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US Elections: A week is a long time in politics

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The P&J’s Westminster correspondent Lindsay Razaq swaps UK politics for the US Presidential election.

 

The plane is packed with fans sporting Washington Redskins merchandise.

Talk centres on the American football clash with the Cincinnati Bengals at Wembley Stadium over the weekend.

I’m surprised at the number of people who flew over just to see the game, although less so after speaking to a few of them.

The NFL’s a serious business.

Switch the conversation to the race for the White House and the response is a mixture of almost sheepish embarrassment and fatigue.

After a nasty, highly personal campaign people just seem keen for it to be over.

There was a similar sense towards the end of the EU referendum campaign this summer.

Only that lasted a matter of months – the Americans have been stomaching it for well over a year.

Turning on the TV in my Washington hotel room, I can understand their reaction.

A prominent graphic at the bottom of the screen counts down the days until the final showdown and there are regular plugs – it feels like every few minutes – reminding viewers to stay tuned, not to miss the overnight coverage on November 8.

Change the channel and there’s more of the same.

Difficult to escape, it’s even on in the restaurant down the road.

Until last week, Hillary Clinton looked like she had the contest all but sown up.

Then came the revelation from FBI Director James Comey that investigators had found new e-mails potentially pertinent to the bureau’s previously closed inquiry into her handling of classified information.

Now the polls have tightened, nationally and in some battleground states.

How much the latest discovery – which continues to lead the news bulletins, with the Democrats yesterday claiming the FBI had acted illegally in announcing the investigation so close to the election – will impact on Mrs Clinton remains to be seen.

Early voting in some states may shield her to some extent.

But it’s certainly news she could have done without so late in the final quarter.

Donald Trump is unsurprisingly making hay, choosing to campaign in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, both Democratic states, yesterday before moving onto Florida, one of the key swing states, today.

It shows that as well as focusing on battleground areas, he is hoping to flip some of the blue strongholds.

The businessman knows he has to if he is to have any chance of beating Mrs Clinton.

But it hasn’t been plain sailing for him either, following claims he used a dubious method to avoid paying taxes in the early 1990s, as well as ongoing allegations about his reported links to Russia.

As the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics.

Or as one TV pundit put it last night, a day is long time in this presidential race.

With seven days to go, there remains a lot to play for.