A Grim Trump and an Upbeat Harris End the Race Hitting Opposite Notes

The moods and messages were more different than ever as the presidential rivals made one last scramble through battleground states, their ambitions riding heavily on Pennsylvania.

Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris closed out their campaigns in the final hours before Election Day in starkly different moods: The former president, often appearing drained at arenas that were not filled, claimed that the country was on the brink of ruin, while the vice president promised a more united future as energized supporters chanted alongside her, “We’re not going back.”

In stop after stop, the presidential rivals essentially offered up two competing versions of reality on Monday and into early Tuesday. Mr. Trump repeatedly raised the specter of unchecked immigration and the dangers of Democratic policies as he spoke to crowds in North Carolina and Pennsylvania before closing with a midnight rally in Michigan.

With a comparatively more optimistic message, Ms. Harris crisscrossed Pennsylvania, which holds 19 electoral votes that could decide the race. Stopping in Scranton, Allentown and Pittsburgh before a nighttime rally in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris talked about bolstering the economy and restoring federal abortion rights. She asserted that Americans were “exhausted” and ready to move on from the politics of the past decade.

“America is ready for a fresh start,” she said to supporters on a college campus in Allentown, “where we see our fellow Americans not as an enemy but as a neighbor.”

About 30 miles to the southwest, Mr. Trump was in Reading, Pa., broadly portraying undocumented immigrants as mentally ill criminals and calling those accused of crimes “savages” and “animals.”

Both leaned on Hispanic supporters as they tried to rally Latino voters. The pro-Harris rapper Fat Joe, who is Puerto Rican, practically shamed his fellow Latinos in Allentown as he asked, “Where’s your pride?” Mr. Trump, still facing fallout from his rally in New York at which a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” brought Roberto Clemente Jr., the son of the Puerto Rican baseball legend, to the stage at a rally in Pittsburgh.

But Mr. Trump, reaching the end of a grueling marathon of a campaign that began in 2022, looked visibly weary, battling fatigue in front of listless crowds, though he was relatively more upbeat and energized in Michigan. Ms. Harris, still appearing fresh after a three-month sprint, appealed for unity and pressed the contrast to her rival without uttering his name.

“The measure of a true leader is based not on who you beat down,” she said. “It is based on who you lift up.”

Despite the sharply different tones, polls suggest the race remains tight, with the final New York Times/Siena College surveys showing the candidates tied or holding only narrow leads in all of the seven battleground states.

It was, without doubt, going to be an arduous day for two candidates intent on making history. Mr. Trump, who hopes to become the first president in more than 120 years to return to office after an electoral defeat, headed to Pittsburgh after his Reading rally. He did not take the stage in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he has held the closing rally of each of his campaigns, until after midnight.

Before Allentown, Ms. Harris, who hopes to make even loftier history as America’s first female president, began a door-knocking effort in Scranton. Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan. To cover more ground virtually, their campaign simulcast rallies from the battleground states featuring top surrogates and musical performers, with crowds looking to big screens to see what was happening in other cities.

Mr. Trump seemed well aware of the work ahead. “You know we’re going to be doing four of these today, four,” he told a rally audience in Reading that slowly decreased in size through his 80-minute speech. “They’re big ones.”

His day started in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, which he won in 2020 but where the latest Times/Siena poll showed Ms. Harris with a slight edge. His voice was raspy, his demeanor fatigued, as he meandered through his remarks. He did not project enormous confidence as he told the crowd, “This will be our final moment.”

“I think we’ve got it under control,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s campaign has rebuffed any concerns over crowd size, pointing to strong early-voting turnout among Republicans as a measure of enthusiasm. His final rally was his most crowded and energetic event of the day, despite the late hour.

But Mr. Trump’s insistence on large-scale rallies has been yielding diminishing returns. The campaign has scheduled Mr. Trump in cities and venues that he visited only last month, where supporters have already had a chance to see him. And he has barnstormed North Carolina and Pennsylvania with particular intensity in recent weeks, providing residents with ample glimpses at his message.

During his rallies, Mr. Trump rehashed familiar grievances, blasting the news media and labeling Democrats as “evil” and “sick.” In Michigan, he all but called Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, a vulgar, sexist epithet. “It starts with a b, but I won’t say it,” he said.

He continued to assail the Biden-Harris administration over its handling of the economy and immigration, a central pitch that was frequently interrupted by digressions. He made false claims about voter fraud, complained about existing election practices and made an unfounded assertion that Democrats, because of their policies, could only win the election if they cheated.

Pennsylvania was clearly the day’s focus. Both campaigns insisted on Monday that early-vote totals going into Election Day on Tuesday boded well for their candidates, but Pennsylvania, the most valuable battleground state in the Electoral College, also has the lowest early-vote total.

Fat Joe, whose real name is Joseph Antonio Cartagena, seemed incensed that the race was so close and that Mr. Trump had shown such strength with voters of color, even after last month’s rally in Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, where a pro-Trump comedian called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” and spoke of watermelons while discussing a Black person in the audience.

“If I’m speaking to some undecided Puerto Ricans,” he implored, “what more they got to do to show you who they are?”

In Pittsburgh, where the pop star Katy Perry performed, Ms. Harris spoke before a stunning backdrop: the towering Carrie Blast Furnaces, a national historic landmark and a symbol of the city’s past industrial glory. “Tomorrow is Election Day, and the momentum is on our side,” she told a crowd of thousands in an abbreviated 10-minute stump speech before departing for Philadelphia.

Mr. Trump was nearby at the PPG Paints Arena, giving a rambling speech that lasted an hour and 45 minutes. With polls showing him struggling with women, he called on Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News anchor who in 2015 pressed him on his sexist remarks, to help him make his case.

After supporting Mr. Trump’s claims that he would protect women, Ms. Kelly told women “who want a bit of girl power” that they can’t win if the men in their lives “are losing,” which she linked to being seen as “second-class citizens.”

For some worried Democrats, the vice president’s final, star-studded rally — in which she appeared at the famed “Rocky steps” of the Philadelphia Museum of Art — brought to mind the last Democrat who tried to become the nation’s first female president. Hillary Clinton closed out her 2016 campaign in Philadelphia with presidents past (Bill Clinton), present (Barack Obama), and she hoped, future, only to be beaten in the state — and the nation — by an underdog newcomer, Mr. Trump.

Ms. Harris, who was introduced by Oprah Winfrey, suggested that she had chosen the location because it represented what she called a “a tribute to those who start as the underdog and climb to victory.”

“Our campaign has brought together people from all corners of this nation and from all walks of life,” Ms. Harris said, “united by our love for our country and our faith in a brighter, stronger and more hopeful future that we will build together.”

“And tonight,” she added, “then we finish as we started, with optimism, with energy, with joy.”

But Pennsylvania is no less important now than it was eight years ago, and Ms. Harris’s aspirations might rest on high turnout from the City of Brotherly Love. She is hoping voters will be inspired to come out with the help of Ms. Winfrey and other stars like Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, who performed at the rally.

Before introducing Ms. Harris, Ms. Winfrey issued an urgent plea to the crowd to vote. “If we don’t show up tomorrow, it is entirely possible that we will not have the opportunity to ever cast a ballot again,” she said. Further emphasizing that democracy was under threat, she said, “The anxiety and the fear you’re feeling, you’re feeling that because you sense the danger.”

Mr. Trump has relied on a group of surrogates who are popular among his conservative base. In Pittsburgh, he announced that the podcast host Joe Rogan endorsed him, a boon to his campaign’s efforts to drive young men to the polls.

For Ms. Harris, the three-month campaign sprint has been marked by a conscious assemblage of an anti-Trump coalition spanning the ideological spectrum, from former Vice President Dick Cheney on the right to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on the left.

On Monday, Mr. Cheney’s daughter and perhaps Mr. Trump’s fiercest Republican adversary, former Representative Liz Cheney, appeared on the daytime television show “The View,” to respond to the former president suggesting she should have “nine rifles pointed at her face.”

“He knows what he’s doing,” Ms. Cheney said. “He knows it’s a threat, to intimidate. Obviously the intimidation won’t work.”

On Monday, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said the campaign would declare victory “when we are confident that we cross the 270 threshold” in the Electoral College. But Mr. Miller deflected when asked what measure Mr. Trump — who has never conceded his 2020 loss and spent months trying to overturn it — and his campaign would use to make that determination.

Erica L. Green contributed reporting from Philadelphia, Nicholas Nehamas from Pittsburgh, Neil Vigdor from New York and Billy Witz from Harmony, Pa.