BATTLING IT OUT
This can be felt most strongly in Pennsylvania where the victory path to the White House runs straight through.
The state has 19 Electoral College votes, the most of any battleground state, and has only picked the losing candidate twice. It fell to current Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump in 2016 before turning blue for President Joe Biden in 2020 – both times by the narrowest of margins.
This year, polls suggest the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic Party’s nominee, remains too close to call.
Voters will head to the ballot box on Nov 5.
Both candidates’ positions on fracking have both attracted and alienated Americans, with feelings on all sides running deep in the tussle to turn the razor-tight state red or blue.
Trump has slammed Harris for comments she made during her first bid for the US presidency years ago, when she said there was “no question” that she was “in favour of banning fracking”.
She then made a U-turn in August, swearing off any prior assertion that she opposed the practice.
During the two candidates’ televised debate last month, Trump repeatedly claimed that she would ban fracking if she becomes president. Harris responded that she would not impose such a ban.
Her change in stance sits in stark contrast to Trump’s endorsement.
On Wednesday (Oct 9), he delivered speeches in Pennsylvania where he vowed to unleash American energy.
“On day one, I will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill, baby, drill,” he said.
