By Kate Scanlon

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump made their closing arguments of the 2024 campaign in separate events in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign cycle.

Polls of the contest showed a tight race as the contentious and historic election season drew to a close, with an Oct. 25 New York Times/Siena College poll finding the pair tied 48% to 48%.

But the presidential election isn’t the only race Americans will consider Election Day Nov. 5, which will also include races that determine control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as a host of ballot measures on issues including abortion.

— Harris, Trump make final pitches —

In an Oct. 29 speech delivered on the Ellipse, just south of the White House, the same site where then-President Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, right before the Capitol riot, Harris argued the events of that day illustrate “who Donald Trump is.”

Harris argued that her rival would return to the Oval Office with an “enemies list,” while she would enter it with “a to-do list.”

“For too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Harris also pledged a variety of policies she said were aimed at middle and lower-income Americans, such as passing a robust child tax credit to economically boost families, especially with newborns; allowing Medicare to cover the cost of home care for seniors; and efforts to build new housing Americans can afford.

Harris reiterated her call to “restore reproductive freedom nationwide,” and pledged to sign a bill re-implementing abortion as a legal right if Congress sent such a bill to her desk. Enacting such a federal law would eclipse state bans on abortion that went into effect following the Supreme Court overturning its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and related precedents in 2022.

At an Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City that generated headlines for racist remarks directed at Puerto Rico and others by a comedian who spoke before Trump, Trump also rolled out a new policy proposal similar to Harris’ geared at caregivers.

“I am announcing a new policy today that I will support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or a loved one. It’s about time that they were recognized,” Trump said.

In Oct. 29 remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump cast the election as a referendum on immigration, arguing Harris “has obliterated our borders.”

“So I know we talk about inflation and the economy, but (to me), there’s nothing, nothing, more important than the fabric of our country being destroyed,” he said. “I think what’s happening on the border is the single biggest issue, and I’m seeing it more and more when I speak.”

But in her speech, Harris argued politicians should “stop treating immigration as an issue to scare up votes in an election, and instead, treat it as the serious challenge that it is that we must finally come together to solve.”

“I will work with Democrats and Republicans to sign into law the border security bill that Donald Trump killed,” Harris said in reference to bipartisan legislation that Republicans in Congress ultimately rejected after Trump argued it should not be passed prior to the election.

Catholic experts who have spoken with OSV News have alternately drawn points of agreement and tension between the policies proposed by Harris and Trump with the principles of Catholic social teaching, on issues ranging from abortion and in vitro fertilization to immigration to climate and labor.

Pope Francis in September cast the upcoming U.S. election as a choice between the “lesser of two evils,” citing tension with the candidates’ platforms on immigration and abortion as “against life.” The pontiff said, “Everyone with a conscience should think on this,” and then vote.

The key battleground states — Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona — will likely determine whether Trump or Harris reaches the 270 Electoral College votes needed to be elected president.

— What to expect —

In addition to the presidential election, voters will also determine which party has control of both chambers of Congress, as well as a host of individual state contests including ballot referendums on issues including abortion.

Republicans are projected by some analysts to win control of the Senate. Projections for the House favor Republicans, but those contests appear on track to be a closer margin.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast last updated Oct. 30 showed Republicans with an 89 out of 100 chance of winning control of the upper chamber, but 53 out of 100 chance of winning the House.

Voters in many states will also consider specific ballot referendums. For example, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota and the District of Columbia will consider ballot measures that, if approved, would result in open primaries, or allowing any voter to vote in a primary regardless of their party affiliation.

Voters in states with abortion referendums broadly appear poised to approve the efforts to codify abortion protections, polls of those contests have shown. An August poll showed more than 70% of voters approved of those measures in Arizona and Nevada.

Those are two of nine states that will consider ballot measures on abortion, which also include Colorado, Maryland, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. A broader measure in New York is inclusive of abortion, but also concerns gender identity, and has been opposed by New York’s Catholic bishops as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

In Nebraska, voters will consider dueling ballot referendums on abortion. One of those measures would enshrine in the Nebraska Constitution the right to have an abortion until viability, generally considered to be 24 weeks, with exceptions for situations with a maternal mortality risk after that point. The other one — the “Protect Women and Children” initiative — would codify a ban on abortion in the second and third trimester in the Nebraska constitution, leaving intact the state’s current 12-week abortion ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the pregnant woman.

Winning such contests has so far eluded pro-life activists in 2022 and 2023, since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 that overturned the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence recognizing abortion as a constitutional right and returned the issue back to legislatures.

But Florida might be the first state to divert from that trend as ballot referendums must reach a 60% threshold to pass in that state. A recent survey from St. Pete Polls conducted for FloridaPolitics.com found a majority of voters (54.1%) said they support the abortion measure, which is just shy of the necessary threshold to pass. Another 38.0% said they opposed it.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has opposed the measure, known as Amendment 4, which would overturn the state’s six-week ban on abortion and prohibit any abortion limits before fetal viability.

“We urge all Floridians of goodwill to stand against the legalization of late-term abortion and oppose the abortion amendment. In doing so, we will not only protect the weakest, most innocent, and defenseless of human life among us but also countless women throughout the state from the harms of abortion,” the Florida bishops said in a statement issued when the measure qualified for the ballot.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion. After the Dobbs decision, church officials in the U.S. have reiterated the church’s concern for both mother and child and called to strengthen available support for those living in poverty or other causes that can push women toward having an abortion.