US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020
AFP, EAST LANSING, US
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours.
The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today.
Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s on our side.”
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris smiles during a campaign rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, on Sunday.
Photo: AFP
This year’s presidential race is going down to the wire, with more key states effectively tied at this point than in any comparable election. More than 77.6 million people have cast early votes, about half of the total ballots cast in 2020.
With the clock ticking, Harris, 60, spent the day in Michigan where she risks losing the critical support of a 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has denounced the US’ handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
“As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza,” Harris said at the start of her speech at Michigan State University, noting that there were leaders of the community present.
Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pumps his fist after speaking at the end of a campaign rally at Atrium Health Amphitheater in Macon, Georgia, on Sunday.
Photo: AFP
However, the rest of the speech was upbeat, with Harris spending more time urging people to get out and vote than on attacks on Trump.
“We got two days to get this done,” she said.
Earlier, Harris quoted Bible scripture in a majority-black church in Detroit, Michigan, and urged Americans to look beyond Trump. “Let us turn the page and write the next chapter of our history,” she said.
Trump on Sunday zigzagged through Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia — the three biggest swing-state prizes in the Electoral College system that awards US states influence according to their population.
The 78-year-old Trump, the oldest major party candidate in US history, added to his increasingly dark rhetoric by musing to supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania, that he would not mind if journalists were shot.
Discussing the near-miss assassination attempt against him in July, he said that to be hit again “somebody would have to shoot through the fake news — and I don’t mind that so much.”
Trump called Democrats “demonic” and, despite no evidence of any meaningful election cheating so far, claimed that Democrats in Pennsylvania “are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing.”
Adding to fears that he would not accept a defeat in the election, Trump said that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he lost his 2020 reelection effort to US President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, Trump in Macon, Georgia, said that he asked vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who dropped his independent presidential bid to support Trump, to work on “women’s health” and “pesticides.”
His comments came a day after Kennedy caused consternation by saying that a Trump White House would order US water systems to remove fluoride from public water supplies.
Later in another rambling speech in Kinston, North Carolina, Trump said: “We’re going to have on Tuesday a landslide that’s too big to rig.”
However, the polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight.
A final New York Times/Siena poll on Sunday flagged incremental changes in swing states, but the results from all seven remained within the margin of error.
Harris got a boost on Saturday as the final Des Moines Register poll for Iowa — seen as a highly credible test of wider public sentiment — showed a stunning turnaround, with Harris ahead by three points in a state won easily by Trump in 2016 and 2020.
In the last hours, both candidates are trying to shore up their bases, and win over any undecided voters.
Pollsters said there has been an erosion in black support for Harris.
However, with abortion rights a top voter concern, her campaign has hailed the large proportion of women turning out among early voters.
