It’s the final day before the US presidential election, and the last opportunity for the candidates to deliver their pitch to voters.
The polls continue to show Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump running neck-and-neck, both nationally and in most swing states.
This swing state has 11 electoral votes. The majority of its voters have already cast their ballots early. Arizona is a traditionally Republican state, but Biden carried it very narrowly — with just over 10,000 votes – back in 2020.
This time around, Trump is in the lead by just a couple of percentage points, according to opinion polls. But as an insightful voter told me, “polls don’t vote, people do”.
There are a couple of special factors at work here. One of them is abortion. There is a special ballot initiative that would enshrine a woman’s right to abortion in the state constitution. Harris is hoping the initiative will drive voters to the polls that favour her.
Another factor is immigration. Arizona is a border state and Trump’s campaign has been hammering away relentlessly on the theme of undocumented immigration, claiming migrants take away jobs from US citizens and are responsible for crime.
The vote back in 2020 was extremely narrow and there were allegations of fraud from the Trump camp. This time around, voting officials and law enforcement say they are prepared for any disturbances while the votes are being counted. And that could take a while.
Source: Aljazeera