AS the US election battle intensifies towards selecting a new President on 5 November, I can’t help thinking the result could be similar to what happened in Australia when Labor’s Bill Shorten lost the “unlosable” Federal election to Liberal outsider Scott Morrison.

In July, ageing President Joe Biden, with failing health issues, was tapped on the shoulder by Democratic Party heavyweights to withdraw his nomination for election.

He was replaced in the election race by his deputy, Kamala Harris, and Governor Tim Walz was confirmed as her running mate.

American election campaigns often become about personalities rather than policies.

Personal attacks are seen to be a quick and effective means of creating doubt about the other candidate.

This proved to be highly effective when the 2016 Trump campaign was focused on the “dishonest” Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump’s form in these contests is to become an attack dog, doing everything he can to degrade the personality and performance of his opposition.

Despite this approach from Trump, Kamala Harris has pulled ahead in the national polls.

The last one I saw had her with a four percent gain over Trump’s previously held lead.

A recent Trump approach is to attack Kamala Harris’ ethnicity.

Harris has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.

Despite this fact, Trump has made claims that Harris is merely claiming to be black.

The reason for that attack could be that Trump’s campaign has attracted record support from African American and Hispanic voters.

Harris may well attract much of that vote back to the Democrats.

Traditionally there are so-called ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ states in the USA, where red states vote for Trump’s Republican Party and blue states vote for Democratic Party candidates.

This leaves a group of seven or so states which don’t respond in the traditional way.

It is these states that receive most political attention and whose polls are used to determine a likely winner.

This brings me back to the time in Australian politics when the Bill Shorten-led Labor Party was seen to attack superannuation funds and franking credits.

This resulted in our public voting for anyone who wasn’t Bill Shorten.

I’m left wondering if this same thought pattern might play out in the USA by their voters electing anyone who isn’t Donald Trump.

By John BLACKBOURN