As the election approaches, uncertainty looms as analysts discuss the tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Both campaigns express confidence, yet the public and internal polls suggest that the race is too close to call. Elections in the past had clearer indications of outcomes, but this time, the division and lack of clarity in voter preference create an edge-of-the-seat scenario for the electorate and campaign analysts alike.

There are major concerns about polling accuracy, particularly regarding young voters and secret Republican women voters who may not be openly voicing their support for Harris. Young people, first-time voters, and students are not well-represented in public polls, leaving questions about their actual voting behavior. Similarly, Republican women might secretly lean towards Harris despite likely remaining silent about their choice. This adds layers of unpredictability to the final outcome, making the upcoming election even more suspenseful.

Main takeaways from the discussion:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. mirrors [ˈmɪrə(r)z] - (verb) - To show in a way that accurately reflects or matches something. - Synonyms: (reflects, echoes, resembles)

I mean, the internal feeling pretty much mirrors what the public polling is.

2. monolith [ˈmɒnəlɪθ] - (noun) - A large and impersonal political, corporate, or social structure regarded as indivisible and uniform. - Synonyms: (block, entity, structure)

So that's one category of people who, you know, aren't a monolith, will vote in all kinds of directions...

3. razzmatazz [ˈræzmətæz] - (noun) - Elaborate or showy activity or display designed to attract attention or impress. - Synonyms: (flashiness, showiness, spectacle)

...gave a huge big rally with kind of celebrities. I think it was Beyonce and a couple of other big singers on a stage in Philadelphia and it was called All razzmatazz.

4. mechanism [ˈmekəˌnɪzəm] - (noun) - A system of parts working together in a machine; a piece of machinery. - Synonyms: (system, process, structure)

God forbid that we should actually say we're ahead or God forbid that we should say we think we're going to win, but we think we're going to win because we've got the mechanism.

5. crisscrossing [ˈkrɪsˈkrɔsɪŋ] - (verb) - To move back and forth over something or from one side to another. - Synonyms: (intersecting, weaving, crossing)

And I think that's why we're seeing this crisscrossing these podcasts, all the famous people, as much kind of extra social media content as they can generate...

6. contingent [kənˈtɪndʒənt] - (noun / adjective) - A group of people sharing a common feature, forming part of a larger group. - Synonyms: (group, party, delegation)

...we don't know if there is this contingent like we saw in 2016, of people who have said that they don't know who they're voting for and they'll go into the ballot box and vote for Donald Trump.

7. proclivity [proʊˈklɪvəti] - (noun) - A tendency to choose or do something regularly; an inclination towards a certain thing or impulse. - Synonyms: (inclination, penchant, predisposition)

...these local ambassadors who could go door to door and know who those low propensity voters would be and try to control, convince them to vote...

8. decisive [dɪˈsaɪsɪv] - (adjective) - Having the power or quality of deciding; definite and clear. - Synonyms: (conclusive, determining, definitive)

...they understand and recognize that the economic factor, affordability, is going to be so, so decisive in this election.

9. tactical [ˈtæktɪkəl] - (adjective) - Relating to or constituting actions carefully planned to gain a specific military end. - Synonyms: (strategic, calculated, planned)

...that's the beauty of politics, right? It's an evolution. It's a tactical evolution in many ways.

10. discontent [ˌdɪskənˈtɛnt] - (noun) - Dissatisfaction with one's circumstances; lack of contentment. - Synonyms: (dissatisfaction, unhappiness, displeasure)

What I'm really curious to do, I'm doing a little bit of informal polling among them in the final kind of 11, 10 days or so to see is that going to change in this final crunch?

Is the US election too close to call? - BBC News

Great to see you both. I'm joining today from the studio where we'll all be together, of course for the results on the results tonight. But look, we're all in D.C. actually. This is. Yeah, I realize this is about the first time we've all been in D.C. for a while. Yeah, it has most unusual. It must be close to the election.

I think we should dive into one question because we're getting so close to the main event now, minds are focused. It's so close, it's so tight. Is it even possible, do you guys think, to tell whether Harris or Trump is in the lead or who's going to edge it on the day? If either of us knew that for sure, somebody would be offering, offering us an awful lot of money from either the Trump or the Harris campaigns, I suspect. Because my sense, speaking to both the campaigns and you guys do too at the moment and looking at the public polls is that nobody really knows.

I mean, nobody. However many of these elections I've covered, there have been some elections in the past where you absolutely knew going into them. George W. Bush's second term, it was pretty clear. Barack Obama's second term, by the time we got to election Day, it was pretty clear. I would say that this one, the internal feeling pretty much mirrors what the public polling is. I mean, they've got a little bit better data in the campaigns because they poll bigger groups of people. So those internal numbers are a sort of broader sampling.

But I don't have. And the Trump campaign is expressing an enormous amount of confidence that they are going to have a clean sweep of all the battleground states. But when you push them a little bit harder, most people around the Trump campaign and most people around the Harris campaign say this is really tight, that what they are seeing internally pretty much mirrors what they're seeing externally. Is that what you're hearing?

Yeah. And I think as well it's not a very satisfying answer. I'm sorry. No, but it is. I mean, it's where we're at this far out. Right. Or this close.

But I think there's two big issues as well that the campaigns or the external polling just can't pick up on. One is young people, first time voters, college students and so on. They're not being captured by any kind of pollsters, no matter how good they are. So we don't know what's happening. We don't know whether energy that you see on Instagram or TikTok video on if they were captured, would they actually still go out and vote? I Mean, you know, they got an exam paper or they've got a job to get to or a million other things. Exactly. And that's.

I mean, we saw Barack Obama at the University of Arizona Tucson campus last week, really, you know, trying hard. And they're going after students a lot, especially in those battleground states where the margins were so tiny the last time. So. So that's one category of people who, you know, aren't a monolith, will vote in all kinds of directions, may vote for third party candidates, may vote for just Stein. And see, actually, I'm hearing that quite a lot.

Katrina, are you. I am hearing young people say they fed up with the whole system. Absolutely. So that's one category. And the second category then are Republican women who will not tell a pollster, will not tell anyone in their family, won't tell their priest, their pastor will take it to their grave. But who will vote for Kamala Harris?

And that is a completely unknown known element that, again, can't be captured by anyone. But I think the Harris campaign are really relying on those people being the ones that will carry her over the line. Yeah, Katrina, that's a really interesting point. And I think that's where the Democrats right now, if you talk to campaign strategists, they're really hopeful that, you know, that is going to be the case on election night, that you have women who say they don't know who they're voting for or are perhaps in conservative families will actually go to the ballot box and vote for Kamala Harris.

On the other hand, of course, you know, we don't know if there is this contingent like we saw in 2016, of people who have said that they don't know who they're voting for and they'll go into the ballot box and vote for Donald Trump. That's also very, very possible. And I think that's something that we have to take into account. And that's why I think the most frustrating aspect for me right now is just not knowing how to read the polls or if there is this kind of silent aspect of the polls that we're not capturing. And if you look at the latest polls from Marist, I mean, there haven't.

I don't know how you guys feel this, but there haven't been that many quality polls on the battleground states that have been released in the last few weeks. And that makes it all the more difficult to see what's actually moving in those states. The amazing thing is how little it's moved. Right? I mean, think of all the incredible things that have happened in the last three months and how little the polls have moved. I mean, ever since she kind of drew neck and neck or kind of made up Biden's, it just hasn't changed.

Okay, so I have a question for you too, which is I've been wondering about the Trump people sound confident. Right. I mean, I've had Trump people saying this is going to be a blowout and they're going to take all seven battleground states. And the Harris people sound much more cautious, but weirdly also more confident by saying we've got a better ground game and we've got the get out the vote mechanism. And they may talk a big game, but God forbid that we should actually say we're ahead or God forbid that we should say we think we're going to win, but we think we're going to win because we've got the mechanism.

So which, which are you. But when you hear from them both, talk to me about the Trump campaign's confidence, because that's the thing that's. Is it just based on 2016? Are they basing it on data? What are you hearing there? I think it's a style thing as well, though. I mean, Donald Trump never gonna not sound confident.

Yeah. You know, but, you know, legitimately, he doesn't want to sound like he's the underdog or there's the potential of being a loser there. And that's very much the style thing. Whereas the Democrats are playing on. We're coming from behind. We need you, we need your vote. We need your vote so badly. And I think, though, if you look at that, you know, the old marker of these things, which is where is the money and where are the candidates? I think we can tell that both of them are actually quite nervous because they are hammering those battleground states.

They're doing sometimes two states in a day, Donald Trump even, sometimes three. Yeah. Because they're just, they're trying to get around every single place as many times as they can get in front of people, get the free media, you know, be on the local news program instead of just being an ad in the middle of the ad break on the local news program.

I think part of the reason that they're confident is precisely the economy, because that is literally what every voter I've spoken to has told me is even if they don't like Donald Trump and even if they're voting Democrat, they understand and recognize that the economic factor, affordability, is going to be so, so decisive in this election. And they feel like they can directly point to that as like, you know, the winning aspect of this election. At least that's what the Trump campaign there's a new poll out today from the Financial Times and University of Michigan making that exact point that there's still an overwhelming majority of people who think, you know, they've greater confidence in Donald Trump's handling of the economy than Kamala Harris, which is interesting because the FT had a poll out a few weeks ago. The FT was the first showing the reverse showing that she had pulled ahead.

And you know what, there's another poll out that I saw a couple of days ago saying that actually she now it was about two days ago, maybe it was an NBC poll showing that she now was ahead specifically on the issue of prices. So I don't know these she was asked about this in the CNN town hall, wasn't she? And I have to say, I mean, I think she at times, from my perspective, struggled to find answers to those questions. When she was asked specifically about grocery prices and how she'll bring those prices down, she talked about, you know, price gouging and making sure that companies across the country don't, don't engage in price gouging.

But there were a few questions directly from the listeners and from those undecided voters who were in the CNN town hall. And it sounded like, you know, when she, when she wasn't talking about extreme weather events like, you know, Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton, that it was harder for her to describe how she would bring those prices down. And if that is the most pressing aspect for so many voters, you would think that, you know, this is going to be something that's difficult for her to convince people on. Obviously, she's talked about the child tax credit. She's talked about a down payment assistance for housing.

She's talked about a tax cut. But she was asked specifically by Anderson Cooper, the host as well, does that mean that for, you know, people who earn 500,000, 600,000 that they would then pay more taxes? And obviously, it's hard to say. Obviously, it's complex. We're talking about tax code. It's so, so complex. But, you know, there wasn't necessarily that direct answer on that question either. Yeah, the thing of confidence, another thing that I keep hearing about, and I finally got out and did some reporting, you two have spent your whole, I feel like a complete fraud, by the way, because you guys have been out the whole time on the battlefield.

And I think I finally got, I've been sitting in Washington calling People. But anyway, I did go out to Pennsylvania and I joined somebody who was volunteering with the campaign on Saturday and jumped on the, they were on the campaign bus and it was, and it was interesting listening to how the, they prepare people for this. So first of all, the camp, the Harris campaign says they've had 250,000 volunteers flood Pennsylvania last weekend. Of the, I'd say 40 doors, 40 to 50 doors that they, this guy knocked on, only about eight answered. A few had already, of those, a few had already voted. A couple actually turned out to be Trump supporters, although they were only meant to be Democrats. I mean, it's so on the one hand, yes, I keep hearing about this amazing machine and they got so much money and it's the get out the vote machine and 250,000 volunteers have flooded Pennsylvania, which is kind of remarkable.

But then when you see it in practice, I came away and I thought, oh, is there less to this than there seems to be? Exactly. And this is why the Trump campaign, Chris LaCavita and Susie Wiles, early on, you know, there was this Atlantic article about what the Trump campaign was doing in its ground game differently. And that was not to expend so many resources on these door knocking campaigns necessarily, but to have these local ambassadors who could go door to door and know who those low propensity voters would be and try to control, convince them to vote because they felt like it was not a waste of time, but certainly not as effective with time and resources and money to actually do that ground game as it's traditionally been done. I mean, I don't know, Katrina, do you think that that's actually going to make a difference?

I think there's two elements. You know, even as you say caddy, it's four or eight people or however many open the door. If they can get four or eight people in each kind of little block and little district. When we're talking about any margins that matters, maybe if those people would have stayed on the couch and actually now they get out and vote because I think if you've, if you've had that sort of face to face, one on one contact, you sort of go, oh, well, I did promise that lady I'd go out and vote. And you know, at heart most people are good people and they stand by their word and they'll go out and vote.

What we're seeing on the Trump campaign and if this works and if he's re elected, this will be the new way to campaign, is doing these multi million listener podcasts, is having to go nowhere or maybe go to that one studio or whatever and sit down with these guys and talk to them for an hour and free wheel and talk about your life and your backstory and so on that we've talked about. Well, she's done some of that, too. She has done some of that. She has. But if you. If you compare the listeners available listenership and the number of podcasts, Donald Trump has done far more than that. J.D. vance has done far more than that. You know, and it is a gamble to the people listening to these podcasts, many of whom are probably in those demographics who aren't that interested in politics or who feel badly served by politicians or the elite in Washington, D.C. if they can convert those to sizable new voters, that will be, I think, the new way of campaigning into the future.

So they're two very different approaches. But, I mean, that's the beauty of politics, right? It's an evolution. It's a tactical evolution in many ways. I wanted to get your take on the strategy of Donald Trump holding this massive rally in Madison Square Garden in New York. And then what we're hearing is Kamala Harris holding a big rally here in Washington at the Ellipse. You know, really interesting choices.

And Katrina and I were talking about this offline just a moment ago about Madison Square Garden and, of course, you know, hometown for Donald Trump. And this is the mecca of sports. I think the choice of Madison Square Gardens is very strategic. Again, keeping to that demographic that Donald Trump's doing so well with and is trying to really lean in hard to those younger men. You think Madison Square Gardens, you think packed crowds screaming, you know, big sporting events, whether it's a boxing match or basketball match or a gig or something. And he's kind of automatically associating himself with that and kind of leaning into that brand. Whereas you see Kamala Harris doing the very more presidential thing on the Ellipsis with the White House behind her and kind of presenting herself as like, this is what you could have if you vote for me.

Yeah, I think last time I went. I'm just thinking last time I went to Madison Square Gardens was to see Adele. So I guess this is going to be kind of different. You never know. He may break into a song. You can never say never. Donald Trump. We've had the swaying on the stage, so there may be a lot of music. We had Barack Obama rapping the other day. Yeah, that's right. Eminem. Some of that. I mean, some of that may be Donald.

First of all, Kamala Harris has Washington, where's he going to do his final night rally? Right. He has to choose a place. This is a very big departure from 2016, because in 2016, on the night before the election, Hillary Clinton, I was there, gave a huge big rally with kind of celebrities. I think it was Beyonce and a couple of other big singers on a stage in Philadelphia and it was called All razzmatazz. And that night, Donald Trump was at a rally in eastern Pennsylvania in a field. And he said to the people there, hillary Clinton is there with the Hollywood elite. I'm here with you. And now it's interesting that he's actually gonna.

He sort of slightly flipped the script because he's going to be in Madison Square Gardens. I wonder if some of this is. But. But not with the holiday. But not with the holiday elite. No, but it's still like eight or nine days out from polling days. Yeah. So it won't be exactly the night before. And I mean, if you Remember, Cathy, in 2016, when Clinton was doing that, Donald Trump did, I can't remember exactly six or seven rallies on that last day. And the last he was added, remember, it was like after midnight. And people have been waiting. I have the story.

He was on the plane flying back to New York and as they were coming into New York, he sent out a tweet. He said to his staff, how long would it take to get a rally together? Because I know I was speaking to somebody who was on that plane and how long would it take for us to get a rally together in Michigan? And they said, oh my God, you know, it's the middle of the night, it'll be 1:00 in the morning by the time we get there. And he sent out a tweet from the plane at about 11 o'clock at night and said, rally in Michigan at the airport in two hours time. And they landed and there was a huge crowd.

Yeah. And the tweet bounced up to the satellite, bounced back down again to Michigan and they all turned up. And to tell us why, I was speaking to a union rep, a United Auto Workers union rep in Michigan who was going to bed that night and saw the tweet and basically rallied his buddies, filled the minivan, it drove to go to the rally. And yeah, you know, we know what happened, which is very different from, I mean, the Madison Square Garden stuff. You wonder. Some of it's, she's going to speak, be speaking in Washington. New York's the other alternative on the East Coast. It has got that kind of sports era.

Aura to it. It is new. He has a psychology thing about New York. I think a bit that he really wants to be accepted in New York City. And to have thousands of people coming out with MAGA hats in the middle of Manhattan, in Midtown, I think would be the kind of thing Donald Trump would like. Is there anything in the next 12 days, do you think that can still move the needle and that could tell us who's going to win this thing? So I would say that I don't think it's going to happen, actually. I'm certain it won't happen. But a ceasefire in Gaza could absolutely have a massive impact on how people in Michigan were to vote.

We've talked on this podcast as well before about the Arab American, Muslim American community and Katrina. You were with them in Michigan. And I was just seeing on the BBC channel yesterday a really interesting interview that was done with a young woman in Michigan who is voting for Donald Trump. She's with the Arab American community there. And she said that it's not only about making sure that Kamala Harris doesn't win by voting for a third party candidate like Jill Stein, but actually sending a direct message to Kamala Harris that she understands that she's been part and parcel of this administration's policy in, as she has put it, aiding genocide in the Middle East. And so, I mean, there is pretty much no chance, as we know before the election that we could actually see some sort of agreement.

But I do think that if there were to be, let's say, an agreement, at least a temporary ceasefire, that could be something that would, would help Kamala Harris quite a bit. Because as we saw in that town hall with CNN as well, would those voters like the people you spoke to? Would they, if there were a ceasefire between now and election day, you think they would say, oh, okay, I feel even though I'm angry about my tax dollars going on military budget, I think you're right. They would not, they would not change their view. Because those voters that I spoke to in Michigan who were so against Kamala Harris and the Democrats, because I asked them that, I was like, if there is a ceasefire, does that mean, oh, everything's fine and she gets your vote again?

And they were quite fundamental in saying no to that because they feel so badly let down. They feel for over a year now they've been saying, this has to stop, we have to do something. Our tax paying dollars cannot be going to fund what Israel is doing in this way. And they feel so let down. And they said to me and this was a couple of weeks ago, so a little further out than even we are now. If there was a ceasefire at that point, you know, agreeing to something and being put into action are two very different things as well. And they were concerned about the follow through on that. And it was all about sending a message to the Democratic Party. Don't take us for granted. We are voters here. We are born in this country, we pay our taxes here. Don't take us for granted. We are all under your umbrella and you have to take account of everyone's viewpoints. And we also have concerns about healthcare, about education, about the economy and about how our money is spent.

And those things would still be there, ceasefire or no ceasefire. What else could there be then? Any other ideas? Sticking with the Middle East? I think, were there to be, and obviously we hope this does not happen, but were there to be some major attack on American troops in the region there, and something that really brought home to American people here what their military is doing, you know, and kind of presenting President Biden with some kind of very awful decision to make about retaliation and so on, that would allow.

That would actually probably benefit Donald Trump, bizarrely, because he's going so hard on this message about how there were no wars under my time and I'm the strong man and I can deal with these guys in a way that Joe Biden couldn't. And again, I say, hopefully that does not happen for many, many reasons, but I think that could be something that would make a difference. What about domestically? I mean, my sense, as you were saying, Katty, is that there doesn't seem to be anything right now that would move the needle in terms of how voters feel.

I think that's generally true. I mean, I do think some kind of terrorist attack, some kind of security incident involving Americans or American forces abroad, and I agree with you, Katrina, all of that would play to Donald Trump's strengths. I mean, it was interesting. One of these voters I listened to up in York, Pennsylvania, was pretty adamant saying exactly that, you know, he couldn't vote for Kamala Harris because foreign leaders wouldn't look up to her as a woman, that she. You couldn't have a woman commander in chief. And he was completely open about it.

So I think there is that swing of the electorate and he was already going to vote for Trump. But I think there might be some people who are a little on the fence who are still looking for a reason, who don't like Donald Trump very much, but are still looking for a reason to vote for Kamala. Harris, I think you, you could have a, obviously a health incident, obviously something we don't want to happen as well. But I think some kind of a health incident, some kind of another. The assassination attempts against Donald Trump didn't move the needle very much. But were either candidate have a big health incident, that could make a difference either side. Right? I mean, were she to do as Hillary Clinton did famously at the kind of 911 memorial memorial in 2016 and she fainted that she turned out she had mild pneumonia, I think, and she passed out.

And that was also very damaging for her candidacy. It played into this idea that she's not strong. One thing that is happening that may help Kamala Harris a little bit is that I don't know if you've noticed this, but gas prices are coming down around the country and they're quite low at the moment. I mean, they really. I filled up my car in Virginia last weekend. A couple of weekends ago, I was paying 4.70-ish a gallon. And then this weekend it was down to $3,20.

But grocery prices have not grocery prices and rents. And actually the bigger thing is rent, especially in a state like Nevada where rents have been such a big issue for people. Arizona as well, Phoenix has a big rent crisis. As you know, Katrina, you were just down there. I mean, several of the things everyone, particularly those swing states where a lot of people have moved in and crowded out the rental market and both of those two and Georgia to a lesser extent, have had a lot of influx of people which has affected the housing market.

That's the, I mean, I, otherwise, I agree with you, Sumi. I don't just, I just don't see very much. I think we're locked into this race. This is the state of the race, and it will come down to the getting out the vote, whether the, the Harris campaigns get out the vote machine and money is as good as they believe it is. And whether Donald Trump being this unique figure overcomes the tradition of young men not voting in proportionately high numbers in American society, in American history.

That sounds like a really uninspiring way to end this. No, it's, no, I don't know. I mean, I mean, we've run through all the possibles. I think, yeah, I think it's, you know, we keep hearing from the campaigns that it's turnout. It's turnout and that is what it is. You know, at this point, we always talk about elections in terms of the candidates trying to win hearts and minds, but now they're very firmly trying to win hands and feet. They're trying to get people to physically go to the polling centers on election day and cast their vote or get out their postal votes now and fill it in and mail it off. And it's about how many people each of them can energize and commit to voting as well. And I think that's why we're seeing this crisscrossing these podcasts, all the famous people, as much kind of extra social media content as they can generate and to bring it full circle. I mean, in these last two weeks.

Katrina, your point about young voters? I have a lot of young cousins who are kind of in the 20 to 25 year old range, some of them on both sides of the aisle in terms of their voting preferences. And I've talked to quite a few of them and they are in swing states and non swing states and many of their friends are not going to vote. And what I'm really curious to do, I'm doing a little bit of informal polling among them in the final kind of 11, 10 days or so to see is that going to change in this final crunch? Will they go on election day? Will they vote early while they still can? But you know, the politically minded of them are trying to convince the others to at least go vote whoever they're voting for. But I'm really curious to see when we talk about getting people off the couch and to the ballot box, people always accuse young people of not being politically engaged. I have seen so many young activists who are extremely engaged. And yet anecdotally, again, within my family, hearing about people who are not voting. I'm just going to keep asking them every day, are you changing your mind? Are you going to go vote? Because again, that youth vote is going to be so critical.

All right, well, we're nearly there. Okay, thanks for watching, everybody. We will see you next week. Okay, bye. Bye, guys. Bye, guys.

POLITICS, LEADERSHIP, INSPIRATION, ELECTIONS, YOUTH VOTING, POLLING UNCERTAINTY, BBC NEWS