US election: 2 days left – What polls say, what Harris and Trump are up to

The US presidential candidates campaigned in the key swing state of North Carolina on Saturday, seeking to lock in more votes for the election on Tuesday, November 5.

It marked the fourth day in a row that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump visited the same state on the same day, highlighting how votes from a few key states would decide the outcome of the polls.

More than 73 million Americans have already cast ballots as of Saturday, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Harris rallied in the city of Charlotte with rock star Jon Bon Jovi and R&B singer-songwriter Khalid, before making a surprise appearance in the highly popular Saturday Night Live show in New York.

Meanwhile, Trump made a stop in the state of Virginia, before heading to Gastonia and Greensboro in North Carolina.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

Nationally, FiveThirtyEight’s latest poll tracker showed Harris ahead by a very slim 1 point, within the margin of error. Neither of the top two contenders breached the 50 percent mark. Harris’s average is 47.9 percent against Trump’s 46.9 percent.

In the so-called Blue Wall states, which typically tilt Democrat but are considered swing states this year, Trump is slightly ahead at 47.9 percent to Harris’s 47.6 percent in Pennsylvania, while Harris is 1 percent ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump is ahead of Harris by 1 percent in Nevada, 2 percent in Georgia and North Carolina, and 3 percent in Arizona.

But in a potentially major political shift in Iowa, a state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020, a highly respected pollster showed that Harris is 3 percentage points ahead of Trump at 47-44.

The poll, jointly published by the Des Moines Register newspaper and Mediacom, showed Harris picking up support from women, particularly in older demographics and among independent voters who were not aligned with a political party.

At the same time, the polls showed that only 89 percent of Republicans supported Trump, which means he is in trouble securing his base.

Other polls from the state, however, showed Trump still leading Harris.

What was Harris up to on Saturday?

Campaigning in the city of Charlotte in North Carolina, Harris made a passionate appeal to young voters, a Democrat-leaning demographic, to head to the polls. Past elections, however, have shown that fewer of them showed up to vote compared with older voters.

“I see the promise of America every day in the young leaders who are voting for the first time,” she said.

“You are determined to live free from gun violence, to take on the climate crisis and to shape the world that you will inherit.”

She also continued to sharpen her attack on Trump, saying the former president only cares about his interests, without a comprehensive plan for the future.

“If he is elected, Donald Trump, on day one, would be in that office stewing over his enemies list,” she said. “But when I am elected, I will walk in on your behalf, working on my to-do list.”

When her speech was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, Harris repeated the same line she had said in previous rallies, “We all want that war in the Middle East to end.

“We want the hostages home. And when I am president, I will do everything in my power to make it so.”

Earlier in the day, Harris also attended a rally in Atlanta during which she called Trump “unstable” and “out for unchecked power”.

After campaigning in North Carolina, Harris made an appearance on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in New York City alongside the actor who portrays her on the programme, Maya Rudolph.

“I’m going to vote for us,” Rudolph told Harris.

Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris and comedian Maya Rudolph sit opposite one another on the day Harris makes an appearance on Saturday Night Live in New York City [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]

What was Trump up to on Saturday?

Trump squeezed a rally in blue-leaning Virginia between two events in neighbouring North Carolina. It was the start of a streak for him in North Carolina, where he will be campaigning until Election Day.

Trump used his evening rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, to take credit for declining trust in United States media.

“The fake news back there, they were at 92 percent approval rating when we started this journey in 2015. And now they’re less than Congress, which is in the low 12s,” he said.

“I’m very proud of that because I’ve exposed them as being fake”.

Then he returned to one of his favourite talking points: The fears of undocumented immigration into the US.

“I will keep American communities for American citizens. We’re gonna have American people in our communities,” Trump said, repeating the nativist rhetoric that has become par for the course in his “America First” platform.

He also made an effort to tailor his anti-immigrant message to non-white voters in the US, warning for instance that unfettered immigration could deteriorate Black communities.

“If this continues, there will have been no political power left for them,” Trump said. “Their communities will be majority migrant.”

Trump repeated the false claim about Congolese migrants coming to the US.

Harris, he said, “has violated her oath, eradicated our sovereign border and unleashed an army of gangs and criminal migrants from prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions from all around the world, from Venezuela to the Congo”.

“Oh, the Congo. The Congo is sending a lot of people. They’re sending their people in jail. Think of the money they save and the danger, the danger of it all.”

There is no evidence that the Congolese government is sending people from their jails to the US.

What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?

Harris heads to Michigan and Pennsylvania

On Sunday, the Democratic presidential candidate will head to Lansing, Michigan, in the final two days of the election season.

Pennsylvania, another key battleground as well as a fellow Rust Belt state, will be where Harris ends her streak of campaign rallies on Monday.

She has plans to appear in the Latino stronghold of Allentown as well as major urban centres like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on the eve of the election.

Trump heading to Pennsylvania and North Carolina

On Sunday, Trump will swing from Pennsylvania back to the southern state to visit Kinston, North Carolina.

And then, on Monday – the eve of the election – Trump will hit the state capital of Raleigh, North Carolina.

It is a significant investment in a state that has grown increasingly competitive in recent decades.

Recent polls have shown Trump slightly ahead of Harris in North Carolina.