PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION : ANY SUPRISES LEFT?

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Presidential Election: Any Surprises Left?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Damon Winter/The New York Times Donald J. Trump speaking in Selma, N.C., on Thursday. The final Friday of the 2016 election cycle caps a frenetic seven-day period since the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, upended the presidential race.
A wave of leaks from the vaunted law enforcement agency has followed Mr. Comey’s revelation to Congress that his agency had a renewed interest in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Donald J. Trump has made those leaks the centerpiece of his closing argument, using unsubstantiated and disputed claims about the F.B.I.’s work to make his case. Mrs. Clinton has tried to move past the issue and focus on her rival.

Some other key factors to watch as the race heads into the closing weekend:
Will there be another end-of-the-week surprise?
The last day of the workweek has often proved meddlesome for both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.
Key moments in the F.B.I.’s email investigation landed on Fridays; and a 2005 audio recording of Mr. Trump bragging about sexual assault was also revealed on a Friday.
The week could end quietly, or it could close with yet another in a series of wave-making afternoons.
Will the stars align for Mrs. Clinton?
This week has seen a phalanx of musical and political celebrities campaigning on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf.
She was joined by the singer Pharrell Williams in North Carolina on Wednesday. There will be a concert with Jay Z on Friday in Cleveland. And the singer Katy Perry has been working hard to drum up interest among millennial voters.
President Obama made multiple stops on the campaign trail for Mrs. Clinton, and Senator Bernie Sanders appeared with her in North Carolina on Thursday. On Friday, Mr. Obama, Mr. Sanders and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will hold events on her behalf.
There has been much made of whether Democrats are as enthusiastic about their nominee as Republicans are about theirs. A New York Times/CBS News poll indicated a minimal gap between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in terms of the excitement among their voters.
Still, Mrs. Clinton has struggled to galvanize younger voters, and she is unleashing an all-star cast to drive up excitement.
Will the K.K.K. return to front and center?
On Thursday, two days after the Ku Klux Klan’s official newspaper endorsed Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton firmly seized on the endorsement for the first time at one of her events.
“He has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters,” Mrs. Clinton told supporters at a rally in North Carolina.
Mr. Trump’s campaign rejected the endorsement. But it was the rare instance when his team has emphatically rebuffed the racist group.
Mr. Trump was slow at best in disavowing the support of the former K.K.K. leader David Duke earlier this year — “I disavow, O.K.?” Mr. Trump impatiently told reporters during the Republican primaries — and he has repeatedly retweeted posts from white supremacists on his Twitter feed.
Mr. Trump’s son Eric went further than the campaign ever has — and much too far in general — in rejecting Mr. Duke in a radio interview on Thursday. Eric Trump told the interviewer that Mr. Duke deserves “a bullet.”
Still, reminding people of the support that Mr. Trump has received from white supremacists may be a part of the Democrats’ approach in the coming days in this deeply unusual race