One month to go - and for Harris, Trump, America and the world there's still everything to play for

The country has grown accustomed to knife-edge elections - but this one could be the most unpredictable of the lot

'I Voted' stickers on display in Arlington, Virginia. Getty Images / AFP

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With a month to go to the US elections, the race for the White House is as tight as ever, as Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump rally support in key areas across the country.

Ms Harris received a strong bump in the polls when she moved to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden ended his bid for re-election, but her lead over Mr Trump has narrowed in the months since.

Both candidates have portrayed the contest as the most important in US history but the contentious race has seen Mr Trump and Ms Harris focus more on attacking each other than detailing plans to tackle major issues.

Here, The National takes a look at where we are now – and what could move the needle before November 5.

The big issues for American voters

The top issue for voters is the economy, with 68 per cent of probable Harris voters and 93 per cent of those likely to vote for Mr Trump ranking it as “very important” to their vote, according to a Pew Research survey last month.

For Democrats, health care and Supreme Court appointments also rank highly, while for Republicans immigration and violent crime are at the top of the list.

Foreign policy – particularly the US response to the war in Gaza – has played an outsized role in this election cycle. A nationwide movement urged voters in several states during the Democratic primaries to mark “uncommitted” on their ballots or leave them blank in protest against US support for Israel.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump meet in first debate

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As the Israel-Gaza war nears its first anniversary, Washington's continued support for its long-time ally could cause voters supporting Palestinian rights to stay home in protest or to vote for a third-party candidate.

Something else setting this election apart is how it is viewed by many voters to be holding the fate of American democracy in its hands. Democrats say Mr Trump's assertion that he will be a “dictator on day one” and that “you don't have to vote any more” after he is elected indicate his return to office would destroy the democratic system in the US.

Republicans, meanwhile, say that censorship is the biggest threat to democracy, with Mr Trump's running mate JD Vance saying in the recent vice presidential debate that Democrats are engaging in “censorship on an industrial scale” to prevent a true debate of ideas in the public sphere.

Campaign stops

Mr Trump and Ms Harris have been focusing their energy on swing states, with a great deal of focus on Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral votes.

In addition to Pennsylvania, Mr Trump has held a series of rallies in North Carolina, and in Wisconsin and Michigan, where he has told crowds of supporters of his intention to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. He has also frequently travelled to Arizona, where he has drilled down hard on the issue of immigration.

Ms Harris, meanwhile, has been making frequent visits to Michigan as well as Georgia, where her focus has been on abortion rights in a state where a ban on the procedure was only this week struck down by the state supreme court.

Hurricane Helene, which carved a devastating path through the south-eastern US, upended the candidates' travel schedule, with Mr Trump being the first to visit western North Carolina, one of the hardest-hit areas.

While there, he blamed Ms Harris and the Biden administration for failing to send the necessary aid to those affected, and for not visiting sooner. The Biden administration, however, said it had responded to all requests for aid and that Mr Biden and Ms Harris were waiting to visit until it was assured they would not disrupt aid and rescue operations.

Republican voting challenges

As election day approaches, Republicans have been engaged in a series of efforts nationwide to ensure election integrity and prevent voter fraud – but Democrats have called the efforts an attack on voting rights.

In Georgia late last month, a new rule was announced that will require poll workers to hand-count ballots to make sure they match the totals counted by machines. Democrats are suing the state, arguing that such a rule will cause chaos in the weeks – and possibly months – after the election.

A voter works on his ballot at a polling station in Arlington, Virginia. AFP

Alabama's Secretary of State claimed in August that thousands of “non-citizens” would be purged from its electoral rolls. The Department of Justice has filed a suit against the state, saying the efforts to remove voters was taking place too close to the election.

And in North Carolina, Republican groups have filed a lawsuit challenging 225,000 voter registrations due to lack of driver's licence numbers or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

Voting rights advocates say that purging electoral rolls right before an election is tantamount to voter suppression and that new identification rules tend to dissuade minorities and people living in poverty from registering to vote.

Third-party spoilers

In a race as tight as this, concerns are high that a third-party spoiler might upend the chances of either candidate to clinch the necessary electoral votes, especially in battleground states.

Robert F Kennedy, Jr, a member of the powerful Kennedy political dynasty, threatened to siphon votes away from both candidates when he announced his campaign. Mr Kennedy's eclectic platform views – which are anti-vaccination and pro-isolationism, and include several conspiracy theories – gained him a small but loyal following across the country. But he ended his campaign in August and endorsed Mr Trump.

He is now fighting a series of legal battles to keep his name off the ballot in November in states where Mr Trump is not assured an easy win.

Jill Stein of the Green Party has become a growing threat to Ms Harris's campaign. Dr Stein's pro-Palestinian views have won her support from many in the Muslim and Arab-American community, which could tip the scales in Michigan, which has a large Arab-American population.

The uncommitted movement has refused to endorse Ms Harris or Mr Trump, but it has also urged supporters not to vote for a third-party candidate.