Washington, November 05 (QNA) - The 2024 US presidential election is witnessing an intense race that reflects the depth of the ideological divide between the two major parties and their differing visions for the country's future.
The exceptional importance of this race is evident in the diversity of issues raised, from managing domestic politics, such as the economy and immigration, to foreign policy issues affecting the stability of the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.
In this regard, Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock said that the presidential race is very close, expressing his confidence that voters in swing state Georgia will bring victory to Kamala Harris.
In an interview with MSNBC, Warnock expressed his confidence that Georgia will contribute positively to the broader political landscape, emphasizing support of national unity and progress. He highlighted the importance of everyone voting and expressed optimism about the historic turnout for early voting witnessed.
He pointed out that there have been attempts to undermine the voting process, considering that the best way to respond to attempts to suppress voters is to attend and vote.
Warnock expressed pride to be part of a political party that aims to broaden the electorate, embrace diversity, and represent the varied demographics of the nation, adding that the success of the Democratic Party is linked to greater voter engagement, which serves democracy as a whole.
TargetSmart Senior Advisor Tom Bonier said Democratic candidate Kamala Harris' lead over her Republican rival in the latest polls conducted in Iowa represents a very optimistic scenario for Harris' campaign, pointing out that Donald Trump led Iowa by more than eight points in the 2016 election. Harris' lead by this margin surprised many observers, especially since this type of poll that is limited to one state is characterized by a high degree of accuracy, so even if Harris' progress is within the margin of error, it's still a good sign for Democrats, as appears to be a result of the shift toward Harris among the majority of older voters, especially women, who are largely Democrats and independents, he added.
Bonier said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that the percentage of white women voting for Trump reached 47% in the 2016 elections, while the rest voted for his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, but that group voted 53% for Trump in the 2020 elections.
He believes that this group will mostly lean towards Harris in the voting process, highlighting that white female voters, especially college female voters, voted for the Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections at much higher rates compared to 2016 and 2020.
He said Harris is only trailing in Pennsylvania, one of the seven crucial states. However, based on current data and early voting trends, Harris appears to be making strong gains in Michigan and Wisconsin, with slight leads in the remaining states, and whatever the case, Pennsylvania is doing what it usually does at this time of year, where Republicans are mobilizing as much of their electoral base as possible in this state, and four years ago that President Joe Biden won the early vote in this state by a ratio of 3 to 1, pointing out that it appears that Republicans there do not want to repeat what happened in 2020, expecting them to record an unprecedented turnout o Tuesday, which will make Pennsylvania a turning point in the course of this election, despite polls showing a very close race between the two candidates.
For his part, expert pollster and communications consultant Frank Luntz said that the talk of Harris leading Trump by 47% to 44% in the Iowa Des Moines/Mediacom poll conducted Oct. 28-31 is reminiscent of the 2020 election, when a series of polls in the state seven days before the election showed President Joe Biden within a range of 12 to 18 points over Trump, and on Election Day, Biden had only a slim lead in the state.
For his part, expert pollster and communications consultant Frank Luntz said that the talk of Harris leading Trump by 47% to 44% in the Iowa Des Moines Register in partnership with Mediacom poll conducted Oct. 28-31 is reminiscent of the 2020 election when a series of polls in the state seven days before the election showed President Joe Biden within a range of 12 to 18 points over Trump, and on Election Day, Biden had only a slim lead in the state.
Luntz added in an interview on Fox News that such results require analysts to look at the whole picture rather than focusing on a specific state because if they accept the validity of this poll, it implies that all other polls are incorrect, and this is contrary to reality, indicating that Trump is ahead of Harris in Georgia and that he has a very close chance of winning in most of the crucial states, except Wisconsin.
He believes that Trump is very likely to win the election if he secures victory in Pennsylvania or Michigan, meaning his victory depends on one of those states, but if Harris wins Georgia and North Carolina, which will be determined today, it could indicate a shift in her favor, as these states serve as an indicator, while the identity of the winner will not be known until Wednesday or Thursday, and these states will provide an initial idea about the election outcome.

In this context, a political and security analyst, David Sanger noted that a victory for Donald Trump and his return to the White House would mean a return to hasty foreign policy decisions that are not constrained by any standards.
He stated during a segment on CNNs news broadcast: When Trump was president, his aides would cringe at the onset of a weekend, knowing that their boss, roaming the White House, would tweet out announcements about foreign policy decisions. In October 2020, we remember how he announced his intention to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas without any pre-prepared military plan, which created a wave of panic among the British, who relied on the US for transporting soldiers to and from Afghanistan, until Trump's advisors managed to address the situation.
Regarding the Middle East, he believed it is difficult to determine whether Trump's return to the presidency would lead to an escalation of the war in the region. He added it's true that many critics believe that Harris's candidacy and the Biden administration, in general, have not done enough to stop the war and support the Palestinians, continuing instead to send arms to Israel despite the Israeli government's disregard for various warnings from Washington. However, we have not seen or heard anything from Trump suggesting he would use the United States' influence to stop the war; rather, what we know is that Trump told Netanyahu to do what he thinks is necessary, describing Israel's actions as a public relations problem rather than a human rights issue.
In the same context, Argentine political analyst Gabriel Puricelli stated that the United States views the issue of immigration as a domestic American matter and does not fall under any political approach toward Latin America. He argued that a victory for Republican candidate Donald Trump could lead to an aggressive policy regarding immigration, while Kamala Harris, if successful, would likely continue the collaborative approach that the Democratic administration has adopted recently.
He noted in an interview for CNN en Espa?ol that Latin America is not present in the electoral campaign because it is not considered a priority in US foreign policy. He added that the US focuses on regions experiencing turmoil while neglecting Latin America in its foreign policy for a simple reason: it is a region of peace, lacking conflicts between nations.
He further stated that current US attention is directed toward the Middle East and Southeast Asia due to Washington's concerns over the growing Chinese influence there.
He pointed out in an interview on CNN News in Spanish that Latin America is absent from the electoral campaign because it is not considered a priority in US foreign policy. He added that the US focuses its attention on regions experiencing turmoil while neglecting Latin America in its foreign policy for a simple reason: it is a region of peace, free from conflicts between nations.
He further mentioned that US interest is currently directed toward the Middle East and Southeast Asia, due to Washington's concerns about the growing Chinese influence in those areas.
For his part, former US diplomat Robert Hunter considered that the Knesset's vote this week to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main humanitarian aid organization in the Palestinian territories, is the latest egregious crime committed by Israel in its ongoing war in Gaza that has lasted for a year.
In an article published in the US magazine Responsible Statecraft titled "Israel using US election to take free hand against Gaza, Lebanon," he emphasized that this move, which will impact two million civilians under siege in Gaza, underscores a central point: the Israeli governments expectation that the Biden administration will acquiesce in whatever Tel Aviv wants to do in this war even starvation tactics. He affirmed that the State Department said that if the Knesset did not reverse its vote there "could be consequences under US law." But judging from US behavior, any consequences will be limited to words, not limits on American military or political support.
The timing of this ban on UNWRA, fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his most extreme cabinet members, was not happenstance. He knows he has "free play" in anything he wants to do, at least until the elections on Tuesday, he said.
President Biden, in consultation with the new president-elect, must finally use Americas levers of power to act and not just talk to promote an end to fighting which, among other things, is the only route to return of hostages and, in the future, to forging stability and peace in the region. At heart, American leadership must be restored, he added.

For his part, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and President of the European People's Party (EPP) Manfred Weber said that while Washington is holding its breath, Brussels' patience is running out. By coincidence, the US elections this year coincide with the start of the hearings for candidates for the European Commission.
Weber added in an article published by the French newspaper L'Opinion titled 'We must not let Washington dictate the European agenda,' that these two events will ultimately embody the urgent need for the EU to guarantee its sovereignty, explaining that the US elections, whatever their outcome, remain very important for the continent to take responsibility for its security by taking concrete measures within the framework of a close Atlantic partnership.
The author of the article added that Europe must continue to develop the creation of a single defense market, and the old continent controls more than 27% of this industry worldwide, just behind the US, but the fragmentation of the European space into 27 markets hinders our ability to work together, stressing that developing cooperation between the EU countries must be a major goal and must pave the way for the creation of ambitious projects.
He said that they have to do their best, it is about credibility. Achieving independence in the field of defense will depend, above all, on the commitment of the nominated commissioner to support the priorities of the EU, he said, stressing that this strategy must also be applied to other sectors in which the continent must strengthen its sovereignty, and there are many of them, whether in the areas of food or about new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) because Europe is lagging and must act as quickly as possible.
Weber concluded his article by saying that the US elections will certainly have major repercussions, but as Europeans, they have already made a clear decision to chart their path, by building a real European defense union integrated into a strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
As Italian writer Eugenio Capozzi said, with the US presidential election campaign coming to an end, it is very difficult to predict who will win, but what is certain is that the confrontation between Trump and Harris embodies the division of two Americas that communicates very little with each other.
He added in an article published by the Italian website La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana titled "US elections... confrontation between ideology and reality, that the US presidential election campaign began as a rerun of the 2020 election race between Biden and Trump, but quickly took an unexpected path with the Democratic candidate changing from Biden to his vice president Harris, in addition to Trump being exposed to assassination attempts, the first of which he miraculously survived.
He said that these fluctuations contributed to increasing the severity of the radical disparity that the country has been witnessing for more than a decade between the big elites and global companies on the one hand, and the middle and working classes affected by globalization and the superpowers on the other hand, pointing to the Democrats representation of the elite in the US since Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the Republican Partys adoption, led by Trump, of the interests of the middle and working classes.
He considered that the 2024 confrontation between Harris and Trump was aimed from the beginning at packing the polls rather than convincing the undecided, especially with both sides realizing that the results could be decided by a few thousand votes in the decisive states, adding that both sides adopted an identity approach directed at certain categories of voters, and considered the confrontation a historical battle of special importance, which led to raising the level of skepticism about the legitimacy of the other opponent.
Regarding the winner, Capozzi said it is very difficult to make a definitive judgment in this regard, given the extreme complexity and continuous evolution of the US social and cultural fabric, so at present, they can only consider the confirmed or highly probable data available to them.
Capozzi added that the decision to nominate Harris has excited disillusioned Democratic voters, pointing out that Harris, with her pro-minority messages, has attracted the support of women, young people, and African Americans, leading to her surge in the polls over the summer, but for that enthusiasm to continue, it will have to be supported at some point by a more detailed political platform, a definition of the candidates personality, and an overarching iconography.
He said Trump continued to attract audiences with his strong ability to communicate, relying on national slogans and a series of speeches that carry consistent messages. As the election approached, opinion polls indicated that he had a slight lead in several crucial states, Capozzi added.
However, predicting his victory remains difficult, as the complex and uneven voting system between states shows that the final result may remain inconclusive until the last moment, Capozzi said.
He said if Harris wins, the US may remain stuck in conflicts related to divisive social issues, which may threaten the unity of the social fabric. However, if Trump wins, despite many expected difficulties and internal opposition, a different image of the US may emerge in the world, one that is firm and defends the Western political model while at the same time being practical and realistic and aiming for stability, Capozzi concluded.

(QNA)