Gastonia: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump dueled across the swing states Saturday on the final weekend of the tensest US election of modern times, with the Democrat urging voters to "turn the page" on the Republican's scorched-earth brand of politics.
Seventy five million people have already cast early ballots as the hours tick down to the Election Day climax Tuesday.
The country - and the world - could then face a nail-biting wait to know whether Harris becomes the first US woman president or Trump secures a spectacular return to power after his unprecedented and at times violent campaign to overturn his 2020 reelection loss to Joe Biden.
The rivals literally crossed paths Saturday, with Harris's official vice presidential Air Force Two and Trump's personal jet sharing the airport tarmac in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Both held rallies in North Carolina, while Harris also spoke to supporters in Georgia, another of the seven swing states seen as the keys to victory in an otherwise dead-even nationwide contest. Trump added in a stop in Virginia.
The rounds of high-stakes speeches before thousands of people at each stop continue Sunday when Harris holds multiple events in the swing state of Michigan and Trump rallies with supporters in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Most polls show Trump, 78, and Harris, 60, within the margin of error from each other across the swing states.
However, there was a surprise boost for Harris when one of the most respected pollsters in the country dropped a new survey in the Des Moines Register that shows the Democrat three points ahead of Trump in Iowa - a state he won easily both in his victorious 2016 presidential campaign and again in his narrow 2020 defeat.
Reflecting Harris's drive to hit every possible target before Tuesday, her plane unexpectedly took a detour to New York for an appearance on the legendary Saturday Night Live television comedy show.
Women and dark rhetoric
For Harris, a key electorate is women voters angered over the ruling by justices appointed by then-president Trump to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, ending a decades-long constitutional right to abortion.
"Donald Trump's not done. He will ban abortion nationwide," Harris said in Atlanta, Georgia.
She painted Trump as "increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge" and "out for unchecked power."
"We have an opportunity in this election to finally turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump who spends full time trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other," she said.
Trump, stirring up his right-wing base, continued to deliver increasingly dark rhetoric.
In Salem, Virginia, he began his speech by saying "I've come today with a message of hope for all."
But he was soon back to conjuring the apocalyptic vision he'd laid out hours earlier in North Carolina.
Calling his opponent "low IQ" and "stupid," he said Harris would usher in an economic "depression," asking the crowd: "Do you want to lose your job and maybe your house and pension?"
Earlier, he warned women that without him in the White House, violent criminals would threaten them in their homes.
Trump has worked hard to appeal to men, appearing on podcasts with martial artists, spending time in barbershops and meeting with crypto entrepreneurs. With Harris getting a surge in support from women, some predict a dramatic gender gap in the results.
Thousands demonstrated Saturday in central Washington for a Women's March.
Sheridan Steelman, a 74-year-old part-time English teacher, said she'd previously been on the sidelines but was voting now for Harris.
"There's too much at stake," she said, noting her worries over reproductive health issues but also "being ignored and silenced."
Election conspiracy theory
Trump refuses to say whether he would accept a loss, sparking fears of unrest.
Businesses in the US capital have begun boarding up storefronts as city authorities warn of a "fluid, unpredictable security environment."
Trump is already alleging fraud and cheating in swing states such as Pennsylvania, much as he did in 2020 ahead of his unprecedented attempt to overturn the election, culminating in the attack by followers on the US Capitol.
On Saturday he claimed he could win in Virginia, despite no polls indicating this, and said even heavily Democratic California would vote for him "if we had an honest election."
The candidates' frantic schedules will run right into Monday, culminating with late-night rallies - in Grand Rapids, Michigan for Trump and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for Harris.
US Election: Key moments in an extraordinary campaign
Here are key moments as candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris edge towards Election Day on Tuesday.
Trump the felon
"Trump Guilty," is splashed across the world's front pages. On May 30 the Republican becomes the first former US president to be convicted of felony crimes - 34 counts to be exact.
He is found to have falsified business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of his 2016 election win, so that she would not publicize their alleged sexual encounter.
In the explosive six-week trial, Daniels shares excruciating details about their apparent one-night stand, including the sex position and Trump's silky pajamas.
The ordeal pulls him from the campaign trail, but huge media attention ensures he keeps the spotlight - even if it is on his criminality.
Nothing in US law prevents Trump from running for the White House after the guilty verdict, and Republicans double down their unwavering support for the party standard-bearer, who still faces three other criminal cases.
Debate drama
Democratic hopes appear shattered after President Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee, delivers a disastrous debate performance against Trump on June 27.
The 81-year-old fumbles his words and often appears to forget what he is saying, bolstering fears that he is not fit to run again for president.
Biden brushes it off as a "bad night" but dissenters say otherwise, with donors threatening to pull funding if he does not step aside.
Post-debate polling shows Trump pulling away from Biden but the White House insists there is zero chance he will withdraw.
Assassination attempt
A sun-baked Trump rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 provides the election campaign's most shocking moment yet.
Popping sounds ring out, Trump touches his ear, sees blood, and drops to the stage floor. Secret Service officers surround him as screams ring out in the crowd.
Within seconds Trump is helped back to his feet. "Fight, fight, fight!" he mouths to a now cheering audience, raising his fist to create one of the most iconic images in US political history.
The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, is shot dead at the scene by the Secret Service, and Trump survives with a minor graze to his right ear.
Trump's base is galvanized. "I took a bullet for democracy," he tells his supporters at a later rally.
Biden says 'bye'
At 1:46 pm on Sunday, July 21, Biden announces in a tweet that he will not seek reelection.
It makes him the first sitting president since 1968 not to seek reelection, and upends the White House race.
Kamala Harris, the first female, Black and Asian-American to serve as US vice president, gains Biden's endorsement to replace him in the campaign.
Within two weeks she formally secures the Democratic nomination, making her the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket.
Harris re-energizes Democrats and delivers immediate results in opinion polls by clawing back Trump's gains, including in the election-deciding swing states.
Trump's second scare
Trump's weekend round of golf in Florida on September 15 is shattered by the sound of gunshots - this time fired by a Secret Service agent foiling what the FBI calls an apparent assassination attempt.
The Republican nominee is unharmed in the second such scare in two months.
Investigators say the gunman, Ryan Routh, did not shoot at Trump but instead fled when a security agent opened fire after seeing his rifle pointing through a tree line at the golf course.
The Harris surge
Within a few weeks, Harris hurtles from being a relatively unknown and unpopular vice president into a surging candidate on an unprecedentedly tight deadline.
A key moment in her campaign is her one and only debate with Trump on September 10. She is widely credited with besting Trump.
Their intense duel climaxes a week ahead of Election Day with big rallies.
For Trump, it's a packed crowd in New York's famed Madison Square Garden arena on October 27, an event quickly criticized for racist jokes, including one speaker's reference to Hispanic-majority Puerto Rico as "garbage."
Harris follows up on October 29 with the biggest crowd of her campaign - tens of thousands of people - on the National Mall outside the White House.
