Like many people around the globe, I share the hope that these may be last days of ole '45, the incumbent in the White House. Polls are continuing to favour Mr Biden both nationally and in key swing states. If they hold and if they are not in error again, then he will become the 46th President of the United States next week. Of course, 45 could try to stage some kind of coup by claiming electoral fraud and many of his supporters could flood the streets in protest. There are quite a few scenarios in which 45 could cause trouble and I don't doubt that he is up for it. If the result is decisive, this rear-guard action will be much harder to pull off and the Republican Party might decide to grow a spine, once again.

Meanwhile, folks understandably fret at the chance of a recurrence of the 2016 result. There most certainly is a chance (currently around 12% by 538's reckoning) that 45 could lose the popular vote and yet win again through the Electoral College. But things have to go just right for him and there must be another polling error in his favour.

Even if he loses, the ghost of 45 will linger in the White House and in American politics for some time to come. It is an odious thought to say the least. A poet has written,

"Yesterday upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away..."

The long shadows of past presences are there for us all really. But in this case especially, they may not be benign.