“IT is the politics of la la land” roared a guest on our Never Mind the Ballots special from New York tonight.
America is on a knife edge, as the nation finally picks the next President on Tuesday.
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The polls couldn’t be tighter and it’s almost all over bar the shouting.
But things shouldn’t really be this close though.
Given incumbents across the West are getting it in the neck everywhere, this election should be a foregone conclusion.
It says a lot about how concerned half of America is about Trump that he’s not walking it.
READ MORE ON THE US ELECTION
He has the best ground to fight on yet still hits a ceiling in support.
He’s ahead on the economy, jobs and immigration – usually surefire winning areas – yet still those crucial swing states are within the margin of area.
Harris is a third rate candidate, with a Biden-shaped ball and chain around her ankle and an inability to capitalise on decent economic numbers.
The Democrats higher polling number down the ballot in the Senate and Congressional races suggest she’s the drag on the ticket, but still the world holds its breath as the candidates tear chunks out of each other in the death of an utterly unedifying campaign.
He’s calling her communist, she’s calling him a fascist.
He says she thick, she says his unhinged.
And on they go.
In the multi-billion dollar greatest show on earth, everyone seems to have a stick to beat each other with.
Some polls say Trump wins, others Harris by a whiff… most just say it’s too close to call.
Both sides say things are swinging their way, but the punters still say it is going to be the Donald, despite a late tightening.
The truth is no one has a bloody clue what is going to happen on Tuesday and when there will even be a result.
Even that subject divides America.
Some say we are heading for a two month nightmare as close as Bush vs Gore in 2000.
Some say the polls are so wrong it will all be done by teatime on Wednesday.
Some say Trump will never concede whatever the voters say, with ominous warnings already of vote rigging perhaps paving the way for another claim of a stolen election.
The world is flying blind
Democrats echo that sentiment saying they will “never stop fighting” him if he wins as they think he is a completely illegitimate contender in the first place.
What is clear is Kamala’s “brat summer”, and talk of restoring joy to the world, is long dead as she turned fire on Trump with an almost entirely negative close to the campaign.
Trump has always been slagging his opponents off, so not much change to report there.
There’s smoke signals and mood music to spot, but with the pollsters wrong in 2016 and out in 2020 the world is basically flying blind.
Trump will spend the final hours of the campaign in Wisconsin, Virginia and New Hampshire, as well as crucial Pennsylvania.
Harris however is focusing entirely on the Keystone state that most pollsters and Betfair have as a dead heat but would indicate some concern in her camp at winning the critical rust belt.
But until Tuesday evening its all just noise to try cut through
However has anything really mattered at all in the two months of shouting and media hysteria?
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As Fox News commentator Joe Concha told Never Mind the Ballots: “Here’s the bottom line, nothing has changed since Joe Biden dropped out.
“In terms of prices still being too high for people they don’t like that.
“They don’t like the fact that crime in their neighbourhoods continues to go up.
“Where people are moving out of places like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, for places like Tennessee, Texas and places like North Carolina or South Carolina, for example, they don’t like what’s going on the border one bit.
“And the world is patently more chaotic under Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, in terms of Gaza, in terms of Israel, in terms of Ukraine, in terms of the world in general, was much safer.”
The only candidate easier to beat for Trump would have been Biden himself.
The fundamentals of politics will go out the window if Harris does win this race from such a poor place.
Stranger things have happened, but under all the noise, the clues are there…
How do the US presidential elections work?
BY Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
The Democratic and Republican parties nominate their candidates with a series of votes – called state primaries and caucuses – in the run up to the election in November, held every four years.
This gives members the opportunity to choose who they want to lead the party into an election – this year, Donald Trump and following Biden’s resignation, Kamala Harris.
There are also some independent candidates running for president – arguably the most well-known was Robert F Kennedy Jr who pulled out in August and endorsed Trump.
In US elections the winner is not the candidate who gets the most votes across the country.
Instead Trump and Harris will compete to win smaller contests held in each of the 50 states.
Many of the states often vote the same way – but seven of them – Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona – tend to go in either direction.
Each state has a number of electoral college votes – partly based on population sizes – with a total of 538 across the country up for grabs.
The winner is the candidate that gets 270 or more, marking a majority in the electoral college.
All but two of the US’ 50 states – Maine and Nebraska – have a winner-takes-all rule.
Meaning whichever candidate gets the highest number of votes wins all of the state’s electoral college votes.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton won more votes nationally than Donald Trump – but she still lost the election because of electoral college votes.
The candidate who will win this election is the one who secures 270 or more college ballots.
Usually the winner is declared on the night, but it can take days to finalise the result.
In 2020 Joe Biden wasn’t officially announced as the president-elect until November 7.
The new president will be sworn into office in January on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC.
