At a rally in Sarasota, Fla., Nov. 7, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lamented a "rigged system" that allowed rival Hillary Clinton to compete against him for president.(Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Donald Trump hammered Hillary Clinton as corrupt in the final hours before Election Day and urged voters to “deliver justice at the ballot box,” while Clinton pivoted away from the email controversy that has dogged her campaign and suggested Monday that early voter turnout was breaking her way.
The Republican nominee, who was set to hold rallies in five states from Florida to Michigan on Monday, said that the fact that the FBI had already completed its examination of newly discovered emails connected to Clinton proved that the judicial system was “rigged.”
FBI Director James B. Comey said Sunday that the FBI had found nothing to alter its months-old decision not to seek charges against the former secretary of state for her use of a private email server.
At at a mid-afternoon rally in Raleigh, N.C, where a supporter held up a sign reading, “Comey You’re Fired,” Trump said the FBI director was “obviously under tremendous pressure” to conclude the inquiry.
He painted a bleak picture of an America under Clinton, warning of imminent “disaster,” a hobbled economy and politics dominated by special interests.
Where early voters have already cast their ballots
“It’s up to the American people to deliver the justice that we deserve at the ballot box tomorrow,” he declared. “We’re going to win.”
“Drain the swamp!” his supporters chanted moments later.
Clinton ignored the email affair Monday, and instead spoke of her vision of an America animated by “more love and kindness.”
“We don’t have to accept a dark and divisive vision for America,” Clinton said in Pittsburgh. “Tomorrow you can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America.”
Clinton assailed Trump more directly in Grand Rapids, Mich., at her second rally of the day, where she ticked through the groups of people she said the real estate mogul had targeted or offended. She tweaked him for apparently paying no federal income taxes for several years, and for refusing to release copies of his tax returns.
“There must be something really terrible in there,” she said in a mocking tone.
But Clinton also began to cast ahead, looking beyond Election Day. “We’ve got to heal our country, or, as the Bible says, ‘repair the breach,’ because we have so much divisiveness right now,” she said. “We’ve got to start listening to each other, respecting each other.”
Earlier Monday, her campaign manager Robby Mook criticized Comey’s handling of the probe as “bizarre,” even as he said that he was relieved by the outcome.
“We were glad obviously that this was resolved,” Mook told “Good Morning America” on ABC. “I don’t understand why he couldn’t have just looked into the matter and resolved it and not created such a ruckus in the campaign, but we’re just glad in this last day Hillary can get back on the road.”
In July, Comey ended an FBI probe into the server saying that Clinton was “extremely careless” with classified information in the emails, but that “no reasonable prosecutor” would recommend criminal charges. A government official said Comey’s latest letter represented the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation.
Trump, who had been trailing badly in the polls when the new emails were revealed, has since narrowed the gap, leaning on a message that Clinton was “crooked” and likely to be charged.
But Clinton appears narrowly ahead in most polls, and her campaign officials pointed to heavy turnout among Hispanics and Asians in crucial swing states, such as Florida and North Carolina, as evidence that the race was moving in their direction.
More than 6.4 million voters in Florida have voted early, up nearly 35 percent over 2012, according to the Clinton campaign, with big early surges in majority Hispanic Miami Dade county. More broadly, the Clinton campaign said that early voter turnout was breaking records — with more than 41 million Americans casting ballots before Election Day
“We are on the path to see more Americans vote than we have ever seen in our history,” Clinton said in Pittsburgh. “If the lines are long tomorrow, please wait.”
The Justice Department said Monday that it would deploy more than 500 poll-watchers from its Civil Rights Division to monitor voting in 67 jurisdictions in 28 states, including at least three in each of the swing states. Many of the jurisdictions have large Native American, black, Latino and Muslim populations
The department said its lawyers would be working to enforce federal voting rights laws “to ensure that every eligible person that wants to do so is able to cast a ballot.” It also has a hotline (toll free at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-3931) to register complaints.
In the last few days of the campaign, Trump has invested time and resources in blue-leaning states, including Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Most recent opinion polls show Clinton leading in all three, but Trump is hoping for a surge among white voters who lack college degrees.
Trump used a swing through the Midwest on Sunday to warn about the threat of refugees, including in Minnesota, where he singled out “large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state ... and with some of them then joining ISIS.”
Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, said Trump’s remarks would backfire on him by spurring Somali Americans to go to the polls.
“Any young Somali who was wondering – should I vote? should I not vote? — is off the fence now,” he said. “He probably gave us two to three points, and he badly misunderstood who our Somali immigrants are. They’re neighbors. They go to mosque with people of other backgrounds. They’re intermarried with people who were born here. If you attack them, you attack the whole state of Minnesota.”
Both Trump and Clinton boasted busy schedules Monday, appearing within hours of each other in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Raleigh.
The appearances reflect an electoral map that seemed to shift in the wake of Comey’s announcement of the new emails nine days earlier. Clinton, who had been trying to expand the electoral map by focusing on red states that included Georgia and Arizona, has turned back to defend blue turf such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Before boarding her plane, Clinton conceded to reporters that one of her biggest challenges if she wins the White House will be uniting a polarized country.
“I really do want to be the president for everybody,” Clinton said. The splits in the country, she added, have been “exacerbated” by the Trump campaign.
“We’re just going to work until the last vote is counted,” Clinton said. “We are on a good track.”
On Monday, she was set to hold four rallies in three states: North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
She will finish the day with a rally in Philadelphia that includes President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, followed by a midnight speech in Raleigh, where Lady Gaga was set to appear.
The Clinton campaign is leaning heavily on the president and Michelle Obama to drum up enthusiasm and spur voter turnout on election day.
Obama appeared in Michigan several hours ahead of Clinton and used his remarks to praise the Democratic nominee and tout his work in the first term to bolster the country’s then-sputtering auto industry.
“I think I’ve earned some credibility here,” Obama said of his efforts to shore up the auto industry. When it comes to voting for Clinton on Tuesday, he continued, “I am asking you to trust me on this one.”
In Florida, Trump claimed without presenting any evidence that he was doing better than expected among African Americans and Hispanics. In fact, there are signs that strong Hispanic turnout could provide a big boost to Clinton. Polls have shown black and Hispanic voters overwhelmingly favor Clinton.
Trump insisted that polls showing him trailing in key states such as Pennsylvania were wrong and part of a broader media conspiracy to undermine his campaign.
“The miners are going to come out. The steelworkers who lost their jobs are going to come out,” Trump said Monday. “The women are going to come out big. It is all a phony deal. They are telling you a lot of phony stuff.”
Gold reported from Washington and Sullivan from Raleigh and Sarasota, Fla. Abigail Hauslohner and David Weigel contributed to this report.
