With 10 days left until Election Day, the race for the White House between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remains extremely close in the nation's battleground states.
Candidates Harris and Trump and their agents are putting all their efforts into the campaign.
Singer Beyoncé Knowles, her former Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland, and country singer Willie Nelson all tried to use their star power to rally voters for Harris in Texas.
Meanwhile, Trump sat down for a three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. He then traveled to Michigan to give a belated speech to a smaller audience due to delays.
What’s the latest from the polls?
According to the latest national poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College from October 20 to 23, 2024, Harris and Trump are tied nationally at 48%. The remaining 4 percent is undecided.
Among likely female voters, Harris holds a 54% to 42% lead over Trump. However, among male voters, Harris’ approval rating is 55% to 41%, making up the difference for the former president.
Harris had the highest approval rating among voters aged 18 to 29, at 55% to Trump's 43%, but Trump led among voters aged 45 to 64, 51% to 44%.
Worryingly for Harris, 61% of respondents said the country was on the wrong path, while 27% said it was on the right path.
Meanwhile, polling firm FiveThirtyEight, which averages several national polls, shows Ms. Harris holding a narrow lead of 48% to Mr. Trump’s 46.6%. But her 1.4 percentage point difference is lower than the 1.8 percentage point she had earlier this week.
While national polls provide valuable insight into voter sentiment, the ultimate winner will be determined by the Electoral College, which reflects each state’s results.
There are seven key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Together, these states account for 93, or one-third, of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.
Trump has a 1% lead in North Carolina and 2% in Arizona and Georgia, according to FiveThirtyEight’s latest polling average. In Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the difference between Harris and Trump is less than half a point, with Trump narrowly leading in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and Harris leading in Michigan and Wisconsin. He is in the lead by a small margin.
All results are within the margin of error, and voting results can swing either way.
What was Kamala Harris doing on Friday?
Harris campaigned in Houston, Texas, along with musicians Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Willie Nelson.
During the stop, Ms. Harris contrasted herself with Mr. Trump and emphasized her support for abortion rights in an effort to win over female voters.
Texas has not supported a Democratic president since 1976, and Republican Trump is almost certain to win the state’s 40 electoral votes.
But Democrats are betting that Harris will provide a powerful backdrop to talk about abortion rights in the final days before the Nov. 5 election. Under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the state has adopted some of the strictest anti-abortion regulations in the nation.
What was Donald Trump doing on Friday?
Trump was also campaigning in Texas on Friday, stopping in Austin to record an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Logan is probably the most popular podcaster in the United States, with tens of millions of social media followers, most of whom are men. Logan’s podcast has 17.5 million subscribers on YouTube alone and 14 million on Spotify. According to Media Monitors, the average age of his listeners is 24 years old.
In his interview with Mr. Logan, Mr. Trump again suggested he was in favor of abolishing the income tax and replacing the lost revenue with tariffs.
Mr. Trump then went to a rally in Traverse City, Michigan, where he turned the conversation to Ms. Harris’ struggle with the state’s large Arab-American population, which could decide the outcome of the close race.
An Arab News/YouGov poll released Monday showed Trump leading Harris among Arab Americans, 45% to 43%, with just two weeks left until voters choose the next U.S. president. A large part of society says Harris is angry with the Biden administration. It is part of Israel’s unflinching support for its wars against Gaza and Lebanon.
“Kamala is also in complete free fall with the Arab and Muslim populations of Michigan. She’s in free fall,” President Trump said. “She sent jobs overseas, she brought crime to the cities, and the Middle East tonight is like a tinderbox ready to explode. People are being killed at levels we’ve never seen before.”
He also noted Harris’ unlikely alliance with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is running for vice president. Cheney, who has had a long-standing feud with President Trump, is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was at the center of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “And why do Muslims support Kamala when she embraces Liz Cheney, who hates Muslims?” Trump asked the crowd.
What will happen to the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign?
Harris is scheduled to campaign in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama.
The poll rally will be Michelle Obama’s first event on the Harris campaign.
Saturday is the first day of early voting across Michigan.
Meanwhile, President Trump is scheduled to hold several events in Pennsylvania on Saturday, but he is scheduled to start the day with a rally in Michigan.
President Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, will make a campaign stop in Atlanta, Georgia, before heading to Erie, Pennsylvania, and Harrisburg.