(Detroit) One poll gives wings to the Harris camp, another comforts the Trump team: two days before the election, never has the outcome of a presidential duel in the United States been so unpredictable.
Posted at 10:34 a.m.
Updated at 10:42 a.m.
Roberto SCHMIDT with Nicolas REVISE and Aurélia END in Washington
Agence France-Presse
The whole world is waiting to know if the United States will open the doors of the White House for the first time to a woman, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Or if she is going to send former Republican President Donald Trump back there, at the end of a potentially eventful campaign.
More than 76 million Americans have already voted, early or by mail. On Tuesday, when the polling stations of the world’s leading power close, and the counting begins, a period of feverish waiting will begin, marked by the fear of violent protests, especially if the result is very close.
According to the latest survey New York Times/Siena, this is taking the path.
The opinion survey, concentrated on seven crucial states, certainly gives Kamala Harris in the lead in a majority of them (in Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin), and perfectly tied with Donald Trump in two others (Pennsylvania and Michigan), when its rival is ahead of it in Arizona.
But this closely followed poll shows that she has lost ground in the most contested state: Pennsylvania, which has 19 electors out of the 270 minimum that one of the two candidates must reach to win.
Tiny gap
In any case, the difference is tiny.
The Democratic candidate, who is campaigning in the center and who is counting on the defense of the right to abortion to mobilize women en masse, faces an opponent with an ever more extreme message.
PHOTO CHARLY TRIBALLEAU, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
United States Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris greets passengers on Air Force Two at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, November 2, 2024.
On Saturday, a local opinion survey brought joy to the Democratic camp, showing that Kamala Harris was now ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa, a small state in the center of the country where the 78-year-old billionaire seemed assured of a comfortable victory.
As D-Day approaches, the two rivals, who have spent tens of thousands of dollars, are trying to occupy the field and saturate the media space.
On Saturday, Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance in New York on the comedy show Saturday Night Livelending itself to an exercise in self-deprecation with actress Maya Rudolph.
The vice-president, a former California prosecutor 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.
“Fascist”, “beast”
On Sunday, she returns to Michigan, an industrial hub state on the shores of the Great Lakes, where she must convince a blue-collar electorate.
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 has shaken up American democracy as well as international relations.
Kamala Harris portrays him as a “fascist” with a “vengeful” spirit.
The tireless populist tribune, on whom legal convictions and indictments seem to slide, having emerged unscathed from two assassination attempts, has moved on to open insults: he speaks of “Kamala, with a low IQ” and says she is “stupid as her feet”. “.
He presents himself as a providential man for a United States threatened with a “Depression of the type of 1929” and “invaded” by millions of “murderous” illegal immigrants.
PHOTO BRIAN SNYDER, REUTERS
Republican presidential candidate, former United States President Donald Trump, dances on stage during a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, the United States, November 2, 2024.
The voting system in the United States, a federal country, is complex. The presidency is awarded by indirect universal suffrage: Americans vote for a college of 538 electors, distributed among the 50 states, without the total votes at national level being decisive.
A large majority of these states are already considered for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. This is why the candidates’ efforts and the suspense are focused on the seven pivotal states.
Donald Trump, who returns to Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia on Sunday, is already multiplying the allegations of “cheating”.
In Virginia, Brandon Dent, a 22-year-old delivery driver, thinks his champion “will win hands down”, but fears that “fraud” will reverse the result.
The former president has never acknowledged his defeat in November 2020. He 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.
