The U.S. presidential election is tomorrow. Here are the latest ...

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The Globe and Mail

What you need to knowLatest updatesOn the final day of campaigning, Kamala Harris is in Pennsylvania, where she will visit working-class areas including Allentown, and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, N.C., stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh, and ending with a late-night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Ms. Harris made her closing pitch at a historically Black church and to Arab Americans in battleground Michigan on Sunday, while Mr. Trump embraced violent rhetoric at a rally in Pennsylvania. “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and I don’t mind that so much,” said Mr. Trump, referring to gaps in the bulletproof glass surrounding him.A judge in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday will weigh whether to stop Elon Musk’s $1-million-a-day giveaway to registered voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election.Go deeperThe candidates’ diverging policies also apply to the business and financial worlds, with each having outlined how they’ll handle such questions as taxes, energy initiatives, global trade and more. Here’s a look at what they’ve said during their campaigns, and how Globe journalists and columnists have analyzed those propositions.Sixty years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Black Americans share memories of Jim Crow and views on the historic election.Will liberal-leaning women sway the U.S. election? These and other questions loom over our heads a day before America votes. Over 16 days of Greyhound bus trips, feature writer Ian Brown asked Americans in the swing states about their personal struggles and the politics shaped by them.Photographer Barbara Davidson, who accompanied Mr. Brown, is a Canadian expat who just got her U.S. citizenship a year ago. She reflected on what the trip revealed about her fellow voters.Americans’ choices in Tuesday’s presidential race will continue the dramatic transformation of two major parties that, like the country itself, are in massive transition.An estimated eight million generation-Z voters can take part in a presidential election for the first time. They may hold the keys to the White House, and the parties know it.CommentaryThe current state of political polling bears a strong resemblance to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: random sampling is dead, and our mad scientists are using weighting and modeling to jolt it back to life, writes Michael Bailey.The United States is destined for chaos no matter who wins tomorrow, Andrew Coyne writes – but will it be a short, intense and endurable crisis, or a years-long spiral into something even worse?A handful of House and Senate races could decide the balance of power in Washington. Debra Thompson analyzes which states matter most and what each scenario would mean for the White House’s next occupant.When is the U.S. election? When do we know results?

Polling hours on Nov. 5 will vary state by state, with the earliest ones opening at 6 a.m. (ET). Polls generally close between 6 to 9 p.m. local time, but governments can ask the courts for extensions. Once the counting of in-person and mail-in ballots starts, it’s anyone’s guess how long it will take to get a result: In 2020, logistical problems, disputes and recounts left the outcome uncertain for days.

US election - Figure 1 — Photo The Globe and Mail

Until then, Globe readers can get the latest news in their inboxes through the Morning Update newsletter, or subscribe to the U.S. election topic page.

Who is leading in the polls?

Nationally, the main presidential candidates are effectively deadlocked, according to the latest tracking by FiveThirtyEight, a poll-aggregation service owned by the ABC news network. Kamala Harris and the Democrats are slightly ahead in FiveThirtyEight’s national averages, but still within the margin of error. All but a few states (more on those later) are solidly behind either Ms. Harris or Donald Trump and the Republicans.

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Matt Rourke/The Associated Press

Where Kamala Harris stands

Ms. Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, must see the Democrats through a turbulent campaign that, until late July, centred on President Joe Biden, who agreed not to run again after a poor debate performance and questions about the 81-year-old’s mental fitness. The party and its donors united quickly behind Ms. Harris, 60, an unprecedented process that, in a country with long election cycles, left her with less time than other candidates to win over the public. While she is already a known quantity to Americans – she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016, and as Vice-President, handled challenging files from foreign policy to immigration – that also means she must win over constituencies skeptical of that record, such as Arab American voters angry over her support for Israel, and working-class voters unhappy with rising inflation.

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Alex Brandon/The Associated Press

Where Donald Trump stands

Since losing the 2020 election, Mr. Trump, 78, has been convicted in a felony fraud case and found liable for sexual abuse, and is still fighting in court against other allegations of serious crimes during his presidency. Through rallies, interviews and the social-media platform he owns, he continues to spread conspiracy theories and threats of retribution against prosecutors and law enforcement. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is, as in 2020, central to his campaign, and promises of mass deportations and border walls still resonate with his die-hard MAGA base in border states.

Map of the swing states, and the Electoral College explained

Swing states – sometimes called purple states, for their split loyalties between Democratic blue and Republican red – can make all the difference in close races such as this one.

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are purple because they chose Mr. Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020; so is Nevada, whose Democratic wins were close both times. North Carolina may also be in play for Ms. Harris because of shifting demographics and a gubernatorial scandal, among other factors. To see what happens if each of these states swings red or blue, use our interactive tool to explore the different scenarios.

US election - Figure 3 — Photo The Globe and Mail

Swing states would matter a lot less if not for the Electoral College that Americans have used since the late 1700s. Nobody wins the presidency simply by getting the most votes nationwide: Instead, those votes determine a list of 538 people called electors, whom the states assign to pick the president. Some states have more electors than others, and different rules for choosing who they are: Some are party officials, but many are regular citizens.

In all but two states, the Democrats or Republicans get electors on a winner-take-all basis. If, for instance, Ms. Harris wins California’s popular vote, she gets all 54 electors. That’s not how it works in Maine and Nebraska, which can pick mixed groups of electors based on congressional and popular votes.

If the college’s vote results in a Harris-Trump tie, the new House of Representatives breaks it via a process that hasn’t been used since 1825. The legislative blocs from each state pick one candidate, and whoever gets 26 or more states wins. “Contingent elections” like these give disproportionate voting power to less populous red states, which are numerous enough that the House would likely pick Mr. Trump.

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A Maryland activist wears a 'vote, stop Project 2025' sign outside July's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Project 2025, a 900-page proposal from the Heritage Foundation think tank, calls for direct presidential oversight over all bureaucrats, replacing thousands of workers with political appointees.Adrees Latif/Reuters

US election - Figure 4 — Photo The Globe and Mail

Divided over democracy

Each candidate is, in their own way, framing this election as a battle for the future of democracy itself. Ms. Harris has called Mr. Trump a “fascist,” pointing to Project 2025 – a think tank’s proposal to stack the public service with GOP loyalists – and warning that, if re-elected, he would seek “unchecked power” and a military loyal only to him. Mr. Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, but has spent months proposing his own purges of U.S. institutions, and casting doubt on the integrity of the voting process. In polls over the past year, a majority of Republicans say they believe his false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate, and are heeding his baseless warnings of more fraud to come.