US Election 2024: Trump vs Harris campaign enters final week - 5 key things to watch

As the campaign for US Election 2024 enters final week, both the candidates – Republican Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris – remain neck-and-neck in what is being seen as a very tight race. Whatever unfolds in the next eight days ahead of November 5 will play a role in deciding the 47th President of the United States.

Until Sunday after noon, about 41 million US voters had already voted in early in-person voting or via mail-in ballots, according to a tally by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Usually, Democrats have an advantage in early voting. In 2020 US elections, held amid the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 million voters had cast their ballots before Election Day. Democratic nominee Joe Biden finally won the race.

A CBS News/YouGov poll showed Harris leading Trump nationally by 50 per cent - 49 per cent among likely voters, slightly down from a 51 per cent-48 per cent advantage in mid-October, but well within the survey's margin of error, USA today reported.

In the run up to November 5 D-day, here is a list of issues that may have a bearing on the Election results, according to US news agency Associated Press(AP).

The West Asia Crisis

Foreign issues rrarely impact US elections, but the situation in West Asia, referred as Middle East by the Western media, is worsening at a time when millions of voters are preparing to cast ballots in the United States of America.

Iran's response to Israel's airstrikes on Friday is awaited. Whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating level of violence will depend on Iran's response. This might as well eventually determine the extent to which the ongoing conflict in West Asia shapes the US Presidential election in days to come.

As for Harris, she has been vowing to support Israel while offering empathy for those tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel's response to October 7, 2023, attacks.

Trump, on his part, has been unapologetically supportive of Israel, although some Arab American leaders — especially in swing-state Michigan — have been unusually supportive of the Republican former president. Remember, Trump had banned travel from many Muslim countries during his first term from 2016-20.

The next US president will inherit one of the most volatile foreign policy challenges in decades, AP reported.

Team Harris's Optimism?

Of late, there has been a visible effort by Harris's senior team showing optimism to help temper the fear. The Democrat nominee's senior adviser Jen O'Malley Dillon predicted victory.

“We are confident we’re going to win this thing,” Dillon said on MSNBC on Sunday.

“We’re seeing extraordinary enthusiasm. This is going to be a close race, and our campaign is exactly where we want to be,” she said.

Harris is expected to give her ‘closing argument’ on October 29 at the Ellipse. On January 6, 2021, Trump spoke at the venue near the White House shortly before his supporters attacked the Capitol Hill. Thus, all eyes will be on what Harris says on Tuesday, October 29.

Racist comments at Donald Trump rally

Trump's campaign enters last week before the Election Day with a controversy. At a rally at New York City's Madison Square Garden late Sunday that was meant to serve as a closing message was instead overshadowed by racist insults, including a comedian who called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’

History suggests Trump might say or do something else controversial in the final stretch, according to AP. In recent days, the Republican nominee has tried his best to suggest that his Democratic opponents, whom he calls ‘the enemy within,’ are more dangerous to the country than the threat posed by Russia and China.

Crimninal Investigation into Trump 

There are also multiple ongoing criminal investigations into Trump, who has already been convicted of 34 felony charges, that could reveal new information which may cetainly have a bearing in elections.

It was October 28, 2016, in the final leg of US Presidential Poll campaign, former FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress indicating that federal investigators learned of new emails pertinent to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

The Final Showdown

Harris and Trump are aggressively competing in the seven swing states that will ultimately decide the election. They are the three so-called ‘Blue Wall’ states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — in addition to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

After spending Sunday in Pennsylvania, Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday's closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Wednesday. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.

Trump is in Georgia on Monday, in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Wisconsin on Wednesday, Nevada on Thursday and in Virginia on Saturday.

(With AP inputs)