US Elections: 3 Days To Go – What the Polls Say, What Harris and Trump Are Up to | 2024 US Election News

On Friday, the US presidential candidates campaigned in the key Midwestern swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin in an attempt to woo voters.

At rallies, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump for his remarks earlier this week suggesting former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, a staunch critic of Trump, should have “guns trained on her.” Trump has previously suggested that Cheney face military tribunals.

Meanwhile, Trump insisted the “weapons” comment was a legitimate criticism of Cheney’s hawkish foreign policy stance: If she promoted wars, she should fight them herself.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

Nationally, FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker shows Harris leading by 1.3 points, where she has been for the past week, and roughly where she and Trump have been for the past few days — but by a much closer margin than the 2.8 percentage points she was ahead of exactly one month ago.

In critical swing states that can decide the outcome of the election, the competition is even tighter.

Key battleground states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracking shows Harris’ lead in Michigan by about 1 point. However, she has lost her lead in Nevada, where Trump now leads by 0.4 points.

In Wisconsin, her lead has increased to 0.8 points, up from 0.6 on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania has shrunk from 0.7 points to 0.1 points. His lead in North Carolina continues and is now 1.3 points. Trump is also ahead in Arizona by 2.1 points and by 1.5 points in Georgia. However, all of these gaps are within the margin of error of polls – so in effect the two candidates are in a dead heat across the swing states.

What was Kamala Harris doing last Friday?

Harris spent his day in Wisconsin with events in Janesville, Little Chute, Madison and Milwaukee. Her events boasted singers GloRilla, Cardi B and Flo Milli.

She lambasted Trump for his verbal attacks on Liz Cheney. Trump had attacked Cheney, suggesting the former lawmaker, who has backed Harris in the race for the White House, should face a battle with guns trained on her for her political stance.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said Thursday at a campaign event with former Fox News TV host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, also calling Cheney “a crazy person” and “a very stupid person.”

Harris described Cheney as “a true patriot” and said Trump’s increasingly “violent rhetoric” should disqualify him from running for president again.

“His enemies list has gotten longer. His rhetoric has gotten more extreme,” Harris told reporters after arriving in Madison, Wis., one of her campaign stops Friday. “And he’s even less focused than before on the needs and concerns and challenges that American people face.”

In her rallies, she also promised to build an economy for ordinary people and listen to a wide range of voices, asking supporters to encourage family and friends to vote.

CNN has reported that the Harris campaign has changed its messaging about Israel’s war in Gaza by highlighting different aspects of her position on Israel in separate ads aimed at undecided Jewish and Arab voters.

An ad in Michigan, where Arab voters have expressed anger over the Biden-Harris administration’s provision of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel’s war in Gaza, says Harris “will not be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians.

However, Harris has rejected demands to cut off military aid to Israel, despite a long list of violations of international law by the US ally.

Another ad aimed at potential Jewish voters in Pennsylvania promises that Harris will “stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself” and “defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”

This video ad cuts out a section of her speech in which Harris calls the suffering in Gaza “heartbreaking.”

What did Donald Trump do on Friday?

At his rally in Milwaukee, about 16 km (10 miles) from Harris’ rally, Trump was joined by Republican politicians and other supporters such as Robert F Kennedy Jr. before taking the stage for a speech that lasted more than an hour.

He promised to “prevent World War III”. He called Harris a “low-IQ individual” and said he wanted to “stop inflation”.

He also hyped up the fear of undocumented immigrants.

“We want people to come into our country, we do. But they have to come in legally through a system. They have to love us. They have to love our country,” Trump said.

And before concluding his remarks, he referred to his eventual opponent during the meeting: an uncooperative microphone.

“I don’t need to be here. But if I had my choice, I’d rather be right here with a broken s*** microphone in Wisconsin. I’d rather be in Wisconsin than a beautiful beach.”

Trump’s campaign also insisted that the “guns” comment was a legitimate criticism of Cheney’s hawkish foreign policy stance: If she promoted wars, she should fight them herself.

In Milwaukee, Trump also repeated his false claims of winning the 2020 election — even when the results say otherwise.

“You know, in 2016 I wanted to win Wisconsin so badly. He said it can’t be done,” Trump said, gesturing to former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson in the crowd.

“You are a very difficult condition, but I won it. I won it despite your difficulties. I actually won it twice, but these are small details.”

Trump didn’t win Wisconsin twice. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won a victory over Trump in the state.

Trump also held a brief private meeting with members of the Arab American community in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn before holding a rally in Warren, Michigan.

What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?

Harris goes to Charlotte, North Carolina

On Saturday, Harris heads to the swing state of North Carolina for a rally in Charlotte. Her rally is again expected to be a star-studded event with musicians Jon Bon Jovi and Khalid performing.

Democrats have not won a presidential primary in North Carolina since 2008, and Harris is intent on turning that page around.

At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina on Wednesday, she insisted that Democrats are “actually fighting for a democracy.”

One person could be heard during the rally trying to yell at Harris, but it’s unclear what he said.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said as the crowd’s cheers drowned out the protester’s voice. “He wants to put them in jail, I give them a seat at the table.

“I promise to be a president for all Americans and to always put country above party and self,” she added.

Trump is also visiting Charlotte, North Carolina

Trump, who was in North Carolina on Wednesday, will also go to Charlotte on Saturday.

In the 2020 presidential election, Trump had his narrowest victory out of all 50 states in North Carolina. In the upcoming November 5th vote, polls again show Trump holding a slight lead over his Democratic rival.

Paul Shumaker, a Republican operative, laid it out for Al Jazeera in stark terms: Republican registration began to decline, while the number of “unaffiliated” voters gradually increased.

“Now there are no liberal Republicans left, and there are fewer moderate Republicans, too,” Shumaker said.

Political scientist Chris Cooper told Al Jazeera that North Carolina is “right on the razor’s edge between red and blue”.

But it is a third category – voters who identify as neither red nor blue – who can ultimately decide who wins.