It's three weeks to what could be a defining moment for the US -- a reelection of former President Donald Trump or a woman, Kamala Harris, smashing the glass ceiling -- and it's a toss-up. As they furiously campaign, they are locked within the margin of error in polls although Trump appears to edge up slightly while Harris holds the lead.
Neither Trump's hopes of a resounding victory after President Joe Biden's stumble at their debate, nor the high expectations of Democrats that a groundswell of support for Harris, a woman of Indian and African-Jamaican descent, coupled with disdain for the former president would carry her to victory has so far come to pass.
The latest poll by NBC showed them both tied at 48 per cent, while the aggregation of polls by RealClear Polls (RCP) had Harris leading by 1.7 per cent, and fivethirtyeight.com by 2.4 per cent.
At this stage of the election cycle, Biden was ahead by a decisive 9.2 per cent in 2020, and Hillary Clinton led by 6.7 per cent but the lead was down to 2.1 per cent in the 2016 election.
How Trump defeated Clinton despite winning fewer popular votes than her illustrates how US elections popular votes do not finally determine who becomes president.
The US presidential elections are in reality based on an indirect system built around an electoral college, which is made up of 538 electors for whom the voters cast their ballots.
So a candidate can win an election by getting at least 270 members of the electoral college while failing to get a majority of the popular vote. (It is not too dissimilar to the parliamentary system where a candidate can become prime minister with a majority in the lower house but without the majority of the votes.)
Seven so-called swing states come into play here because the other 43 states are more or less locked in by either party, and these seven can pick the winner through their electors.
Here the picture is muddled in the run-up to November 5, and the two candidates are focusing mostly on the seven states.
RCP has Trump ahead in six of them with margins of 1 per cent or less, and Harris in one, Georgia, by 0.5 per cent, while fivethiryeight.com also gives her Georgia.
But 8 per cent more of those polled have an unfavourable view of Trump, compared to only 0.6 per cent more who view Harris unfavourably, according to RCP.
Voters are generally focused on two issues -- the economy, specifically inflation, and illegal migration.
A major factor holding back Harris is the nearly 45 months she has been vice president with Biden when the White House proudly issued announcements in the name of the “Biden-Harris Administration”.
A majority -- 56 per cent -- disapproves Biden's job performance and it has come to reflect on Harris, who faces the dilemma of how far to dissociate herself from the president.
Asked by an interviewer on national TV if she would have done anything different than Biden, she said, “Not a thing that comes to mind”.
Trump had been looking for just this confirmation and piled up on her in ads and speeches every shortcoming of the administration -- the inflation, the open borders, and the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster.
Biden also fares badly in comparison to Trump on some issues, notably the economy.
Tamping down inflation hasn't been of help, because people compare the rise in grocery prices by about 25 per cent now to what they paid in 2020, and not the current inflation rate.
This is reflected in the view among 44 per cent of those polled who believe that Trump helped them when he was in office, while 45 per cent said that Biden hurt them
This perception carried on to the Trump versus Harris matchup: Trump scored higher, 50 per cent to 39 per cent on fighting inflation, and 56 per cent to 31 per cent on border security, according to RCP.
Against this, Harris was ahead on competence, 48 per cent to 53 per cent, and 53 per cent to 34 per cent on protecting abortion rights, a major issue in the elections after the Supreme Court, aided by Trump appointees, declared that abortions were not a right protected nationally by the Constitution and that states can set the laws.
Harris and the Democrats are hammering abortion rights, hoping that it appeals to women voters more than the economic factors that seem to favour Trump.
On immigration, a Scripps News poll last month reported that 54 per cent of Americans want illegal migrants deported -- a stance that aligns with Trump's.
The Biden-Harris administration having seen the upswell of opposition to open borders, had earlier brought back stringent controls that hark back to Trump's days in office.
Trump continues to blame Harris for the influx of illegal migrants – which hit Democratic Party-run cities hard – and for the crime, some brought with them, even though the Democrats now say that her role in immigration was limited to getting the help of Central American countries to stop people moving north.
Both parties have their extremes and each tries to broad-brush the other with its extremes.
Harris has tried to tie Trump to Project 2025, a harsh policy paper produced by a right-wing think tank, which the former president has disowned.
He has also tried to project a more compassionate view on abortions than the absolute ban advocated by right-wing Republicans.
Harris has been trying to moderate her stances on immigration that had once aligned with the Democratic Left, on banning natural gas extraction through a process called fracking, and on a nationalised health insurance system.
The moderation has costs, more for Harris than for Trump, with the threat of segments of her base sitting out the election.
This is particularly pronounced in Israel's conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, the vice president has hewed closely to the Biden administration's support for Israel, alienating the Left and the Muslim and Arab constituencies, especially in the swing state of Michigan.
Both contenders have different support bases with Harris's made up of women, college-educated White people, and minorities.
Trump's bedrock is made up of men, working-class whites, rural voters, and Christian fundamentalists.
According to the NBC poll, women give Harris a 14 per cent lead and Trump is ahead by a per cent among men.
Democrats though are worried about the relatively small erosion of support among African Americans and Latinos, which could have an outsize effect in states like Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin where the margins are a half per cent or less.
According to a New York Times poll, Harris's lead among Latinos fell to 19 per cent from the 26 per cent Biden had in 2020.
Among African Americans, Harris's support margin fell to 63 per cent -- still a very high number -- from the 81 per cent Biden had.
Two other issues that have become the focus of campaigns are social issues and the January 6 riot.
Trump has been hacking away at Democratic Party policies implemented in some states like barring schools from informing parents about their children changing their gender identity, teaching small children about homosexuality and transgender in schools, and government-funded sex change treatment for prisoners that would include illegal migrants.
Harris and her party have made a central issue of Trump's refusal to admit he lost the 2020 election and the riot by his supporters on January 6 who smashed their way into the Capitol as Congress was ratifying Biden's election endangering the lawmakers.
They assert that this poses a fundamental danger to democracy -- but at least half of those polled don't seem to have been swayed by it or by the character issue that Harris hammers on.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
