LeBron James and Beyoncé join race to the finish line as erratic polling data leaves Democrats on edge, despite Clinton’s apparent lead

America held its breath on Saturday, as Hillary Clinton began a frantic final stretch of campaigning while clinging to a lead over Donald Trump that for many Democrats is still too close for comfort.



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A late Republican surge in national opinion polling appeared to have peaked – leaving the celebrity businessman an average of 1.8% short of his opponent, according to realclearpolitics.com. Nonetheless, barely 48 hours before election day both candidates were focused on state-level data and profiling early voters, trying to make sense of an unusually muddied picture.

Clinton turned to an army of her own celebrities to underline the risk that poor turnout, especially among young voters and African Americans, could easily usher in the election of a demagogue whose threat to US constitutional values is viewed as unprecedented in modern political history.

In Trump-leaning Ohio on Sunday, she was due to appear with the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball legend LeBron James, following a concert there on Friday with Jay Z and Beyoncé. The Democrats have already fielded Stevie Wonder in Philadelphia and Jennifer Lopez in Miami.

Elsewhere in Florida, the country’s largest and often most decisive swing state, her mild-mannered running mate, Tim Kaine, was due to appear alongside rock star Jon Bon Jovi in St Petersburg on Saturday.

At a Florida rally of his own on Saturday morning, in Tampa, Trump said: “We don’t need Jay Z to fill up arenas. We did it the old-fashioned way.” He also criticized the language used by the rap star in his performance at Clinton’s event on Friday.

“I actually like Jay Z but the language last night, oooh,” Trump said. The Republican nominee, whose campaign has been badly damaged by a leaked audio recording in which he discussed grabbing women “by the pussy”, insisted: “I’ve never used language like that in my life.”

The Republican nominee was preceded on stage by a celebrity supporter of his own: Joe Piscopo, a former cast member on Saturday Night Live.

Further back in the list of states targeted by Trump, Democratic big guns were assuming defensive positions, seeking to protect traditionally blue states seen as Clinton’s “firewall” in case Republicans overwhelm tighter battlegrounds such as Ohio and Florida. Barack Obama was thought to be heading to Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania on the eve of the election. Kaine was set for Wisconsin on Sunday.

Our campaign has organised to leverage this early voting period to build a lead Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming Robbie Mook, Clinton campaign manager

There was encouraging news for Clinton from Nevada, with the end of early voting on Friday. Democrats saw record turnout in the state, giving them a major lead and leaving Trump needing a miracle to win its six electoral votes. Trump was still scheduled to campaign in Nevada later on Saturday, flying to Reno for a rally.

That stop was part of Trump’s scattershot effort to hit Democratic-leaning states in hopes of pulling off an upset. He will also campaign in Michigan, Colorado and Virginia, all states where Clinton has long maintained a lead. Furthermore, Trump announced on Saturday morning that he would campaign in Minnesota, a state Republicans have not won in a presidential election since 1972.



Trump was in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Friday night, in another rally notable for newfound discipline and an absence of the erratic outbursts that have tended to distract from his core message.

He has, however, continued to seek to exploit news of fresh FBI inquiries into Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state. In a final few days in which each side tries to make this unpopular election about the other party’s candidate, the anti-Washington jibe “drain the swamp” has replaced “build the wall” as Trump’s most common catchphrase.



Clinton aides claim to have ridden out the wave of momentum for Trump that followed last week’s shock letter from the FBI, pointing in particular at record levels of early voting, such as that seen in Nevada.

“Our campaign has organised to leverage this early voting period to build a firewall in states with early voting to turn out supporters early and build up a lead that Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming,” Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters.

Democrats are also leaning heavily on their vastly stronger ground operations, using an army of volunteers and record donations to bring out their supporters.

“Since the start of early voting in late September, we’ve been able to knock on 8.3m doors and have made 37.4m phone calls, which is more than 45m doors or phone calls in total and more than 1m per day throughout the early voting period,” said Marlon Marshall, Clinton’s director of state campaigns and political engagement.

But continued erratic polling numbers, particularly from those firewall states, are giving many Democrats cause for concern. Three national polls published on Saturday morning put Clinton 12 points up, one point up and five points behind Trump – a sign of just how unpredictable polling science has become in a scrambled landscape where traditional methods of reaching voters are breaking down.

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Even attempts to smooth out variation produce wildly differing average Clinton leads, ranging from the 1.8 points seen by the well-regarded RealClearPolitics to 5.5 points from the Huffington Post.

Like the campaigns, most analysts are focusing instead on models that use state and even county demographics. But even these have seen huge variations, leading Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website to forecast that Trump has up to a one in three chance of becoming president.

Much-reduced Clinton leads in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan have seen the models move most in recent days. Electoral math suggests that if Trump can succeed in Ohio, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida, he will only need to win one of those firewall states to reach the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president.

Trump’s path to victory nonetheless relies on a remarkable streak of good luck, leaving Clinton the clear favourite. The threat of an upset has, however, been enough to drive the S&P stock market index to nine straight sessions of decline – Wall Street’s longest string of losses in 36 years.

As anti-Trump activists plan to converge on the White House on Tuesday night, to sing protest songs as the election results come in, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was eerily quiet on Saturday, shrouded in construction fences. Signs said “no trespassing” and “authorised personnel only”.