MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Early US election winds blowing Trump's way

Fear grips Democratic camp where advisors still count on a comeback sprint

Different signs on different fronts over the past few hours forecast that former US Republixan President Donald Trump was poised to returning to the White House after Tuesday's elections. However, fears of voting fraud or any other last-resort maneuver from the Democratica camp rooting for Vice President Kamala Harris were not to be ruled out.

A group of Harris advisers was reported to be looking scary after early projections came in. “Early vote numbers are a little scary,” admitted Sunday Jim Messina, a former manager of US president Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign said during an interview with MSNBC host and former White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. He also reckoned that Trump's supporters have been much more active compared to the previous election. “Republicans did not do what they did last time. Last time, Trump said: ‘Do not early vote,’ and so they did not. Republicans do have an advantage in early vote numbers. When the early vote comes in, it is going to look a little bit different than 2020,” Messina said while admitting that he had received many calls from Democratic friends in panic.
However, Messina insisted that the Democratic camp still had reason to be optimistic.

According to NBC’s, 76.2 million mail-in and early in-person votes have already been cast across the US. Among those who voted early, 41% are Democrats and 39% are Republicans, with the party affiliation of the remaining 20% unknown.

Meanwhile, British ultraconservative politician Niguel Farage insisted Monday that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States, regardless of what the polls may say. Speaking on GB News from Reading, Pennsylvania, Farage expained he was “ignoring” those figures amid final-day rallies by both leading candidates.

Trump, 78, spent the day focusing on his would-be immigration policy. His first measure would be a 25% tariff on Mexico if they don’t stop the “invasion” at America’s southern border. The conservative leader also has a 72% advantage among US Jews, according to a poll released Monday by the Israel Democracy Institute, which also added that 46% of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship do not find a relevant difference between Trump or Harris. The study found that 42% of US leftwing voters living in Israel would prefer Harris and only 29% would endorse the Republican candidate. But among who identify with right-wing ideas, 90% sided view Trump and only 3% with the current Vice President.

Regarding the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Trump has been a staunch defender of Israel's right to respond to Hamas attacks, in addition to opposing the two-State solution with Palestine, while Harris follows the same line as the incumbent Joseph Biden, who stands by Tel Aviv in its military support but would rather see a negotiated end to the hostilities.

The survey was conducted online and by telephone between October 28 and November 3, with a sample of 600 respondents interviewed in Hebrew and 150 in Arabic, which is a nationally representative sample of Israel's adult population aged 18 and over.