Dina Mahmoud (Washington, London)
The results of a new opinion poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos showed that the Democratic candidate for the US presidential elections, Kamala Harris, led her Republican rival, Donald Trump, by three percentage points, by 46% compared to 43%.
The poll, conducted over a period of 4 days, showed that Trump enjoys the confidence of potential voters who care about a range of economic issues. Harris was ahead of Trump by 6 points in the poll from September 20 to 23. As the intense competition between the two sides of the race for the White House enters its final month, analysts following the US presidential elections have confirmed that its results may be greatly affected by a number of internal and external developments that have surfaced during the past two weeks.
Among these developments is the expansion of the current military escalation in the Middle East region to extend to Lebanon, after it was confined to the Gaza Strip for almost an entire year. This has alarming regional repercussions, in addition to the devastating Hurricane Helen, which struck a number of southeastern regions of the United States, killing more than 200 people and causing widespread material losses in states such as Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The list of these developments also includes a strike organized by tens of thousands of port workers along the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern coast of the United States, which continued for several days at the beginning of this month, paralyzing the economy in a way that was described as the largest since 1977, before an initial agreement was reached. To close the curtain on the strike, whose expected losses were estimated at about $3.8 billion per week.
Analysts stressed that how to deal with these issues represents a sudden and decisive test for the campaigns of the two candidates, in light of their fierce competition to win the votes of hesitant voters, with the continued convergence in popularity between them, even as the voting date approaches.
According to statements published by the Associated Press news agency on its website, the developments of these three files, and the positions of Harris and Trump regarding them, may contribute to shaping the general mood on the American street, and determining the trends of voters in the swing states, during the remaining few weeks of the campaign.
The two candidates for vice president, on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, took advantage of the debate that brought them together at the beginning of this month, to review the positions of the two campaigns regarding the unrest taking place in the Middle East at the present time, and how to deal with it.
Tim Walz, the candidate on Harris’ ticket for the position of representative, pledged that America would be blessed with “steadfast leadership.” As for his Republican counterpart, J.D. Vance said that Trump’s success in returning to the White House would open the door to adopting a policy of “peace through strength,” as he put it.
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