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US election will come down to fine margins
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Trump serves up fries with a smile
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Republican rallies are still all over the place
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Too close for comfort
Donald Trump is the 5/81.62 favourite on the Betfair Exchange but other indicators say the US election, which takes place two weeks from today, will come down to the finest of margins. While swing states have swung it for campaigns previously, this is going to be a real nail-biter.
A mega-poll of 5,000 voters finds Harris and Trump neck and neck - a Washington Post-Schar School poll finds 47% of registered voters supporting Harris, 47% supporting Trump. Among likely voters it's 49% and 48% respectively.
State-by-state, Harris does better. But these polls have been all over the place recently, and the margins are almost always within the margin of error.
The Betfair Exchange's own swing state calculator saw Trump go favourite for the first time in this election season yesterday, ahead in the betting markets for every single swing state.
POLITICO has a big article on Nevada this week, noting a slew of reasons why Nevada could be the deciding state. In voter registrations, it is over a third Independents, compared to a third Dems and a third Republicans.
Until 2022, Dems held two Senate seats, three of four House seats, and a slew of the top state government positions. Yet the state is truly a mystery for political strategists.
We covered this strange swing state over the weekend in our spotlight.
Trump's turn at McDonald's
Donald Trump's surprisingly folksy turn at a McDonalds takeout window this weekend in Pennsylvania has broken the internet.
Why was he there? Well, Harris regularly claims she worked at McDonald's a few decades ago, a fact that Trump accuses her of lying about. There's no proof that she lied about this.
While he was mocked by Stephen Colbert of the Late Night show, calling it "blue-collar drag with more makeup", I think the pictures will be a boost for the former president. And you wait for polling showing just how many people might believe his claims about Harris.
Of course, Trump and Harris are spending the majority of their time in Swing States in the final sprint to the election, including Pennsylvania.
One group who are not happy with this particular outcome is McDonald's itself. As it has a franchisee model, McDonalds did not need to give permission for Trump to have a turn on the fryer. That privilege went to the franchisee himself.
They have explicitly stated in a letter to employees that they did not invite Trump and will not be keen to be dragged into a divisive election battle.
Final messaging leaves something to be desired
The final rallies of the campaign should hammer home the key messages - as should the candidates' ground operations. The New York Times reports the two campaigns "carrying out a virtual house-to-house hunt" for the final few voters they need.
Yet a recent rally by Trump left something to be desired when it came to the imprecision of his closing arguments.
On Saturday, at his rally in Pennsylvania, he spent 12 minutes at the start of his speech talking about the late Arnold Palmer, a golfer from the region. He praised the golfer's genitalia and wished he could join him on stage.
He also called Harris a "s*** vice-president" and joked about his increased security.
"I got more machine guns than I've ever seen - look at these guys. We've got more guys, and every one of them is like central casting too, holy s***." But, he went on to say, none of them looked like Arnold.
We'll see soon enough if the message sharpens in the final few days.