AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, Election Day is finally here. Across the country, voters are casting ballots that will determine which party controls Congress, who the governor will be in 11 states and which ballot initiatives will get through. But first, let's check in on the top of the ticket, the presidential race, with two of our correspondents who were out on the campaign trail yesterday and who are now gearing up for tonight - sure to be a long night. We've got NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram and NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. Hello to both of you.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey there.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, let's talk about what former President Trump and Vice President Harris have been up to today. Danielle, let's start with you. You've been covering the Trump campaign.
KURTZLEBEN: Sure. Yeah. So Trump voted in Palm Beach, Florida, today. He also had some scheduled virtual town halls - so really not stopping the campaigning until it is all over-over. Beyond that, tonight he's having a watch party, also in Palm Beach. We did hear from him amidst all of that. He spoke to press today after he voted. And among other things, he expressed anger about the fact that we might not know the results tonight.
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DONALD TRUMP: It should never happen. A thing like that should never happen. This election should be over. They spend all this money on machines. And frankly, if they'd use paper ballots, it would be over by 10 o'clock.
KURTZLEBEN: Now, a fact-check here - a majority of voters, overwhelmingly - 98% - vote using paper ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. But this message is part of a careful line he's walked this year - casting doubt on early voting systems and vote by mail, but also telling his voters to please go use them anyway.
SHIVARAM: And Harris, for her part - you know, she spent the day calling into radio shows in swing states across the country. The general rule, Ailsa, in the last hours of a campaign is do no harm, right?
CHANG: Right.
SHIVARAM: So the VP has been just reiterating her stump speech. And she stayed away from talking about Trump directly, but she has been alluding to him in her conversations, mentioning how he tanked the bipartisan border bill, for example. She also just, moments ago, popped into the DNC offices in Washington. She crashed some of the volunteers who were making calls to voters in swing states. She came in with a tray of Doritos, and there was, you know, big applause as she started talking to voters.
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VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Hi. It's Kamala Harris. I can't wait for you to grow 10 years more.
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SHIVARAM: That was Harris talking on the phone with a voter's daughter. And, you know, this comes after she went door-knocking briefly in Reading, Pennsylvania, yesterday - so very much a candidate who is trying to use every last minute here to get out the vote.
CHANG: Every last minute. And where will Harris be watching the election results coming in tonight?
SHIVARAM: So she'll be watching the results coming in from the VP residence in D.C. And meanwhile, supporters are gathering at a watch party near downtown D.C. But her big watch party will actually be at Howard University, and that's Harris' alma mater. It's a place that's really close to her heart. You know, it's where she first ran for office as freshman representative. She interned on Capitol Hill while she was there. It's where she really decided she was going to become a lawyer. And, you know, for a candidate who's from California, Harris doesn't have, like, a lot of East Coast roots. So Howard really is a big part of her identity, and it's also very much home for her in D.C.
CHANG: Well, let me ask you both - you were both in Pennsylvania yesterday, as Trump and Harris did their final round of campaign stops, including that big rally on the "Rocky" steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Deepa, what was that like?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, it was pretty big. Harris mentioned the, you know, significance of the location in her remarks yesterday, noting that "Rocky" is about a story of an underdog who found success. There was about 30,000 people there last night - a lot of enthusiasm. One thing that stood out to me was this banner, actually, that stood behind Harris as she spoke, and it said, a president for all. And that's a phrase that's showed up in several, you know, moments throughout Harris' closing message in the last few days. She's been saying it in her speeches. It's been on these signs. The final lap here for her has been about unity. And rather than making anything about Trump, Harris has been ending with her own story.
CHANG: And, Danielle, how did Trump's final closing arguments come across yesterday?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, he really continued making his standard stump speech, with messages centering around mass deportations as well as tariffs. But also, in recent speeches, he's been really emphasizing to his voters that he thinks Democrats will try to cheat. Now, there is no evidence for this, but it does set the stage for him and his voters to reject the election results if the results don't come out the way they want them.
Now, one other thing to note here is that Trump continued this pattern yesterday of saying inflammatory and, in this particular case, misogynistic things. Yesterday, in a speech, Trump called former speaker Nancy Pelosi a slur that starts with a B. He didn't say it, but he mouthed it. Now, this comes on top of JD Vance earlier this week calling Kamala Harris trash in a speech, and Trump used violent rhetoric recently to talk about Liz Cheney. A comedian joked at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally about Taylor Swift being murdered. So one way of looking at all of these comments is that they're distracting from Trump's message. But at a certain point, once this happens over and over, you could just argue that all of this is a central part of his message.
CHANG: That is NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben and Deepa Shivaram. Thank you to both of you.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
SHIVARAM: Thanks for having us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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