Defining moment for Harris, Trump as Americans rise to vote
Donald Trump (left) and Kamala Harris. Combo photo
The US wakes up early Tuesday (US time) to vote their favourite candidate as new President to replace Joe Biden at the Oval Office.
Stakes are especially high between two(2) candidates--former president Donald Trump (Republican) and Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat.
By late Monday (US time) pollsters showed the pair closely tying up in the popularity poll contest.
At least 84 million early voters have already voted.
Harris said she had sent in her vote by mail from the campaign trail as it entered the homestretch Monday.
"It is head-to-head in a race, too close to call," Mr Anthony Ogato told a local Kisii-based television station in a morning show from Washington DC.
This story has been filed at 1:19pm East African time, equivalent to 5:19am in Washington DC, the US capital.
Mr Ogato said it is a highly divisive poll and not easy to predict the winner.
"By now one cannot outrightly say this person will win and the other lose," Mr Ogato said.
Harris traces her roots to the tiny South Indian village of Thulasendrapuram.
Villagers here huddled in groups praying for her victory.
Others met in front of the image of Hindu deity Ayyanar, a form of Lord Shiva.
If she wins she could become America’s first female leader.
"Our campaign has tapped into the ambitions and aspirations and dreams of the American people. We are optimistic and we are excited about what we can do together," Harris told enthusiasts.
Our people, she said, have a chance to "turn the page on a decade of politics that has been driven by fear and division".
She had thrust long hours crisscrossing the states selling her economic and foreign policy agenda.
She puts priority in tackling the cost of living.
Early in her convention acceptance speech, she vocally promised mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers, a tax credit for parents of newborns and bans on price gouging at the grocery stores to help target inflation.
She added that her plans would create "an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed".
The VP has consistently appealed to women voters with her pro women rights stance.
Trump on the other hand casts himself as a unifying figure though he has had to deal with what critics call acerbic comments.
His stance on a variety of contentious issues among the immigrants does not augur well with that demographic.
He speaks of mass deportations of illegal immigrants and a rethink of US foreign policy.
Much of Trump’s sweeping plans start with a root-and-branch gutting of the US government, in particular using an executive order to replace thousands of career civil servants with political appointees, reports the Telegraph.
If he wins, large swathes of the Department of Justice, the FBI, would be done away with, while the Department of Education would be totally abolished.
