WATCH LIVE: Harris rallies in Philadelphia on final day of campaign

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump made their final pitches to voters Monday in the same part of Pennsylvania at roughly the same time as they spent the last full day of the presidential campaign in a state that could make or break their chances .

Kamala Harris is expected to hold her final rally of the 2024 campaign in Philadelphia at 10:30 PM EST. Watch in the player above.

Focusing on Pennsylvania’s southeastern corner, Trump took the stage in Reading, about 30 miles from Allentown, where Harris held his own event about a half hour later.

“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax,” Trump said. “It’s over.”

Indeed, a Trump victory in Pennsylvania, which flipped its 19 Electoral College votes, would puncture the Democrats’ “blue wall” and make it more difficult for Harris to win the necessary 270 votes.

READ MORE: 2024 map of the electoral college

Harris, the Democratic nominee, spent all of Monday in Pennsylvania, the biggest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome, and offered a similarly blunt assessment.

“We need everyone in Pennsylvania to vote,” she said. “You’re going to make a difference in this election.”

In addition to Allentown, Harris visited Scranton — President Joe Biden’s birthplace — and Reading and had planned a stop in Pittsburgh before ending with a late-night Philadelphia rally that was expected to include Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

“Are you ready to do this?” Harris shouted Monday in Scranton with a large handmade “VOTE FOR FREEDOM” sign behind him and a similar “VOTE” banner at his side.

Trump first went to North Carolina before visiting Reading. He then headed to Pittsburgh, at the opposite end of the state, before finishing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he will hold his final campaign rally in the same place he finished his 2016 and 2020 races.

READ MORE: How to see the election results for 2024

Southeastern Pennsylvania is home to thousands of Latinos, including a significant Puerto Rican population. Harris and her allies have repeatedly hit Trump for a comedian’s dig at Puerto Rico under the former president’s marquee at Madison Square Garden. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people — even a lot of Republicans. It wasn’t right, and I feel like Trump should have apologized to the Latinos.”

But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to snap a picture of Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed the comments about Puerto Rico despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he will vote for Trump.

“Is the border going to be secure? Do you want to keep crime down? That’s what I care about,” he said.

Harris told the crowd, “I stand here proud of my longstanding commitment to Puerto Rico and her people.”

“And I want to be a president for all Americans,” she said, adding that “momentum is on our side. Can you feel it?”

Trump, meanwhile, held off on talking about his proposed crackdown on immigration. He called to the scene Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after she disappeared during a trip to go hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the United States illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his native El Salvador.

About 77 million Americans have voted early. A victory by either side would be unprecedented.

Trump’s victory would make him the first president-elect to be indicted and convicted of a crime, following his hush-money trial in New York. He will get the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win non-consecutive terms in the White House, following Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

Harris is vying to become the first woman, first black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second-in-command.

The vice president rose to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s disastrous performance in a June debate prompted his withdrawal from the race — one of a series of convulsions that hit this year’s campaign.

Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service detail thwarted another attempt in September, when a gunman had set up a rifle while Trump was playing golf at one of his courses in Florida.

Harris, 60, has cast herself as a generational change from Biden, 81, and Trump, who is 78. She has emphasized her support for abortion rights following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion services, and she has regularly noted the former president’s role in the attack on the US capital on January 6.

Assembling a coalition that ranges from progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and late in the campaign even took on criticism that Trump precisely described as a “fascist.”

Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump by name, calling him “the other guy” instead. She promises to solve problems and seek consensus.

Harris campaign chairman Jen O’Malley Dillon said during a call with reporters that not mentioning Trump’s name was deliberate because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.”

Harris also offered some insights into her personal upbringing as a politician, which she doesn’t often divulge. In Scranton, she talked about once being a longshot while running for San Francisco district attorney in 2002 and how she “used to campaign with my ironing board.”

“I went to the front of the grocery store outside, and I wanted to raise my ironing board, because you see, an ironing board is a really good standing desk,” said the vice president, recalling how she would tape her posters on the outside of the board , fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me when they walked in and out.”

In Allentown, Harris met rapper Fat Joe. She then made her own visit to Reading after Trump’s rally ended, visiting the Old San Juan Cafe, a Puerto Rican restaurant, with Ocasio-Cortez. Both Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, and Ocasio-Cortez are of Puerto Rican heritage.

Supporters chanted “Sí se puede” and “Kamala” as the vice president’s motorcade drove up. Once inside, Harris chatted with some diners, even mixing in “Gracias” and a few Spanish words. The vice president later ordered cassava, yellow rice and pork, saying, “I’m very hungry,” noting that she’s been too busy campaigning to find time for many meals.

To pay, she asked her team to hand over her credit card.

In line for Harris’ Allentown rally, 54-year-old Ron Kessler, an Air Force veteran and Republican-turned-Democrat, said he planned to vote for just the second time in his life. Kessler said he didn’t vote for a long time because he thought the country “would vote for the right candidate.”

But “now that I’m older and much wiser, I believe it’s important, it’s my civic duty. And it is important that I vote for myself, and I vote for democracy and the country.”

As recently as Sunday, Trump renewed his false claims that US elections are rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 — dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor in his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I’ll fix it.”

Superville reported from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Barrow reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Will Weissert and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

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