Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in the last effort of the week

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will make one last effort to break their bitter stalemate as they head into the final week of the most dramatic and divisive White House race in modern times.

Despite a series of historic upheavals in an American election like no other, polls show the Democratic vice president and the former Republican president remain tied in the polls as Election Day approaches on November 5.

Both will do everything they can to sway voters, with Harris, 60, giving her closing speech Tuesday at the same spot where Trump rallied supporters to protest his 2020 election loss before the deadly assault of the January 6, 2021 to the United States Capitol.

Trump, 78, also relies on spectacle, and on Sunday night he held a huge rally at the famed Madison Square Garden stadium in his hometown of New York to kick off his final effort.

As the race draws to a close, the two rivals will defeat seven battleground states where only a few thousand voters could decide who governs the world’s leading superpower.

“It looks like a draw,” John Mark Hansen, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, told AFP.

A deeply divided America will make history either way: by electing its first female president or granting Trump a sensational comeback and putting history’s first convicted felon and oldest commander in chief in the Oval Office.

“A crucial moment in history”

The choice reflects the starkly different visions offered by Harris, the first female, Black and South Asian vice president, and billionaire tycoon Trump.

Harris initially focused on a message of joy and positivity following her shocking replacement of President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in July, but has since shifted to relentlessly focusing on Trump as a “fascist” who threatens democracy. and women’s reproductive rights. .

The Democrat deliberately chose the Ellipse on Washington’s National Mall for her rally exactly one week before Election Day, as it is where Trump spoke to his supporters to deny his 2020 election loss to Biden, shortly before they stormed the Capitol.

“This is a very pivotal moment in history,” supporter Kimberly Whittaker said at a Harris rally in Kalamazoo, in the battleground state of Michigan.

Trump is expected to reject the result in November if he loses again, raising the specter of chaos and violence in an already tense and deeply polarized United States.

The Republican has doubled down on his extreme rhetoric, and his right-wing base was further boosted by Trump surviving two assassination attempts over the summer.

Trump has described immigrants as animals, promised to set up mass deportation camps and threatened to clamp down on domestic opposition, calling them the “enemy within.”

He has also stepped up his commitment to “Make America Great Again” by focusing on the economy, which like immigration remains a top voter concern.

“I’m probably going to follow Trump,” said Drew Roby, a 21-year-old health sciences student from Arizona who is Black. “Honestly, it was better when he was president.”

READ | Seven states that will decide the US presidency

“Very competitive”

At the center of the race are the seven most contested swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and, most importantly, Pennsylvania.

The closest US presidential election in decades will depend on who can win over the few remaining undecided voters and who can get their base to vote.

Polls also predict a historic gender gap between candidates, as well as deep differences in race and age.

In the final days, both campaigns will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ads while launching star surrogates.

Bruce Springsteen and Barack and Michelle Obama supported Harris, while tech mogul Elon Musk is on Trump’s campaign.

But Harris may face a bigger challenge overall.

His campaign had “a better playing field” and more money, but Trump “probably still benefits” from a Republican advantage built into the idiosyncratic U.S. Electoral College system, said David Karol, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

“It’s very competitive. “There’s no reason for anyone to have confidence.”

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(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)