Melania and Barron Trump will stand by Donald Trump’s side as he hosts his election night watch party in Florida tomorrow.
The former first lady and her son Barron, 18, were spotted leaving their New York City home on Sunday, before boarding a private jet with a mass of Louis Vuitton luggage and six garment bags bearing the Presidential emblem in tow.
The pair – who would have arrived to their destination by now – were likely headed to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago headquarters in West Palm Beach ahead of Election Day.
Melania, 54, and Barron are expected to join the rest of the MAGA crew at the Palm Beach County Convention Center tomorrow night, where Trump and his team will watch the election results pour in.
Trump and Democrat nominee Kamala Harris, however, are set for one final campaign push on the eve of Election Day. Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the electoral college outcome.
The GOP nominee has planned four rallies across three states on Monday, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. Trump will then end his campaign the way he ended his first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Trump and Harris are locked in what polls indicate is a razor-thin margin, with a shocking survey released on Saturday finding the Vice President had suddenly surged to a three percentage point lead in Iowa, a state she was widely expected to lose.
These findings were seen as evidence of ‘hidden Harris’ voters in the 2024 electorate that have so far flown under the radar – and are now poised to upend the race, because the sentiments of Iowans are often shared by others in the region.
But a veteran political strategist has argued that pollsters are overlooking a huge shift in Republican voter registration – which could tip the scale toward Trump in the final days of the campaign.
Secret Service agents are seen here as the ex First Lady makes her way on to a private plane in New York on Sunday
Barron Trump, 18, shakes hands with his security detail before boarding the private Cessna Citation plane in New York City on Sunday
Melania and Barron were spotted leaving Trump Tower in Manhattan on Sunday afternoon.
Their luggage was loaded into a black SUV before the pair departed their New York City residence in a 10-vehicle motorcade.
A sniffer dog was seen at Trump Tower inspecting every vehicle before the former First Lady and Trump’s youngest child set off on their travels.
The motorcade took the pair to a private airport where Melania was seen walking on to a jet, followed by Barron who towered over his security detail.
Secret Service agents were seen boarding the private Cessna Citation plane after the former First Family.
It is understood that the plane departed New York City at around 4.30pm, meaning the family would have arrived in Florida in the early evening.
Donald Trump, 78, held rallies in three smaller cities on Sunday that could help him galvanize the rural voters who make up an important part of his base.
He started his day in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before heading to Kinston, North Carolina, in the afternoon and ending with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia.
Harris, 60, campaigned in East Lansing, Michigan, a college town in an industrial state that is viewed as a must-win for the Democrat.
While Donald Trump covered serious ground, his wife Melania and son Barron were spotted leaving New York City
A mass of Louis Vuitton luggage and suit bags with the Presidential emblem on were loaded into a support vehicle before leaving in a motorcade of 10 vehicles
A sniffer dog was seen at Trump Tower inspecting every vehicle before the former First Lady and Trump’s youngest child set off on their travels
Melania and Barron’s luggage was loaded into a black SUV before the pair departed their New York City residence in a 10-vehicle motorcade
Melania was seen walking on to a jet. Secret Service agents were seen boarding the private Cessna Citation plane after the family
It is understood that the plane departed New York City at around 4.30pm, meaning the family would have arrived in Florida in the early evening
About 77 million Americans have already voted early, but both Trump and Harris are making final pushes today to get many millions more supporters to turn out tomorrow.
A campaign that has included a felony trial, an incumbent President being pushed off the Democratic ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to one final push across a handful of states.
Harris will spend Monday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania where she will visit working-class areas including Allentown. Her day will end with a late-night rally in Philadelphia that includes star support from Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.
Trump will campaign in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan on Monday.
Harris has pitched herself to voters as a generational change; emphasized her support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion services; and has regularly noted Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives like representative 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 embraced the critique that the former President has been accurately described as a ‘fascist’.
Trump (pictured in Macon, Georgia on Sunday night) has planned four rallies across three states on Monday, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. Trump will then end his campaign the way he ended his first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Kamala Harris (pictured campaigning in Michigan on Sunday) will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the electoral college outcome
Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump in her. She instead is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign’s opening days when she embraced ‘the politics of joy’ and the campaign theme ‘Freedom’.
‘From the very start, our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,’ Harris said on Sunday at Michigan State University.
Trump, renewing his ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘America First’ slogans, has made his hard-line approach to immigration and withering criticisms of Harris and President Joe Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration.
He has hammered Democrats for an inflationary American economy, and pledged to lead an economic ‘golden age’, end international conflicts and seal the US southern border.
But Trump also has veered into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Biden’s victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a ‘failed nation’.
As recently as Sunday, he 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 of his closing argument: ‘Kamala broke it. I will fix it.’
The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map.
Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020.
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Atrium Health Amphitheater on November 3, 2024 in Macon, Georgia
Vice President Kamala Harris is pictured during a Get Out the Vote rally in East Lansing, Michigan on Sunday
Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure.
This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters — and knocked on more than three million doors across the battleground states. However, the Democrat’s aides have insisted she remains the underdog.
Trump’s team has projected confidence, arguing that the former president’s populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines.
The idea is that Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional Republican sections – notably college-educated voters – become more Democratic.
The rivals’ last ditch campaign efforts come after a new presidential poll shocked the nation on Saturday.
Ann Selzer, a well-respected political pollster, released a survey on Saturday finding Harris suddenly surged to a three percentage point-lead in Iowa.
The surprising outlier survey made headlines across the country as the VP has been widely expected to lose the Hawkeye State – by a lot.
Iowa has been solidly red for years. The state backed Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020 by almost ten percentage points. And Selzer’s September poll showed Trump beating Harris by four points. Her survey in June (when President Biden was still in the race) had Trump leading by 18 points.
A 21-point swing toward Harris, in a decidedly Republican state, would certainly be cause for concern for the Trump campaign – especially since the findings highlighted a glaring vulnerability for the former president – his support among women.
According to the Selzer poll, Harris leads Trump among women 56 to 36 percent. That rises to an astounding 63 to 28 percent among women over 65 years old.
These findings were seen as evidence of a ‘hidden Harris’ voter in the 2024 electorate that have so far flown under the radar – and are now poised to upend the race, because the sentiments of Iowans are often shared by others in the region.
Ann Selzer (above, right on MSNBC on November 3, 2024), a well-respected political pollster, released a survey on Saturday finding Vice President Kamala Harris had suddenly surged to a three percentage point-lead in Iowa .
The surprising outlier survey made headlines across the country as the VP has been widely expected to lose the Hawkeye State – by a lot.
If this ‘hidden Harris’ voter exists in other Midwestern states (like Michigan, Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania) then Trump would have a big problem on his hands. Though, that’s a big if.
For one, everyone must be wary of reading too much into any single poll. While Ann Selzer has a strong track record of accuracy, no public opinion survey is infallible.
Additionally, there is significant contrasting evidence to consider, including DailyMail.com’s own findings.
In the days running up to the Selzer poll drop, the J.L. Partners/DailyMail national poll for October showed a 3-point Trump advantage. In September, Harris held a one-point lead.
Trump’s swelling support appeared to come from voters abandoning independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr and undecided voters finally making their choice. (Only one in fifty voters now say they have not yet made up their minds.)
Though, the Mail did detect another trend that may suggest Selzer is on to something.
When we asked women how they felt about Trump, the plurality called him ‘corrupt,’ while Harris was seen as ‘strong’.
More specifically, the Mail’s poll of undecided voters in Pennsylvania in October found one of their biggest hesitations in voting for Trump was ‘what it would mean for women’s rights.’
With Republicans, like former Congresswomen Liz Cheney and Barbara Comstock, backing Harris – and with voters remaining stubbornly loyal to ex-GOP candidate Nikki Haley long after she dropped out of the primary race – it is plausible that right-leaning women could go to the vice president.
According to the Selzer poll, Harris leads Trump among women 56 to 36 percent. That rises to an astounding 63 to 28 percent among women over 65 years old. (Above) Woman voters in Orlando, Florida on October 17, 2024
And, indeed, since December 2023, Harris’s advantage among women in the Mail’s poll has grown steadily, from one percentage point late last year, to six-points in August 2024, to 14-points in late October.
That is a significant gender gap – but it is balanced by Trump +22 lead among men. And, ultimately, that is why I don’t see clear evidence that Harris can win solely on the backs of women.
Of course, the Mail’s poll was among voters nationally. Could it be that Selzer’s ‘hidden Harris’ voter effect is only occurring in the Midwest?
Again, there is reason to be skeptical.
On the same day that the Selzer poll was released, another Iowa survey was published by an equally reliable operation, Emerson College Polling.
This survey of 800 likely Iowa voters found 53 percent supported Trump and 43 percent backed Harris – and that the former president carried a majority among both genders.
‘Both female and male voters in Iowa support Trump, women by a five-point margin, 51 percent to 46 percent, and men by a significant 17-point margin, 56 percent to 39 percent,’ Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
Selzer’s finding and the Emerson’s results cannot both be accurate.
Alex Castellanos, who worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, told Fox News that he believes pollsters are wrong with their predictions
Trump finished off his marathon swing state rally day on Sunday evening with a rally in Georgia
Harris walks to board Air Force Two as she departs Oakland County International Airport in Waterford Township, Michigan, on Sunday
Veteran political strategist Alex Castellanos – who worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and George W. Bush – told Fox News that he believes pollsters are missing a key piece of evidence.
‘I think the pollsters are getting this wrong. They are all missing something because they’re giving us the same poll over and over again’, he said.
‘What I think they are missing is a massive shift in voter registration underneath all of this.
’31 states have voter registration by party, 30 of them in the past four years have seen movement towards Republicans.
‘Yet we are getting these surveys that are off base. I’m not going to call it a wave but I think there’s a “wavelet” out there of Republican enthusiasm in registration.’
The boost in last-minute polls for Harris over the weekend and saw her chances of beating Trump in the betting markets improve.
On the betting platform Polymarket, Trump is the favorite to take victory in five of the seven swing states.
The Real Clear Politics average of the battlegrounds also gives Trump similar odds, even with the race tied nationally.
Betfair still has Trump as the favorite to win with odds of 4/5 or 57 per cent.
Last week, he was the 65 per cent favorite on the platform, but the betting markets have tightened in recent days, making the election too close to call.
Betfair also has Trump winning five of the seven key swing states, while the platform has predicted that Harris will take Wisconsin and Michigan.
