It was the final Sunday of the campaign for president, and Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were continuing to race across battleground states in their search for support. But in message and demeanor, Harris, the Democrat, and Trump, the Republican, could not have been more different.

Harris began her day at a Black church in Detroit where she told congregants that the nation was “ready to bend the arc of history toward justice,” invoking the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Trump began his at an outdoor rally at an airport in Pennsylvania where, his shoulders slumped and his voice subdued, he threw out his prepared remarks to tell supporters that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.

The dueling scenes offered a contrast that captured just how differently these two candidates were using the final days of a campaign that a last round of polls suggested remained as tight as it was when their contest began in August.

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Trump Rambles in Pennsylvania

Trump went to Lititz, Pennsylvania, where, after announcing he was discarding his prepared speech so the “truth” could come out, he proceeded to deliver dark, rambling and at times angry remarks in which he attacked polls, assailed Democrats as “demonic,” and suggested he would not mind if reporters were shot.

“To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don’t mind that much, ’cause, I don’t mind. I don’t mind,” he said as he called attention to the bulletproof glass barriers that have surrounded him at outdoor rallies since he was shot in July in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

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At the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit, Harris took a more conventional campaign route on the last Sunday of the race, invoking notes of optimism and unity. “It’s so good to worship with you today,” she said after being introduced to a swell of cheers as “the next president of the United States.”

“In these next two days, we will be tested,” said Harris, who had flown to Detroit after a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in New York. “These days will demand everything we’ve got,” she said. “But when I think about the days ahead and the God we serve, we were born for such a time as this.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Adam Nagourney, Katie Glueck and Michael Gold/Kenny Holston
c. 2024 The New York Times Company