US election 2024 live updates: Trump launches insults at final rally as Harris ends campaign promising to ‘get to work’ | US elections 2024

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AP reports on a tiny Indian village where Kamala Harris has ancestral roots that is praying for her victory.

There’s little to distinguish the village of Thulasendrapuram from any other rural community in Tamil Nadu, except its connection to a woman who could become America’s first leader with South Asian roots.

As millions of Americans vote, Harris has people rooting for her from thousands of miles away in a village surrounded by rice paddies and coconut trees, where her mother’s family has ancestral ties. They talk about her at the local tea shop. Banners and billboards bearing her face are seen throughout the community.

“Our deity is a very powerful God. If we pray well to him, he will make her victorious,” said M. Natarajan, the temple priest that led the prayers in front of the image of Hindu deity Ayyanar, a form of Lord Shiva.

Harris’ maternal grandfather was born in the village, about 350 kilometers (215 miles) from the southern coastal city of Chennai, more than 100 years ago. As an adult, he moved to Chennai, where he worked as a high-ranking government official until his retirement.

Harris has never visited Thulasendrapuram and she has no living relatives in the village, but people here still venerate the family that made it big in the US.

“Our village ancestors’ granddaughter is running as a US presidential candidate. Her victory will be happy news for every one of us,” Natarajan said.

Harris hasn’t visited India much — particularly not since becoming vice president — but she has often spoken emotionally about her ties to her late mother’s country of birth. On Tuesday, she released a campaign video highlighting her mother, who arrived in the US at age 19 and became a cancer researcher.

Titled “Mother,” the video ends with a narrator saying: “This daughter of Shyamala, this daughter of the American story, is ready to lead us forward.”

Village residents also prayed for Harris’ victory in 2020, and set off firecrackers when she became the US vice president.

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Last night The Guardian reported that betting markets had narrowed on the eve of the election.

The Trump campaign and its supporters had been pointing to Trump’s lead over Harris at leading bookmakers as a more accurate forecast than tight polls that were too close to call in the run up to the election.

But the odds have narrowed somewhat, as the below data visualisation shows:

a graph showing election betting markets

The current odds on the Betfair betting exchange still favour Trump – giving him about a 60% chance of winning the election to Harris’ 40%.

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Updated at 02.59 EST

‘People say God saved me in order to save America,’ Trump tells rally

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt provides some analysis on Trump’s final rally ahead of the election …

Trump said this was his “last rally”, and if that’s true, it was a somewhat ignominious end. More than half the crowd left during a meandering, nearly-two hour long, speech that saw Trump attack Kamala Harris, criticise the thickness of Adam Schiff’s neck, and muse that god may have saved him from an assassin’s bullet so that he could become president.

“Kamala, she is a very low IQ person and we don’t need a very low IQ individual. We’ve had that for four years and our country is going down the drain,” Trump said early in his rally, one of a series of typically vicious critiques on his opponent.

Trump arrived almost two hours late for the rally, and by the time he started speaking about how divine intervention saved him from an assassination attempt, people had already begun to leave.

“Many people say that god saved me in order to save America,” Trump told the crowd. “It’s a beautiful expression and I think it might be true.”

Away from the reverie on god, this “last rally” offered up much of the grievance and doom that has characterised Trump’s politics.

“Some of the greatest criminals in the world are pouring into our country,” Trump said, mirroring his very first campaign rally, at Trump Tower on June 16 2015.

As well as blasting Harris, he called Nancy Pelosi a “crazy horrible human being”, adding: “She’s a sick crazy… oh no… it starts with a b but I won’t say it.”

Trump continued: “These are bad people. Adam shifty Schiff. I call him pencil neck.” He said of the California Democrat: “He’s an unattractive guy in and out.”

At 2.10am, with the audience bleary eyed, Trump finally left the stage after declaring, without specifics, that he would fix all America’s ills. The now familiar sound of Village People’s YMCA played the former president out, and now only time will tell whether he wins re-election.

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Updated at 02.49 EST

Donald Trump continued to attack Kamala Harris and gave dark warnings about a dystopian future under the vice-president in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump also mused that god may have saved him from an assassin’s bullet so that he could become president, as he claimed that he has a “95% chance or something” of winning the election.

Trump has said he will not run for president again, and if this is to be Trump’s last rally, it was a somewhat ignominious end. More than half the crowd left during a meandering, nearly-two hour long, speech that saw Trump attack Nancy Pelosi, criticise the thickness of Adam Schiff’s neck, and demonise immigrants.

“Kamala, she is a very low IQ person and we don’t need a very low IQ individual. We’ve had that for four years and our country is going down the drain,” Trump said early in his rally, one of a series of typically vicious critiques on his opponent.

“If you vote for lying Kamala you’ll have four more years of misery, failure and disaster our country may never recover from,” Trump added, to loud jeers.

Trump arrived almost two hours late for the rally, and by the time he started speaking about how divine intervention saved him from an assassination attempt, people had already begun to leave.

This “last rally” offered up much of the grievance and doom that has characterised Trump’s politics.

“Some of the greatest criminals in the world are pouring into our country,” Trump said, mirroring his very first campaign rally, at Trump Tower on June 16 2015.

That day the then-reality tv host descended on an escalator to announce what was seen as a long shot run for the presidency. He offered grave, racially charged warnings about immigration, characterised cities as crime-addled hellholes, made vague, hyperbolic promises about how only he could fix the country, and launched vicious attacks on political rivals.

Fast forward November 2024, and little has changed.

As well as blasting Harris, he called Nancy Pelosi a “crazy horrible human being”, adding: “She’s a sick crazy… oh no… it starts with a b but I won’t say it.”

At 2am, as the rally drew to a close, he returned to the dark motifs that have been such a hallmark of his political career. Trump’s first rally and his last rally may have been nine years apart. But at this final event, held hours before voting begins in what could be one of the most consequential elections in modern history, it was clear that little has changed.

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Updated at 02.38 EST

Kamala Harris welcomed a slew of celebrities to her rallies in the closing moments of the election campaign, PA reports.

Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Will.i.am, Lady Gaga, Jon Bon Jovi and Christina Aguilera were among the superstars lending their voices to support Harris.

Lady Gaga was one of the stars who performed at Harris’ multi-city rally on the evening before the election, where she sang God Bless America before warning the audience “the country is depending on you”.

Meanwhile, talk show host Winfrey said she travelled across the country to appear at the rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wearing a t-shirt that read “Yes she can”.

“If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again,” the TV star warned.

Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am performed his Harris endorsement song titled “Yes she can”, which includes the lyrics: “So register and vote for your life, do it for your daughters and your sons and your wife.”

It came moments after Gaga’s performance at the rally, where she told the crowd: “For more than half of this country’s life, women did not have a voice … But tomorrow, women will be a part of making this decision.”

“Today, I am holding in my heart all the tough, tenacious women who made me who I am. I cast my vote for someone who will be a president for all Americans.”

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Updated at 02.37 EST

Crowd size has been a persistent talking point for Trump, right from the beginning of his political career more than eight years ago. But Democrats have recently been mocking him over his obsession, pointing out that people have been leaving his lengthy rallies early and that seats at some rallies have been empty. AP has this report:

Donald Trump has spent nearly a decade bragging about his crowds. Lately, he’s been making the same boasts to swaths of empty seats.

In his third presidential bid, Trump for the first time is facing an opponent who stages her own massive rallies, calling further attention to the fact that his crowds, however enthusiastic they are, sometimes have failed to fill large venues and often thinned out as he spoke.

In North Carolina this weekend, the former president and Republican nominee spoke at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, where the lower level of the 22,000-seat arena remained unfilled, with the upper level blocked off altogether.

“We’ve had the biggest rallies in history of any country. Every rally’s full,” he falsely claimed anyway. “You don’t have any seats that are empty.”

He began Monday, the eve of the election, in Raleigh, North Carolina, where a late-arriving crowd came close to filling the venue but left a smattering of empty seats. In Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump took the stage in Santander Arena, where there were sections of empty seats in the 7,200-seat arena. The campaign hung a large American flag near the back of the arena, blocking the view of several seating sections that remained unfilled.

He then went to PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, where the upper level seating was again blocked off.

The former president’s crowds still routinely number in the thousands and they roared regularly as he spoke. And his supporters this year remain engaged enough that his final event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was inside a packed arena even though it started after 12:15 am Tuesday, nearly two hours late. Some rallygoers told a reporter they arrived at 7 am the day before.

But the occasional scenes of empty seats offered a notable contrast to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ biggest events this fall — and to the volume and vibe of Trump’s crowds eight years ago when he sought and won the presidency for the first time …

The former reality television star and consummate showman clearly remains invested in the performative aspect of presidential politics and obviously concerned that Harris, unlike Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020, can match and even exceed his signature campaign tactic. Harris, for example, recently filled the large coliseum in Greensboro.

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And as the clock approaches 2.10am in Michigan, Trump has finally ended his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After ranging further through various topics including promises to defend religious liberty, the right to keep and bear arms, “keeping men out of women’s sports” and building up our borders, he says:

We will never ever surrender, together we will fight fight fight and we will win win win! …

November 5, today, will be the most important day in the history of our country.”

And finally, he ends:

“I love you all, God bless you, God bless you Michigan, God bless the United States of America!” and dances out to the tune of YMCA.

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Trump appears to be winding up and is talking about his “favourite word: tariff!” and repeats his threat to put “large scale” tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada if they don’t prevent fentanyl made by China coming into the US.

He then makes even more imflammatory comments about immigration claiming, without any evidence, that “Crime is plummeting all over the world” because they’re sending their “criminals”, “mental patients”, “prison populations” and others to the US.

He also talks again about putting a missile shield around the US.

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Updated at 02.05 EST

Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump take the mic next, urging people to get out and vote.

“You are going to save democracy in the United States and keep peace in the world,” Eric says of his father.

Then Tiffany says a few brief words before Trump returns. “They’re my kids but I’ll tell you they’re very good people,” he says.

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Updated at 02.17 EST

After touting Joe Rogan’s endorsement of him, Trump has invited his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the co-chair of the National Republican Committee, to take the mic.

She says “we send a loud and clear message” to “the mainstream media” and “the swamp” among other people “that it is we who get to choose the president”.

She says it has been “a very special night for our family”, adding “it has been my honour to be a part of this family, to be out speaking on behalf of a man whom I love … who is going to save this country and is going to save the world.”

It’s approaching 2am in Michigan.

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Trump has now called his family up to the stage, including his sons Eric and Donald Jr, Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos and Eric’s wife Lara, who is the co-chair of the National Republican Committee.

His daughter Ivanka Trump, who was a White House advisor to him during his first term, and his wife Melania, are notable by their absence.

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Trump has given shoutouts to a list of people supporting him, including Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the ambassador to Germany during his time in office, Rick Grenell.

He goes into a story about former chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that when Grenell “was taken out it was the happiest day of her life”.

At one point he adds as an aside, “We can’t let them forget that we stopped that big Chinese plant in Mexico!” and “Let’s put it this way if they build it theyre going to lose their ass”. It wasn’t clear who or what plant he was referring to – see our earlier post.

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The crowds are reportedly beginning to thin out at Trump’s rally in Michigan. He’s been talking for over an hour now.

As the clock ticked past 1am in Grand Rapids, the crowd at this final Trump rally began to thin. Trump has brought much more energy here than he did in Pittsburgh but it’s getting laaaate.

— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) November 5, 2024

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It’s 1.30am in Michigan and Trump has now moved back to talking about cutting energy prices and the cost of groceries again.

He tells a familiar story about an old woman going into a shop to buy three apples but only being able to afford two and having to put one back in the fridge (“refrigeration”). It’s not clear where or when this happened.

“That shouldn’t be happening in our country,” he says.

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After some more insults hurled at Kamala Harris and California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump begins making further inflammatory remarks about immigration, accusing Harris of wanting open borders and of allowing an “invasion” of immigrants including those from “mental institutions”.

“The day I take office the migrant invasion ends,” he says, later adding that we “live in an occupied country”.

He also repeats his call for the death penalty for any illegal immigrant who kills and American citizen and his plan to ban sanctuary cities.

Trump has promised to restore and expand his most controversial immigration policies, including the travel ban aimed at mostly Muslim countries. He has consistently promised to stage the “largest deportation operation in American history”.

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Trump talks briefly about groceries (“People say ‘groceries,’ right? I haven’t used tha … it’s such a sort of an old term.”)

Then he talks for a while about the attempt to assassinate him in Pennsylvania in July. He calls his survival a “miracle” and at one point mentions that “illegal immigration saved me” although I didn’t catch how.

He then moves into an anecdote about visiting Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom with Melania Trump. He says that the assassinated president suffered from “melancholia” and adds that: “He was very tall, he was six foot six, that’s the equivalent of a Barron Trump today … the bed was very long.”

After a few asides about Melania’s book, he returns to the theme of the attempt on his life.

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