The whole world is holding its breath until the vote on November 5. As the final hours of the presidential campaign are numbered, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face off this Monday in final electoral rallies. Each of the two rivals says they are confident in their victory. But, in reality, the competition is so close that only a few tens of thousands of votes could decide the new face that the United States will take. These votes are to be won in seven well-identified key states, which the two contenders for the White House have been traveling non-stop for months, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Of these seven states, the one with the most electors is Pennsylvania.
The American election in 2024 is causing polls to lose their heads, which remain “the closest in American political history”, according to the American daily, The New York Times. Neither candidate holds a significant advantage in enough states to win 270 electoral votes. “In the main battlegrounds, collectively or nationally, neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump leads by more than one point,” continues the pro-democratic media. While coyly putting a coin on Kamala Harris: “If the polling averages are exactly to the decimal place (they won’t be), Kamala Harris would hardly need to outperform the polls to win.”
If we have to go back in history, the 2004 election between John Kerry and George W. Bush could be the closest election in terms of polls, although it is inaccurate to place it on the same level. “Even then, George Bush was a relatively clear favorite. John Kerry was expected to win states like Florida and Ohio, where George Bush held a consistent, if narrow, lead in recent polls,” the report adds. New York Times.
Multiple scenarios
THE Washington Post considers another scenario: “The election is uncertain, but it may not be close.” Indeed, our colleagues believe, in terms of polls, that there is a margin of error in each key state. Therefore: “It is possible for everyone to move in the opposite direction to that toward which they are currently leaning.” However, the daily specifies that poll errors tend to favor a single candidate. “Thus, it is perfectly possible that once the votes are counted, what seemed to be a close election is not really one,” concludes the media which has decided not to take a position for the Democratic candidate.
If the traditionally democratic daily, the Los Angeles Times, made the same choice, that does not prevent him from adopting a serious tone in one of his editorials: “It is no exaggeration to say that this is perhaps the most important election in a generation.” For its part, the conservative channel Fox News, which has become Donald Trump’s megaphone, speaks of a “neck-and-neck election”.
On screens, news channels continue to focus on education, overusing colorful cards. In red, the states won by the Republicans and, in blue, those where Kamala Harris should win. There remain seven yellow states on which the chroniclers are focusing. “If Donald Trump wins North Carolina and takes back Georgia and Pennsylvania, then he reaches 270 votes and becomes president,” we can hear on CNNbefore being entitled to Kamala Harris’ victory projections.
Trump, “an unacceptable risk”
There is also no question of coming forward to the American giant CBS News which develops two scenarios. While in the first “casual voters mobilize in force, pushed by men of Trump tendency”, the second shows Kamala Harris winning, thanks to the support of Republican women. Furthermore, the television channel recalls that the 2024 presidential race is marked by a significant gender gap, with the Harris campaign emphasizing reproductive rights and the state of American democracy.
And then there is the British daily The Economist which takes advantage of the last moments of the campaign to warn its readership about the risks that the re-election of Donald Trump would present: “Presidents do not necessarily have to be saints and we hope that a second Trump presidency would avoid disaster. But Donald Trump poses an unacceptable risk to America and the world.” At least the message is clear.