Harris re-energized Democrats after Biden dropped out from Presidential re-election.
WASHINGTON: Courts, gunfire and two dramatic debates have left their mark on this year’s US election campaign — one of the most extraordinary in the country’s history.
Here are the key moments that will play out between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on election day Tuesday.
Trump guilty
“Trump guilty,” has plastered the front pages of the world. On May 30, the Republican became the first former US president to be convicted of serious crimes — 34 counts to be exact.
He was found to have falsified business records to pay porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of his victory in the 2016 election to prevent her from making public their alleged sexual affair.
In a tumultuous six-week trial, Daniels shared excruciating details about her one-night stand, including sex positions and Trump’s silk pyjamas.
The incident took her off the campaign trail, but the sheer media attention ensures she remains in the spotlight – even if it is on her criminal act.
There is nothing in US law that prevents Trump from running for the White House after he is convicted, and Republicans have doubled down on their unwavering support for the party’s flagbearer, who still faces three other criminal counts.
Debate drama
Democratic hopes appear dashed after a disastrous performance by President Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee, in the June 27 debate against Trump.
Biden, 81, slurred his words and often forgot what he was saying, raising fears he may not be eligible to run for president again.
Biden shrugs it off as a “bad night,” but dissenters say that’s not the case, with donors threatening to withhold funding if he doesn’t back down.
Post-debate polls show Trump falling behind Biden, but the White House says he’s unlikely to back down.
Assassination attempt
Trump’s rally in a sun-baked Pennsylvania on July 13 is the most shocking moment of the campaign so far.
Popping sounds are heard, Trump touches his ear, sees blood and collapses to the stage floor. Secret Service officers surround him as the crowd erupts in cheers.
Trump is helped back to his feet in a matter of seconds. “Fight, fight, fight!” he mouths to the now-excited audience, raising his fist and creating one of the most iconic images in American political history.
The 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, is shot dead at the scene by the Secret Service, and Trump survives with a minor scratch on his right ear.
Trump’s base is ecstatic. “I took a bullet for democracy,” he tells his supporters later at a rally.
Biden says ‘goodbye’
At 1:46 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, Biden announces in a tweet that he will not seek re-election.
This makes him the first president since 1968 not to seek re-election, and flips the White House race on its head.
Kamala Harris, the first woman to serve as U.S. vice president, Black and Asian-American, received Biden’s endorsement to replace him in the campaign.
Within two weeks she formally clinched the Democratic nomination, making her the first woman of color to lead a major party’s ticket.
Harris re-energized Democrats and produced immediate results in opinion polls, rolling back Trump’s advantage, including in election-deciding swing states.
Trump’s second scare
Trump’s weekend golf round in Florida on Sept. 15 was shattered by gunfire — this time fired by a Secret Service agent in what the FBI calls an apparent assassination attempt.
The Republican candidate is safe in the second such scare in two months.
Investigators say gunman Ryan Routh did not shoot at Trump but fled when a security agent noticed him pointing his rifle at him from among a row of trees on the golf course.
Harris’s edge
In just a few weeks, Harris went from a relatively unknown and unpopular vice president to an emerging candidate on an unprecedentedly tight deadline.
A key moment in her campaign is her only debate with Trump on Sept. 10. She is widely credited with defeating Trump.
Their intense duel reaches a climax with huge rallies the week before Election Day.
For Trump, it’s a packed crowd at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden Arena on Oct. 27, an event that was immediately criticized for racist jokes, including one speaker calling Hispanic-majority Puerto Rico “trash.”
Harris draws the biggest crowd of her campaign — thousands of people — to the National Mall outside the White House on Oct. 29.
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