WHO is going to win the US presidential election? That’s the $64 million question being asked across the world with just a fortnight to go until the vote.

The race is too close to call if the opinion polls and the bookies are anything to go by. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has a 2.4% lead according to the respected data analyst and polling guru Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight.com. This is within the margin of error of such surveys, however.

Ladbrokes, meanwhile, have Donald Trump at 8/13 and Harris at 13/10, meaning the Republican former president is the slight favourite there.

READ MORE: As Plaid Cymru back Israel boycott, are the SNP keen to do the same?

How can it be that a Trump victory is even possible, you might ask, given the things he has said and done over the past decade? What does it say about the US and the deep divisions within it after the way he acted in losing the race last time?

Equally, what are the chances of America electing its first female president and woman of colour, given the marked prejudices within many states? And are the polls any more reliable this time after they underestimated his vote in 2016 and concluded his support had been inadequately sampled by all the polling companies before then? Questions, questions, questions.

What we do know is that America is a deeply divided society. Intensely partisan, the Republicans and Democrats each claim around 40% of the vote. At the same time, one-third of those on the electoral register don’t vote – and millions more are not even registered.

In the last election, Joe Biden secured the support of just 34% of those eligible to vote, and Trump won 31%. Those voters described as “floating” or “independent” will clearly be crucial in determining the outcome on November 5.

READ MORE: Steph Paton: I applaud Lidia Thorpe calling out this vile colonial mindset

Incidentally, the victor is not the person who secures most votes nationally, rather it is the candidate who garners most support from the Electoral College and those figures are distributed based on the winner in each individual state – such are the vagaries of the American system. So, we could see Harris secure the most votes but not be elected president. Such results have happened before.

The focus of attention therefore centres on nine or 10 “swing” states where the electoral college votes go to the candidate with most votes therein. The key results to look out for are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The two parties have spent $1 billion between them this year alone, largely on negative advertising. Trump’s campaign has focused on people’s fears over the economy and immigration, whereas the Democrats have defended Biden’s record while attacking Trump’s character and his fitness for office.

If Trump wins, many wonder what the implications will be for the war in Ukraine, for example, where Kyiv is dependent on Washington for funds and ammunition. So far an estimated 500,000 people have been killed in this bloody conflict.

The assumption is that Harris would continue to provide the same support Biden delivered. Trump has insisted he will not do so. Instead, he has pledged to press Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war and sign a negotiated political settlement with Russia.

That “deal” would involve Russia keeping the territory it has gained since February 2022, in the south and east of Ukraine. As Putin has made it clear he will not accept Nato membership for Ukraine, Zelenskyy would presumably seek security assurances from the US in return for such “peace”.

READ MORE: Karen Adam: Alex Salmond inspired millions in fight for independence

While the US has few troops fighting on the ground, the US State Department has been heavily involved in influencing Ukrainian politics for 30 years now.

The Republicans have said, to quote Trump’s running mate JD Vance, that they do not much care what happens in Ukraine.

They insist the American people do not support sending “hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up a corrupt regime in Kyiv”. They do not consider it money well spent so far, Vance argues, nor do they see any prospect of victory for Zelenskyy.

Notwithstanding Trump’s propensity to say one thing in election campaigns and do quite another while in office, such a “land for peace” deal, with Ukraine also remaining outside Nato, is nonetheless the likelier outcome for this conflict should the Republicans win next month’s election.

It goes without saying that if Trump withdraws military and financial support for Ukraine, Zelenskyy will not be able to continue fighting this war.

As well as having severe implications for Kyiv, such a development would also have profound consequences for Keir Starmer’s Labour government which has been particularly belligerent in pursuit of this war, more so than other alliance members.

The global political turmoil we have witnessed over the past few years – wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Sudan, as well as the increased military tensions between the US and China – seem set to continue whoever wins on November 5.

And Scotland will not be immune from the consequences.