Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in London.

I'm Tim Franks. And we're beginning in the United States because we all know that we're on the

cusp of something very big. The country's decision whether it and the world will have four more

years of Donald Trump or four years of

Kamala Harris in charge. But that feels to be honest, like the limit of our knowledge. All the

signals are that the race is unreadably tight, although of course those signals, those polls

could also be wrong. So we'll try to work out in a few minutes why this seems such a confoundingly

difficult election to predict. First, though, let's hear from one of those battleground states,

as we tend to call them, the handful of swing states, which should they tilt by maybe just a few

thousand votes one way or the other, could hand Harris or Trump the key electoral college numbers to

take them to the White House. And perhaps the most prized swing state is Pennsylvania.

The BBC's Justin Webb is there and you will have to forgive his opening clanking cliche

because like a foreign reporter drawn to bagpipes in Scotland or accordions in Paris,

so Webb has felt the need to begin in Philadelphia rhapsodising over cheese steaks.

We're outside Pat's King of Steaks.

They invented the prototype of beefsteak sandwiches that uses an Italian-style roll and seasonings.

Just to give you a sense of what they are selecting for their lunch, one of them called the originator, but another called the heart attack.

I am Frank Enrico Oliveri. I am the fourth generation owner of the world famous Pats King of Stakes in South Philadelphia.

Former President Donald Trump was here. We got the word that he was coming the day before and there was really nothing we could do to stop him.

I got to talk. Well, of course, my mother's a tromister. She's delus delusional don't even get it don't even let me say

we look over politics we don't have a choice yeah we're choiceless do you ever talk about politics

no we don't it's his prerogative who he votes for it's my prerogative who i vote for my hair on this

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