The US Vice-President Kamala Harris has a three point lead over her Republican rival Donald Trump in a latest New York Times/Sienna poll released Tuesday; even as other surveys in the past week have her ahead between three and six points.

The temptation is to look at these surveys as within the margin of error for the most part; but what cannot be ignored is that Harris has erased the lead that the former President had over President Joe Biden since the time of announcing her candidacy in the third week of July.

And when Trump has been trying to woo black voters, at times saying that he has been the only President to have done more for the community than Abraham Lincoln, Harris posted a commanding advantage among Black voters in areas like economy, abortion and climate change, according to a latest AP/NORC survey. Few black voters surveyed had a positive view of the former President or see him as one with qualities for the job; and 70 per cent maintain that the phrase “will say anything to win the election” describes Trump. In spite of this commanding performance, black voters are not sure if Harris would change the country for the better.

Battleground states

Nationally polls continue to show a tight race especially in the seven battleground states that are seen as critical in the electoral college map. It is pointed out that Harris leads in five of the swing states; with Trump up in Georgia and the two candidates tied in North Carolina. Again, the win margin for the candidates is between one and two points. But what has perked up additional interest is Harris considerably narrowing Trump’s lead in the red state of Iowa— from 18 points over President Biden in June to four points in September.

The Harris campaign is anxiously looking at the polling numbers with supporters stressing that it is for the first time that she has pulled ahead in a NYT/Sienna poll. And the Vice President has been opening out by appearing in interviews and podcasts taking on critical issues like which candidate signifies change better or simply de-bunking comments like she was somehow “less humane” because she did not have biological children of her own. There was not one way to define a family Harris said. “Family comes in many forms and I think that increasingly, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all shapes or forms and they are family nonetheless.”

Illegal migrants and disaster relief

What has been disconcerting to many is the heightened rhetoric on illegal migrants and the new found linkages to emergency government funding for natural disasters.

It is no longer one of illegals killing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio that the Trump-Vance campaign had been peddling until recently. Now Trump has sought to bring about a connection between Hurricane Helene that ripped six states and illegal migrants.

The contention has been that people in the affected states are being shafted by the Biden-Harris administration by diverting FEMA — Federal Emergency Management Agency —money to illegal migrants; a mere $750 given to folks who have lost their homes; and the Republican Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp unable to reach the President, rubbished by Kemp himself. And the kicker: billions going to foreign countries.

Illegal immigration has long been on the radar of Trump as whipping up the fear element is seen as a sure ticket to votes on November 5. Surrogates of the former President have been making the argument that illegals are being housed in five star hotels and some, including the former President, not hesitating to dish out a nonsense: President Biden and Harris want illegals in the country so that they can vote in the election!

The author is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations