US election: 6 days left – What polls say, what Harris and Trump are up to

With just one week remaining until the US election, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to supporters from the Ellipse in Washington, DC – the location where her opponent and former President Donald Trump addressed supporters before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, Trump was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, just two days after a comedian made racist remarks about Puerto Rico from the podium during his rally in New York, triggering a firestorm of criticism.

What are the latest updates from the polls?

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos polls, Harris’s lead over Trump has narrowed in the election’s final stretch.

She holds a narrow lead of just one percentage point over the Republicans, 44 percent to 43 percent, nationally, according to the poll. The poll had a margin of error of approximately three percentage points in either direction.

A separate telephone and online poll by prominent US pollster Rasmussen suggests Harris faces a likability challenge. According to the survey, 47 percent of likely US voters view her favourably, with 33 percent holding a “very” favourable opinion. However, 51 percent view her unfavourably, and 44 percent have a “very” unfavourable impression.

National polls show Harris leading by 1.4 points according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker – again, well within the margin of error of polls.

In swing states – the key battlegrounds likely to determine the outcome of the election – the race remains even tighter .

Those seven states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker shows Harris maintaining a slim lead in Michigan, and a razor-thin advantage in Nevada and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Trump holds a slight advantage over Harris in Pennsylvania and has a more significant lead in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

In all seven states, the candidates are within two points of each other, well within the polls’ margins of error, leaving each state a toss-up just days before the final vote.

What was Kamala Harris up to on Sunday?

In what her campaign billed as a final appeal to voters, Harris delivered a speech from the Ellipse in Washington, DC.

“Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is, but America, I am here tonight to say that is not who we are,” Harris said.

A campaign official stated that the crowd at Harris’s rally exceeded 75,000 people, nearly four times the initial estimates.

Harris also reminded the crowd that this was the place where Trump sought to “overturn the will of the people” on January 6, 2021. That day saw thousands of supporters of then-President Trump storm the building in an effort to overturn his election defeat, forcing legislators to flee for safety.

“Tonight, I will speak to everyone about the choice and the stakes in this election,” Harris said. “We know who Donald Trump is.

“He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election.”