Why Harris and Trump aren’t making public appearances on Election Day

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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will stay off the campaign trail on Tuesday, having given their closing messages Monday night. 

Neither candidate will participate in political rallies on Tuesday. After months of campaigning, presidential candidates typically stay off the campaign trail on Election Day, instead opting for watch parties in places meaningful to them or low-impact campaign events.

Harris will participate in radio interviews for stations in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. She will then head to her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C., for a watch party. 

Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), is attending a political event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the morning and will head to Howard in the afternoon for the watch party with Harris. 

Trump will spend the day in Florida, where he is a resident. He has said he plans to vote in person on Election Day. He will host a watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center. 

Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has nothing on his public calendar. He spent Monday with Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., campaigning in some swing states.

It is unclear if Vance plans to join Trump in Florida. The Washington Examiner reached out to the Trump campaign for clarification on Vance’s Election Day plans.

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Candidates historically stay off the campaign trail on Election Day or make low-profile campaign stops. In 2016, Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stayed off the campaign trail on Election Day, opting to remain in her residential town of Chappaqua, New York. She cast her ballot at a local elementary school before heading to New York City for her own election watch party.

During the 2008 election, then-Sen. Barack Obama voted in his Chicago neighborhood before traveling to Indiana for a final, low-key campaign stop. He ended up winning Indiana. His opponent, then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), took a more active approach to the day, beginning by casting his ballot in Phoenix, before traveling to Nevada and Colorado for a pair of campaign stops in what were then two hotly contested battlegrounds.

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