US election: 14 days left — What polls say, what Harris and Trump are up to

With two weeks remaining in the US presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are racing to secure votes in key battleground states.

On Monday, Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, made stops in all three “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin which have traditionally voted for the party and were critical to the victories of the last two Democratic presidents.

At the same time, Trump, the Republican nominee, visited Asheville, North Carolina, where he is worried that the significant damage caused by Hurricane Helene could negatively affect the turnout in a race that surveys suggest is becoming closer by the day.

Here’s a look at what the polls say, the key highlights from campaigns over the previous day, and a look at what to expect next.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck across the country’s seven battleground states that can swing in favour of either candidate, according to the latest survey of voters published on Monday by The Washington Post.

Among likely voters, 49 percent favour Harris compared with 48 percent for Trump.

The poll comes just as Trump’s average has nudged slightly ahead of Harris in the aggregate of surveys calculated by the website FiveThirtyEight, though the margin is so small that it remains a statistical tie.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily election poll tracker, as of October 21, Harris was leading in the national polls and had a 1.8 percentage-point lead over Trump.

But in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada — which have a total of 51 votes in the 538-strong Electoral College — the two candidates are effectively tied, with less than half a percent separating them. If either Trump or Harris wins all four of these states, they are effectively guaranteed the presidency.

What’s Kamala Harris been up to?

Harris’s first stop on October 21 was Malvern, Pennsylvania with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Speaking in front of a “Country Over Party” banner, Cheney — the daughter of former Vice President and Iraq war architect Dick Cheney — called on Republican voters unhappy with Trump to instead support Harris.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump called Cheney “dumb as a rock” and a “war hawk”. The Cheneys are among the most high-profile Republicans to endorse Harris.