With hours left until polls open on Election Day in the United States on Tuesday, the country, and the world, faces a nail-biting wait to know whether Kamala Harris becomes the first US woman President or Donald Trump secures a spectacular return to power after his unprecedented and at times violent campaign to overturn his 2020 reelection loss to Joe Biden.Both the White House contenders have placed maximum pressure on voters and have frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts ahead of the high-stress US presidential election.The 2024 race is going down to the wire, with more key states effectively tied at this point than in any comparable election. More than 75 million people, around half of the total ballots cast in 2020, have already cast early ballots as the hours tick down to the Election Day climax Tuesday.With the clock ticking, Harris, 60, spent the whole of November 2 in Michigan, where she risks losing the critical support of a 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has denounced the US handling of the Israel-Hamas war.Meanwhile, Trump, on November 3, zigzagged through Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia — the three biggest swing-state prizes in the Electoral College system that awards US states influence according to their population.Seventy-eight-year-old Trump, the oldest major party candidate in US history, added to his increasingly dark rhetoric by musing to supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania, that he wouldn’t mind if journalists were shot.On November 5, polling stations in some American states will begin functioning between 7 am and 9 am (US time). As per the Indian Standard Time, the US elections are scheduled to begin roughly at 4.30 pm on November 5 and will continue until 6.30 am on November 6.WHAT DO THE POLLS SHOWMost polls suggest the result of the US Presidential election is likely to be historically tight. But there was a surprise boost for Harris when the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll on November 2 suggested she has surpassed Trump, with likely women voters responsible for the turnaround in a state that Trump easily won in 2016 and 2020.(Trump won Iowa in his past two presidential campaigns by more than 9 percentage points in 2016 and 8 points in 2020.)The poll of 808 likely voters, who were surveyed between October 28 to 31, has Harris leading Trump by 44 to 47 per cent in Iowa, which has been trending deeply Republican in recent years. It is within the 3.4 percentage point margin of error, but it marked a turnaround from a September Iowa Poll that had Trump with a 4-point lead, news agency Reuters quoted the newspaper’s report.The Emerson College Polling/RealClearDefense survey of a similar number of likely voters between November 1 to 2 had a starkly different result, with Trump leading Harris by 10 points. This poll also has a 3.4 percentage point margin of error.The Emerson College survey had Trump with strong leads over Harris among men and independents, while Harris was performing well with those under the age of 30.On November 3, a final New York Times/Siena poll flagged incremental changes in swing states, but the results from all seven remained within the margin of error, news agency AFP reported.According to an AP-NORC poll from October, 43 per cent of voters trust Harris more on the economy, compared to 41 per cent for Trump. In a Gallup survey, however, 54 per cent of respondents believe Trump would better handle economic issues, underscoring a key divide among voters.Whoever wins Iowa will collect six Electoral College votes. A total of 270 are needed to capture the White House. Both parties have been concentrating their efforts during the closing days of their campaigns on “battleground” states such as North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.MOST ASIAN MARKETS RISE AHEAD OF US ELECTIONAs on Monday, most Asian markets rose as investors steel themselves for a too-close-to-call US presidential election, while Chinese leaders meet to hammer out a stimulus package that experts say could be determined by the vote.The gains came after a positive lead from Wall Street and data showing far fewer US jobs were created last month than expected, boosting hopes for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut when it gathers this week.The dollar slipped Monday as a fresh opinion poll in Iowa showed Harris leading.A victory for Trump is seen as being positive for the dollar and pushing up Treasury yields owing to his pledges to cut taxes and impose hefty tariffs on imports.Elections for the Senate and House of Representatives are also being closely watched amid speculation the Republicans could take control of both.
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