This week I thought we'd check with the state of the US election, where battleground states like Ohio look set to see more drama than when they filmed the Shawshank redemption there, and just like the end of that film we're all going to have to crawl through some proverbial, to reach the end of it. This week saw 3rd party candidate RF Kennedy drop out of the race and urging his opponents to vote for Trump, and it was certainly very brave of former President Trump to invite a Kennedy to the campaign given that he's already at risk of assassination attempts.

Elsewhere, Kamala Harris was officially crowned the Democratic party's candidate. This is the party that claims to be the only one that wants to save democracy and have done so by 1) Ignoring the primary votes and forcing Biden out 2) Choosing the party candidate without asking the members to vote 3) Launching court cases to prevent RFK running as a 3rd party candidate in swing states 4) Then launching battles to keep him on the ballot now that they realise that him running will benefit them. I'd use that expression about "destroying the village to save the village" but at this point they don't even need to actually destroy anything, as long as they can get CNN to show some stock footage and warn people that Trump might bring nasty working class jobs back to the village.

But this election will largely be decided by a handful of battleground states so how are things playing out there?

- Arizona is a remarkably tight race this time around and one of the few where swapping Biden to Harris played to the Democrats' benefit. You could make some metaphor up about Biden being a cowboy riding into the Arizona sunset, although this was more like some kind of nasty gunfight where a posse of bad actors rode into town and shot the sheriff.
- Elsewhere in the sun, Nevada looks on pace to hand Trump the state by 5%, especially with a policy of eliminating tax on tips and thus telling the IRS that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
- Wisconsin is an interesting one with polling showing that Harris is up 1%, despite, Trump outperforming his 2020 standing, almost as if the polls are dubious at worst.
- Michigan is probably going to remain blue, that's the party colour too, although its also the frigid temperatures this November. On the other hand, it has a huge Muslim population and we're yet to see if Kamala will carefully handle the Israel-Palestine issue, or whether we can expect some gaffe that is undoubtedly as hilarious as it is horrendous and tragic. Possibly something where she think that the West Bank is on Wall Street or that the ruler of Jordan is Michael Jordan.
- Georgia on the other hand will flip red, Trump only lost it by 0.2% last time and every poll since has shown his support growing.
- Pennsylvania is one that might also be out of play. Kamala was expected to pick the state governor for VP but changed her mind at the last minute, a snub that didn't go down well with many. Also add in that it's a state where RFK has more votes that will now go Trump's direction and it will likely be a decision they regret, although it's also worth looking up the allegations that governor Shapiro covered up a murder several years ago and maybe they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. Although to this day Shapiro claims that Ellen Greenberg 20 stab wounds were the result of a suicide that definitely doesn't need re-examining.