Keystone-SDA
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are throwing their last bit of strength into an anxious end to the American presidential campaign on Sunday for the United States and the rest of the world.
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November 03, 2024 – 09:23
(Keystone-ATS) The Democratic vice-president, who could become the first female president of this country of more than 345 million inhabitants, and the former Republican tenant of the White House, who dreams of returning there, are going blow for blow in order to convince the undecided, while 75 million voters voted early.
The campaign to lead the world’s leading power on January 20 and succeed outgoing President Joe Biden is the most aggressive in recent US history.
Under the worried gaze of its partners, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, America is divided into two camps which seem irreconcilable and are engaged in an escalation of verbal violence where controversies and false information are increasing.
In this ultra-tense climate, physical violence is feared after November 5. Especially since the national result is unpredictable as the polls give Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump tied.
One of them published Saturday evening caused a stir because it gave the Democrat a three-point lead in the small state of Iowa (north), a Republican stronghold.
Blue-collar workers to convince
The vice-president, a former federal judge from California born 60 years ago to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, suddenly entered the campaign in July after the resounding withdrawal of Joe Biden, 81 years old.
For her last Sunday of the campaign, she returns to Michigan, an industrial hub state on the shores of the Great Lakes, the cradle of the automobile and with a blue-collar electorate to convince: white, African-American or Arab working men. -Muslims.
After a church visit in Detroit, Ms. Harris will hold yet another meeting at the state university.
She should still call for “turning the page on a decade with Donald Trump”, a New York real estate billionaire, elected president to everyone’s surprise in 2016 and who shook up American democracy and international relations.
Fearing his return to the White House, his adversaries now portray him as a “dictator”, even a “fascist” with a “vengeful” spirit against all his opponents and critics.
The tireless 78-year-old populist tribune, unsinkable despite numerous convictions and criminal and civil charges, once again insulted “Kamala, with a low IQ” on Saturday.
And even if he continues to paint the United States as black, a multicultural giant on the verge of a “1929-style Depression” and “invaded” by millions of “murderous” illegal immigrants, Donald Trump knows also be optimistic.
“New golden age”
He urged his supporters who came to cheer him in Virginia (east) and North Carolina (southeast) to “dream big again (…) of a new golden age in America”.
Of the 50 states, only seven this year, the “swing states” and their millions of voters, are expected to swing the election to one side or the other.
The voting method is complex: presidential candidates are subject to indirect universal suffrage, that is to say that Americans vote for a college of 538 electors.
Donald Trump, who returns to the crucial states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia on Sunday, is increasing allegations of “cheating”.
In Virginia, Brandon Dent, a 22-year-old delivery driver, also thinks that his champion “will win hands down” but fears that “fraud” will reverse the result.
The former president never acknowledged his defeat in November 2020 and is facing criminal charges for his role in the assault by his supporters against the Capitol, the seat of Congress in Washington, on January 6, 2021.
To prevent any repetition of this unprecedented violence, the federal capital is under high security with a significant police presence, barriers and boards to protect stores.
Which did not prevent thousands of women from marching on Saturday under a blue autumn sky for their rights, firstly that of abortion, which Kamala Harris wants to restore at the federal level.
And in a campaign that costs billions of dollars, where meetings mix politics and spectacle, Ms. Harris made a surprise appearance in New York on the NBC television comedy show “Saturday Night Live.” With the actress Maya Rudolph imitating him, they made fun of his own laughter, which Mr. Trump continues to mock with malice.
