President Donald Trump’s promises of a manufacturing comeback have fallen flat in the key battleground state of Wisconsin. Despite his pledge to boost manufacturing and prevent factories from closing or moving overseas, the opposite has occurred.

“He ran on bringing all these jobs back to America. None of it has materialized. Fewer jobs materialized. He’s proven he’s not a friend of labor. He’s not a friend of workers,” said Ross Winklbauer, a sub-district director for the United Steelworkers labor union in southeastern Wisconsin.

In 2016, Trump was able to narrowly win the Badger State on a promise to increase manufacturing jobs, keep plants from closing, and make factories return operations to U.S. shores. But since he took office — and even before the pandemic hit — manufacturing jobs were up by just 3.2 percent, trailing the national average by nearly one full percentage point.

“I don’t think he’s fulfilled it all. There have been plant closings: Telsmith, Briggs & Stratton, all the steelworks are closing or have been diminished,” said Chris Chappelle, a welder at the Komatsu mining equipment manufacturing plant in Milwaukee and president of the local chapter of United Steelworkers.

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BEAVER, Pa. — The pressure is on in the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania where voters, as well as party and state officials, are anxiously preparing for what could turn into Election Week there.

"Pennsylvania is prepared. We're protected for this election and voters can cast their ballots with confidence," Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, told reporters at a news conference Friday. "Our state has made a lot of improvements to strengthen our election system since the last presidential election in 2016."

The state last fall overhauled its election laws, the first major changes in about 80 years. But the new rules, combined with uncertainty over the Covid-19 pandemic and legal issues over mail-in voting, paint an uncertain picture of how the week could unfold.

Here are five things to keep an eye on.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Elections officials in the Deep South spent election eve tending to lingering damage from Hurricane Zeta and other storms that damaged buildings or left polling places without power ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Storm damage caused polling places to be moved in Louisiana, and power companies and election officials scrambled to restore power, or make sure generators were available, at polling places in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Election officials expressed confidence that the sites would be operational Tuesday.

Thousands of voters in southwest Louisiana will be casting ballots in different locations Tuesday because Hurricane Laura wrecked their traditional polling sites in late August, and they have not yet been repaired. Across the state in the New Orleans area and in other southeastern parishes, several dozen voting locations will be running on generator power because outages caused by Hurricane Zeta last week have not been fixed.

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SAN ANTONIO — Early in the election cycle, as Democrats were still narrowing their choices for a presidential nominee, Democratic Party Chair Tom Perez proclaimed that Texas was a battleground.

Few wanted to believe him then, but in the days before Election Day, he was making final get-out-the-vote rounds in South Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, Austin, its neighbor Williamson County and North Texas.

Polls have been confirming Perez's early declaration that Texas is in play, generating high anticipation of Democratic upsets up and down the ballot. But there is some caution, because Republicans have controlled the state for decades, and Jimmy Carter in 1976 was the last Democratic presidential nominee to win.

Perez said he was willing to declare Texas a battleground state so early because a big part of Democratic success in 2018 was the high Latino turnout nationally, with 800,000 more Latinos voting in Texas in the midterm elections than in 2016.

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There’s nothing quite like YouTube’s homepage for a big advertiser. It’s among the most visited websites in the country, and an advertiser can buy up the whole thing. 

That made the homepage appealing to President Trump. His reelection campaign long ago purchased the prime position on YouTube for the final days of the race, meaning that on Monday all YouTube visitors in the U.S. were being shown Trump ads on its homepage. 

But Joe Biden’s campaign, in between appearances in swing states, cobbled together a possible rival for the YouTube spot: ad buys on the front pages of hundreds of other websites, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and People magazine. 

Megan Clasen, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, said the campaign had more than 200 “takeovers” of digital publications Monday. (In the world of digital marketing, it’s what might be called a premium ad play, as opposed to social media.) 

“With less than 24 hours left, there’s only so many chances to reach voters,” Clasen said on Twitter. She said the “high impact digital placements” were one more opportunity to get Biden’s message in front of people before they cast votes Tuesday.

The White House has been fortified, the National Guard called out and gun sales are surging.

On the eve of a momentous election, a deeply divided nation is on the edge as it plunges deeper into a pandemic and unemployment rages while the country holds its breath in anticipation of what some fear could be a potential breakdown in law and order or democracy depending on what happens Tuesday.

Downtown Washington felt like a city preparing for a siege Monday as the normally bustling streets of the capital were turned into a plywood ghost town of boarded-up storefronts and windswept sidewalks.

"We do not advise parking or driving downtown," D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a press conference last week.

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Biden made an impromptu stop at the University of Pittsburgh campus with surprise guest — Lady Gaga. 

The former vice president joined the artist in surprising student organizers on his way to a drive-in rally in Pittsburg Wednesday evening.

Students were holding “We’re Gaga for Joe and Kamala” signs. Lady Gaga is set to perform at Biden's final campaign event in Pennsylvania this evening.

Lady Gaga responded to a Trump campaign statement that referred to the artist as an "anti-fracking activist" on Sunday. Trump tweeted about Lady Gaga and repeatedly mentioned at his events that he has a story on her. 

As the United States enters the final day of early voting ahead of Election Day, almost 97 million Americans have already cast their votes — nearly doubling the 50 million who did so in 2016.

As of 5 p.m. on the East Coast, more than 96,900,000 voters have so far cast early ballots, according to data from the NBC News Decision Desk/Target Smart, a Democratic political data firm. The Decision Desk projects that number could approach 100 million by Tuesday.

With about 97 million votes already cast, the early vote total in 2020 represents roughly 71 percent of the total vote cast in all of 2016, when approximately 136.5 million ballots were counted.

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