In what is being dubbed a ‘historic’ effort by an outgoing president, Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to see his party nominee Hillary Clinton prevail in the face of an extraordinary resurgence by Republican Donald Trump in the closing stages of a presidential campaign that she had dominated for the most part.
Trump, in contrast to the coordinated Clinton-Obama offensive, has been soldiering on virtually like a lone ranger, but still drawing big crowds and going on the offensive against both, particularly against Obama’s Justice Department for “meddling” in the FBI probes over the email saga and the Clinton Foundation.
More than 30 million Americans have already voted across the country taking advantage of the early voting opportunity. While Clinton and Trump have been having a go at each other, their campaigns have mounted a big ground operation for the early vote. Democrats, according to a CNN analysis, are building a lead in North Carolina and Nevada, with Republicans holding the edge in Ohio and Florida.
Obama has now been campaigning almost on a daily basis over the past week in an all-out bid to beat back the Trump challenge amid mixed reports on her purported recovery as indicated by RealClearPolitics (+2.6 per cent nationally) and a slight improvement in some battleground States that have been swinging back and forth within a narrow range.
In contrast, psephologist Nate Silver, even while noting that Clinton still has a 66.5 per cent chance of winning the race, speaks of a potential breach of her electoral firewall in New Hampshire, a Democratic stronghold that is now seen to be trending in favour of Trump and result in a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College.
Although the possibility of Clinton prevailing in the highly-competitive battleground States of Florida and North Carolina cannot be ruled out, the loss of tiny New Hampshire, which has just 4 electoral votes, could produce a queer situation.
For Clinton, as indeed for Trump, the predominant focus is now on Florida (29 electoral votes) and North Carolina (15). Among other major battlegrounds, Clinton is thought to be having Pennsylvania (20) within her grasp, while it is advantage Trump in Ohio (18).
Obama, anxious about his own legacy as he does the extra mile for Clinton, is especially focusing on galvanizing the votes of African-Americans and college students. Both these pro-Democrat segments are thought to be a
little less enthusiastic this time compared to the 2008 and 2012 races that Obama had won handily.
Both Obama and Clinton in their rallies in North Carolina, which has a sizeable black population, taunted Trump by bringing up the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan’s endorsement of his candidacy. Even though the Trump campaign promptly rejected this endorsement, the Democrats have been using it as a convenient stick to beat Trump with.
Obama sought to deride Trump for projecting himself as a saviour of the working class. “This is the guy who spent 70 years -- his whole life -- born with a silver spoon, showing no respect for working people…. Spends a lot of time hanging out with the really wealthy folk. But you don’t see him hanging out with working people unless they’re cleaning his room or mowing the fairways on his golf club,” he said.
“All the progress we’ve made is on the ballot,” Obama said in his campaign speeches on Thursday, discomfited by Trump’s threat to repeal and replace his signature healthcare programme and cancel a host of his executive orders.
The day also saw Trump field for the first time his wife Melania to deliver a message to women voters, the segment that has deserted him in a big way after the leak of a 2005 tape in which he made lewd comments against women. She made a strong pitch for Trump and projected him as one who would promote the values of compassion and charity.