AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Election Day is Tuesday, the end of campaign 2024. We have a look at the campaign's final days in one swing state, Michigan, in a moment. But for an overview, we must first turn to NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Thank you for being with us all throughout this election season and hanging in there with us.
LIASSON: My pleasure.
RASCOE: So Tuesday is Election Day, but millions of people have already locked in their votes, right?
LIASSON: That's right. More than 74 million people have already cast their votes. That's a little less than half of the total number of votes cast in 2020. But what - that doesn't necessarily mean that these are new voters or that overall turnout will be higher than 2020. It could be just people who ordinarily would have voted on Election Day, but decided to mail in their vote or vote early if their state allows that.
There are some trends we see in the early voting that are making Republicans nervous and Democrats hopeful, which is that the early vote seems to be heavily female. TargetSmart, which is a Democratic analytics firm, says that women were 53.5% of the early vote in the seven battleground states. So we see the same kind of gender gap in turnout that we've been seeing in the polls. This is a real men-are-from-Mars, women-are-from-Venus election, with men favoring Trump and women favoring Harris. And we know that women always turn out in larger numbers in presidential elections. They're usually, like, 53% to 47% of the vote or 52 to 48. If Democrats can get that gap higher, maybe up to 54%, that's a good sign for them, and it's why Republicans are working so hard to get more young male, white, noncollege men who are low-propensity voters out to vote.
RASCOE: OK, so for voters who haven't already cast their ballots, the candidates have been stressing, you know, what's called their closing arguments. Let's start with Donald Trump, who had a rally a week ago today at Madison Square Garden. And that got overshadowed by some of the speakers, who were invited to join him on stage.
LIASSON: That's right - lots of racist and misogynist comments, including that comedian who called Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage. But the closing arguments for Trump, there really are two different things. There's the closing argument that the Trump campaign wants to deliver, and you see it in their ads. The economy was better when Trump was in office. There were no foreign wars. He can do that again.
Then there is the closing argument that Donald Trump himself is delivering at his rallies, which is very dark, lot of violent rhetoric and very gendered. You know, he calls Kamala Harris a weak and foolish woman. He says, quote, "she will get overwhelmed and melt down." He continues to say he'll protect women, whether they like it or not. And, of course, there's the repeated attacks on Liz Cheney. He said, let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels when the guns are trained on her face. And he also talks about using the military against his political opponents, who he calls, quote, the enemy within. Here he is.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: When I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy, becomes a - oh, how can he say - you know, they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within.
LIASSON: The problem with this is that the rhetoric might work in two different ways. It could motivate low-propensity voters, white male, noncollege voters, to come out. Usually voters who are angry or worried come out more. But at the same time, it could turn off female voters, and some of Trump's allies, including Nikki Haley, have warned him about this and said there's just too much macho-bro talk. It could turn off suburban women.
RASCOE: What about Kamala Harris? She made her closing argument, formal closing argument, Tuesday here in Washington. What's she trying to stress in these final days?
LIASSON: Well, she has a very different closing argument strategy than Trump. He's not really trying to reach out to the center. He just wants to get more voters that look like his base. Her closing argument has two parts. One is, she is reaching out to the center. She wants independent voters, Nikki Haley voters, Republicans who are still undecided. She says she will find, quote, "common-sense solutions." She will, quote, "find common ground." She says, I'll listen to everyone, including people who didn't vote for me. And then the second part is, Trump is unstable. All he cares about is revenge and his grievances, not your problems. Here's what she said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: On Day 1 if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemy's list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.
LIASSON: And that's become part of her closing argument. She says that at almost every stop. But what's interesting is that despite these closing arguments, neither candidate has been able to get a clear lead over the other.
RASCOE: So given all of that, what matters in this campaign?
LIASSON: Well, there's two answers to that. In the big picture, nothing seems to matter. We've had two assassination attempts, great economic reports, a decisive debate, and nothing has moved this super static, super close race. But the other answer is, yes, everything matters. This is a race, a battle of inches. So every little thing matters - every controversy, every gaff, every celebrity endorsement. This race is going to be decided on the margin, so every thousand votes matter in just seven states. And it seems like every little thing matters a lot.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you so much, Mara.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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