Donald Trump has urged his supporters to vote for him at a campaign rally in the state of Georgia, whether they do so on Election Day or take advantage of the opportunity advance voting, reported the Associated Press.
"Just vote – no matter how you want to do it," Trump told the crowd in one of the states where the results of the vote will be key to determining the winner of the US presidential election.
In the rest of his speech, the former president hurled hyperbolic insults at his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and a number of other speakers made overtly religious arguments in favor of the Republican and called Harris and her Democratic Party "evil."
Democrats "stand for everything God hates," one speaker said, calling the choice between Trump and Harris a "spiritual battle." "This is a Christian state. I would like him to stay that way," he added to the approximately ten thousand local residents, who at one point joined his chants of "Christ is king! Christ is king!".
Meanwhile, Harris, who belongs to the Baptist Church, called Trump a "fascist" at a pre-election event in Philadelphia, vividly demonstrating the polarized positions in the US at a time when election day is less than two weeks away, AP commented.
The Trump campaign's strategy of encouraging his supporters to use every voting method available represents a stark change from the previous 2020 election, when the former president claimed he lost because of mail-in voting. The number of people voting in advance has increased significantly this year. More than 1.9 million voters cast early ballots in Georgia, where Trump lost by just 11,779 votes to Democrat Joe Biden four years ago.
Voters across the country have mailed in a total of more than 23 million early voting ballots for the 2024 presidential election. Early voting records were broken in several states, thanks in part to Republicans getting involved in early voting at Trump's direction.