With just one week remaining until the US election, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to supporters from the Ellipse in Washington, DC – the location where her opponent and former President Donald Trump addressed supporters before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Meanwhile, Trump was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, just two days after a comedian made racist remarks about Puerto Rico from the podium during his rally in New York, triggering a firestorm of criticism.
With six days remaining until the November 5 vote, both candidates, their running mates, and their surrogates are pushing to shore up support before election day.
What are the latest updates from the polls?
According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos polls, Harris’s lead over Trump has narrowed in the election’s final stretch.
She holds a narrow lead of just one percentage point over the Republicans, 44 percent to 43 percent, nationally, according to the poll. The poll had a margin of error of approximately three percentage points in either direction.
The poll also indicates that Harris’s lead has steadily declined since late September. A previous Reuters/Ipsos poll from October 16-21 showed Harris leading Trump by two points.
A separate telephone and online poll by prominent US pollster Rasmussen suggests Harris faces a likability challenge. According to the survey, 47 percent of likely US voters view her favourably, with 33 percent holding a “very” favourable opinion. However, 51 percent view her unfavourably, and 44 percent have a “very” unfavourable impression.
National polls show Harris leading by 1.4 points according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker – again, well within the margin of error of polls.
In swing states – the key battlegrounds likely to determine the outcome of the election – the race remains even tighter .
Those seven states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker shows Harris maintaining a slim lead in Michigan, and a razor-thin advantage in Nevada and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Trump holds a slight advantage over Harris in Pennsylvania and has a more significant lead in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
In all seven states, the candidates are within two points of each other, well within the polls’ margins of error, leaving each state a toss-up just days before the final vote.
What was Kamala Harris up to on Sunday?
In what her campaign billed as a final appeal to voters, Harris delivered a speech from the Ellipse in Washington, DC.
“Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is, but America, I am here tonight to say that is not who we are,” Harris said.
A campaign official stated that the crowd at Harris’s rally exceeded 75,000 people, nearly four times the initial estimates.
Harris also reminded the crowd that this was the place where Trump sought to “overturn the will of the people” on January 6, 2021. That day saw thousands of supporters of then-President Trump storm the building in an effort to overturn his election defeat, forcing legislators to flee for safety.
“Tonight, I will speak to everyone about the choice and the stakes in this election,” Harris said. “We know who Donald Trump is.
“He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election.”
Harris closed her argument speech telling voters they are “not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators”.
“The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised,” Harris said. “In seven days, we have the power, each of you has the power, to turn the page, and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told,” she added. Harris’s supporters in Washington, DC, said they felt anxious with one week left before election day.
“I’m just ready for her to win this,” Bruce Purvis, 34, told Al Jazeera, adding that he thought the Democratic candidate had done well and not just presented herself as a counterpoint to Trump. “I appreciate that she focused on the issues and not just the shortcomings of her opponent,” he said.
“I care most about the people – her focus on the middle class has been what’s set her aside.”
What was Donald Trump up to on Monday?
Trump kicked off his rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a brief message for voters: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The crowd replied with a loud “No”.
“I’m asking you to be excited again … They have embarrassed us. Kamala has embarrassed us. She doesn’t have what it takes. I’m asking you to dream big again.”
He urged his supporters to “stand up and tell Kamala” next Tuesday that “You’re fired” – a reference to how Trump would end episodes of his reality TV show, The Apprentice.
Throughout his speech in Allentown, Trump included rhetoric targeting immigrants, at one point saying that the US had turned into a “giant garbage can” where countries like Venezuela send their criminals. “We’re going to protect our men, our women and our country,” he asserted.
“We’re hearing Donald Trump go back on his closing message, that essentially Kamala broke it [and] Donald Trump can fix it,” Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Allentown, Pennsylvania, said.
“He’s gone through a litany of things he believes Harris is responsible for, including inflation and a ‘border invasion’ and said all of that will end on day one,” Fisher added.
According to Fisher, Trump spoke to a crowd of between 10,000 and 12,000 people, and when addressing Harris’s rally, Trump said that “sometimes, they bus them in, and when it’s on video, they use artificial intelligence”.
Trump holds a narrow lead over Harris in Pennsylvania, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker.
What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?
Kamala Harris campaigns in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
Harris and Trump will both visit North Carolina – another battleground state – on Wednesday.
In North Carolina, Trump holds a significant edge over Harris.
With less than a week to go before the election, Harris is focused on conveying her message in key swing states. In addition to North Carolina, she will be visiting Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
However, experts believe that some of her arguments may not be compelling enough to resonate with all audiences.
One of her key messages is that Trump’s win could be a threat to democracy in the US, and experts believe this might not be compelling enough.
“I don’t think that the argument that Trump is a fascist and anti-democratic will move many voters … when you look at the data, most Americans are prioritising other issues. About 60 to 70 percent of Americans think that democracy is somehow at risk, but if you look at what issues they place as the most important, what’s going to drive their vote, it’s less than 3 percent that list democracy,” Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science at the University College London School of Public Policy, told Al Jazeera.
“If she wants to get the swing votes she is going to have to appeal based on the abortion issue in which the Democrats have a very considerable advantage, on the economy, sort of pushing back at Trump’s charges that this current administration is responsible for the cost of living crisis, on immigration to make sure that she can put forth the compelling case, for example, about how she’s going to deal the with the challenges at the border,” he added.
Trump, meanwhile, has claimed that Harris “has abandoned North Carolina families”.
“Trump will put an end to this madness when he returns to the White House. He has a proven track record of economic success from his first term, and he will put more money in people’s pockets as the 47th President of the United States,” his website reads.
He will also be in Wisconsin, holding a rally in Green Bay. Harris leads Trump marginally in the state, according to the poll tracker.
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