Hillary clinton

In recent rallies for Hillary Clinton, Jay-Z, Beyonce and Lady Gaga have all lent their celebrity clout to the embattled Secretary of State. As a candidate somewhat lacking in the charisma of her predecessor Barack Obama, she needs all the help she can get. She hasn't just courted female and minority voters; she has focused on offering a message empowerment to millennials, who feel left out of an American economy they believe only caters to the top 1 per cent.  Clinton understood that reaching more young voters would be a key to her victory. This younger subset is comprised of people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, but neither candidate has found it easy to engage with them.

Since 1996, federal law has prevented non-citizen US residents, like myself, from voting in elections. We pay taxes, hold down jobs and own property, but don’t get a say in the leadership of the nation. This isn’t uncommon: in the UK, only Irish and Commonwealth citizens get to vote in the general election, on top of those already qualifying as British. But in the US, the discourse is polarised between citizens and illegal immigrants, with little discussion spared for the people caught somewhere in the middle. And with just a day left in the race, President Obama has created another small furore – in certain circles – with his ambiguous statements about non-citizen voting.

‘I don’t actually feel attracted to robots.’ Presidential candidates have to deny all kinds of things, but only Zoltan Istvan would be compelled to clarify that he’s not interested in sleeping with robots. As the Transhumanist Party’s contender, he’s unsurprisingly enthusiastic about some pretty far-out ideas involving the crossover between people and machines. He even recently injected a rice-sized microchip into his hand, which can literally open doors. That said, with the speed of tech, his chip is almost obsolete: he knows guys working on ones that will ‘allow you to pay at Starbucks’. But it’s useful for when he’s been out running, as he has when we meet at his red wooden house, in a suburb of San Francisco.

Forget your state-by-state polling; your analysis of the voting preferences of suburban mothers in Pennsylvania; never mind your understanding of America’s shifting demographics; your breakdowns of the Latino vote in swing states, or your perception of America’s anger issues. This election, like most elections, will be decided by personality. We all know that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton score very low on the likeability front. Trump is more reviled than Clinton, but in one important way he has the edge on her: he is funny and she is not. Look at this clip of him addressing the crowd in Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ciMtD45hxI Now that, no matter how much you loathe him, is quite amusing.

Polite, well-heeled New Hampshire is the last place you’d expect to see a voodoo doll. But there it was, pointed out by my producer, clutched by a woman called Mavis. This being a Trump rally, it was of course a Clinton likeness, complete with pins. Residents of the granite state pride themselves on being a sophisticated lot, but the doll sent a certain shiver up the spine.  Come to think of it, I was already shivering. It was the end of a long week traipsing through four states following the Trump campaign. The Secret Service kept us waiting outside for three quarters of an hour in the pelting New England rain, and if it hadn’t been for a friendly Fox News umbrella, I’d have been soaked to the skin.