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The presidential elections in the USA, the three states where they are fighting for even a single vote

2024-11-02 22:35:47Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The presidential elections in the USA, the three states where they are fighting
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

The 2024 presidential race is in its final weekend. Polls show that Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump have nearly equal support, and in this late stage of the campaign, every day counts.

If in a typical election pair, one would expect few voters to change their minds so late, in this unusual election showdown, there is a sense that what happens in the final days could change the trajectory of the race.

Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are criss-crossing the country to drum up support in the states that matter most.

They are trying – with varying degrees of success – to stay focused by delivering a clear, straight to the point message.

At the same time, each party is investing massive resources to boost turnout for the latest early voting period. But in these critical days, the flow of misinformation is intensifying.

Where will Harris and Trump be on the last weekend before Election Day?

You only have to look at the agenda of the candidates this weekend to know where they will be.

Yes their agendas can change without notice. On Saturday, Mr. Trump is expected to go to North Carolina with a stop in Virginia.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina since Barack Obama in 2008, but the winner has still been decided by less than 3 percent in every pair of elections since that year.

Mr. Trump's decision to spend Saturday there suggests that Ms. Harris has a good chance of winning the state. But Mr. Trump is also trying to convey confidence by stopping in Virginia, a state that has been safe for Democrats since 2008.

Perhaps no state is more important than Pennsylvania, where Mr Trump is expected to campaign on Sunday. But he also has predicted another showing in North Carolina, in addition to Georgia, another state that has leaned Republican for nearly three decades — until 2020, which was won by Joe Biden by less than half a percent.

Meanwhile, Ms. Harris is expected to campaign in North Carolina and Georgia on Saturday, an indication that her team sees real opportunities for victory there. She plans to make several stops in Michigan on Sunday, where her allies believe she is at her weakest.

Will the candidates stick to the message?

Mr. Trump's campaign managers want voters to focus on one key question as they prepare to cast their ballots, and it's the same question he opens every rally with: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Ms. Harris' team wants voters to think about something else: Which of the two candidates do they believe will put the nation's interests above personal interests?

Whichever candidate can most effectively keep voters focused on their message in the coming days could win the presidency. However, for both candidates this has been a challenge.

Mr Trump began the weekend still dealing with the fallout from a recent rally in New York, during which a comedian described Puerto Rico as a "floating pile of garbage". Things got tough for Mr Trump on Thursday when he called former lawmaker Liz Cheney, one of the most vocal Republicans critical of him, a "war hawk" and suggested she would not be so willing to send US troops to war if she herself would have been put in front of the barrel of the gun.

Meanwhile, Ms. Harris' campaign is still working to deflect attention from President Biden's comments earlier in the week that he described Mr. Trump's supporters as "garbage." The White House later said that Mr. Biden did not refer to all supporters, but only to the comedian who described Puerto Rico as a 'dump of garbage'.

In what both sides believe is the most unusual election ever, any mistakes in the final hours could be decisive.

What role will the gender gap play?

Mr. Trump's attack on Ms. Cheney was particularly problematic, given his allies' heightened concerns about women voters.

Polls show a significant gender gap in the race, with Ms. Harris overall having a much better approval rating among women than Mr. Trump. Part of that may be a result of Republicans' fight to limit abortion rights, which has hurt Mr. Trump's party badly.

Allies of Mr. Trump, including conservative Charlie Kirk, are warning that far more women than men appear to be casting ballots in the early voting process. While it is impossible to know who they are voting for, Mr Kirk clearly believes this is bad news for Mr Trump.

Although the former Republican president insisted he would protect women whether they "like him or not," he is not helping his cause, experts say, citing recent attacks on Ms. Cheney.

Ms Harris, who if she wins will become the country's first female president, says Mr Trump does not understand women's rights "to make decisions about their lives, including their bodies".

It remains to be seen whether Democrat Harris' arguments will be able to penetrate voters this weekend.

On the other hand, Ms. Harris' team believes that there is still a significant portion of voters that she needs to convince. And they say the undecideds are Republican-leaning suburban women.

What happens to early voting?

More than 70 million people have already voted in the 2024 election, or more than a third of the total number who voted in 2020.

They include significantly more Republicans than four years ago, largely because Trump has abandoned his position that his supporters vote in person only on Election Day, Nov. 5.

And while early voting has ended in many states, candidates will focus on at least three key states where the process is not yet over.

Among them Michigan, where early voting continues until Monday. Wisconsin voters have until Sunday to cast their ballots. And in North Carolina, voters had until 3 p.m. today to cast their ballots at the polls.

Early voting officially ended Friday in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Will disinformation campaigns intensify?

Allies of Mr. Trump appear to be intensifying baseless claims of manipulation, and some are being reinforced by Mr. Trump himself. He has spent months casting doubt on the integrity of the election in case he loses it - just as he did four years ago.

His baseless accusations are becoming more specific, in some cases, as the claims begin to surface on social media.

He said, among other things, that in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, "2,600 fake ballots and forms were caught, all written by the same person. He called this a "really serious thing".

But the investigations provide evidence that the system is working as it should.

The Republican candidate has also made unsubstantiated claims about ballots coming from out of state, or that non-citizens are voting. He suggested without evidence that Ms. Harris may have had access to some sort of classified insider information related to the outcome of the election.

It is expected that such claims will increase in the coming days, especially on social networks./ VOA


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