The battlegrounds that could define the final weeks of the US election

Good morning.

As the US election slowly builds to its crescendo, there is little time left for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to convince the remaining undecided voters to pick them in this coin-toss race.

To try to pull ahead, Harris went on an uncharacteristic media blitz last week. Largely avoiding traditional media, Harris’s team opted to focus their strategy on talkshows like Howard Stern and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and podcasts like Call Her Daddy and All the Smoke, to reach audiences who are less likely to vote.

The Democrat campaign has pushed hard to characterise Harris as the change candidate despite being the incumbent vice-president. Trump, meanwhile, has been holding at least two rallies a week during the election cycle, which have grown in terms of length and vitriol.

With just three short weeks to go before US voters head to the polls, today’s newsletter breaks down the state of the race. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: The issues shaping the campaign

The Democrats sent out their most iconic figures to throw their weight behind Harris last week, with Barack Obama beginning his swing state tour in Pennsylvania and Bill Clinton travelling through the south. This is an existential election, Harris’s campaign argues, so they are throwing everything they have at it.

Trump, meanwhile, has only grown more agitated and profane. His insults against Harris have become more personal – during a rally Trump described his rival as “mentally impaired” and “mentally disabled”. In equally hyperbolic language, Trump is promising voters an “economic boom” if he wins the election. Conversely, he said that a Harris victory would turn the US into a hellhole “like Detroit” – during a speech in Detroit.

The tone and mood of the race will likely only sour as we get closer to polling day.

Too close to call

Despite Harris’s campaign raising a record-breaking £1bn in 80 days, the race in key battleground states remains extremely tight. A poll by Emerson College and the Hill found that in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, 49% support Trump and 48% Harris. In Michigan and Wisconsin, 49% support both candidates. In Nevada, 48% support Harris, 47% Trump, and in Arizona, 49% support Trump and 47% Harris.

Other polls similarly show that the candidates are neck and neck in many major swing states. A national poll published by YouGov/the Economist found that Harris pulled ahead by four points, and another by the New York Times/Siena College found that she took a slim three-point lead. And this past weekend alone three major polls showed that Harris was either ahead of former president Donald Trump or running a head-to-head race. Both teams are dashing across the country to scoop up every vote they can, in a final frenzied attempt to pull just ahead of the other.

The immigration ‘issue’

Trump has long blamed many of the country’s ills on immigration, including unemployment, unaffordable housing, inflation and election tampering. In the last month, however, the rhetoric has become harsher and more violent. At one rally, Trump told supporters that migrants were “stone cold killers” that would “grab young girls and slice them up right in front of their parents” without a second thought.

The apocalyptic messaging relies on racist tropes, characterising migrants who have crossed the US-Mexico border as sexually violent “monsters” and “vile animals”, who are the cause of a “crime wave”. There is no evidence that immigration is a driving factor of crime.

Trump’s policy solution is simple: mass deportation. Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House adviser, has said that the goal is to eject 1 million people per year. There are few details about how this would work in practice but Trump himself admitted last month that it would be a “bloody story”.

A recent Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans believe the southern border is experiencing either an ongoing crisis or is a major problem. Some 53% support an expansion of the border wall and 63% would support the president temporarily closing the border to asylum seekers when the border is “overwhelmed”.

As Trump and Vance run towards immigration as an issue, throughout the campaign it has been an anchor for Harris. Although she has condemned Trump’s rhetoric as divisive, the vice-president has seemingly conceded ground on the underlying Republican narrative on immigration: that the system is broken and that the fix is imposing some of the most restrictive immigration and asylum policies in decades. The shift on immigration is an attempt to dispel Republican criticism that she and Biden have been too permissive. Her plans include ramping up prosecutions for those who cross the border illegally, and curtailing asylum applications.

Trump bets on the economy

Across the board, polls show that the economy is the top concern for voters.

Trump has had a persistent advantage on the topic – earlier this year, one poll found that he was 20 points ahead of Biden on the economy. Harris has narrowed that gap considerably, but Trump still has the edge. A Gallup poll found that 54% of voters view Trump as better equipped than Harris to handle the economy, in comparison to 45% who believed that Harris would be better.

The Democrats have concentrated on making Harris the candidate for the middle class, as opposed to Trump, whom she claims is only interested in helping “himself, and people like himself” if he regains the presidency.

Instead of focusing on the positive macroeconomic changes, as Biden did, Harris is centring the cost of living in her messaging, targeting families, small businesses, young people and manufacturers.

She has offered first-time homebuyers a $25,000 tax credit; a $6,000 tax credit for parents of newborns; a universal preschool programme for 4-year-olds; a reintroduction of the pandemic-era expanded child tax credit; and the expansion of a small business creation tax break.

Harris has also pledged to enact a federal ban on corporate price gouging and to hike taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the social safety net that she wants to implement.

Coasting on the perception of a strong economic record, Trump has maintained the line that the way to prosperity is through enormous tariffs on imported goods, cutting taxes – including capital gains tax to 15% – and widespread, aggressive deregulation. He also wants to boost US energy production and to invest more in fossil fuels. His policies, he says, will reduce inflation and improve the quality of life for the average American. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group, found that Trump’s proposals could add up to $15tn to national debt over the next decade.

Abortion rights on the ballot?

Trump’s shifting stance on abortion has raised concerns among his most ardent, religious supporters. Though he has taken credit on multiple occasions for overturning Roe v Wade, Trump recognises how fraught and potentially politically damaging the issue is for him, as 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Trump has confirmed that he would not sign a national abortion ban, to avoid alienating more moderate voters but has simultaneously angered his evangelical base. The former president has also publicly criticised Florida’s six-week abortion ban as too harsh and said that his policies would be great for the reproductive rights of women – though he has not given any examples of such policies.

Democrats have long viewed abortion as a winning platform for them, and Harris has been much clearer and stronger on the issue than Biden. She has urged Congress to codify the rights enshrined in Roe v Wade, called for an end to the Senate filibuster and has rejected all efforts to restrict reproductive rights and abortion access.

The clock is ticking, as both candidates continue to try and eke out the final votes that could take them to the Oval Office.

For the latest on the race, sign up to the Guardian’s weekly US election newsletter, The Stakes

What else we’ve been reading

Miranda Sawyer’s interview with Ezra Collective is a tribute to the jazz agitators who are rising the ranks of UK music while also fostering the next generation of talent. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

Are you in a vampiric friendship? Not in the gothic-mythical way, in the energy-sucking way. In this piece Elle Hunt helps us spot the signs of such a friend and lays out ways to navigate the emotional minefield of this kind of relationship. Nimo

“I was told once I was not cut out to be an oceanographer”: dive into this Q&A with Dawn Wright, AKA “Deepsea Dawn”, the first Black person to venture to the deepest spot on the planet. Hannah

42 years ago, Nick Yarris was arrested for a murder he did not commit and spent more than two decades in prison. His story is now being retold on the stage with Oscar-winning actor Adrian Brody taking the lead role. Tim Lewis spoke with both men.Nimo

ICYMI, I really liked Lucy Webster’s fascinating piece on a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, in which the title character and lead actor (Michael Patrick) have motor neurone disease. Hannah

Sport

Football | England bounced back from disappointment against Greece with a 3-1 victory over Finland in Helsinki, thanks to goals from Jack Grealish (pictured above), Trent Alexander-Arnold and Declan Rice.

Cricket | England romped home as winners by 10 wickets in their T20 World Cup match against Scotland. The wide margin of victory means England now top Group B and have overtaken the net run rates of South Africa and West Indies, putting them in prime position to reach the semi-finals.

Tennis | Jannik Sinner secured his seventh title of a remarkable year with victory over Novak Djokovic in the final of the Shanghai Masters. Sinner, who is already guaranteed to finish the season as world No 1, was too strong for Djokovic, making it four wins from his last five matches against the Serbian with a 7-6(4), 6-3 triumph. That denied Djokovic a 100th career title, although this week has been another reminder that the 37-year-old remains a factor at the top of the game.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with “Safety fears as Starmer pledges to slash red tape for investors”. The Telegraph says “PM’s tax on jobs ‘will scare away business’”. The Times reports “Big money says time is right to buy into Britain”. i has “University bosses claim £1m expenses amid cash crisis warning”.

The Financial Times leads on “China’s deflationary pressures mount as investors hope for more stimulus”. The Mail splashes with “Who asked the Attorney General to help Taylor Swift get a VIP escort?”. The Mirror has “Not a G’Day for Charles”, on the upcoming royal visit to Australia.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett

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The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Hew Locke describes his new British Museum exhibition as “a messing around with colonial history”, which sees the artist mix objects from the museum’s collection – many of which are not usually on view – with his own original works to create something that confronts problematic narratives from the past. Writes Tim Adams of the exhibition, which opens on Thursday, “one ambition of Locke’s is to bring some of that colour back into the museum – not least the range of skin tones that classical statuary once embodied”.

Says Locke: “We live in a different world to the pre-pandemic world. Pre-pandemic, everybody tried to talk a good game about decolonising the museum and stuff like that. Since the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, people think: ‘Well, hang on, we have to put our money where our mouth is.’”

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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