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Trump has outlined the darkest, most authoritarian platform of any presidential candidate in modern memory. He is proposing the biggest-ever mass deportation of migrants — an operation that by definition would involve law enforcement and possibly even the military in a domestic crackdown that would challenge civil liberties. He has openly considered using US armed forces against his political opponents whom he labeled “enemies from within” and vermin, emulating the language of some of history’s most notorious tyrants.

But there are also foreboding signs from Trump. His behavior already looks like a new attempt to try to overturn the result if he loses after his conduct following the last election led to an invasion of the US Capitol by supporters who beat up police and tried to thwart the certification of Biden’s victory. Harris has said that she’s ready to respond if the ex-president makes a premature victory declaration, and his maneuverings suggest that, absent a clear victory by either side, uncertainty over the election could last days.

Trump is banking on voters weary of high food and housing prices and still feeling the trauma from now-cooled inflation, and he has demonized undocumented migrants to highlight a southern border crisis. The Biden administration struggled for months to recognize the gravity of each issue and to offer effective remedies, meaning the seeds of a possible Harris defeat may have long been sown. And Trump’s team is convinced he will eat into traditional minority Democratic constituencies and again bring out people who don’t typically vote.

Democrats are encouraged by apparently strong early turnout among women voters, with abortion rights a potentially pivotal issue in the first presidential election since the Trump-built Supreme Court majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Harris has also worked to repair fissures in the traditional Democratic coalition, trying to appeal to Black men and Latino voters in particular.

Polls nationally and in the vital swing states show no clear leader, reflecting a country that is polarized just as sharply as when the race started. But the possibility remains that one candidate has managed to fashion a late advantage in battlegrounds including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona, and could sweep to a wider-than-anticipated win.

Harris could shatter the line of nearly 250 years of male commanders in chief and become the first female president. It would be a stunning feat after she unified the demoralized Democratic Party in July when President Joe Biden’s reelection bid was destroyed by the ravages of age.

If Trump wins on Tuesday, he will be only the second defeated president to win a nonconsecutive term. He will complete one of the most staggering political comebacks ever after trying to torch democracy to stay in power after the 2020 election, being convicted of a crime and escaping two attempts on his life this year.

But the vice president also sought to summon the best angels of America’s nature, striking aspirational notes that her Republican foe abandoned long ago. Harris said in North Carolina on Saturday, “I have lived the promise of America. And today, I see the promise of America in everybody who is here. In all of you, in all of us. We are the promise of America.”

Harris is trying to reanimate the feeling of joy and possibility that infused her early campaign rallies. On Sunday at a Black church in Detroit, she condemned those who “sow hate, spread fear and spread chaos” in a reference to her rival. “In these next two days we will be tested,” she said. “We were born for such a time as this.”