Five things to watch for between now and U.S. election day

The race for the White House is now down to its climactic conclusion.

Vice-President Kamala Harris and ex-president Donald Trump are in a frenetic pace to finish strong. Each candidate is deploying high-profile surrogates; nonstop attacks; and surreal gimmicks in the waning days of the campaign to energize their respective bases and turnout every possible vote.

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A presidential race that has been underscored by its unpredictable nature is now nearing the end and even the finish, however surprising or historic its outcome, is almost certainly to be stunningly capricious.

Yet, amid the erratic and puzzling nature of the U.S. electoral season, these are five pertinent issues to watch for as the curtain comes down on this dramatic and spellbinding drama.

White women

Trump’s hidden and often overlooked superpower has been his preternatural success with the single biggest demographic of the election. He bested Hillary Clinton in 2016, ending her historic run winning the white women vote by a narrow margin. In 2020, the incumbent President Trump actually extended his lead with this influential voting bloc over challenger Joe Biden, 53-46.

Women, who are identified by Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump as supporters from North Carolina, react at campaign rally at 1st Summit Arena at the Cambria County War Memorial, in Johnstown, Pa. on Aug. 30, 2024 (AP Photo/Rebecca Droke)

Fast forward to 2024 and the polls show Vice-President Harris cutting into Trump’s support with white women. In fact, Trump’s lead, based on an aggregate of polls, is now down to one point. This shift is based in large part due to the issue of abortion.

A new poll shows the issue of abortion has passed inflation as the top issue in the presidential election for women younger than 30. Moreover, white women will make up 36% of the total voting electorate and whichever candidate earns the lion’s share of their vote could be the one taking the oath of office in January.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice-President Kamala Harris greets supporters as she arrives to speak at a campaign event at Western International High School in Detroit on Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

GOTV

In the final days of a presidential election, much of the focus inside the campaigns is on ground game. Hundreds of field offices opened across the country flipped the switch to begin moving their supporters to the polls.

The Harris campaign touts 2,000 field staff spread over more than 300 offices in various battleground states. Interestingly, the Trump campaign has contracted its get-out-to-vote (GOTV) efforts to conservative nonprofit Turning Point and Elon Musk Super PAC, America PAC.

A secret service agent stands by a sign before second gentleman Doug Emhoff takes the stage to speaks in support of his wife, U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, at a Get Out the Early Vote rally in Hallandale Beach, Fla. on Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In a race that is expected to go down to the wire, culling and getting every voter to the polls could be the difference in winning or losing.

GOTV efforts can boost a candidate by one or two points. Clearly not a lot, but in a race that is expected to be the closest presidential election in U.S. history, those small margins could be seismic.

Early vote

An effective GOTV infrastructure is not only beneficial for turning out voters, but turning them out early. The more campaigns can turn their base of support out early the more effort those political teams can strategically identify the small base of voters left for micro-targeting on actual election day.

Democrats have had a unique advantage in turning out support in 2020 and in 2022. Meanwhile, the Republican Party under Trump only (grudgingly) embraced early voting this year. Nearly 60 million voters have either requested mail-in ballots or are voting early, representing more than one-third of the total votes cast in 2020.

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Democrats represent 45% of those early vote totals compared to just 29% for Republicans. Republicans, however, have closed the gap, especially in key battleground states such as Nevada and North Carolina.

Whichever side wins the early vote gains a decided advantage on Nov. 5.

Foreign policy

The conflict in the Middle East continues to rage out of control and it’s already had an impact in the primaries with uncommitted voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania overwhelmingly moving away from the Democratic ticket.

The ongoing conflict could potentially impact Vice-President Harris’s chance of winning, should those move to Trump on election day. A new poll shows Trump leading among Arab-American voters by 2%, which is a stark reversal from Biden’s 18-point win with the demographic just four years ago.

Andrea Awada-Zeaiter of Dearborn attends a rally in support of Lebanon in light of recent Israeli strikes that killed hundreds, on Sept. 25, 2024 in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich. (Katy Kildee/Detroit News via AP)

Israel’s targeted strike on Iran could lead to further reprisals, plummeting the region into a greater war amid the backdrop of one of the most consequential elections in the nation's history.

It is too early to know how Tehran will respond to this latest strike by Israel, but what is certain is growing uncertainty across the globe can move the needle in an election that will be decided by a small cadre of voters in a handful of states.

Down ballot races

As the race for the White House has grown increasingly tight in the final days, so have many of the key down ballot races as well. The Harris campaign transferred nearly $25 million to key democratic races up and down the ballot over the summer to shore up support for the democratic ticket overall.

Moreover, Democrats have continued to win the money race this entire election cycle. Yet with so much attention focused on the top of the ticket, who controls Congress will ultimately determine how successful the next commander-in-chief will be in enacting their respective policies.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, the Democratic candidate for the open Michigan U.S. Senate seat, left, and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers the Republican candidate vying for the seat, debate the issues on Oct. 14, 2024 in Southfield, Mich. (Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press via AP, Pool)

Currently, Democrats are defending more Senate seats and many of them are in Republican strongholds where Trump is expected to do very well. Democrats cannot afford to lose any seats if they want to keep control of the upper chamber.

The House of Representatives is seen as a toss-up. After the debacle in New York during the 2022 midterms where the New York Democratic delegation unexpectedly lost five seats, costing them control of the lower chamber, the state party is seeking redemption this time around.

Democrats are eight for eight in special elections post-2022, which they hope will bode well for their chances on Nov. 5. Still, much will come down to which candidate at the top has the coattails to get their respective party over the finish line.

Eric Ham is a bestselling author and former congressional staffer in the U.S. Congress. He served as a contributor to TheHill.com and The Washington Diplomat. He resides in Washington, DC.