• Friday, November 22, 2024
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8 days to US election, gender bias mull voters decision

With eight days to go to the elections, polls show that voters are moving towards voting based on gender preference, with Trump appealing more to the men and likewise also the women towards Harris.

Meanwhile in wrap up campaigns, former President Donald Trump hosted his MAGA campaign at Madison Square Garden in his hometown of New York while Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in the key swing states of Pennsylvania.

Read also: 13 days to election Harris, Trump maintain close margin in battleground states

At the Madison Square Garden Rally on Sunday, Trump repeatedly repeated his plans to halt undocumented immigration and deport migrants he described as “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals”, Al Jazeera reported.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris said in Philadelphia that nobody should sit on the side lines. “We are focused on the future and the needs of the American people,” she said.

By midday on Sunday, more than 41 million Americans 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.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

Harris and Trump remain neck-and-neck in this very tight race.

Read also: 13 days to election Harris, Trump maintain close margin in battleground states

A CBS News/YouGov poll released on Sunday showed that Harris is leading Trump nationally, with 50 percent compared to Trump’s 49 percent, but the result remains subject to the survey’s margin of error.

The poll also showed that there is a major gender divide in the race, with more men preferring Trump and more women preferring Harris. Trump, the poll shows, leads male voters by 54 percent to 45 percent, while Harris leads women voters by 55 percent to 43 percent.

Men are more likely to view Trump as a strong leader (64 percent to 50 percent), while women are more likely to say Harris has the right “mental and cognitive health” to be president, according to the poll.

In a separate analysis from FiveThirtyEight’s daily election poll tracker, Harris was slightly ahead in the national polls as of Sunday, leading Trump by 1.4 percentage points. However, the long-term trend shows that the race is getting closer, with the gap narrowing from 1.7 points last week.

Seven US swing states are likely to determine the outcome of the election.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker, Harris retains a narrow lead in Michigan and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Trump holds a slight edge over Harris in Pennsylvania and Nevada and enjoys a more substantial lead in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

In all seven states, however, the candidates are within two points of each other, well within the polls’ margins of error, leaving each state a tossup just days before the final vote, Al Jazeera reported.

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