Battlegrounds in play in US election’s frantic final 48 hours

Just two days before the bitter US presidential election, national polls give the edge to Hillary Clinton, although results are too close to call in some key battleground states where the race will be won or lost.

A final NBC/WSJ poll shows the Democratic hopeful with a four-point lead ahead of Republican rival Donald Trump, at 44 to 40 percent in a four-way national survey.

“If you only have 44 percent of the vote that means you’re vulnerable if most of the undecideds break in a certain way,” pollster Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com tells ABC’s “This Week.”

“In that sense both candidates still need a good turnout on election day and still have their work cut out for them,” Silver says.

That is nowhere more apparent than in Ohio and Florida polling results out today, where CBS News Battleground Tracker polls show Clinton’s lead evaporating. CBS gives Trump a one-point lead in Ohio (46 to 45 percent) and shows a tied race in Florida (45 percent apiece).

Trump and Clinton have packed their last-minute schedules with campaign events, particularly in swing states, hoping to woo voters in the final 48 hours of a race that is too close to call.

“The electoral college map is less solid for Clinton than it was for Obama four years ago,” Silver says. “You’d rather be in her shoes than Donald Trump’s but it’s not a terribly safe position.”

— AFP