipped wages, overtime, auto loans and even general income. Economists say that would not leave enough money to finance the government.

Two Trump supporters use trash bags as they wait before his rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on October 31.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

But even as Trump’s advisers urge him to continue on the economy and attacks on Harris too liberal, He has frequently deflected his sometimes incomprehensible rantings at his rallies on topics such as Arnold Palmer’s penis size and false claims about legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing household pets to eat.

Candice Gonzalez, a widow caring for three autistic children in suburban Detroit, said she chose Harris as “the lesser of two evils.”

“He’s just not a good person,” Gonzalez, 54, said of Trump.

Bierman reported from Washington and Pinho from Phoenix. Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this report from Los Angeles.