Al Jazeera News, New York :
The public holiday that kickstarts the home stretch of frantic campaigning for the US presidential election was dominated by two familiar questions – whether Donald Trump is stable enough, and whether Hillary Clinton is trustworthy enough, to run the country.
Republican presidential nominee Trump and Clinton, his Democratic rival, both flew to the battleground state of Ohio on Monday for a Labour Day holiday that signals the start of two final months of handshaking and speech-making before the November 8 ballot.
Trump met union members in Cleveland and attended a state fair, while Clinton, speaking with reporters before marching in a Labour Day parade, said the race had become a “mad dash” for the White House.
“I’m more than ready,” she added. Though she leads Trump in an average of polls by some four percentage points, Clinton was on the back foot again this weekend after the latest in a series of
damaging revelations over her use of private email while serving as secretary of state. On Friday, the FBI released 58 pages of notes from a probe that ended with the agency’s director James Comey declaring that Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless” when handling classified information.
On Monday, Trump’s deputy campaign manager David Bossie decried Clinton’s “terrible judgment, incompetence and dishonesty” – targeting one of the former first lady’s crucial weaknesses in the eyes of voters.
Trump still trails Clinton in many battleground states where the election will likely be decided, but he has drawn close to her in others.
The forecaster FiveThirtyEight gives Clinton a 72.3 percent chance of winning, against Trump’s 27.7 percent.
Trump’s rebound from a series of self-inflicted blows has followed the hiring of new campaign managers.
The coiffed property mogul is showing more discipline at rallies, reading from teleprompters rather than risking more off-the-cuff gaffes. But Trump’s visit to a largely African-American church congregation in Detroit on Saturday highlighted how much work he still has to do with blacks, Latinos and other minority groups. Outside, scores of protesters chanted: “No justice, no peace.” “As the homestretch of the election begins, it is increasingly clear that it will be a referendum on Trump. Despite what his campaign says, they face an uphill battle, and it resembles Mount Everest,” Jonathan Cristol, a scholar from the World Policy Institute think tank, told Al Jazeera.
The public holiday that kickstarts the home stretch of frantic campaigning for the US presidential election was dominated by two familiar questions – whether Donald Trump is stable enough, and whether Hillary Clinton is trustworthy enough, to run the country.
Republican presidential nominee Trump and Clinton, his Democratic rival, both flew to the battleground state of Ohio on Monday for a Labour Day holiday that signals the start of two final months of handshaking and speech-making before the November 8 ballot.
Trump met union members in Cleveland and attended a state fair, while Clinton, speaking with reporters before marching in a Labour Day parade, said the race had become a “mad dash” for the White House.
“I’m more than ready,” she added. Though she leads Trump in an average of polls by some four percentage points, Clinton was on the back foot again this weekend after the latest in a series of
damaging revelations over her use of private email while serving as secretary of state. On Friday, the FBI released 58 pages of notes from a probe that ended with the agency’s director James Comey declaring that Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless” when handling classified information.
On Monday, Trump’s deputy campaign manager David Bossie decried Clinton’s “terrible judgment, incompetence and dishonesty” – targeting one of the former first lady’s crucial weaknesses in the eyes of voters.
Trump still trails Clinton in many battleground states where the election will likely be decided, but he has drawn close to her in others.
The forecaster FiveThirtyEight gives Clinton a 72.3 percent chance of winning, against Trump’s 27.7 percent.
Trump’s rebound from a series of self-inflicted blows has followed the hiring of new campaign managers.
The coiffed property mogul is showing more discipline at rallies, reading from teleprompters rather than risking more off-the-cuff gaffes. But Trump’s visit to a largely African-American church congregation in Detroit on Saturday highlighted how much work he still has to do with blacks, Latinos and other minority groups. Outside, scores of protesters chanted: “No justice, no peace.” “As the homestretch of the election begins, it is increasingly clear that it will be a referendum on Trump. Despite what his campaign says, they face an uphill battle, and it resembles Mount Everest,” Jonathan Cristol, a scholar from the World Policy Institute think tank, told Al Jazeera.
