US Presidential Election: An Unpredictable Race

As the US presidential election draws closer and closer, the gap between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is extremely tight in pre-election polls.

Chocolate bars with the faces of presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on display at a store in New York, USA - Photo: REUTERS

Essentially, the latest polls show the race is virtually unpredictable with less than two weeks to go before the November 5 election.

Tense to the last minute

While polls in September showed a 48% chance of voting for Harris and 47% for Trump, the odds are now even in a CNN/SSRS national poll conducted from October 20 to 23, with each candidate getting 47%. A New York Times -Siena College poll conducted during the same period also showed the same result, with both candidates likely to receive 48% of the vote. This poll, considered by many experts to be the most accurate in the country, suggests the race is likely to be tight until the last minute. Compared to the previous Democratic presidential candidates in 2016 and 2020, Harris is currently doing poorly. At the same point before Election Day, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by much larger margins, in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Mrs. Clinton led by 6.1 percentage points nationally, Mr. Biden by about 9 percentage points. So Democrats are looking nervous about the election in the next 10 days or so. However, looking at the individual states, not all 50 states in the US are witnessing such a close race. More than 40 US states currently have a fairly clear trend of who will vote, with only seven "battleground states" considered to be decisive. According to the famous election analysis site FiveThirtyEight, run by pollster Nate Silver, Mrs. Harris has a narrow lead in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, while Mr. Trump leads in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Over the past week, the two campaigns have used their own strategies to appeal to undecided voters. Harris continued to impress the media with a live interview with NBC and stepped up attacks on Trump in the Atlantic and the New York Times . Meanwhile, Trump largely avoided major mainstream media outlets over the past week. On October 25, both candidates were in Texas, which borders Mexico. While Trump emphasized border security at a rally in Austin, Harris held an event in Houston to highlight women’s reproductive rights, with singer Beyoncé.

Billionaires calculate "choosing sides"

Also on October 25, expert Nate Silver announced that his election model shows a trend that is shifting in favor of Mr. Trump and gives him the highest predicted winning rate since August. The model updated the possibility of strong voting rates for Mr. Trump in important battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Currently, this model predicts that Mr. Trump has a 53.1% chance of winning. Meanwhile, Ms. Harris is more popular with American billionaires. According to Forbes magazine, so far, 81 billionaires have supported Ms. Harris and only 52 billionaires support Mr. Trump. However, Mr. Trump has received support from the world's richest man, Elon Musk. Although Ms. Harris is expected to impose higher taxes on the super-rich, more than a dozen billionaires signed a letter supporting Ms. Harris last month. They believe she “will continue to push for fair and predictable policies that support the rule of law, stability, and a healthy business environment.” But many billionaires have chosen to watch the race from the sidelines and avoid publicly endorsing any candidates, including Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, and the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The editorial boards of both newspapers announced last week that they would not endorse any presidential candidate in this year’s tight race, and would avoid doing so in the future, despite their decades-long tradition of doing so. This has led to criticism from other newspapers about their decisions to serve and guide the public. Meanwhile, the New York Times endorsed Harris on September 30, while the Murdoch-owned New York Post endorsed Trump.

Avoid "open mouth and get stuck"?

Many have linked the seemingly neutral decision of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post to the business dealings of Amazon and its boss Jeff Bezos with the US government under the previous Trump administration. The race is so tight that even the wealthy businessmen in the US have to be cautious to avoid "opening their mouths and getting caught in the trap".

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