As Jamaicans braced for the arrival of Tropical Storm Raphael today — four months after Hurricane Beryl sideswiped the island and caused major damage on the south coast — Americans entered the final day of campaigning for a presidential election that promises to be one of the most consequential in that country’s history.

Opinion polls have projected that the election will be historically close and could take days to find out who has won.

On Monday evening a tropical storm warning remained in effect for Jamaica, as the weather system, which began affecting the island over the weekend, was upgraded. According to the Meteorological Service of Jamaica Raphael is expected to bring heavy rainfall and strong gusty winds primarily over southern and north-eastern parishes.

Meanwhile, on Monday, in Philadelphia, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania where Democratic candidate US Vice-President Kamaia Harris and Republican Donald Trump, the former president, held last-minute rallies, there was acute concern at the possible return to the White House of the man who Harris, Democrats, and a growing list of Republicans have said is a threat to democracy.

At the same time, Trump, speaking in Reading, Pennsylvania, pursued his apocalyptic vision of an America in decline and overwhelmed by illegal immigrants whom he described as “savages” and “animals”.

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