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November 7, 2016

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Last-minute frenzy in election race that has gripped world

US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton packed their schedules with last-minute campaign events yesterday, two days before the American election that has gripped the world.

Clinton is banking on star power to lock in her narrow poll lead, hosting back-to-back weekend pop concerts with Beyonce and Katy Perry.

For his part Trump has embarked on a cross-country odyssey through Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire.

The latest major survey, the ABC/Washington Post tracker released early yesterday gave Clinton a 5 percentage point 48-43 lead. Polling averages, however, are closer. But the election will be won or lost in the US electoral college, and up to a dozen states are in play.

In the latest sign of the mounting tension and ugly mood of the campaign, Trump was briefly hustled off stage in Reno, Nevada, on Saturday in a false gun scare. He appeared unruffled, though his son retweeted a message implying it was an “assassination attempt.” The Secret Service said that agents found no weapon.

Clinton’s camp mocked the 70-year-old tycoon’s scattershot approach to the electoral map as a sign of panic. But the 69-year-old former secretary of state added an extra planned stopover in Michigan, Barack Obama won easily in 2012.

The final 48-hour programs released by both campaigns suggest that party organizers believe the race is closer than either side admits.

Whether or not he is feeling the pressure as the campaign comes to the end, the billionaire populist’s rhetoric remained triumphalist.

“In three days we are going to win the great state of Colorado and we are going to win back the White House,” Trump told supporters late on Saturday in Denver, Colorado.

“You’re going to be so happy. We’re going to start winning again,” he intoned, urging voters to cast their ballots in person to avoid the risk of fraud in postal voting.

He hit his key themes: promises to tear up free trade agreements, expel undocumented migrants, rebuild an allegedly depleted US military and purge Washington of corruption. And his fans roared back the same three-word chants: “Build the wall!” “Drain the swamp!” “Lock her up!”

Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook was scathing, telling reporters: “It looks like he’s just trying to go everywhere all at once.” Mook argued that Trump’s packed schedule was sign of panic that he has failed to break through into Democratic territory.

But Clinton’s late decision to head to Michigan with Obama today and to add a midnight rally in North Carolina as election day begins raised eyebrows.

Mook dismissed suggestions that Clinton is bidding to shore up her crumbling firewall in the north, and predicted she would overturn Trump’s opinion poll lead in Florida.


 

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