'Polarised electorate': American voters not easily swayed to cross the aisle

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00:00Well, it is the last week of campaigning before the US elections.

00:04Polls suggest the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains extremely close.

00:10Now coming up shortly today, indeed within the next few minutes, we do expect Trump to

00:14speak from his home in Florida, in Mar-a-Lago.

00:18Those are the live images we have there from his resort complex.

00:23You can see a number of people wearing the Trump MAGA hats there.

00:27We will bring you that live when it gets underway.

00:31In the meantime, let's take a look then at events yesterday on the campaign trail.

00:38On the campaign trail in Georgia on Monday, Donald Trump reacted to being called a fascist

00:43after his controversial Madison Square Garden rally, where racist jokes and comments predominated.

00:50Trump turned the accusation on his Democratic rival.

01:15In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, the Democrats rolled as high-profile supporters

01:20such as Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and Barack Obama, who lashed out at Tony Hinchcliffe,

01:27the pro-Trump comedian who at Madison Square Garden called the US territory of Puerto Rico

01:32a floating island of garbage.

01:35If somebody does not respect you, if somebody does not see you as fellow citizens with equal

01:44claims to opportunity, to the pursuit of happiness, to the American dream, you should

01:52not vote for them.

01:54Kamala Harris, speaking in Michigan, also referred to the controversy and declared her

01:59support for Puerto Ricans.

02:02And let's be clear, we are all here because we are fighting for a democracy and for the

02:08right of people to be heard and seen.

02:12They're not about the enemy within.

02:15We know we are all in this together.

02:17That's what we are fighting for.

02:21More than 47 million US citizens have already cast their vote, including President Joe Biden,

02:26who did so on Monday.

02:28But the specter of violence has already appeared after separate incidents in Washington state

02:33and Oregon, where ballot drop boxes were damaged in arson attacks using incendiary devices.

02:41As I mentioned, we are waiting for Donald Trump to deliver remarks today at his resort

02:47in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

02:49We will go straight to that speech once it starts.

02:53And while we wait, I'm pleased to welcome to the programme Richard Johnson.

02:57He is a lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary University in London to talk to us a bit then

03:03about a week out from the election.

03:06Good to speak to you today.

03:07First of all, what are you expecting today from Donald Trump and your thoughts on why

03:13he is speaking from Mar-a-Lago, given that probably Florida is a state he'll win pretty

03:19easily?

03:20Well, a cynical read of this is that this might be something of a free rally for Trump.

03:26It looks like he's packed the room with his supporters.

03:29And of course, there is press there, but there are also his supporters there.

03:34And I think the reason, again, a cynical read of this, that he's holding this press

03:38conference is he's trying to move the story along from the reporting about the racist

03:44remarks about Puerto Rico made by the comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally over the

03:49weekend.

03:50So in terms of the content of what he says, I suspect it'll be the usual deflection attacking

03:58the media.

03:59I'm not really expecting to see an apology.

04:03I think this is probably going to be classic Trump.

04:08Classic Trump, then.

04:09Well, let's talk about that rally the other day, the controversial rally.

04:14You mentioned it, these comments about Puerto Rico, really rather racist comments not made

04:20by Trump himself, as you say, by a comedian.

04:25Do you think those comments will move the dial at all among the Latino community?

04:33Because we know in several of the swing states, Pennsylvania being one of them, there is a

04:37significant Puerto Rican community.

04:40Well, in an election that is as close as this one, any marginal shift could potentially

04:45change the outcome of the election.

04:48And there are certainly more Puerto Rican voters in, say, Pennsylvania, which could

04:54be the pivotal state, than was the margin of victory for Joe Biden in 2020.

05:02And so you could imagine if that electorate was shifting towards Trump, as some of the

05:08polls suggested, but these comments caused even a few thousand voters to stay home or

05:15even change their vote to Harris, that could flip the state.

05:19But again, I think the effect of this could really be on the margins.

05:25I imagine, to be honest, at this stage, people aren't going to be particularly surprised

05:31to hear comments like this coming out of a Trump rally.

05:34And if someone is offended by what they heard on the weekend, I would be surprised that

05:41they hadn't been offended by something that had been said at a previous Trump rally over

05:46the last nearly decade now.

05:48I think back to 2016, when those comments that Trump made about grabbing women came

05:56out in October, just before the election, and people thought this would cause women

06:02to not vote for him and to basically cost him the election.

06:08And the actual effect of that video, I think, was actually quite limited.

06:12This is a very polarised electorate.

06:14People are not easily changing their minds or switching their votes.

06:19Let's talk about Kamala Harris, then, while we do wait for Donald Trump to speak in Mar-a-Lago.

06:25Because later on today, she's expected to give a major address as well.

06:29This is in Washington.

06:31It's a rather significant location because it's where Trump has given a speech in the

06:34past, ramping up those false claims that he won the election in 2020.

06:41Tell us a bit about your thoughts as to why Harris has chosen that location for what is

06:47one of her final speeches of the campaign.

06:49Well, of course, I think she's chosen this location to remind people of the threat that

06:55Donald Trump poses to American democracy, the sense of loser's consent, accepting that

07:03you've lost an election as a cornerstone of democracy.

07:07And at the last election, Donald Trump simply did not accept that he lost the result.

07:11And I think that that's the basic reason why she's holding that rally there.

07:16In a more general sense of trying to read the strategy behind this, I think the Harris

07:19campaign is trying to do two things at once.

07:22On the one hand, I think she's trying to appeal to a sliver of Republican-leaning voters who

07:30are not natural Democrats, who may have voted for Joe Biden last time, maybe didn't even

07:36vote for Joe Biden last time, but are so concerned about Trump's approach to elections and election

07:44denial and so on, that they would hold their nose and vote for a Democrat to stop Trump

07:49from being elected.

07:51But the second pitch that she's trying to do is she's trying to motivate kind of more

07:56traditional core Democratic constituencies, younger voters, voters of color.

08:03And that's a different message.

08:05And I think I'll be quite interested to see in the speech that she gives today how much

08:11she actually focuses on the 6th of January.

08:14I suspect that she's holding the event there so she can make the point for those kind of

08:19moderate Republican voters.

08:21And then I suspect the content of her speech will be much more heavily focused on the substantive

08:27issues and concerns of voters, such as the cost of living or housing, which is something

08:33that she's tried to make some play of in the election.

08:37You mentioned Kamala Harris focusing on a number of demographics now, including people

08:43of color in the United States.

08:45Donald Trump apparently courting black men, Latino men as well, as well as apparently

08:52we understand people who aren't particularly politically engaged, who may not have voted

08:59in elections in the past.

09:01Speak to us a bit about what you would say broadly the Trump campaign strategy is now

09:05in this last week.

09:06Well, we've seen a dramatic shift in the last few years in terms of what some people call

09:12the diploma divide or class divide.

09:14It might be another way of looking at it between college educated and non-college educated voters.

09:20Back when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, there was basically no difference between

09:24how people who had a BA or higher or bachelor's degree or higher versus those who didn't have

09:31a college degree voted.

09:33Obama got similar margins among both groups.

09:36Over time, Democrats have done increasingly well with college educated voters and have

09:43done worse and worse with non-college educated voters.

09:47Trump has now become really quite reliant on non-college educated voters, both white

09:52and black and Latino non-college educated voters as well.

09:57But the difficulty perhaps for Trump, the practical difficulty, is that non-college

10:01educated voters don't vote in as high proportion, their turnout is lower than college educated

10:07voters.

10:08There are more non-college educated than college educated voters in the US, but college educated

10:14voters have an overall higher percentage turnout as a group.

10:20Trump is trying to mobilize people who are from that demographic who aren't particularly

10:26politically engaged.

10:30It's very difficult for us to poll that because polling is, pollsters have to make estimations

10:37about turnout and they can really only go on the previous election to create those turnout

10:43estimates and the weighting of different groups.

10:46And if there's a big shift in turnout between one election and another, pollsters can't

10:51really pick that up until people actually turn out and vote.

10:54That's why exit polls tend to be much more reliable than pre-election polls, because

10:58exit polls are only polling people who've actually turned out to vote.

11:03Richard Johnson talking to us there live in London.

11:06We are waiting still for Donald Trump to speak at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

11:10We have been expecting that to begin relatively shortly, but it seems Trump there not up on

11:15the podium.

11:16You're looking at the live images there.

11:17Richard Johnson, for now, thank you very much indeed.

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