The 2024 presidential contest speeds into its final weekend with Vice President Harris and President Trump locked in a razor-thin contest.

At this late stage in the campaign, every day matters. And while few voters might change their minds this late in a typical election, there is a sense that what happens in these final days could shift votes.

Ms. Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the country to rally voters in the states that matter most. They’re trying — with varying degrees of success — to stay focused on a clear and concise closing message. 

At the same time, each side is investing substantial resources to drive up turnout for the final early voting period. And in these critical days, the flow of misinformation is intensifying.

Here’s what we’re watching on the final weekend before Election Day:

Where will Harris and Trump be?

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

Note that schedules can and likely will change without warning. On Saturday, though, Trump is expected to make separate appearances in North Carolina with one eyebrow-raising stop in Virginia in between.

No Democratic presidential candidate has carried 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 Ms. Harris has a real opportunity in the state. Yet Trump is also trying to convey confidence by stopping in Virginia, a state that has been safely in the Democratic column since 2008.

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

He also has another appearance scheduled for North Carolina in addition to Georgia, another Southern state that has leaned Republican for almost three decades — that is, until President Biden carried it by less than a half percentage point four years ago.

Meanwhile, Ms. Harris is expected to campaign in North Carolina and Georgia on Saturday in a sign that her team is sensing genuine opportunity in the South. 

She’s planning to make multiple stops in Michigan on Sunday, shifting to a Democratic-leaning state in the so-called Blue Wall where her allies believe she is vulnerable.

Will they stay on message?

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

Ms. Harris’ team wants voters to be thinking about another: Do they trust Trump or Ms. Harris to put the nation’s interests over their own?

Whichever candidate can more effectively keep voters focused on their closing arguments in the coming days may ultimately win the presidency. Yet both candidates are off to a challenging start.

Trump opens the weekend still facing the fallout from his recent New York City rally in which a comedian described Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of garbage.” 

Things got harder for Trump late Thursday after he mused, in remarks with Tucker Carlson, about the prospect of Congresswoman Liz Cheney’s death by gunfire.

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

Ms. Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, is still working to shift the conversation away from Mr. Biden’s comments earlier in the week that described Trump supporters as “garbage.” 

The Associated Press reported late Thursday that White House press officials had altered the official transcript of the call in question, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity.

What happens with early voting?

More than 66 million people have already cast ballots in the 2024 election, which is more than one-third the total number who voted in 2020.

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

And while early in-person voting has ended in many states, there will be a huge push for final-hours early voting in at least three key states as the campaigns work to bank as many votes as possible before Election Day.

Associated Press