Trump’s campaign says Clinton ‘hitting the panic button’ in blue states as candidates set out on whirlwind final 48 hours of bitterly fought election

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are sprinting towards the finish line of the most bitter, divisive and fear-tainted US presidential election of modern times, with polls showing Clinton has the edge.

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Seeking to become the first female president, the Democrat will end her campaign with a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina at midnight on Monday. Republican candidate Trump will close his at 11pm that night with an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a state where he is hoping to pull off a huge surprise.

Around a third of ballots – at least 41m across 48 states – have been cast in early voting, according to the Associated Press, and the election still appears to be Clinton’s to lose. On Sunday, she led Trump 48%-43% in a Washington Post/ABC tracking poll, 44%-40% in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and 45%-42% in a Politico/Morning Consult poll.

Clinton received a boost on Sunday afternoon, with the release of a letter to Congress from FBI director James Comey that said the bureau had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton in its review of emails discovered during an investigation into charges against Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of key aide Huma Abedin. The FBI review related to Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue over which the bureau had previously decided not to recommend an indictment.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Voters cast their ballots during weekend early voting at a polling place in North Hollywood, California, on Saturday. Photograph: Eugene Garcia/EPA

Nonetheless, data suggest Clinton is not as strongly placed in electoral college projections as Barack Obama was at the same stage in 2012. Clinton is not “in a terribly safe position”, leading pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “The electoral map is actually less solid for Clinton than it was for Obama four years ago.”

The two candidates have fought an ugly battle to become the 45th president, dogged by controversies ranging from FBI investigation into Clinton’s email use to sexual assault allegations against Trump. Clinton would be the first spouse of a president to reach the White House. Trump, at 70, would be the oldest person to assume the office.

As both candidates and their surrogates set out on a whirlwind final 48 hours on the trail, the wild card nature of Trump’s candidacy made the map harder to read than usual. Among 10 rallies planned over the last two days were stops in Minnesota, which has not supported a Republican presidential nominee since 1972, and Michigan, which has not gone to the GOP since 1988. Clinton, however, lost both states to Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

Van Jones, a former adviser to Obama, told CNN’s State of the Union: “Beds are damp. There is a crack in the blue wall and it has to do with trade. This is the ghost of Bernie Sanders.”

The Trump campaign claimed “an enormous surge in momentum and enthusiasm” in recent days, citing Minnesota, where the campaign said that in less than 24 hours it had 18,000 RSVPs for a event that could hold 5,000 people. It now sees “at least six different paths” to victory, aides said.

Dave Bossie, deputy campaign manager, told reporters: “We have expanded the map. We are on offence. We are going to places no one thought we would. It’s an incredibly exciting time for our campaign. Hillary Clinton is on defence and her map is shrinking. We feel we are peaking at the right time as a campaign.”

Clinton has led every poll in Michigan but she, Obama and Bill Clinton were all due to appear there before the vote. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said such major political figures were now playing “follow your leader” in traditional Democratic states.

“We feel very good about the fact that we’re actually setting the landscape here and they’re chasing us around in these blue states,” she said.

“We have seen our prospects improving in Michigan for quite a while now internally and we do see that now reflected in some of the public polling. We also like what we hear on the ground in Michigan ... and we trust the savviness and brilliance of the Clinton campaign.

“If they thought Michigan was in the bag, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would not be returning there today or tomorrow.”

Democrats insisted that was because there is no early voting in the state, so they want to fire up the base. Clinton campaign chair John Podesta told NBC’s Meet the Press: “If we hold on to Nevada, if we hold on to Michigan, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president of America.

“Most people vote on election day in Michigan, so our schedule has been oriented toward being in the early vote states in the earlier period of time. We feel like we’ve got a lead in Michigan. We want to hold on to it, and we think we can do that.”

Trump has been widely condemned as a demagogue after calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US and promising to build a wall on the Mexican border, branding immigrants as rapists and criminals. A 2005 video recording emerged in which he bragged about groping women, after which a dozen women came forward with claims of sexual assault and harassment. He has been ostracised by key members of his own party.

The final days of his campaign were marked by a raucous incident in a rally in Reno on Saturday night, as Secret Service agents rushed the candidate from the stage. A protester named Austyn Crites who was holding a “Republicans against Trump” sign apparently sparked the confused scene.

Crites told the Guardian Trump supporters attacked him after he walked to the front of the rally and held up the sign. Eventually, someone shouted “gun”, which led to law enforcement rushing Trump from the stage and briefly detaining Crites.

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Conway said on Sunday: “We’re told that he is a ‘Republican’ who has canvassed for Hillary Clinton and donated money to her campaign.”

Crites told the Guardian he was a Republican and fiscal conservative but had canvassed “for a few hours” with the Clinton campaign in Nevada, because he wanted to do all he could to prevent a Trump presidency. He described Trump as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascist”.

Trump’s son, Donald Jr, and Dan Scavino, who runs his social media operation, retweeted a message that read: “Hillary ran away from rain today. Trump is back on stage minutes after assassination attempt”. No weapon was found.

Although Trump rallies have long been marked by violence and unrest, they had been comparatively peaceful in recent months as the candidate has become increasingly scripted. Rhetorically, Trump has turned his ire on celebrity Clinton supporters Jay Z and Beyoncé.

“I don’t need Beyoncé and I don’t need Jay Z,” he declared in a Denver rodeo barn. He also criticised Jay Z for lyrics in some of the songs performed at his Friday night concert for Clinton in Cleveland in the battleground state of Ohio.

“My language is nothing to compared to what Jay Z was doing last night and Beyoncé,” Trump said, adding: “My language is like baby talk.”

Clinton has appeared with other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Jon Bon Jovi. At a get-out-the-vote concert on Saturday night, Perry told roughly 10,000 fans in Philadelphia her parents were lifelong Republicans. “But it’s not about where you come from, it’s about what you grow into,” she said.

Trump also made his first explicit accusations of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Only minutes before the incident that caused Secret Service agents to rush him from the stage in Reno, he claimed: “It’s being reported certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept open hours and hours beyond closing time to bus and bring Democratic voters in.



“Folks, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system,” he added, to loud boos, before insisting: “We’re going to beat it.”

He was apparently referring to a Las Vegas supermarket where voters, most of whom were Hispanic, stood in line for hours to vote on Friday night. The length of lines meant that the early voting site did not close until 10pm.

Trump’s words echoed allegations by Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, who claimed before Trump took the stage: “Last night in Clark County, they kept a poll open until 10 o’clock at night so a certain group can vote … You feel free right now? You think this is a free and easy election?”

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The Republican nominee has long made broad, baseless and vague accusations of “large-scale voter fraud”. At the final presidential debate, he declined to say whether he would accept the result of the election.

On Sunday, his vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence, told Fox News Sunday: “The campaign has made it very clear that a clear outcome, obviously, both sides will accept. But I think both campaigns have also been very clear that in the event of disputed results, they reserve all rights and remedies.”

After the frantic final 48 hours on the trail, both Clinton and Trump will be in New York City on election night, with the Democrats having reportedly booked a firework display and the tycoon billing his planned event at a hotel as a “victory party”.

Conway said: “We did not purchase fireworks because we’re planning for a victory but we’re working really hard toward it and not just assuming it.”