——— Swing states, split in Arab-Muslim voters, and range of issues key in election
DM Monitoring
WASHINGTON: The much-awaited day of the US election has finally arrived. Today (on Nov 5), the American voters will decide their leader for the next four years.
It merits mention that even before Nov 5, almost 80 million citizens have voted for their preferred candidate.
As is widely known, to win the presidential race, a candidate has to secure 270 votes out of 538.
As many as 435 members of HoR, 34 senators and 13 governors will be elected during the process.
Almost 161 million voters would have the option to choose their leader. As for the result of early poll-ing, no specific winner is in sight. In this phase, there was 55 percent voters turnout in North Carolina, 50 percent in Georgia and 49 percent in Tennessee.
There are seven battleground states. In Michigan, there is tough contest expected. It is widely known that both Trump and Harris would easily manage to win in the red and blue states respectively. Hence, the swing states would be a deciding factor. Donald Trump has called upon US voters to wisely choose their next leader, calling Harris a disaster and ‘dumb as a rock’. But, Kamala Harris has shown resilience and said she would be the next US president.
Pakistani community in the US is also active this time due to a range of issues. Among them, the ongo-ing Gaza war carries huge significance for them.
Suleman Lulani and Suleman Bhojani are the Democrat ticket-holders from Texas. Also, Ayesha Farooqi and Amir Sultan are contesting from Michigan and New York on the Democrats tickets.
National guards have been assigned the security duties in Oregon, Nevada and Washington. In some areas, the FBI commanders have been given the charge.
According to the US law, a person can’t become the US president more than twice. Meanwhile, The final six public polls that have been released pretty much tell the same story as each other and the previous polls in October. The race to become the 47th president of the United States is on a razor-thin margin.
Three of those last six polls were actual ties; one has Kamala Harris ahead by three points; the others have Donald Trump up by one point and two points. My own firm, John Zogby Strategies, just released a final survey for our clients of 1,005 decided voters nationwide showing Harris leading with 49.3% of the vote and Trump polling at 45.6% of the vote – a margin, or difference, of 3.7 percentage points.
That is close, and even more of a squeeze because of the current relationship of the popular vote to the electoral college. Harris is certain to receive millions of “excess” votes in large states such as California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts which will beef up her total popular vote nationwide but not do anything for her in key battleground states such as Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – all of which are too close to call as we approach election day.
