Harris and Trump are increasingly emphasizing the fear of what could happen if the election goes the other way.
With one week to go before Election Day, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remains locked in a dead heat.
Both candidates are expected to make their final appeals to undecided voters and rally their base in the crucial final week.
Both Trump and Harris are tied at 48 percent in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average.
This week, both candidates will make their final arguments with multiple stops in critical swing states that will most likely determine the presidential race in November.
While recent polls suggest a close race, Harris’s upward momentum appears to have stalled, with battleground state poll averages trending slightly in Trump’s favor.
Over the weekend, both campaigns ramped up their efforts to mobilize supporters and ensure voter turnout, a trend expected to continue in the coming days.
Additionally, both candidates are emphasizing the fear of what could happen if the election goes the other way, as reflected in their recent remarks.
On Oct. 29, Harris will deliver her closing argument at the Ellipse in Washington, where she is expected to draw a sharp contrast between her vision for the presidency and that of Trump.
In the days leading up to the event, she has increased her criticisms of Trump, labeling him as “unhinged and unstable.”
Meanwhile, on Oct. 27, while at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Trump repeated his criticisms of Harris, suggesting that her presidency would lead to World War 3 and calling her “incompetent” and “unfit” for the office.
Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, suggested that while the strategy of stoking fear is disturbing, it may still motivate some voters.
“We have some evidence that says people are driven more to act if they’re frightened of something or angry about something,” she told The Epoch Times.
The flurry of polls indicates that the early enthusiasm generated for Harris’s campaign has diminished as the presidential race enters the home stretch.
This is partly due to the Trump–Vance campaign’s recent efforts to draw attention to what they call some of the Democrat candidate’s downsides, Hult said, which appear to be having an influence on voters.
Political analyst Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, recently echoed similar sentiments, stating that the Trump campaign’s criticism of the current administration’s border policies and Harris’s liberal stance as a 2019 presidential candidate seems to be effective.
Walter cited a recent Washington Post–Schar School poll of seven battleground states, which showed Trump’s retrospective job approval in positive territory, with 51 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval.
Meanwhile, Harris’s job approval rating is significantly lower (44 percent positive and 55 percent negative).
Despite Trump’s recent gains in battleground states, Walter said the race is too close to call and that it all “comes down to which candidate voters see as a less risky choice.”
Numerous polls this year have shown that the majority of voters are not happy with the status quo.
Harris has campaigned on a platform of a “new way forward” and presented herself as the candidate who can help the nation “turn the page.”
Some political strategists believe that Harris’s challenge stems partly from the difficulty in setting herself apart from President Joe Biden on policy issues.
This may require her to “step on a couple of toes and maybe hurt some people’s feelings, including President Biden’s, in the process,” Democrat strategist Theryn Bond told The Epoch Times.
Harris said in a recent interview with NBC News that her presidency would not be a continuation of the current administration as she brings her set of ideas and experiences to the table.
“I am running for president of the United States. Joe Biden is not—and my presidency will be about bringing a new generation of leadership to America,” Harris said on Oct. 22.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign seeks to present the former president’s closing argument as “Kamala broke it, President Trump will fix it.”
Candidates Boost Support Among Key Groups
Harris has strong support from suburban women and voters with college degrees.
According to a new national survey of likely voters from ABC News and Ipsos, Harris leads by 19 points among suburban women, higher than Biden’s 13-point margin in exit polls in 2020.
And among college graduates, Harris has a 22-point advantage over Trump, which exceeds Biden’s 12-point lead in 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump holds a significant lead in rural areas (plus 41 points) and among non-college-educated white men (plus 41 points), while also increasing his margin with younger men from minus 6 points early this month to plus 5 points in the latest poll.
According to Republican strategist Brian Seitchik, even though younger Americans tend to support Democrats, the party’s policies are increasingly pushing them to Trump.
“Myopic focus on abortion is hurting Democrats because they’re not talking about other issues that matter to young voters,” he told The Epoch Times.
However, Seitchik warned that young voters typically turn out in lower numbers compared to older voters. Therefore, their support for Trump doesn’t necessarily mean they will make the effort to vote for him, he said.
According to the RealClearPolitics average, Trump is maintaining his lead in all battleground states as of Oct. 29.
He has a 2.3 percentage point lead in Georgia and a 1.5-point advantage in Arizona.
Trump also holds a razor-thin lead in North Carolina (0.8 percent), Nevada (0.7 percent), Pennsylvania (0.4 percent), Wisconsin (0.3 percent), and Michigan (0.2 percent).
Harris to Make ‘Closing Argument’
Last week, the Harris campaign held star-studded rallies in key battleground states, featuring former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and rock star Bruce Springsteen.
On Oct. 25, Harris also held a campaign event with superstar singer Beyoncé in Houston, where she delivered remarks focused on abortion access.
The event at the Shell Energy Stadium drew an estimated 30,000 people, according to her campaign.
Harris will spend the final week of the campaign in key battleground states.
She kicked off the week with a trip to Michigan, holding events in Saginaw, Macomb County, and Ann Arbor.
On Oct. 29, Harris will make her “closing argument” at the Ellipse in the nation’s capital.
The vice president plans to convey a message to Americans about what a Harris presidency would look like compared with Trump’s presidency.
The Harris campaign chose the Ellipse, the park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, as a symbolic location. The venue was the site of a rally where then-President Trump spoke before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
Harris will continue touring swing states this week, with planned visits to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Oct. 30.
She will also visit Arizona and Nevada on Oct. 31 to host three events in Phoenix, Reno, and Las Vegas, focusing on Latino voters.
According to an NBC News–Telemundo–CNBC poll last month, 54 percent of registered Latino voters support Harris, compared to 40 percent backing Trump.
Harris has tried to bolster her appeal to the second-fastest growing voting bloc in the country, especially as a growing number within the community are beginning to shift toward Republicans.
Ernesto Castaneda, a sociology professor and director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, anticipates a strong turnout among Latino voters this year.
“Higher minimum wage, affordable housing, keeping families together, pathways to citizenship,” are primary concerns of Latino voters, he told The Epoch Times.
He said this voter group will play a significant role in the upcoming election, especially in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and maybe Georgia.
Trump’s Final Push
Last week, Trump’s schedule was highlighted by a three-hour appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the nation’s most popular podcast, and a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
His wide-ranging interview touched upon various subjects, from his first term in the White House to the current campaign trail to UFC.
Trump floated the idea of eliminating federal income tax and substituting it with tariffs.
The former president took the stage at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, appearing before tens of thousands of supporters and surrounded by a diverse array of high-profile individuals, such as billionaire Elon Musk, Dr. Phil McGraw, pro-wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Throughout his remarks, Trump stated that the Republican Party has become the “party of inclusion.”
“Jews and Muslims and Catholics and evangelicals and Mormons, and they’re all joining our cause in large numbers,” Trump said.
His speeches have delved into various topics, from lambasting his opponent to promoting public policy proposals to attacking the current administration’s record.
Trump will likely touch upon these themes in his closing arguments ahead of Nov. 5.
In the final week, Trump will remain focused on the seven states that could determine the electoral outcome.
He started the week with a campaign rally in Georgia. He is scheduled to make campaign stops in Pennsylvania (on Oct. 29), Wisconsin (on Oct. 30), Nevada (on Oct. 31), and Wisconsin again (on Nov. 2).
Trump will also hold rallies in Salem, Virginia, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to his campaign.
Nearly 44 million Americans have cast their early votes (in person and by mail) as of Oct. 28, according to the University of Florida’s U.S. Election Lab.
More than 8.6 million Democrats voted compared to nearly 7.9 million Republicans. About 5.2 million independent or minor party voters cast ballots.
The South Carolina Election Commission announced that more than 735,000 voters turned in their ballots ahead of next week’s election. This already shattered the early voting turnout total of 561,600 in the 2022 general election.
“We are excited to witness such a strong turnout of early voters making their voices heard,” said Howie Knapp, executive director of the South Carolina Election Commission, “We expect continued record-breaking participation as we enter the second week of early voting.”
Near his Delaware home, Biden also submitted his ballot on Oct. 28.
While predicting the outcome is challenging, unexpected shifts can occur in elections, Hult noted, similar to changes seen in 1976 and, to some extent, 1980, when dynamics shifted suddenly over a weekend.
In 1976, incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, lost to Jimmy Carter, a relatively unknown former governor of Georgia.
Then in 1980, Ronald Reagan secured a landslide victory despite trailing Carter in public opinion polls just weeks earlier.
It remains to be seen if the 2024 election will follow this pattern and produce a surprising landslide victory for one of the candidates.