WASHINGTON - Confronted by a dead heat in opinion polls that show a frozen presidential race two weeks before election day, both camps are fighting for every vote.
Surveys show razor-thin gaps between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump in the handful of decisive swing states, as well as nationally. All the polls are within the margin of error.
Why is this race even close? It is a question that frustrates both Democrats and Republicans, expecting their candidate to have a clear advantage.
“I don’t have a good answer,” Virginia Senator Mark Warner, a Democratic heavyweight, told The Straits Times.
“I’ve never seen a candidate like Mr Trump, who is so negative about America, so inward-looking that he will ruin our connections in Asia. And it feels like every day he is slightly more erratic,” said Mr Warner, in a short interview on the sidelines of an Oct 19 event to shore up support for Ms Harris in Virginia.
In July, Mr Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was at the forefront of efforts to mobilise Democratic senators to pressure US President Joe Biden to step down as the party’s presidential candidate, after his faltering performance in a debate with Trump. It led to the emergence of Ms Harris.
Mr Warner cast doubt on the polls. “I think she’s still going to win if the final days go well,” he said. “I know people are concerned about inflation, but it’s coming down. And at the end of the day, I think people are going to turn up for Kamala. I’m not sure the polls reflect that.”
No independent analyst is brave enough to stick his neck out to predict the outcome. Flashy pollster Nate Silver said this week that Trump had a slight edge, with a 50.2 per cent chance of winning, compared with Ms Harris’ 49.5 per cent.
The spectre of the 2000 election hangs over the country in 2024. The election in which Mr George W. Bush defeated Mr Al Gore is perhaps the nation’s closest to date – decided by 0.01 percentage points, or a mere 537 votes, in Florida and a Supreme Court ruling ending a recount.
Trump’s 2016 win was completely missed by pollsters, who salvaged their reputations in 2020 by correctly predicting a Biden victory, although few foresaw that Trump would pull in as close as he did.
And, with nerves jangled by an election year full of surprises, nobody is willing to even venture when a winner will be known.
Most foresee a procession of legal battles contesting the result, stretching past Election Day on Nov 5, perhaps even to Thanksgiving on Nov 28. Worse scenarios are also being considered, like disaffected Trump supporters resorting to violence if he loses.
Each party has a solid base of support, making it difficult for either side to streak ahead in a nation where one half sees issues in a completely different way on everything from the economy to abortion. More Americans agree that the country is headed in the “wrong direction” than on who can fix it.
Trump is better known to the average American, but Ms Harris is trying to level the gap with a record US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) she has raised in contributions, far more than her rival. She is criss-crossing swing states, holding well-attended rallies. In the past week, she gave a number of interviews in response to criticism that her campaign is shielding her from the press.
She has called Trump “increasingly unstable and unhinged” and said he is seeking “unchecked power” if he regains the presidency. After Trump’s Philadelphia town hall on Oct 14, where he switched from answering questions to swaying to music onstage for 30 minutes, she gently mocked him. “Hope he’s okay,” she posted on social media platform X.
He, in turn, mispronounces her name, derides her unrestrained laughter and takes digs at her intelligence. In a light-hearted speech at an Oct 17 charity dinner in New York, he cracked a joke at her expense. “There’s a group called White Dudes for Harris, have you seen this?... But I’m not worried about them because their wives and their wives’ lovers are all voting for me.”
Both campaigns are venturing farther afield than is usual during a conventional campaign: Ms Harris sat down for an interview on Fox News, the TV network of choice for Republicans. And Trump has planned a star turn on Oct 28 in the loyally Democratic state of New York.
Ms Harris has also appeared on podcasts like Call Her Daddy, seeking out younger voters by displaying a more relatable side than polemics or policy.
To win over black male voters – supposedly reluctant to back a female in the White House, even if she is part black herself – she brought in the nation’s first black president Barack Obama to shame them into backing her.
Mr Obama, who is easily one of the most popular Democrats in America, scolded black men for not “feeling the idea of having a woman as president”.
Not to be outdone, Trump also made an outreach to mainstream media outlets after years of calling them purveyors of fake news – he appeared in interviews with Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. He also went the podcast route, ostensibly seeking young male votes through such shows as Full Send and Flagrant, which discuss pop culture and current events.
The Trump campaign is also trying to capitalise on Ms Harris’ ambiguity on the Gaza war.
The Future Coalition political action committee (PAC), funded by Trump backer and billionaire Elon Musk, is microtargeting Jewish and Muslim voters in two key swing states – at the same time, with advertisements of opposing messages.
The PAC has funded Snapchat ads accusing Ms Harris of standing “with Palestine, not our ally Israel”, targeting areas in Pennsylvania with large Jewish populations, Politico website reported.
A concurrent ad, which asserts that she “stands with Israel”, is aimed at voters in Michigan, where it is meant as an accusation because the state has a large Muslim population.
Yet, the impact of these efforts may be more about energising each candidate’s own base while reaching for the narrow slice of undecided voters. A dramatic change in the overall dynamics of the race seems not to be on the cards.