With the US presidential election less than two weeks away, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris can't be split by the polls
analysis
We won't see a second debate, but Trump and Harris will go head-to-head with rival media appearances until election day.
"Neck and neck", "Deadlocked", "Dead heat", "Tied", "Too close to call".
One of the biggest challenges faced by those covering the US presidential race has been coming up with different ways of describing this coin-toss election.
As we enter the final fortnight of the campaign, the contest for the White House is agonisingly tight and shows no signs of becoming any easier to predict as election day fast approaches. So, what can we expect in this final stretch?
What do the polls say?
The national polls, and those taken in the seven battleground states, have shown Kamala Harris and Donald Trump jockeying for the lead over recent weeks, and that's how things sit now.
The lead in most of the opinion polls is a tiny one, and routinely well within the margin of error. If you look at the closely-watched polling aggregates, a pattern emerges.
At the time of writing, Harris leads Trump by less than 1 per cent nationally in the Real Clear Politics (RCP) poll average, and by close to 2 per cent at the 538 polling site, run by America's ABC News.
Looking at the battleground state averages, RCP has Trump slightly ahead in all of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. 538 has Trump up in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. It's a tie in the other states. So, all in all, it's a nail biter (that's another useful adjective!)
How close could the result be? Well, the bar is high. In 2000, George W Bush won by 537 votes out of the 6 million cast in the deciding state of Florida.
In 2020, nearly 160 million Americans voted but Joe Biden squeaked in by just 43,000 votes across the closest of the swing states: Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.
What are the candidates up to?
Harris and Trump will be making their closing arguments to anyone who will listen. And that audience is small.
According to analysis of polling by the New York Times and Siena College, only 3.7 per cent, or about 1.2 million voters in the battleground states are truly undecided.
From doing very few interviews at the start of the contest, Harris will in the words of Democratic operatives "flood the zone" with media appearances on national outlets, on local radio and TV stations, and across a range of social media outlets.
Even though she has been vice-president for nearly four years, a lot of Americans are still making their minds up about Harris.
The same can't be said about Trump. Voters either love him or loath him and these attitudes won't change in the final days.
Like Harris, Trump will focus on rallies across the battleground states and his advisors will continue their vain efforts to get the former president to stay "on message" about key campaign themes like the state of the economy, and not go off on the rambling tangents he is so fond of.
Oh, and one big event that won't be happening is a second Harris/Trump debate. CNN offered to host the match up on Thursday (AEDT). Harris said yes. Trump declined.
With a little help from my friends
As we enter the home strait, both candidates will be unleashing some big names to help win over those critical undecided voters.
Tesla CEO and owner of X Elon Musk is being deployed by Trump's campaign to a number of events. Musk has already appeared on stage with Trump, literally leaping for joy at a rally last month in Butler, Pennsylvania. Musk has donated more than $100 million to Trump's campaign coffers, a welcome cash injection as advertising spending ramps up.
There's also talk of Nikki Haley, Trump's former primary rival, hitting the hustings with her political "frenemy" later this week.
Harris will this week be campaigning with Democratic party royalty Barack and Michelle Obama in Georgia and Michigan.
Popular Democratic governors will be on the hustings and there may also be more celebrity supporters popping up in the wake of Lizzo joining Harris at a rally in Detroit, Michigan on the weekend and Usher stepping up at an event in Atlanta, Georgia.
There's one star whose appearance could really make a splash, but Taylor Swift gracing a stage with the vice president may be beyond Harris's wildest dreams…
Where's this 'October surprise'?
Hold your horses! The month's not over yet. But, so far, there's been nothing on the scale of recent October surprises such as Trump coming down with COVID just before the 2020 election and the FBI Director James Comey announcing an investigation into some of Hillary Clinton's emails in the dying days of the 2016 election.
One variable could be the timing of Israel's promised retaliation against Iran for that missile attack last month.
If this happens in the next week, and causes further volatility and chaos in the Middle East, it would be a blow to Harris as she is part of the US administration that's been unable to rein the fighting in. It has been a key Trump campaign talking point.
It could be argued there were enough "July surprises" (Biden pulling out, Trump getting shot) to make any October shocks completely unnecessary.
But, as we have learnt this year, nothing can be ruled out in what has been an extraordinary presidential race.
By：https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-23/donald-trump-and-kamala-harris-still-close-in-us-election/104501390(责任编辑：admin)
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