At the forefront of developments in the US is protothema.gr, which with three correspondents at the heart of events, covers the US elections minute by minute.
With live links, interviews, reports and analyses, protothema.gr attempts to convey to its readers all aspects of the developments from the American capital.
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With Giorgos Eugenides at the White House, Giannis Charamides at the headquarters of the Republican candidate Donald Trump, and Giorgos Michaelides at the headquarters of the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, protothema.gr will link live to the US and will broadcast interviews, reports and analysis on the US election and its outcome.
From Washington, Giannis Charamidis reports on the fierce battle between the two candidates, which will be decided by a narrow margin, as just 40,000 votes in seven crucial states are expected to show the winner of the contest.
In the US capital, measures are particularly strict, with closed streets, railings and yellow ribbons, and special measures have been taken to prevent any riots in case of incidents.
Blair House always remains of particular importance for Greece as well. Built as a private residence in 1824, it is now the presidential residence of high-ranking people and plays an important role in the political, diplomatic and cultural history of the country.
Thriller for the nerves
In a country deeply divided, the outcome on Tuesday night is expected to be a close one. In an election race with several swings, experienced pollsters have recorded over the months that Trump has faced Harris several lead swings. At the close of the race, however, the thriller has begun to take shape.
What many are debating is whether pollsters tend in their surveys to overestimate Trump’s share and underestimate Harris’s in a reversal of fortunes in 2020. One of the election “gurus,” Professor Allan Lichtman, who is the originator of the generally accurate “13 Keys to the White House” model, has long estimated that Kamala Harris will win because she meets key requirements of the model, and says other pollsters are now coming around to his words. In Harris’ favor is the British Economist’s assessment that shows the current US vice president winning a “short head-to-head”, even with the minimum required 270 electoral votes.
The Finish of the Race
One of the “gurus” of the U.S. presidential election, pollster Nate Silver uses his own model to chart the swing in the lead over time since Ms. Harris entered the race. Where against Joe Biden Donald Trump had more than a 60% chance of winning, the US vice president has created positive momentum. She did quite well, raising enough money from donations and adding new momentum to the Democrats right up to early September when Trump seemed to be making a comeback. There, a temporary milestone emerges in the debate with Trump’s rather poor showing. And while Harris’s candidacy is beginning to “deflate”, Trump’s performance is taking points away from his campaign, and shortly after mid-month Ms. Harris overtakes him in the “victory performance” based on Silver’s model. Her lead will remain steady until around the first ten days of October, when Mr Trump, taking advantage of the given weaknesses of the US vice president, re-takes the lead.
In theory, Harris entered the last turn of the race as the underdog. In recent days, however, several analyses have contributed to estimates that her campaign is regaining ground and making a better finish than Trump’s. The unfortunate jokes at Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden for Puerto Rico clearly cost the former president. As a result, based on Nate Silver’s model, Trump’s curve is downward sloping and Harris’s is upward sloping, with the well-known pollster’s model now giving Trump a 51.1% chance of winning and Harris a 48.5% chance.
Iowa’s “Bombshell”
It was in this environment that one of the best-known US pollsters, Ann Sheltzer, came out yesterday to record a lead for Harris in the state of Iowa, one of the Midwestern states where Trump had a notable lead. Sheltzer’s poll for the Des Moines Register would have been one of many, had she not considered herself a “guru” of polling and certainly of that state. She had documented Barack Obama’s lead in 2008 over Hillary Clinton, Trump’s lead in 2016, and even fell within her 2020 predictions.
Sheltzer’s poll is being heavily discussed in the US media and on social media and has irritated the Republican camp who see a media attempt to build momentum in a “red” state. What is being hotly debated, however, is that Trump, even if he wins Iowa by a slight margin (as much as 5 points, for example), is very unlikely to win the election.
The women’s vote
One element that the Camala Harris staff particularly stands on is the women’s vote. And in Seltzer’s survey of the Iowa case, women, especially older women who are more consistent voters, are voting in droves for Kamala Harris.
This seems relatively logical, given the profile of Trump, who in recent hours has embarked on an operation to seduce and re-engage women voters. Another crucial fact is that for the early vote, that is, the vote before the election date, women are far outnumbered compared to men, especially in swing states, the states that usually decide the outcome. From the Trump camp, of course, they say they attach little importance to the early vote, as the former president’s voters turn out in droves mostly on election day.
And in swing states, however, the situation is marginal and within statistical error. The YouGov model gives Ms Harris a lead in Michigan with 50% to Mr Trump’s 46%, and in Nevada with 50% to 48%. There is a similar marginal lead in Wisconsin with 49% against 47%, while the situation is marginal in Pennsylvania with a 49% lead for the US Vice-President against 48%. The same numbers are in North Carolina (49%-48%), while in Arizona Mr. Trump has a 50% lead over Ms. Harris (49%-48%), and in Georgia with 49% to 48%.
