Harris and Trump are ending the election campaign – now it's up to the voters when Election Day 2024 begins

Nearly two years into his campaign to return to the White House, former President Trump's bid to win back his old job is now in the hands of American voters as Election Day 2024 has arrived.

Running against the Republican presidential candidate is Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced her boss – President Biden – on the Democratic national list just three and a half months ago.

With approximately 81 million early voting ballots already cast nationwide and in-person voting now beginning, both major party candidates are optimistic about their chances in this historic showdown.

“The momentum is on our side,” Harris told supporters at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Monday. “Can you feel it?”

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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Carrie Blast Furnaces in Pittsburgh, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

And hours later, at a rally in Pittsburgh, the vice president reiterated: “Make no mistake, we will win.”

Trump, who is also campaigning in battleground Pennsylvania, told his supporters: “We’ve been waiting for this. I’ve waited four years for this.”

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And although recent national polls and key swing state polls suggested a race to margin of error, the former president stressed that “we have a big lead. We have a big lead.”

It was a 3-3 decision in Dixville Notch, the small town in New Hampshire's North Country that for six decades has attracted much attention by holding its vote at midnight on Election Day.

Trump and Harris held dueling rallies on election night in Pennsylvania, which, with 19 electoral votes, is the biggest prize among the seven key battleground states.

Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Harris ended her campaign schedule with a large nighttime rally in Philadelphia at the famous “Rocky Steps” in front of the city's art museum.

Around the same time Harris was in Philadelphia, Trump held his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same location where he ended his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

Pennsylvania and Michigan join Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada as the seven swing states whose razor-thin margins determined President Biden's victory over Trump in 2020 and will likely determine whether Trump or Harris wins the 2024 election .

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Harris, Trump, their vice presidents and top surrogates have spread across the seven battlegrounds in recent months. And the two presidential campaigns and allied super PACs have spent almost all of the $2.3 billion they spent running ads in the race for the White House in battleground states.

The vice president and former president ended their campaigns with very different messages.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, leads a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania on election night, November 4, 2024. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

Harris, who avoided mentioning Trump by name for the second day in a row, concluded with a positive and optimistic message as she outlined a shared future for the nation.

Trump painted a negative picture of the country over the past four years under the Biden administration, railing against Democratic policies and highlighting the dangers of uncontrolled immigration.

For Trump, the 2024 campaign was a grueling two-year marathon. He announced his candidacy at his Mar-a-Lago club in South Florida a few days after the 2022 midterm elections. After a slow start, the former president easily defeated a field of Republican primary opponents – which briefly expanded to over a dozen contenders last year – and came out on top in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year.

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Trump – who has been indicted in four separate criminal cases – saw his support and fundraising surge in late spring after making history as the first former or sitting president to be convicted of crimes.

A month later, Biden suffered a major setback after a disastrous late June debate performance against Trump reignited long-standing questions about whether the 81-year-old president was physically and mentally ready for another four grueling years in the White House — and civil unrest triggered his own party calling on him to resign.

Trump's lead in the polls over Biden widened, and the former president was further strengthened politically after surviving an attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, two days before the start of the Republican National Convention in July.

Former President Donald Trump gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina before Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to supporters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder/Kevin Mohatt)

But the race was suddenly upended days later when Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed his running mate. Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris, and her fundraising increased as her poll numbers soared.

Harris' honeymoon lasted until the Democratic National Convention in late August and into September, when most pundits declared her the winner of the only presidential debate between her and Trump.

But as the calendar shifted from September to October, Trump appeared to be regaining his footing, and public opinion polls suggested the former president was gaining momentum.

Veteran Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove called the showdown between Harris and Trump a “coin flip.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally at JS Dorton Arena on November 4, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Chip Somodevilla)

But longtime Republican consultant Alex Castellanos criticized the polls, pointing to Republican voter registration gains.

“I think the pollsters are getting this wrong. We all miss something because they give us the same surveys over and over again. . . Someone is missing something.”

And Castellanos, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, argued: “What I think they're missing is a massive shift in voter registration, which is behind all of this Republican movement.

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Longtime Democratic pollster Mark Penn pointed to an apparent uptick in early voting among Republicans on Fox News' “Special Report” — after Trump, long a vocal critic of early voting, slammed Republicans' longstanding efforts in recent days welcomed increasing Republican acceptance of early voting – and said: “The only fact we know is that Republicans have done much better on mail-in voting and early voting than ever before.”

Harris, a California resident, cast her vote by mail before Election Day.

The Trump campaign said the former president would cast his vote in person on Election Day in Palm Beach, Florida, where he lives.

According to his campaign, Trump also planned to spend Election Day with family, friends and co-workers and also hold some telerallies by telephone at certain locations.

The former president was scheduled to hold his election night headquarters at a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Harris was expected to spend part of Election Day making her case in radio interviews. And the vice president was scheduled to hold her election night at her alma mater, the historic Black Howard University in Washington DC

In the last final week of the campaign, Trump – who has falsely claimed for four years that his 2020 defeat was due to a rigged election – appeared to try to discredit the 2024 election.

Trump argued again on Sunday, without offering evidence, that Democrats were trying to cheat.

“They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing,” the former president charged on Sunday.

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital Election Center.