Are the polls ‘improbably tight’? Some experts think soRobert TaitThe US presidential election campaign enters its final weekend with polls showing Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in seemingly permanent deadlock and few clues as to which of them will prevail on Tuesday.At the end of another unruly week that began with Trump’s racially charged rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden and was punctuated by celebrity endorsements, misogynistic comments and insults about “garbage” being levelled left and right, the Guardian’s 10-day polling average tracker showed little change from seven days earlier, with voter loyalty to their chosen candidate appearing relatively impervious to campaign events, however seismic.Nationally, Harris, the Democratic nominee, has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well with the margin of error of most polls.The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat. The candidates are evenly tied at 48% in Pennsylvania, often seen as the most important swing state because it has the most electoral votes (19). Harris has single-point leads in the two other blue-wall states, Michigan and Wisconsin, while Trump is marginally ahead in the Sun belt: up by 1% in North Carolina and 2% in Georgia and Arizona. In Nevada, his average advantage in the polls is less than a percentage point.Writing on NBC’s website, Josh Clinton, a politics professor at Vanderbilt University, and John Lapinski, the network’s director of elections, pondered whether the tied race reflected not the sentiments of the voters, but rather risk-averse decision-making by pollsters. Some, they suggested, may be wary of findings indicating unusually large leads for one candidate and introduce corrective weighting.Of the last 321 polls in the battlegrounds, 124 – nearly 40% – showed margins of a single point or less, the pair wrote. Pennsylvania was the most “troubling” case, with 20 out of 59 polls showing an exact tie, while another 26 showed margins of less than 1%.This indicated “not just an astonishingly tight race, but also an improbably tight race”, according to Clinton and Lapinski.Read the full piece here:ShareUpdated at 17.03 CETKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureLauren GambinoJen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, said the team was “feeling very good about where we are right now”.She pointed to the release of a new ad that draws from Harris’s interactions with voters she met on the trail during her 100-day campaign, as an opportunity to create a “high impact moment” in the final days of the election.“We are continuing to operate on this very broad map of the battleground states, where all seven of our battleground states are within the margin of error, completely in play,” she told reporters on Saturday.O’Malley Dillon repeated what the campaign has been saying for days, that late-deciding voters have been “breaking” decisively in Harris’s favor. Her campaign has pointed to Trump’s vitriol-filled Madison Square Garden rally as a key factor.“These undecided voters, we believe, over the course of the last week, have been breaking in our direction,” she said.The campaign also said that Harris was planning to vote by mail but were not sure if she had submitted her ballot yet.ShareUpdated at 18.51 CETKamala Harris has been introduced by Justin Martinez Posadas, a first-time voter and high school senior, at her Atlanta rally.“I’m the son of a factory worker and the child of immigrants. Vice-President Harris is the daughter of a single mother from a middle-class family,” Martinez Posadas said. “That’s why I was honored to cast my first ever ballot for Vice-President Kamala Harris.” He added that his grandparents, who recently became US citizens, also cast their first ballots for Harris.ShareUpdated at 18.48 CETJoe Biden is speaking in his home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he has been joined by his granddaughter Natalie, who is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania and the daughter of his deceased son, Beau.US-VOTE-POLITICS-BIDENUS President Joe Biden, hugs granddaughter Natalie Biden, before speaking at the Carpenters Local Union 445 “Get Out The Vote” event in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 2024. (Photo by Ting Shen / AFP) (Photo by TING SHEN/AFP via Getty Images) Photograph: Ting Shen/AFP/Getty ImagesAddressing members of the carpenters union, Biden said: “A lot of politicians have trouble saying the word union, but I’m not one of them.” Following a chorus of cheers, the president added: “By the way, neither does Kamala.”ShareUpdated at 18.49 CETTrump addresses North Carolina as Harris prepares to take stage in AtlantaDirector Spike Lee and Georgia senator Jon Ossoff have begun speaking at Kamala Harris’s rally in Atlanta, as Donald Trump addresses supporters at a rally in Gastonia, North Carolina.Tapping into current fears that there will be voter suppression in this election, Ossoff told attendees in Atlanta: “[Trump] tried to throw out your votes. You all remember the phone call.”“You know what has been given for the struggle for voting rights in the state of Georgia, and across the American south,” Ossoff added.Meanwhile, Trump is speaking about the support he’s received from customs and border patrol agents (saying agents have told him “he’s the greatest president in the history of our country”), the economy and the election (“we’re just three days away from the greatest political victory in world history”).JD Vance is expected to begin speaking soon in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Joe Biden will be addressing a carpenters union in his home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania.ShareUpdated at 18.32 CETThe Harris campaign has released a new closing ad titled “Brighter Future” that will air tomorrow afternoon during NFL games on CBS and Fox. In the two-minute ad, Harris pledges to be “a president for all Americans” and promises to “build a brighter future for our nation” as her campaign seeks to draw out the differences between the vice-president and her opponent in the final days of the election cycle.ShareUpdated at 18.05 CETMichigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib declined to endorse Kamala Harris at a United Auto Workers union rally yesterday. The only Palestinian American in Congress, Tlaib has criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the war in Gaza. Her non-endorsement comes as a voter survey published on Friday suggested that 43% of Muslim American voters support the Green party candidate, Jill Stein.Here’s Edward Helmore with more on Tlaib:And here’s Erum Salam with more on the Arab and Muslim Americans campaigning for Harris despite the Biden administration’s support for Israel:ShareAs election day approaches, state and federal officials are preparing for social unrest and political upheaval that could suppress votes. Yesterday, the justice department announced it will send election monitors to 86 jurisdictions, the most in two decades. Meanwhile, Washington state governor Jay Inslee announced that the state will put national guard members on standby this week to support law enforcement and protect key infrastructure in the event of social unrest. The Washington state announcement comes just days after someone set fire to a ballot drop box there and in neighboring Portland, Oregon, damaging hundreds of ballots.ShareUpdated at 17.35 CETTrump campaign struggled to balance chaos and discipline – reportA deep dive inside Donald Trump’s campaign published today in the Atlantic shows how the ex-president has struggled to balance his chaotic tendencies with running a disciplined campaign. The report notes that after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, Trump’s advisers encouraged him to stick to planned criticism of the Biden-Harris administration while the ex-president instead longed to attack Harris personally. As a result, Trump began communicating with two of his 2016 campaign managers, Kellyanne Conway and Corey Lewandowski, citing fears that he was being overly “managed” by his current advisors.NEW — and several months in the making — my final look beneath the hood of Trump 2024. Pour a cup of coffee and find a comfy chair.“Inside the Ruthless, Restless Final Days of Trump’s Campaign”https://t.co/aWTijBQqH4— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) November 2, 2024The report includes two other notable asides: Trump wanted to start calling the current president “Retarded Joe Biden” but was dissuaded by current aides, and broke ties with far-right activist Laura Loomer when he learned she’d had significant plastic surgery.ShareUpdated at 17.55 CETDonald Trump’s campaign has filed a complaint against the Washington Post with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that the paper made illegal in-kind contributions to the Harris-Walz campaign through its advertising, the Post reports.A copy of the complaint released by the Trump campaign cites a Semafor article that suggests the Post purchased ads to increase readership of articles it had published that were critical of the ex-president – after the newspaper’s announcement that it would not endorse a candidate sparked backlash and a wave of unsubscriptions.In the complaint, the Trump campaign calls the advertising a “dark money corporate campaign in opposition to President Donald Trump”. In response, a Washington Post spokesperson said the allegations were “without merit” and that “promoted posts across social media platforms reflect high-performing content across all verticals and subjects”.ShareUpdated at 17.00 CETGeorge ChidiA rally for Kamala Harris is filling Atlanta Civic Center on Saturday, “three days before we remind the world that the south has something to say”, said US representative Nikema Williams, quoting the iconic Atlanta hip-hop group OutKast.“This election is too important to sit out,” she said. “This is battleground Georgia.”Just over 4 million Georgia voters have already cast a ballot, about 80% of the 2020 figure and 55.3% of registered voters in the state, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. Fulton and DeKalb counties, the two counties with the largest number of Democratic voters in Georgia, are slightly ahead of state averages for early turnout, but the election remains too close to call judging by early voting turnout. Errors in polling models are likely to be larger than the ultimate margin.Harris is expected to appear at 1pm. Donald Trump today announced a rally in Macon for Sunday.Morehouse College graduate Spike Lee and recording artist Pastor Troy opened the rally, with Troy performing Vice Versa.ShareUpdated at 16.42 CETA record number of wealthy Americans are planning to leave the country as election day approaches, NBC News reports, citing fears that the election could spur political and social unrest regardless of its outcome.Immigration attorneys at high-powered firms such as Lesperance and Associates and Henley & Partners told NBC that they’re seeing greater demand for services regarding possible moves overseas than ever before.“A survey by Arton Capital, which advises the wealthy on immigration programs, found that 53% of American millionaires say they’re more likely to leave the US after the election, no matter who wins,” the outlet added.ShareUpdated at 16.25 CETSam LevinePresident Biden is set to land in Scranton, the city where he was born, for a visit shortly and I spotted this truck parked on Biden street downtown.Scranton is a key piece in Democratic hopes to win Pennsylvania, a key battleground state this election. Hillary Clinton lost tremendous ground here in 2016 when she lost the state, but Joe Biden improved on that in 2020. Democrats are hoping to build even further on those gain this year, or at least not lose ground.ShareUpdated at 16.13 CETTrump grows anxious as election approachesIn the final days before the 2024 election, Donald Trump is growing increasingly anxious, Axios reports. Although the former president’s campaign is projecting confidence, a campaign official close to Trump tells Axios that the ex-president is asking more questions about polling and demanding more work from his aides in late-night and early morning calls.NEW: Trump is getting anxious, asking more questions and demanding more work from his aides. His restlessness is evident in late-night/early-morning calls in which he peppers aides w/ Qs on how things are going — and whether they think he’ll win. https://t.co/dDj57JWOr3— Sophia Cai (@SophiaCai99) November 2, 2024ShareUpdated at 17.38 CETBefore heading to North Carolina today, Kamala Harris will rally voters in Atlanta alongside director Spike Lee, rapper Monica and singer Victoria Monét. The vice-president will also be joined by senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and will be introduced by a first-time voter, according to the campaign.Then Harris will head to Charlotte, North Carolina – a state that both she and Donald Trump are visiting today. It’s the fourth day in a row that both candidates will appear in the same state on the same day, as they attempt to swing through the most important battleground states one last time before Tuesday.At Harris’s rally in Charlotte, her campaign says, Harris will be joined by actor Kerry Washington and again introduced by a first-time voter. The event will also feature performances by Brittney Spencer, Jon Bon Jovi, Khalid and the War and Treaty.ShareUpdated at 15.37 CET