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THE ancestral village of Kamala Harris will hold a special service in her honour 8,000 miles away from Washington DC ahead of the US presidential election.
Residents in Thulasendrapuram, in southern Indian are preparing to hold a special prayer for the Democratic candidate in a Hindu temple ahead of the Tuesday election.
AFP
AFP
AFPExcited local villagers are hoping to see Kamala take over the Oval Office.
G. Manikandan, a villager who runs a small store near the temple, said: “There will be a special prayer on Tuesday morning at the temple.
“Celebrations will follow if she wins.”
Harris was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the United States to study.
Her maternal grandfather P.V. Gopalan was born more than a century ago in the leafy village of Thulasendrapuram in what is now southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.
Gopalan and his family migrated a few hundred miles to the coastal city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, where he worked as a high-ranking government official until his retirement.
She visited her ancestral village for the first time when she was five – and had called walks with her grandfather on the beach in Chennai.
At the temple, Harris’ name is engraved into a stone that lists public donations, along with that of her grandfather.
Outside, a large banner wishes “the daughter of the land” success in the election.
The village received global attention four years ago, when its residents prayed for victory for Harris’ Democratic Party in 2020 before celebrating her inauguration as U.S. Vice President by setting off firecrackers and distributing food.
Locals were seen holding special prayer ceremonies for the current US vice president who at the time was one step closer to securing a Democratic party nomination for the presidential elections.
Pictures show residents dressed up in traditional attire offering prayers to Hindu gods and goddesses.
Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump are scrambling to get supporters to the polls in an historically close contest.
Donald Trump has appeared at a rally in North Carolina as the presidential campaign comes down to a final push on the eve of Election Day.
Trump waved at his fans in Raleigh, North Carolina.
He said: “Hello, beautiful, beautiful North Carolina,” as the crowd cheers.
He adds: “This is really the end of a journey, but a new one will be starting, the one we where we make America great again.”
“If we get our vote, there’s nothing they can do.”
The ex-president plans a total of four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh before heading to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Meanwhile, one of Kamala Harris’ rallies in Pennsylvania was moved after last-minute security concerns.
She was scheduled to hold a rally at Point State Park in Pittsburgh before the Secret Service declared the site “unsafe”.
It is now set to take place in the Heinze History Centre.
Record numbers of votes already cast in the US
Over 78 million people in the US have cast their ballots already in an incredible show of early voting.
Around 240 million were eligible to vote in the 2020 election, according to Congressional research.
According to certain expert analysis, around 162 million are expected to this year.
This could potentially mean almost half of US voters have already had their say in who will be the new president.
DOWN TO THE WIRE
Trump and Harris are neck and neck in their nail-biting race to the White House – with just seven crucial US states set to decide their fate.
Republican strongman Trump will face off against Democrat favorite Harris tomorrow and one expert told The Sun the deciding figure could come down to just 80,000 votes or less.
The majority of the 50 states in the US cast ballots for the same party in each election, whether it be Republican or Democratic.
But seven swing states, divided into the Sun and Rust Belts, are crucial for tipping the scales in every election and can go either way.
The Sun Belt, across the southeast and southwest, includes the states of Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.
Meanwhile, the northeastern Rust Belt is made up of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Of the 162 million people expected to vote, there are just over 30 million in the battleground belt states.
Only three to four per cent of these can be swayed to either side, analyst David Wasserman from the Cook Political Report has said.
Meaning about 0.3 per cent of the voting population, about a million people, are set to be the crunch factor in determining who will bag the keys to the Oval Office.
Wasserman told The Sun that it’s possible the final margin could be just 80,000 votes, after Biden’s similar win in 2020.
HOW CAN KAMALA HARRIS WIN?
At least 226 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia are expected to go to Harris, with California holding 54, New York with 28 and Illinois at 19.
Harris must then take home at least 44 of the 93 electoral college votes from the swing states to bag 270 overall.
One route for the VP would be a win in Pennsylvania with 19 college ballots, as well as Georgia and North Carolina both with 16.
But according to a poll average by FiveThirtyEight, Harris is currently trailing Trump in all three states — North Carolina and Georgia by slightly larger margins, and Pennsylvania by a very small mark.
Either candidate would win the presidency if they won five or more swing states.
If Harris wins just three of the seven battleground states, Democrats have 11 ways to bag the required 270 votes, and if Trump wins four states, there are nine more.
HOW CAN DONALD TRUMP WIN?
According to projections, Republicans will receive at least 219 electoral votes from 24 states around the country, with Texas providing 40, Florida 30, and Ohio with 17.
Trump will require at least 51 of the 93 battleground votes in order to earn 270 electoral votes.
The simplest route for him, like the Democrats, is to win North Carolina and Georgia both with 16 and Pennsylvania at 19.
According to poll monitors, Trump is currently leading in all three states.
This would give him 51 electoral votes and put the Republicans exactly 270 electoral votes away from winning the presidency.
Republicans must take at least four of the seven battleground states to win the presidency if they do not win all three of those states.
Mathematically, Republicans have 20 four-state winning combinations.
How do the US presidential elections work?
BY Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
The Democratic and Republican parties nominate their candidates with a series of votes – called state primaries and caucuses – in the run up to the election in November, held every four years.
This gives members the opportunity to choose who they want to lead the party into an election – this year, Donald Trump and following Biden’s resignation, Kamala Harris.
There are also some independent candidates running for president – arguably the most well-known was Robert F Kennedy Jr who pulled out in August and endorsed Trump.
In US elections the winner is not the candidate who gets the most votes across the country.
Instead Trump and Harris will compete to win smaller contests held in each of the 50 states.
Many of the states often vote the same way – but seven of them – Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona – tend to go in either direction.
Each state has a number of electoral college votes – partly based on population sizes – with a total of 538 across the country up for grabs.
The winner is the candidate that gets 270 or more, marking a majority in the electoral college.
All but two of the US’ 50 states – Maine and Nebraska – have a winner-takes-all rule.
Meaning whichever candidate gets the highest number of votes wins all of the state’s electoral college votes.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton won more votes nationally than Donald Trump – but she still lost the election because of electoral college votes.
The candidate who will win this election is the one who secures 270 or more college ballots.
Usually the winner is declared on the night, but it can take days to finalise the result.
In 2020 Joe Biden wasn’t officially announced as the president-elect until November 7.
The new president will be sworn into office in January on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Reuters
AP
English (US)