Kamala Harris was selected as President Joe Biden’s Vice President. Since then, he has opted out of running for another term. As a result, Kamala Harris has been running for president. The goal, of course, is to ensure that Kamala Harris can defeat (former) President Trump.
Here are some of the things that Kamala Harris has done with President Joe Biden:
February 3, 2021: Kamala Harris is constant on-camera presence for Biden (The Hill)
When President Biden has delivered remarks or held photo ops during the first two weeks of his administration, Vice President Harris has been a consistent presence, always in the room if not right by his side.
The White House has painted a deliberate picture of a president and vice president in lockstep together.
When Biden has signed executive orders, spoken about the coronavirus pandemic, or met with GOP senators on a relief package, Harris has been in the picture.
“Biden has said all along he wanted a partner in governing,” said one source close to Harris. “He knows firsthand how valuable that supporting role can be and how critical it is for the VP to be in the room, and being a key part of this administration is exactly what she signed up for. She’s not one to embrace a ceremonial role with a few pet issues.”
When White House aides speak about Biden and Harris, they will often through in words about Harris being “a governing partner” and how both the president and vice president want to do the work “together.”
“The White House is clearly communicating the president values the VP and she is more of a deputy president than a leader with a discrete portfolio,” said Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons.
The choreography is also important because of the unique nature of Biden’s presidency.
The 78-year-old president is a white man born during FDR’s presidency who defeated a slew of progressive candidates to win the Democratic nomination. Harris, who dropped out of the primary before the Iowa caucuses, balances Biden, sending the signal that his administration is also about the present and the future.
And the future could come soon for Harris. She is the natural heir apparent for Biden, who may not run for another term in 2024.
One source noted that there has been a concerted effort to play up Harris’s role in the administration.
The administration frequently blasts out releases about the “Biden-Harris agenda,” something that would have been unthinkable during the Trump-Pence years and that it wasn’t as prevalent during the Obama-Biden years. From 2009 to 2016, it was the Obama presidency more than it was the Obama-Biden presidency, which only became a common phrase during the 2020 cycle.
Since taking office two weeks ago, Harris has joined Biden more than half a dozen times, including for remarks he’s delivered on health care, COVID-19 and racial equality. In addition to receiving the presidential daly briefing together, they have carried on the tradition of having a weekly lunch together, something Biden and Obama did during that administration.
On Tuesday, Harris joined Biden in the Oval Office as he signed executive orders on immigration. A day earlier, they sat together in the same room, a fire crackling behind them, when they met with Republican senators to discuss a coronavirus relief package.
Simmons noted that Harris’s presence is much different from earlier administrations.
“The odds are Kamala Harris is going to lead this party one day,” he said. “Every Democratic VP who’s run for president since Humphrey has won the nomination.” …
March 3, 2021: Vice President Kamala Harris posted on X: “This afternoon, I swore in Gina Raimondo as Secretary of Commerce. A committed public servant, @SecRaimondo will help strengthen our economy, create jobs, and ensure American businesses and workers thrive again. Congratulations, Secretary.
July 18, 2024: “We’re close to the end’: Biden world braces for the possibility that the president will step aside (NBC News)
President Joe Biden’s political world is collapsing. Top allies have either publicly or privately called on him to step aside. Major donations have fallen off a cliff. Grassroots fundraising is not keeping up with the demands of a campaign that needs to aggressively scale up three months before the presidential election. Member of his own re-election effort have already declared he has no path to victory.
Since a disastrous debate in Atlanta upended the trajectory of his campaign three weeks ago, Biden has again and again attempted to dig in, buckling efforts to dislodge him from power.
But there is now a palpable sense that the ground has shifted underneath him, according to five people with knowledge of the situation, even among some of the president’s most defiant internal backers who now say the writing is on the wall.
“We’re close to the end,” a person close to Biden said…
…As the extraordinary events have unfolded, the president tested positive with Covid on Wednesday and retreated to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, taking him off the campaign trail. Once again, it offered a sharp contrast with former President Donald Trump, who, even after his brush with death on Saturday, will appear at a raucous coronation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Also, Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running for the Senate in California, made a remarkable public call for the president to abandon the nomination, a move that ended up exposing that other Democratic leaders — including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer — had brought dire concerns, supported by polling, to the president indicating that he risked taking down control of Congress with him if he stayed on the same path.
In the hours after the assassination attempt on Trump last weekend, some Democrats said — even featured — that the calls for Biden to step aside would be “frozen” as the president dealt with a national crisis. But that faded quickly. Some allies now ays that the shooting, which has caused an even more intense rallying around Trump within his party, only makes it more glaringly obvious that the nagging narrative of whether Biden is on a cognitive decline cannot win the White House…
…There has been a shift behind the scenes in the president’s opens to stepping aside, according to multiple people close to Biden, despite his aggressive insistence in public appearances and private phone calls with allies that he is not going anywhere…
…NBC News previously reported that Biden’s private conversations with aides had grown more “reality-based” and included talk of how his legacy could be defined by his having a prolonged stalemate with his own party or by losing the White House to Donald Trump, who Biden has repeatedly warned is a danger to American democracy…
July 21, 2024: President Joe Biden wrote on X:
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies as my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.
July 21, 2024: Biden drops out of 2024 reelection race, endorses Harris for nominee (NPR)
President Biden is ending his run for a second term in office, a bombshell decision just 107 days before Election Day, bowing to pressure from his party after a disastrous debate at the end of June where he seemed to lose his train of thought.
For Biden, 81, the June 27 debate hardened a narrative that he was too old for another four years in the job. He insisted for three weeks that he would fight to make a comeback. But on Sunday, he had changed his mind.
“I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he wrote in a letter addressed to “my fellow Americans” posted on social media.
He followed up with a post endorsing Vice President Harris as nominee, and urged his party to come together.
His decision comes just a month after the party’s convention. But the path ahead to Nov. 5 is unclear, and it will be difficult for the party to get organized on time.
Not since March 1968 has an incumbent U.S. president opted out of running for a second term — when President Lyndon B. Johnson, under pressure over the Vietnam War, dropped out of the presidential race during a live television address.
Polls have long shown that most voters disapproved of Biden’s performance and thought he was too old for the job. But Biden’s campaign team had argues that support would pick up once voters had the chance to think about former President Donald Trump’s positions on abortion rights and his role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
Biden’s campaign thought the debate against Trump would kickstart his contrast. Scheduled months earlier than usual and with new rules, including no live audience and muted candidate microphones unless directed to speak, the debate was largely held on Biden’s terms.
The goal was to send a clear message to Biden’s doubters: that he could swat away concerns about his age by showing off his first-term record and decades-long political tenure.
Instead, the president spoke with a noticeably raspy voice, seemed overwhelmed at times, and failed to make concise and clear points on a number of issues key to his reelection campaign, notably protection abortion access…
July 22, 2024: Kamala Harris posted on X: “Tonight, I am proud to have earned the support needed to become our party’s nominee.
Over the next few months, I’ll be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything on the line. I fully intend to unite our party and our nation, and defeat Donald Trump.”
Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris on Becoming the Presumptive Democratic Nominee for President
“When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become the party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top. I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.
“I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to talking our case directly to the American people.
“This election will present a clear choice between two different visions. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights. I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures that every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.
“Over the next few months, I will be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything that is on the line. I fully intend to unite our party, unite our nation, and defeat Donald Trump in November.”
July 22, 2024: Harris says, as a former prosecutor, ‘I know Donald Trump’s type’ (NPR)
Vice President Harris vowed to reprise her role as a prosecutor on the campaign trail while running against former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee and a convicted felon.
In her first address to her campaign team — staffers who’ve spent months working to reelect President Biden and are now pivoting with roughly 100 days before the election — Harris said it’s her “intention to go out and earn this nomination and win.”
Harris, too, quickly pivoted to the kind of rhetoric she said to expect from her on the campaign trail — that of a seasoned attorney, who before she was elected as vice president and a United States senator from California, served as that state’s elected attorney general and before that, a courtroom prosecutor.
“In these roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off customers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said.
The speech in Wilmington Del., followed a hectic 24 hour period in which Democratic lawmakers, organizers and potential rivals rallied around Harris’s candidate less than a day after Biden stepped out of the race and put his support behind her as the presidential nominee. She appears on a glide path to the nomination when delegates meet in Chicago next month.
Gov. Andy Beshear – D-Ky., seen as a potential contender, told MSNBC Monday morning that he was endorsing her candidacy. “The vice president is smart and strong which will make her a good president,” he said.
Fellow Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania also quickly endorsed Harris, eliminating speculation that they might try to challenge her at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in four weeks.
A flood of Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already rallied behind Harris, including former House Speaker and fellow Californian Nancy Pelosi, who appeared to have an active role in Biden’s decision to back out of the race.
“In the Democratic Party, our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power,” Pelosi write in a statement on X. “Now, we must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump and enthusiastically elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States.”
While some Democrats are advocating for an “open process” in Chicago, there seems to be little appetite for a contentious battle for the nomination to take on former President Donald Trump, and any potential challenge seemed likely nominal…
…Democratic voters flooded Harris’ nascent campaign with donations, raising $50 million in less than a day, suggesting the money will not be one of her struggles in her campaign against Trump.
“These are not ordinary times. And this will not be an ordinary election,” Harris wrote in a solicitation text to supporters on Monday asking for $20 donations.
Harris is also likely to benefit from the $240 million the Biden campaign reported it has on hand in the most recent disclosure, but here is some dispute over whether campaign finance laws allow for Biden to just hand it all over to Harris’s campaign…
…The biggest question for Democrats now may be who Harris will select as her vice president.
Speculation quickly fell to contenders in must-win swing states such as Shapiro, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, where Harris has already traveled frequently in this campaign.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. has won statewide races twice and could put back on the map a state that Democrats believe had largely slipped away from Biden by the time he exited the race.
With just four weeks until the convention, Democrats will have little time to vet a potential running mate and voters won’t have to wait long to find out: the running mate is historically announced in the days prior to the convention.
July 22, 2024: Gov. Whitmer Endorses Vice President Kamala Harris for President
Today, Governor Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. The governor issued the endorsement in unison with fellow governors in midwestern states: Governor J.B. Pritzker (D-Illinois), Governor Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), and Governor Tony Evers (D-Wisconsin)
“Today, I am fired up to endorse Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
“In Vice President Harris, Michigan voters have a presidential candidate they can count on to focus on lowering their costs, restoring their freedoms, bringing jobs and supply chains back home from overseas, and building an economy that works for working people. She’s a former prosecutor, a champion for reproductive freedom, and I know that she’s got Michigan’s back.
“That’s a stark contrast to Donald Trump, who stokes violence, overturned Roe, attacked our auto industry which hardworking families depend on, left office after losing 100,000 manufacturing jobs, and drove our economy into the ground last time he was in the White House.
“Vice President Harris has my full support.
“So, Michigan, let’s get to work. We cannot let Donald Trump anywhere near the White House. Let’s go!”
July 23, 2024: AP survey shows Kamala Harris backed by enough delegates to become Democratic nominee
Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump, according to an Associated Press survey, as top Democrats rallied to her in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his bid for reelection.
The quick coalescing behind Harris marked an attempt by the party to put weeks of internecine drama over Biden’s political future behind them and to unify behind the task of defeating Trump with just over 100 days until Election Day. Prominent Democratic elected officials, party leaders and political organizations quickly lined up behind Harris in the day after Biden’s exit from the race and her campaign set a new 24-hour record for presidential donations on Monday.
Several state delegations met late Monday to confirm their support for Harris, including Texas and her home state of California. By Monday night, Harris had the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot, according to the AP tally. No other candidate was named by a delegate contacted by the AP…
…Still, the AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee. That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats go through with a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.
Harris, in a statement, responded to the AP tally, saying she is “grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.”…
…Speaking to campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris acknowledged the “rollercoaster” of the last several weeks, but expressed confidence in her new campaign team.
“It is my intention to go out and earn this nomination and to win,” she said. She promised to “unite our Democratic Party, to unite our nation and to win this election.”
She quickly leaned into the themes that will be prominent in her campaign against Trump over the coming 100 days, contrasting her time as a prosecutor with Trump’s felony convictions — “I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said. — and casting herself as a defender of economic opportunity and abortion access.
“Our fight is for the future and also a fight for freedoms,” she said. “The baton is on our hands.”….
… Harris was headed to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday as her campaign for the White House kicks into high gear. The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy.
The AP tally is based on interviews with individual delegates, public statements from state parties, many of which have announced that their delegations are supporting Harris en masse, and public statements and endorsements from individual delegates.
Locking up the nomination was only the first item on the staggering political to-do list for Harris after learning of Biden’s plans to leave the race Sunday morning in a call with the president. She must also pick a running mate and pivot to a massive political operation that had been built to reelect Biden to boost her candidacy instead…
October 10, 2024: Harris May Finally Be Breaking Through To The Most Critical Voters (New Republic)
The New York Times reported Tuesday the good news that Kamala Harris leads in its polling for the first time since she entered the race. The Times/Siena poll is judged by FiveThirtyEight to be the most reliable, based on its track record and its transparency. It is also one of the more helpful polls when you want to take a deep dive into the electorate, because it makes available to the public detailed responses from key subgroups among likely voters.
The cross tabs in this latest Times/Siena poll offer something more surprising than the top line: mild encouragement that working-class voters, about whom I’ve been worrying a great deal, are finally warming to the Democratic candidate, Timothy Noah wrote.
I say “mild” because there’s no evidence yet that working-class voters are warming to Harris in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which CNN has identified as “the most consistent tipping point in American politics.”
During the past 32 years these states went Republican only once, when Trump won all three in 2016. If Harris wins these three, she wins the election. This isn’t her only path to the 270 electoral votes she needs to win. (MSNBC has some alternative scenarios here), but it’s the easiest path. And among seven swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, have the highest proportion of blue-collar workers.
Back to the good news. The Times reported that Harris is leading nationally, and that she’s gained ground among some key constituencies, including older voters, who are hugely important because (if you define “older” as 50 years or more) they cast out more than 60 percent of all ballots in 2024. Before he dropped out, Biden was leading with voters aged 65 and older, even though they usually lean conservative. (In 2020, they went for Trump.) But by mid-September the Times/Siena poll showed Harris losing to this group to Trump by seven percentage points, 44-51. The latest poll show Harris winning over-65s by two percentage points, 49-47. Hallelujah.
The Times did not report that Harris is gaining nationally among working-class voters, but she is. (Working-class voters are defined her as conventionally as votes lacking a collage degree.) Harris still lags Trump with this group in the Times/Siena poll, but since July she’s narrowed that gap from a dispiriting 15 percentage points to 11 percentage points. There’s still a lot of work to do, but as recently as mid-September, in a Times/Siena poll take immediately after the presidential debate, Harris was losing this group to Trump by an alarming 18 percentage points.
Harris’s gain, surprisingly — though not if you’ve been following these minutiae since 2016 — is not among nonwhite members of the working class. Because Harris is nonwhite herself, one would expect her to be increasing the Democrats’ traditional advantage here.
But the non-white working class (principally Latino men) have been drifting toward Trump since 2016, in spite of Trump’s escalating denunciations of Latino immigrants. According to a Times/Siena polls, Harris’s lead with nonwhite working-class voters (31 percentage points) is about where it stood in July (29 percentage points). Harris’s nonwhite working-class lead shrank briefly to 24 percentage points after her debate with Trump, but it’s now stabilized.
Where Harris is gaining some traction with white working-class voters, a group that, with the sole exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson. It’s doubtful that Harris will win white working-class voters outright in 2024, but since July she’s narrowed her deficit from 38 percentage points to 30 percentage points.
As with Harris’s gain with working-class voters overall, the improvement is mostly recent; In mid-September, Harris’s deficit with white working-class voters was 36 percentage points, and one week earlier (i.e., before her debate with Trump), Harris’s deficit was the same 36 percentage points. I would guess these white working-class voters are women, Timothy Noah wrote.
Naturally, these polling results could be outliers – or even garbage. The death of the telephone call (which I eulogized shortly before the 2016 election) forced pollsters to alter their methods before both and after the 2020 election, and we won’t really know how everything worked out until the next month.
But if polls aren’t great with absolute numbers, they’re pretty good at identifying general directions, and the general direction of at least the white working-class voters, is shifting toward Harris.
Perhaps Latino males will follow. It may help that Trump turned down Harris’s challenge to debate again, since Latino males are the only demographic group I’m aware of (judging from the nonwhite working class’s brief surge toward Trump in mid-September) that actually things Trump won the last one.
This was the same debate, you’ll recall, in which Trump groused about “all the people that are pouring into our country and killing people.” The heart wants what it wants.
Because the new Times-Siena poll does not break out results by state, we don’t know whether in recent weeks working-class voters drifted toward Harris in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to the same mildly encouraging extend they did nationally.
An October 8 Wall Street Journal article by Ken Tomas and Catherine Lucey (“Kamala Harris Struggling to Break Through With Working Class, Democrats Fear”) reports that a private poll last week by Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who’s running for reelection in Wisconsin, showed Baldwin up two points and Harris down three, with the difference attributed to working-class men.
The same story portrays Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer urging the Harris campaign to spend more time there; Harris’s last Michigan appearance was September 19. A September 30 New Yorker piece by Eyal Press about working-class voters in Pennsylvania has no new polling information and is mildly discouraging.
What we know from earlier Times/Siena polls is that working-class voters in these states were not moving toward Harris before October. A Times/Siena poll of likely voters in Michigan released September 28 showed virtually the same deficit (45-50 percent) that Harris had in a Times/Siena poll released August 10 (45-51 percent). In Pennsylvania, Harris did slightly worse in a Times/Siena poll released September 19 (42-55 percent) than she did in a Times/Siena poll released August 10 (44-52 percent), possibly because of the same peculiar Trump-debate bump from Latino men nationally.
In Wisconsin, Harris lost support from working-class voters in a Times/Siena poll released September 28 (42-54 percent) compared to a Times/Siena poll released August 10 (47-51 percent). Perhaps this too was a debate bump. But in all three states we know of no working-class movement toward Harris. Maybe it’s too recent to have shown up even by late September.
Multiple polls now show Harris gaining on Trump, and sometimes beating him, on the question of economic stewardship. Perhaps that’s why she’s gaining a bit among white working-class voters. There’s growing reason to believe Harris can win enough working-class support to win the presidency/ But her pitch to these voters still needs to improve. Perhaps the working-class vote will inspire her to do so.
October 11, 2024: Julia Roberts Stumps For Harris in Georgia (The Hill)
Julia Roberts stumped this week in support of Vice President Harris in the movie star’s home state of Georgia, one of the seven battleground states in the 2024 election, giving a speech in support of reproductive rights.
The Academy Award winner, who endorsed Harris in September, spoke during a Wednesday rally in Canton, urging the crowd to get more male voters in the campaign. She also spoke Thursday at an Atlanta event.
“I believe in Georgia. I wouldn’t have come home if I didn’t believe that we can accomplish really beautiful goals that will extend beyond our state’s borders,” Roberts said in Canton, according to Harper’s Bazaar. “I just hope that all the women here tonight talk to all the men that aren’t here tonight. And all you brave men who are here tonight, talk to all the other men who aren’t here tonight.”
Roberts, who was joined at the event by former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abram (D), pressed attendees to “tall to all the people” in their lives, no matter which party they are affiliated with.
“Maybe thy don’t understand things quite the way you do,” she said. “Bring them into a conversation. Make sure they’re registered to vote — even if they’re not voting for the person you think they should vote for. It is the United States of America, and we’ve been lacking in the ‘united’ part for so long.”
The campaign said earlier this week that Robert would headline five events this week in Georgia on Wednesday and Thursday. At the rally in Atlanta, Robert was joined by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who has been an active campaign surrogate, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Abrams.
“Talk to the people who don’t believe what you believe and gently lure them, gently, gently make them see what we see so clearly, because some people just don’t, and it doesn’t make them bad or wrong, it just means they’re not there yet, but we can get there,” Roberts said, according to The Georgia Recorder.
She is one of many big names who have supported Harris after President Biden passed the torch to her in July, when he decided not to seek reelection. Early voting in Georgia kicks off on Tuesday.
October 11, 2024: Georgia Recorder posted: “First second gentleman Emhoff, prominent Georgia Dems make Pride Weekend pitch for Harris“
The nation’s first second gentleman came to Georgia this week in an attempt to upgrade his title to first gentleman.
Doug Emhoff swung through Georgia this week with stops in Newnan, metro Atlanta and Athens for a series of receptions and campaign stops aimed at convincing voters to promote his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, to president. At an Atlanta stop, Emhoff helped kick off the city’s Pride Weekend, touting Harris’s record on LGBTQ issues.
“She is going to stand up for your freedom, not try to take your freedom away,” Emhoff said. “To love who you want to love, marry who you want to marry, and just the right to be who you want to be.”
He was joined by well-known Georgia Democrats including Sen. Raphael Warnock, former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and film star Julia Roberts, a native of Smyrna.
Emhoff said Harris has prioritized LGBTQ rights throughout her career, which began as district attorney in San Francisco, which has historically had a prominent LGBTQ community.
An attorney and professor of law, Emhoff said the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion and sent the matter back to states, could lead to the erosion of other rights related to a right to privacy.
“That includes gay marriage, that includes loving who we want to love, that includes the right to contraception, and so many other fundamental core rights that we thought were locked in,” he said.
State Rep. Sam Park, a Lawrenceville Democrat and the first openly gay man in the state Legislature, said a Harris presidency would help counteract anti-LGBTQ laws likely to arise during next year’s state lawmaking session.
“This wave of fear, hate, and anti-LGBTQ-plus fervor is sweeping our nationals politics too,” he said. “IT’s why we need Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. (Tim) Walz to protect our fundamental freedoms and rights. The past four years, Vice President Harris has seen the historic expansion of LGBTQ families’ freedoms, and she will continue that fight when we elect her as our next president.”
Emhoff also played the role of attack dog against Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump, seeking to paint him as an extreme, out of touch and dangerous.
“He’s a degraded version of an already horrible person, and the just keeps getting worse,” Emhoff said. “So, he’s an even bigger threat this time, and so people just need to see it, see what’s right in front of your face.”
Emhoff said Harris’ winning coalition will include moderates and Republicans who are put off by Trump’s style and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Roberts encouraged the friendly crowd, many of whom bore signs reading “Out for Harris-Walz” or the word “Vote” in pride rainbow colors, to speak with friend and family who do not support Harris.
“Talk to the people who don’t believe and gently lure them, gently, gently make them see what we so clearly, because some people just don’t, and it doesn’t make them bad or wrong, it just means they’re not there yet, but we can get there,” Roberts said.
They’ll have just under a month to do so — Election Day is Nov. 5, and early voting begins on Tuesday in Georgia. Recent polling suggests Harris might be a slight underdog to pick up Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, but still within reach of a win in the state. Polling sites 538 and Real Clear Politics both show Trump with a lead of less than one point in the Peach State.
October 15, 2024: The Guardian reported: “Inside the media blitz: Three days on the campaign trail with Kamala Harris“
The View, America’s most popular daytime talkshow, was on commercial break. Harris sat writing absence notes for students who were missing class to attend the live broadcast. “Is it just today, right?” the vice-president laughed.
She handed over the letters written on notepaper headed “The Vice President.” One said “Dear teacher, please excuse Dani from class today. She was hanging out with us. Best and thank you for being an educator. Kamala.”
It was an unscripted moment that the studio audience loved but TV viewers wouldn’t see. Harris, running the shortest presidential campaign in modern US history after being unexpectedly plunged into the fight when Joe Biden dropped out, is exploring ways to reveal herself to a wary nation.
Still a relative unknown quantity, the former California attorney general and US senator is trying to name the electorate feel comfortable about the prospect of President Kamala Harris.
In less than three months the vice-president has raised a record-breaking billion dollars. She has tried to put daylight between herself and the unpopular incumbent figure of Biden, and turn the election into a referendum on her opponent, former US president Donald Trump. She has sought to bring positive vibes to a country that seems to have anxiety in its bones. She has set out to persuade America to do something that it has never done before in its 248-year existence: elect a woman to the White House – and a woman of colour to boot.
Harris has done it while carrying the burden of the hopes of millions in America and beyond who fear the return of Trump to the White House would herald a new dark age for American democracy and the planet. Opinion polls suggest the race is currently in a dead heat.
Last week the Guardian joined her for three days on the campaign trail, flying hundred of miles across country on Air Force Two, trailing her motorcade as it halted in Manhattan and putting questions to her in two off-the-record gatherings and disarmingly open on others. She could display righteous anger, for example about Trump’s affinity with dictators, but also a light touch and homespun wit. She was comfortable in her skin.
No presidential candidate has enjoyed the use of Air Force Two since Democrat Al Gore in 2000. At first glance, it resembles the presidential plane, Air Force One, painted blue and white with the typeface for the legend “United States of America” similar ro the one used in the Declaration of Independence.
But inside it is a less glamorous affair: dated decor of dark brown chairs, white cabin walls, a blank TV screen. Inside a seat pocket was a tatty, dog-eared leaflet entitled: “C-32A. Boeing 757-22 safety”. There is no wifi or inflight entertainment. The main clues as to its special status is a vice-presidential seal on a wall and on phone handsets beside windows.
Another clue: the frequent appearance of Harris, after boarding but before takeoff, to ask reporters “what you got?” on an off-the-record basis with aides keeping watch. The 59-year-old stands at 5ft 4in and a quarter, her makeup and clothing immaculate, her gaze fixed on each reporter as they ask and she answers. The mood is convivial. The charisma factor is high. The responses are enlightening rather than revelatory.
Harris’s willingness to hold such interactions might explain a mismatch between her perceived media shyness and a more generous attitude among some journalists. She was long criticized for dodging interviews, a topic the Guardian raised with her in person. But a candidate’s willingness to engage with reporters behind the scenes can add a frisson of exclusivity; doing so off the record can give the impression of authenticity.
Notably, in the days before she was a candidate, Harris would often struggle to attract media interest in her travels, sometimes flying with a solitary reporter. Some allies believe this explain why she was underreported and under appreciated for so long.
This week, however, she launched an intense media blitz. Having told her story at the Democratic national convention in Chicago, and prosecuted the case against Trump at their only debate in Philadelphia, she was now on a kaleidoscopic interview tour designed, as CNN put it, to project “in four words, ‘I am a normal person.” (And that Trump is not.)”
Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “The secret of this campaign is that Donald Trump needs to say less and Kamala Harris needs to say more. The more that Trump says, the worse he gets; the less that Harris says, the worse she gets. Just as their politics are exactly the opposite, so are their strategies.”
Harris appears on 60 Minutes, a heavyweight current affairs programme on the CBS network that has interviewed every major presidential candidate for more than half a century. (Trump agreed but then backed out). She went on the podcast Call Her Daddy in an appeal to young women who follow host Alex Cooper’s frank conversations about sex and relationships (a recent episode was entitled “Heather McMahan: Blow jobs, hall passes & frat daddies”).
During the interview, Cooper asked about the Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sander’s comments that the vice-president “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she does not have biological children of her own. Harris politely pointedly: “I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble.”
On Tuesday, as Harris’s motorcade wended its way, streets in midtown Manhattan were temporarily closed down. Hundreds of busting New Yorkers stopped and stared, learning the art of patience or taking pictures or videos on their phones.
The View is based in new studios in New York’s Hudson Square, with a fast-talking, microphone-wielding warm up artist keeping the audience amped up. Harris entered to the strains of Beyonce’s anthem Freedom (a striking contrast to Trump’s lineup of aging white rockers) and was cheered to the rafters as she embraced Whoopi Goldberg and other co-hosts. She unveiled a policy plan to help the “sandwich generation” caught between caring for aging parents and children.
But history has shown that so-called softball interviews often lay the biggest traps. Harris, whose campaign is an awkward dance of trying to bask in Biden’s legislative accomplishments while shrugging off his perceived failures, was asked if she would have done anything differently from him over the past four years.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” she replied. Trump scented blood. With characteristic misogyny, he called Harris’s “dumbest answer so far” and complained “The Lamestream Media doesn’t want to pick up the story, dumb women on the show wish they never asked her the question that led to that Election Defying answer, but the Internet is going WILD.”
A chorus of Trump allies joined in but they were not alone in detecting a gaffe. Steve Schnmidt, a Trump critic who worked on Senator John McCain’s 2008 campaign and first floated the idea of Sarah Palin as his running mate, invoked misstatements by past presidential candidates who went on to lose.
Schmidt wrote on Substack: “The question is whether this quote joins John Kerry’s ‘I voted for it before I voted against it.’ Or John McCain’s ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” Or Mitt Romney’s 47% quote: “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.”
He called it the Harris campaign’s worst day by far since her entry into the race. “It follow a trend line of creeping incoherence and contradiction within the core message that could be politically fatal if not arrested — immediately.”
Still, as Harris left the View studios, a group of students let out a noise that was half-cheer, half-shriek. She proceeded to an office block containing the satellite radio station SiriusXM and sat with Howard Stern, whose show has an audience that is 73% male and 85% white. It was her most personal interview of the campaign yet.
Among the snippets: she ate a family-sized bag of Doritos after Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. She works out on an elliptical every day and liked Special K cereal. Her first job was cleaning test tubes at her mother’s laboratory and she got fired. Her favorite Formula One driver is Lewis Hamilton. She went to see the band U2 ant the Sphere in Las Vegas and recommend going with a “clear head” – meaning not high on drugs — because “there’s a lot of visual stimulation.”
There was also a rare insight into the weight on her shoulders. Harris said: “I literally lose sleep, and have been, over what is at stake in this election. I mean, honestly, I end the day pretty much every day, these days, asking myself, what can I do more? Because the stakes or so high.”
Harris has been reluctant to indulge identify politics and embrace her status as the first Black woman and first woman of south Asian heritage to be a major party nominee. Stern asked if there were people who will not vote for a woman because she is a woman. Harris replied: “Listen I have been the first woman in almost every position I’ve had, so I believe that men and women support women in leadership and that’s been my life experience and that’s why I’m running for president.”
It was a far cry from Hillary Clinton describing her own nomination as “a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union” and issuing a clarion call for women to break “the highest, hardest glass ceiling”. Kate Cohen, a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper wrote: “This time, we’re quiet – from superstition, maybe, or from knowing how hope can plat a land mine in your heart. Kamala Harris is keeping it quiet, too, campaigning in unisex Converse sneakers rather than in heels.”
The past two elections have been dominated by class and race. This one might be determined by gender. A recent NBC poll found that men favour Trump over Harris by 12 points, 52% to 40%. Among women, Harris led Trump by 21 points, 58% to 37%. That adds up to a historic gap of 33 points.
The day finished with The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, a comedian whose brand of political satire has medicinal value in the toxic ear of Trump. The late-night show with live band takes place before an audience in Broadway’s Ed Sullivan Theater, which opened in 1927 with a young Cary Grant and hosted the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
In an amusing 40-minute interview, Colbert gave Harris two implicit auditions. One was the perennial commander-in-chief test. She proved fiercely authoritative, reminiscent of her finest moments at the debate, in eviscerating Trump as a threat to democracy and national security.
“He openly admires dictators and authoritarians,” she said, her voice rising in indignation. “He has said he wants to be a dictator on day one if he were elected again as president. He gets played by these guys. He admires so-called strongmen and he gets played because they flatter him or offer him favour.”
Reacting to an account by journalist Bob Woodward that Trump sent Covid testing kits to Russia’s Vladimir Putin even as US citizens were in need, Harris urged the audience: “Think about what this means on top of him sending love letters to Kim Jong-un. He thinks, well, that’s his friend. What about the American people? They should be your first friend.”
Colbert’s other test recalled a longtime staple of election campaigns: which candidate would you rather grab a beer with? The host made it literally by pulling out two cans of Miller High Life (chosen by Harris in advance). She took a sip of “the champaign of beers” and said that the last time she drank beer was at a baseball game with husband Doug Emhoff.
Soon after, Harris delivered a sharp jab at Trump’s expense: “When you lost millions of jobs, you lost manufacturing, you lost automative plants, you lost the election, what does the make you? A loser. This is what somebody at my rallies said. I thought it was funny.”
Colbert remarked: “It’s accurate. It’s accurate.”
Harris confessed: “This is what happens when I drink beer!”
Gore’s defeat in 2000 is often attributed to the notion that, stuff and cerebral, he would have been less fun over a beer than his Republican rival George W Bush. Bill Galston, who worked on the Gore campaign, said: “Likability counts in politics everywhere but particularly when you’re dealing with someone who’s going to be a major presence in your life, for good or ill, for the next four years.”
“A fair number of people are asking themselves, do I want to spend the next four years with this person in my living room or on my computer? Will I dread or worry about each encounter? Or will it be relatively pleasant even if not always agreeable in substance? That does matter.”
As a candidate, Harris has projected happy warrior, placing a bet that the politics of joy will elevate rather than clash with the national mood. As vice-president, she must still discharge solemn duties. On Wednesday, hunkered down at a New York hotel, she joined Biden on a call with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (according to Woodward’s book, Biden has previously described Netanyahu as a “sone of a bitch” and “bad fucking guy”). She remains under pressure from progressive to distance herself from Biden’s Gaza policy.
Harris also took part in a briefing on preparations for Hurricane Milton and gave phone interviews to CNN and The Weather Channel. Part of her mission was to to counter disinformation spread by Trump and his acolytes.
In the afternoon, the vice-president flew on Air Force Two from New York to Las Vegas, dissembling in desert heat and beholding the kitsch delights of Sin City including replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and Great Sphinx of Giza. Earlier that day the Tropicana hotel and casino, a relic of the mob era, had been reduced to rubble in a controlled implosion. Elsewhere, gamblers were still trying their luck at blackjack or in vast arcades of slot machines. It was a metaphor-rich environment for a candidate seeking to prove her authenticity, avoid campaign mishaps and counter accusations that she is risk averse.
She is doing it all in completion with a man about whom little mystery remains. While some Americans are still asking, who is Kamala Harris?, no one, it seems is asking who is Donald Trump? As the Atlantic magazine noted in an endorsement of Harris this week, “No voter could be ignorant by now of who he is. Opinions about Trump aren’t just hardened — they’re dried out and exhausted.”
Kamala Harris, however, still has a story to tell in her quest to become the 47th president of the United States – even though it cuts against her instincts.
“It feels immodest to me to talk about myself, which currently I’m doing right now,” she admitted to Stern on Tuesday. “A friend of mine actually said, look, this is not a time to worry about modesty because, obviously, you gotta let people know who you are.”
October 15, 2024: Harris peppered with questions by Charlamagne tha God’s Audience (The Hill)
Vice President Harris was peppered with questions Tuesday about her plan for Black Americans from radio host Charlamagne tha God and his listeners in an interview that’s part of a late-campaign media blitz before Election Day.
The interview began with Charlamagne asking Harris to respond to criticism about the quality of her responses to questions and the notion that she is repetitive, which she characterized as “discipline.”
She also addressed “the weight of the moment” in her role running against former President Trump.”
“I feel an extraordinary weight of responsibility right now to do everything I can,” Harris said. “When I go to bed at night, in addition to my prayers, I will ask, ‘Have I done everything I could do today?”
‘This is a margin-of-error race. It’s tight,” she added. “But I’m going to win. I’m going to win.”
Throughout the interview, Harris shared her position on topics such as reparations — which she said she supports studying — building up Black homeownership and the opportunity to grow generational wealth.
The interview was an opportunity for Harris to speak directly to Black voters, a group that polls show overwhelmingly support her over Trump. But some of the interview questions also revealed some disenchantment about voting and whether the candidate could fulfill the promises she’s making on the campaign trail.
At one point, Charlamagne pointed out that Harris is facing the issue if misinformation in this year’s election, particularly on her history as a prosecutor.
“One of the biggest pieces of misinformation, one of the biggest allegations against you, is that you target and locked up thousands of Black men in San Francisco for weed,” Charlamagne said. “Some say you did it to boost your career. Some say you did it out of pure hate for Black men. Please tell us the facts.”
Harris immediately denied the allegations and instead said she was “the most progressive prosecutor” in California. She then pledged to work to decriminalize marijuana if elected president.
“I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations, and specifically Black men,” Harris said.
Questions about Black men and what Harris plans to do for them popped up repeatedly during the interview — unsurprising as polls show her support among the demographic slipping while Trump’s numbers are improving.
Harris released an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” on Monday, but one caller asked her why she didn’t do so sooner and why support for Black men is only sought out during election cycles.
“I’ve been in this race about 70 days. You can lookout all my work before those 70 days to know that this, what I’m talking about right now, is not new and is not for the sake of winning this election,” Harris responded. “This is about a long-standing commitment, including the work that I’ve done as vice president and before, when I was senator.”
Harris’s time as a senator came up at another point in the interview when a caller from Nevada asked what she plans to do to address police brutality and its disproportionate impact on Black Americans.
The vice president quickly pointed to her work on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) during her time in the upper chamber.
“We couldn’t get the votes in Congress,” she admitted. “But what we did when we came in office and during that time that I’ve been vice president, is we passed an executive order… that says that for federal law enforcement, the following things have to happen, which we, for the first time, put in place: no-knock warrants, barring chokeholds, national database for use to collect information and track police officers who have broken the law.”
“I’m still going to always work on getting the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” she added. “Part of the work that I’m doing as a candidate for president of the United States includes lifting up those candidates who are running, either for reelection or for the first time to Congress, who are supportive of what we need to do on all of the issues we’ve been discussing.”
While the interview was Harris’s chance to speak directly to Black voters, Charlamange also pressed her on recent comments that she said she would not do anything specifically for Black people.
Harris denied making the statement, reminding Charlamange at the start of the conversation around misinformation.
Later, she added that she is running “to be a president for everybody.”
“But I am clear-eyed about the history and the disparities that exist for specific communities, and I’m nog going to shy away from that,” Harris said. “It doesn’t mean that my policies aren’t going to benefit everybody, because they are. Everything I just talked about will benefit everybody.”
October 16, 2024: Harris leading Trump by 5 points among likely voters (The Hill)
Vice President Harris is leading former President Trump by 5 points nationally among likely voters, according to a Marist Poll survey released Wednesday.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), received 52 percent support, while Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), revived 47 percent support in the poll conducted Oct 8-10. One percent of respondents supported a different candidate.
Harris’s lead has grown since the previous Marist poll, conducted Sept. 27-Oct. 1, when she led Trump by 2 points among likely voters, with 50 percent support to his 48 percent.
The Trump-Vance ticket performs slightly better against the Harris-Walz ticket among registered voters, who back the Democratic ticket over the Republican ticket by 3 points, 51 percent to 48 percent.
A similar 3-point margin separated the tickets in the previous poll in September, when 50 percent of registered voters backed Harris and 47 percent backed Trump.
In the latest poll of likely voters, Trump leads Harris among independents, 54 precent to 44 percent. The 10-point margin has grown from his 4-point edge against Harris in the previous poll.
The latest poll comes less than three weeks before voters head to the polls on Election Day.
“There are two things to keep an eye on in the closing weeks of the presidential contest. First, when you look at those who are likely to vote, Harris does better. So higher turnout favors her,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement.
“Second, don’t overlook that the gender gap, which is expected to be unusually high, cuts both ways. Trump carries men, and Harris carries women,” Miringoff added.
The race remains neck and neck between the two major party nominees. In the latest Decision Desk HQ/The Hill national polling average, Harris leads Trump by 2.8 percentage points, 49.7 percent to 46.9 percent.
The latest Marist Poll included 1,401 likely voters and had a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.
October 17, 2024: Early-voting surge seen as advantage for Harris campaign (The Hill)
The Harris campaign and Democratic groups are working hard to push their supporters to vote early in this year’s election.
Team Harris wants to maximize its early advantage, especially given that some Democratic-leaning groups — notably young people – are seen as unreliable voters come Election Day.
The hope among Democrats is that an early-vote advantage could bolster Vice President Harris against the traditional GOP edge among Election Day voters.
There are encouraging signs for Team Harris so far, at least if the assumption is that early-vote numbers can be taken as an indicator of overall voter enthusiasm.
In Georgia, about 310,000 votes were cast on Tuesday alone. The secretary of state’s office noted that this was a massive increase over the figures for first-day voting either in the 2020 presidential election or the 2022 midterms, each of which say roughy 135,000 Georgians vote.
Early voting “helps Democrats,” Democratic strategist Basil Smikle, said, adding that he believed this was one of the reasons why former President Trump specifically, and Republicans generally, have in the past cast aspersions on some methods of early voting, including the widespread use of drop boxes.
Trump has been notably less hostile to early-voting methods this year — a change that is perhaps as close as he will come to a tacit admission that his previous rhetoric hurt his own party.
That said, Democrats are still more inclined to take heart from strong early-voting numbers.
Smikle said such data points are “certainly a symbol of an engaged electorate, an electorate that has been paying attention, especially in this past few weeks, and wants very passionately to engage in our democracy.”
Harris and top surrogates have been crisscrossing the country this week, focusing on the pivotal battleground states where early voting has begun or is about to start. Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), traveled to North Carolina for the first day of early voting Thursday, and Second gentleman Doug Emhoff traveled to Georgia, where early voting began Tuesday.
The vice present told a rally Monday in Eire, Pa., to vote early, highlighting how the country is seen as a bellwether for how the country votes.
“In Eire County, you can vote early in person,” she said. “Now is the time to make your plan to vote, and if you have already received your ballot in the mail, please do not wait.”
Early voting rose sharply in 2020, when President Biden won the White House amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health concerns made more people inclined to use other forms of voting rather than going to the ballot box in person on Election Day.
Even as the pandemic is receding in memory, the pattern established at the 2020 election seems to be holding.
Trump isn’t ceding the early-voting battlefield this time around, however. He visited Georgia on Tuesday — a visit clearly times to tie in with the start of early voting in the Peach State.
“Early mail-in voting in your state is underway, and early in-person is underway. But I’ll tell you what” I’m hearing very good things,” Trump said during the rally in Atlanta.
Last Sunday, in a social media post, Trump encouraged Arizonans to vote immediately once the early voting period began the next day.
“GO VOTE the minute the polls open tomorrow, and get everyone you know to vast their ballots for Trump and the Republicans at every level!” Trump wrote.
Democrats see their push to spur early voting as part of a bigger effort to increase overall turnout. Broadly speaking, party partisans and political scientists tend to believe high-turnout elections favor Democrats and low-turnout elections favor Republicans.
The GOP tends to be more confident of its overall chances in midterm elections than in presidential years, for instance. That’s because the most reliable voting blocs, including older people, tend to lean Republican, while groups with spottier records of turnout, including young people and, to some extent, voters of color, tend to lean Democratic.
Early voting also allows campaigns to keep tabs on who has voted, in order to focus their get-out-the-vote efforts on those voters who are still outstanding until Election Day.
“For Democrats, the reason why you want to early vote is because you’ve got a voter file, you know the people who are your reliable voters. Every one of those voter who vote early — you think, “OK, I don’t have to worry about that voter anymore’, and you don’t have to worry that something is going to happen on Election Day like someone’s kid gets sick of car breaks down,” said Jamal Simmons, a former communications director to Harris.
Some Democrats chalk up the push for early voting from the Harris campaign as a way to just make sure that their core supporters vote. These voices note that taking the time to vote on the first Tuesday in November can be tough for some Americans.
“A vote is a vote, whether it’s early or on day of. We have a lot of voter who have a lot of day demands on their lives, right? Which isn’t to say Republicans don’t, but we have to get the votes in, because it might b hard for them on Election Day,” said Al Mottur, a Democratic strategist and bundler at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. “It’s always good to bank the votes if you can get them and use the enthusiasm that exists.”
Mark Longabaugh, another Democratic strategist, agreed.
“From a technical standpoint, when you are able to identify your voters and get them a ballot, you are going a long way toward banking the ballot,” Longabaugh said. “If you are doing good, solid, grassroots politics, you want people to vote early if you can, because it’s banking a vote.”
But Longabaugh noted — as did other sources interviewed for this story — that there are dangers in extrapolating too much about the election’s outcome from early-vote numbers.
The veteran strategist noted that, at the start of his political career, Republicans typically fared better in early voting, partly because the GOP tended to have a better-financed get-out-the-vote effort in general. His larger point was that early voting patterns are in a constant state of flux.
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said that optimism about Harris’s chances based upon initial early-vote turnout is predicated on the belief that patterns from 2020 will repeat themselves.
“That time, it favored Democrats. Trump and Republicans have been very mixed-message in terms of early voting, and certainly many Republicans are very leery of it,” Zeilzer said. “But Republicans have also been working to get people to vote early.”
“It is really hard to read the tea leaves, and the dynamics seem a little different this time,” he added. “I don’t think we can read into this that it is automatically good for Democrats.”
For now, though, Democrats will cling to the optimism that the strong early-vote numbers are providing.
“I think it’s encouraging,” Longabaugh said. “Anytime in a battleground state that the vote is robust, I think that’s probably good for Democrats.”
October 23, 2024: The Guardian view on the US presidential election 2024: a Democratic government is the one we need (The Guardian)
It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr Trump has shown the he will undermine the election process, with allies spreading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimize the results.
There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has passed and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies.
His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr Trump would adopt many of these intolerance, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House he would interpret as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power.
Mr Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor.
A Historic President
Since Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight following Joe Biden’s exit, her campaign has been a masterclass in political jujitsu, deftly flipping Mr Trump’s perceived strengths into glaring weaknesses. With a focus on joy, the vice-president sharply contrasted with Mr Trump’s grim narrative of US decline. In their sole televised debate, Ms Harris skillfully outmaneuvered Mr Trump, who fell into her traps, appearing angry and incoherent. She is confident and composed. He sounds unhinged.
The Trump agenda threatens to dismantle voting rights, women’s rights and minority rights – not just reversing decades of social progress but burying it. Mr Trump was behind the shredding of reproductive rights. The conservative forces rallying to him are now intent on imposing a national abortion ban, with – should he win – dire implications for IVF and birth control. Republicans have been hurt in the polls by being associated with such unpopular policies – a weak spot that Ms Harris should keep exploiting.
The vice-president has energized Democrats with savvy media appearances while appealing to swing voters. Progressives, determined to defeat Mr Trump, remain committed to freedom and equality. But Ms Harris has disappointed those who have urged her to take a stand on US complicity in Israel’s bombing of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. Downplaying war crimes, as arms flow to Israel, has already harmed Democratic chances in key swing states like Michigan.
In a political system where style often rivals substance, perception is crucial. While Ms Harris hasn’t made her race and gender central to her campaign, her victory would be historic: she would be the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be president. Symbolism matters to her base. Her candidacy rallied key constituencies – the young, women, African Americans and Hispanics – who were cooling on Mr. Biden. This election is a leap of faith in Ms Harris, who offers a sense of possibility for the future, while Mr Trump clings to a reactionary past…
October 25, 2024: Jeff Bezos reportedly killed the Washington Post’s Kamala Harris Endorsement (The Verge)
The Washington Post’s editorial page had drafted an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president when its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, intervened to cancel its publication, The Washington Post reports. In its place, The Post ran a bizarre column by its current publisher (and former Rupert Murdoch henchman) Will Lewis, saying The Post would not endorse anyone.
In his editorial, Lewis cited the Post’s decision not to publish an endorsement in the race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon would later be implicated in the Watergate scandal, which generated 69 indictments and 48 criminal convictions in one of the biggest political corruption scandals in American history.
“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis wrote. (It is unclear who the “we” is here. Lewis? Lewis and Bezos? Some secret third group?) “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
This is now the second American newspaper, after The Los Angeles Times, to kill a Harris endorsement at the owner’s behest. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong similarly blocked a planned endorsement, prompting the newspaper’s editorials editor to resign in protest.
The Post’s union says it is “deeply concerned” that the paper would do this just 11 days before an “immensely consequential” election. “The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management has interfered with the work of our members in Editorial.”
Readers are already canceling subscriptions, the statement notes. Neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan resigned his position as editor-at-large, according to Semafor’s Max Tani.
The Washington Post, which bears the motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” published endorsements of candidates for Virginia’s 7th district on Oct. 13 and for senate in Maryland on Oct. 2. It has routinely published investigations into Donald Trump that allege wrongdoing and illegal behavior.
Two Washington Post board members, Charlie Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg, wrote the Harris endorsement, according to The Columbia Journalism Review. David Shipley, the editorial page director, told staff the endorsement was “on track, adding that ‘this is obviously something our owner has an interest in,” according to The CJR Today, Shipley told the board there would be no endorsement. That as followed by Lewis’s peculiar editorial.
NPR also reported Shipley had approved and then canceled the editorial, saying that Shipley “told colleagues it was being reviewed by Bezos.” Bezos’s other companies have contracts with the American government. Among them: Amazon’s $10 billion cloud contract with the NSA, and Blue Origin’s $3.4 billon cloud contract with NASA to build a lunar lander.
“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” said Marty Baron, the former Washington Post executive editor, in a text message to the Post. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
October 28, 2024: “Progress 2028” may look like a Democrat response to “Project 2025,” but it’s not. (CBS Media)
At first glance, an initiative called “Progress 2028” appears to be a progressive version of “Project 2025,” the conservative blueprint spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation that includes policy proposals for the next president.
However, Progress 2028 is not linked to Vice President Kamala Harris or any progressive group, according to an analysis by CBS News; rather, it is a campaign funded by conservatives with the goal of linking Harris to policy ideas she has not supported in her presidential campaign.
According to Virginia State Corporation Commission records shared by OpenSecrets, a conservative nonprofit called Building America’s Future, registered Progress 2028 on Sept. 23. The website progress2028.com was registered three days later.
Building Americans Future has received millions from conservative supporters, including billionaire Elon Musk, according to The Wall Street Journal, and has promoted Trump campaign material while running ads critical of the Biden administration.
What does Progress 2028 claim?
The website makes a number of false claims about Harris’ positions. It says she would prioritize a nationwide gun buyback program and is committed to banning fracking, which she says she will not do. Its Facebook ads also incorrectly state she “WILL FIGHT TO EXPAND MEDICARE FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS” as well as give them drivers licenses and housing subsidies.
These claims do not reflect Harris’s policy positions or campaign platform. In fact, undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for Social Security benefits and Medicare, according to the Social Security Administration, and there is no evidence Harris is attempting to change these policies.
During the Democratic primaries in 2019, Harris previously expressed support for banning fracking and buyback programs for assault weapons alone, but during her 2024 presidential run she said she no longer supports either proposal and would not ban fracking.
A Harris-Walz campaign spokesman told CBS News that Progress 2028 is a “lie to deceive voters.”
The group behind Progress 2028 spent more than $265,000 on such ads in the week between Oct. 15 and Oct. 21, according to Facebook’s Ad Library.
Progress 2028 launched new ads as recently as Saturday, Oct. 26.
Progress 2028’s Facebook ads have received millions of impressions, through their own social media accounts have had limited engagement so far. A Facebook pager for Progress 2028 has less than 100 followers.
“This type of political advertising isn’t new and has been found across the media landscape for decades,” said Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels in a statement. Meta also noted it requires a disclaimer for political ads and will block new political ads during the final week of the campaign, a practice they introduced in 2020.
Project 2025 remains a talking point of campaign
Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Harris, have repeatedly claimed that former President Donald Trump is involved in or will follow Project 2025.
Trump has not adopted the blueprint as his campaign platform and has attempted to distance himself from it. However, dozens of former Trump administration officials contributed to Project 2025, and CBS News identified at least 270 proposals out of 700 in their published blueprint that match Trump’s past policies and current campaign promises.
A number of polls in recent months suggest that a majority of Americans view Project 2025 unfavorably.
October 29, 2024: Kamala Harris Campaign Buys Ad On Sphere As Nevada Polls Are Tied (Gizmodo)
Kamala Harris will start running an ad on the Las Vegas Sphere starting on Thursday, according to a press release for the presidential campaign Tuesday. It’s the first time a political campaign has advertised on the Sphere and it’s part of an intense get-out-the-vote effort as the polls in Nevada show Harris in a dead heat against neo-fascist Donald Trump.
The $2.3 billion Sphere was opened in late 2023 and aside from being a concert venue, also has 580,000 square feet of LED displays that can play advertising material. Advertising on the Sphere reportedly costs about $450,000 per day, but campaigns that buy an entire week can get a discount. Big days in Las Vegas, like New Year’s Eve, can fetch daily ad rates as high as $1.2 million, according to PR Week. It’s not immediately clear how much the ads are costing the Harris campaign.
The red-white-and blue Harris ad is available on YouTube and shows messages like “vote for freedom” and “vote for opportunity” along with a photo of the vice president. The message “when we fight, we win,” also flashes along with the words “when we vote we win.”
A political pin with the words “vote for reproductive freedom” is also displayed in the ad – a message the Democrats believe will help drive people to the polls. The 2022 midterm elections saw huge turnout for Democrats up and down the ballot, credited in large part to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which allowed women to make choices about their own bodies.
Trump, a convicted felon who spews racist garbage at every opportunity, appointed three of the justices instrumental in overturning Roe and perviously bragged about killing abortion rights in the country, though he sometimes tries to distance himself from that stance in public because it’s so unpopular.
The polling averages for Nevada couldn’t be closer if they tried. FiveThirtyEight’s average for the state currently has Trump up 0.2% over Harris. The Democrat previously had a lead of 1.2% in the state back in late August.
Nevada is one of seven states that are being worked hard by both campaigns where the FiveThirtyEight polling average margins are just as tight, including Wisconsin (+0.1% Harris), Pennsylvania (+0.3% Trump), Michigan (+0.7% Harris), North Carolina (+1.2% Trump), Georgia (+1.5% Trump), and Arizona (+1.8% Trump).
“In the days before Election Day, Team Harris-Walz is pulling out all the stops to get voters to the polls,” the Harris campaign said in a press release Tuesday. “In Nevada, the Sphere activation will be a critical piece of our efforts, which also includes homepage takeovers of top newspaper, mobile billboards in Reno, Carson City, and Las Vegas.”
“The campaign has also invested in radio remotes and food trucks near early voting sites, hosted community Get Out The Vote block parties, and is ensuring strong presence at local events like the East Las Vegas ‘Cabalgata’ horse parade.”
Harris will make an appearance in Nevada on Thursday. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
October 29, 2024: Kamala Harris’s Campaign Went All-In on Social Media To Reach Young People. Did it work? (Teen Vogue)
Hours after President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign team unveiled its rebranded Kamala HQ social accounts, which were painted Brat green. Within days of Biden endorsing Harris as his successor, the vice president released her first ad, set to Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” The song quickly became the de factor anthem of the Harris campaign and less than two weeks later, rap star Megan Thee Stallion opened the first rally in Atlanta.
In August, Harris’s campaign rolled out camo hats that mimicked Chappell Roan’s “Midwest Princess” tour merch, shortly after Minnesota governor Tim Walz was added to the ticket. (Roan said she would vote for Harris but has not endorsed her.) During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, digital creators and young delegates were invited to capture Harris accepting the nomination.
More recently, Harris was interviewed by Alex Cooper on an episode of Call Her Daddy, a comedic podcast popular for sex and dating advice, and appeared with Beyoncé herself at a Houston rally.
Throughout her campaign, Harris has been working to court GenZ voters. Along the way, her 25 and under TikTok team has been crafting posts to make her go viral. But, is it working?
A new Harvard Institute of Politics Youth Poll found that 53% of young adults, ages 18 to 29, have seen a Harris meme online in the last month, with 34% saying it “positively influenced” their opinion of the candidate. The poll found Harris currently has a 31% lead over Donald Trump among likely voters in this age group. Results of a recent Data for Progress survey were less favorable, with Harris leading former president Trump by nearly 20% among young voters, who responded via SMS and web panel.
Despite polls that show Gen Z voters supporting Harris over Trump, some young voters have continued express reservations about a Harris presidency and say they still aren’t convinced she’s committed to their priorities.
Organizers tell Teen Vogue that young voters are most interested in Harris’s policies, not her marketing efforts. “Young people just want to know that they can afford rent [and] pay for school,” says Michelle Ming, political director of the youth-led immigrant advocacy network United We Dream Action. “They’re not really looking for someone who is going to be the, like, ‘brat’ candidate, or whatever.
In a mid-October statement, climate organization Sunrise Movement pointed to anticipatory swing state poll numbers as evidence that Harris has more work to do to get out the youth vote. “Harris is losing ground with young people,” the statement read. “To win this election, VP Harris must change course. The campaign urgently needs to work to energize and turn out millions of young voters.”
“Instead of spitting hairs for a small fraction of the undecided middle-aged, white, conservative voter base, she could be electrifying the Democratic base by talking about how she will take on big corporations, tackle the climate crisis, and end US military support for Israel’s assault on Gaza,” the statement continued.
Sunrise communications director Stevie O’Hanlon says, “The Harris campaign has generated a lot of momentum on the internet and reached people who were not reached by the Biden campaign.” Still, the climate organizer is among many activists who believe memes along won’t make Gen Z vote for the Democratic nominee.
Our young people have been burned before by politicians,” O’Hanlon says. “We’ve worked our hearts out to try and elect someone and then seen them walk back promises, make backroom deals, put the interests of big donors ahead of what our generation needs. Young people are rightfully skeptical of vague promises from politicians and want candidates to make clear commitments that we can hold them accountable to.”
Organizers in Pennsylvania and Georgia with “Ceasefire First, Votes Next” have echoed the sentiment that US military support of Israel is a major concern among young voters. Halah Ahmad, spokesperson for Listen to Wisconsin, tells Teen Vogue, that they have been working “to conduct pledge campaigns calling for action toward an anti-genocide agenda as a condition for our votes.”
“Harris’s campaign seems to be leaning toward conservative, pro-war voters, particularly given the actions and rhetoric of this Democratic administration to support escalating warfare by Israel, which can’t be seen as wholly separate from Vice President Harris as the presumptive leader of the party, Ahmad says.
In October, the Biden-Harris Department of Defense stated that the Pentagon approved sending an advanced anti-missile system and US troops to operate it to Israel. Israeli air strikes earlier this month on Beit Lahiya, a city north of the Gaza Strip, killed or left more than 87 people missing under the debris, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The ministry says that more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 97,000 others injured since the conflict began in October 2023.
“Nobody in Palestine can wait. We have to act now, Jewish Voice for Peace Action political director Beth Miller tells Teen Vogue. “Moving forward, we continue to be organizing to stop sending bombs to the Israeli government in order to save lives. And that is very clearly directed and connects to this election cycle because the truth is that if we want to defeat fascism in November, if Harris wants to win she needs to take very seriously the fact that they have to change their foreign policy on Palestine.”
United We Dream Action endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket in September but has continue to express disappointment in the way Harris frames conversations around immigration. More than 80 national, international, state, and local advocacy organizations, including United We Dream Action, alerted the Biden-Harris administration of their “strong opposition” to the Border Act of 2024. The bill, if brought back and passed in Congress, would make it more difficult for immigrants to gain asylum and will grant the Department of Homeland Security more money to hire agents at the US-Mexico border.
Immigrant youth and their allies with United We Dream Action have been texting young voters daily to gauge where they are with the presidential election. Despite critiques of Harris, they’ve learned Gen Z voter are “acutely aware of the incredible threat that Trump poses to our country if he’s elected again,” Ming says. “They’re holding these two very difficult truths at the same time.”
“Part of the reason that a lot of young people that we talk to in our networks are not really buying any of the memeification of Kamala Harris is because they’re really smart.” Ming says. “They know that when the campaign is trying to distract with a lot of flashy, surface-level, fun things, there’s this underlying problem that they still need to work really hard to address with young voters, which is this fundamental lack of accountability for a lot of the issues that young people care about today.”
Sunrise Movement organizers say they have contacted 900,000 young voters in swing states over the past two months. “What we hear is that there are many more young people who are deciding that there are many more young people who are deciding between voting for Harris or not voting at all than there are young people who are deciding between Harris and Trump,” O’Hanlan says.
Sunrise has not endorsed Harris, but it has been trying to motivate youth to defeat Trump. Multiple organizers were arrested at demonstrations in the past two months while trying to push Harris to issue a climate plan. O’Hanlon says her economic policy proposal is “a good start.”
If Harris does win on November 5, O’Hanlan says, “we’re going to be there on November 6 to hold President Harris accountable for delivering the plan,” she says, “so that we can have the kind of mobilization of our government that we need to protect our generation and millions of people around the world.
October 31, 2024: Conservatives in furor over Julia Roberts ad (The Hill)
A new Harris-Walz campaign ad voiced by actor Julia Roberts encourages women to vote for Vice President Harris in the presidential election, even if their husbands are backing former President Trump.
The Roberts ad, put out by Vote Common Good, also alludes to abortion rights, which is seen as a pivotal issue in a race that has seen Trump with big polling leads among male voters and Harris with a large lead among female voters.
“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the ad as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris.
The voter winks at a fellow female voter as her husband asks if she made the “right choice.”
Republicans have responded to the video with outrage, with some claiming that a wife lying about her vote is as bad as an affair.
“If I found out Emma was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair,” Fox News host Jesse Waters said on air Wednesday in a clip highlighted by Mediate.
Other GOP members including Charlie Kirk said the thought was “nauseating.”
In criticizing the ad, he discussed a husband working hard to afford his wife’s lifestyle, and then said a wife who lied to her husband about whom she backed would amount to undermining her husband.
“I think it’s so gross. I think it’s so nauseating where this wife is wearing the American hat, she’s coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail of to make sure that she can go you know and have a nice life and provided the family, and then she lies to him saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m gonna vote for Trump,’ and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth,” Kirk fumed to radio host Megyn Kelly.
“Kamala Harris and her team believe that there will be millions women that undermine their husbands and do so in a way that it’s not detectable in the polling,” he added.
In response to his statements, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo) called Kirk a “twit.”
Listen to this twit make Donald Trump’s closing argument. Women, you know what to do. #VoteKamala,” Cheney wrote in a post on the social media platform X.
Vote for Common Good, the nonprofit organization responsible for the ad, responds to backlash.
“The backlash from certain men who are horrified to think their wives might disagree with them actually proves our point. We know the MAGA movement is putting increased pressure on people, but we also know the strong will of Americans when they stand in the voting booth,” Executive Director Doug Pagitt said.
“Our work is all about helping people do the thing in the voting booth that they know in their heart they want to do. We’ve traveled the country and met people all over who have a higher calling for their vote than just what their political party of friends demand of them,” he added. “We know they’ll think about who they love the most when they vote and not just what their political party or religious community tells them to do.”
November 2, 2024: New York Times editorial board urges voters to choose Harris (The Hill)
The New York Times editorial board published an opinion piece on Saturday urging people not to voter for former President Trump.
“You already know Donald Trump. He is unfit to lead. Watch him. Listen to those who know him best,” the Times wrote to the public. “He tried to subvert an election and remains a threat to democracy. He helped overturn Roe, with terrible consequences.”
They hyperlinked just over two dozen opinion pieces published in the paper, condemning Trump’s actions that derailed abortion rights and painted him as an individual seeking to upset the country’s stability.
“Mr. Trump’s corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It’s his whole ethos. He lies without limit,” they added with words underlined in red. “If he’s re-elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents.”
The op-ed comes as prominent outlets including the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times decided not to endorse a candidate this election cycle. Their choice sparked widespread backlash and resulted in canceled news subscriptions.
Amidst the controversy, the New York Times hasn’t veered from their September opinion piece in which they dubbed Vice President Harris the only “patriotic” choice for president.
They concluded the November piece by urging Americans to vote with Trump’s past policies and statements in mind.
“Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances, and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better,” the board concluded. “Vote.”
November 2, 2024: ‘He could go to jail’: for Donald Trump, election day is also judgement day (The Guardian)
Losing an election for the highest office is a crushing blow that no candidate forgets. But when the American electorate delivers its verdict next week, the personal stakes for Donald Trump will be uniquely high. His fate will hover between the presidency and the threat of prison.
If he claims victory, Trump will be the first convicted criminal to win the White House and gain access to the nuclear codes. If he falls short, the 78-year-old faces more humiliating courtroom trials and potentially even time behind bars. It would be the end of a charmed life in which he has somehow always managed to outrun the law and duck accountability.
For Trump, Tuesday is judgment day…
…The property developer and reality TV star has spent his career pushing ethical and legal boundaries to the limit, facing countless investigations, court battles and hefty fines. Worthy of a novel, his has been a life of scandal on a gargantuan scale.
In the 1970’s Trump and his father were sued by the justice department for racial discrimination after refusing to rent apartments to Black people in predominantly white buildings. His property and casino businesses, including the Taj Mahal and Trump Plaza, filed for bankruptcy several times in the 1990’s and early 2000s.
Trump University, a business offering property training courses, faced multiple lawsuits for fraud, misleading marketing and false claims about the quality of its programmes. In 2016, Trump settled for $25m without admitting wrongdoing.
The Donald J Trump Foundation, a charitable organization, was investigated and sued for allegedly using charitable funds for personal and business expenses. Trump eventually agreed to dissolve the foundation with remaining funds going to charity.
Trump and his company were ordered to pay more than $350m in a New York civil fraud trial for artificially inflating his net worth to secure favorable loan terms. He is also known to have paid little to no federal income taxes in specific years which, although technically legal, was seen as some as bordering as unethical…
…Trump’s private life is no more savory. Trump has reported cheated on all three of his wives. More than two dozen women have come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against hum, most recently the former model Stacey Williams, who told the Guardian that Trump groped her in 1993 as Jeffrey Epstein watched in what felt like a “twisted game” between the two men.
During the 2016 election campaign, an Access Hollywood tape emerged in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women by their private parts. “When you’re a star, they let you do it.,” he said. “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything. Then last year a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing the columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5m…
…In May Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels, making him the first former present to be convicted of felony crimes. Sentencing is scheduled for 26 November (the judge delayed it from 18 September after the Republican nominee asked that it wait until after the election.)…
…The US’s system of checks and balances has been racing to keep up. Trump was charged by the special counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to Joe Biden in the run-up to the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. The former president and 18 others were also charged by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, with taking part in a scheme to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia.
Trump was charged again by Smith, with illegally retaining classified documents that included nuclear secrets, taken with him from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after he left office in January 2021, and then obstructing government demands to give them back…
…Early on, the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, did shine a light on Trump’s misdemeanors, drawing a contrast with her past as a courtroom prosecutor by stating: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”…
November 2, 2024: Harris and Trump tour key swing states as end of campaign daws close (The Guardian)
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battled to woo voters in the key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin on Friday, as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch.
Harris made several appearances in Wisconsin on Friday, including one that featured the musician Cardi B, while Trump visited both Michigan and Wisconsin.
At his rally in Warren, Michigan, on Friday afternoon, Trump tried to energize his voters, delivering an address replete with his characteristic fear-mongering about immigrants and tangents including musings about his hair.
He repeated his aggressive attack on Liz Cheney, one day after he first said the former Republican US representative should be under fire with rifles “shooting at her.”
Harris meanwhile sought to draw a contrast, emphasizing at a rally in Wisconsin in the afternoon that she is looking to be a political consensus builder.
“Here is my pledge to you. Here is my pledge to you as president. I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to the challenge you face,” Harris said. “I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by decisions that I make. I will listen to experts. I will listen to the people who disagree with me. Because, you see, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.
“He wants to put them in jail,” Harris said, repeating a like she’s frequently invoked of late. “I’ll give them a seat at the table.”
During his appearance in Warren in the afternoon and in Milwaukee in the evening, Trump repeatedly stoked fears about immigrants. In Warren, he said: “every state is a border state” and falsely claimed immigrants were being flown into the south-west.
He repeated some of his most racist trope, saying: “All of our jobs are being taken by the migrants that come into our country illegally and many of those migrants happen to be criminals, and some of them happen to be murderers.”
The former president tried to tie Harris to the most recent jobs report, which showed the US added just 12,000 jobs in October…
…At a rally for Harris in the evening, Cardi B. said the vice-president had inspired her to vote. “I’v been waiting for this moment my whole life,” the artist said.
“I’m not giving Donald Trump a second chance,” Cardi B said. “I am not taking any chances with my future and I damn sure ain’t taking no chances with the future of my children.
“I’m with Kamala.”
Harris praised Wisconsin’s motto, forward, and addressed young voters at the rally: “Here’s what I love about you guys. You are rightly impatient for change. You are determined to live free from gun violence. You are going to take on the climate crisis. You are going to shape the world you inherit. I know that. I know that.” she said.
She added: “And here’s the thing about our young leaders. None of this is theoretical for them. None of this is political for them. It’s their lived experience. It’s your lived experience, and I see your power, I see your power, and I am so proud of you.”
Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in swing state polling, and in Michigan, a Detroit Free Press survey shows her having a three-point lead.
Republicans and Democrats, as well as their unofficial boosters, have pounced on the tight split. Harris’s camp is pushing hard to convince young voters, who overwhelmingly support the Democrats, to go out and vote.
With mere days to go before the 5 November election, some Democrats in Michigan described being “freaked out” by the prospect of another Trump victory in this state. Biden won Michigan in 2020, but Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. Relying on polls showing her far ahead, the Clinton campaign had prioritized campaigning in other states, neglecting key Democratic segments such as Black communities and auto workers in the state.
Harris has spent more time on the ground in Michigan than in any other state with the exception of Pennsylvania. Harris and her running-mate, Tim Walz, have bounced around the state in an effort to attract Black voters, white suburban women, college students and factory workers.
November 2, 2024: Georgia surpasses 4 million votes on last day of early voting (The Hill)
The Georgia Secretary of State’s office announced 4,004,588 voters have cast ballots through early voting or absentee by mail in a Saturday release.
“This was the most successful Early Voting period on Georgia history because voters trust the process,” said Secretary Brad Raffensperger in a statement. “Four years of progress brought us here. We’re battle-tested and ready, regardless of what the critics say. And we’re going to hold those who interfere in our elections accountable.”
The Peach State’s election official noted that 92 counties exceeded 50 percent turnout for the first time in state history. A total of 3,761,968 people voted in person early while 242,620 sent in ballots by mail.
The Secretary of State’s office did flag that four individuals may have violated Georgia law by attempting to cast multiple ballots. They are investigating reports accordingly.
This week, the state also was subject to false reports about immigrants casting multiple ballots in videos on social media. Raffensperger addressed the posts in a Thursday statement, casting blame on foreign election interference.
“Earlier today, our office became aware of a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia IDs claiming to have voted multiple times,” he wrote. “This is false and is an example of interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of 2024 Presidential election.”
He said the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is investigating the matter and has asked Elon Musk to remove the post from the social media platform X in hopes of preventing false narratives.
“As Americans we can’t let our enemies use lies to divide us and undermine our faith in our institutions — or each other,” Raffensperger added.
November 2, 2024: Dead-Heat poll results are astonishing – and improbable, these experts say (The Guardian)
The US presidential election campaign enters its final week with polls showing Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in seemingly permanent deadlock and few clues as to which if them will prevail on Tuesday.
At the end of another unruly week that began with Trump’s racially charged rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, and was punctuated by celebrity endorsements, misogynistic comments and insults about “garbage” being leveled left and right, the Guardian’s 10-day polling average tracker showed little change from seven days earlier, with voter loyalty to their chosen candidate appearing imperious to campaign events, however seismic.
Nationally, Harris, the Democratic nominee, has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well within the margin of error of most polls.
The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat. The candidates are evenly tied at 48% in Pennsylvania, often seen as the most important swing state because it has the most electoral votes (19). Harris has single-point leads in the two other blue-wall states, Michigan and Wisconsin, while Trump is marginally ahead in the Sun belt: up by 1% in North Carolina and 2% in Georgia and Arizona. In Nevada his average advantage in the polls is less than a percentage point.
The latest polling has come against a backdrop of unprecedented levels of early voting in multiple states which, as of Friday, had seen about 65 million Americans already casting their ballots.
…One late burst of positive news for Harris, a Marist poll on Friday held out the possibility that she could break the deadlock: it showed her leading Trump by 3% in Michigan and Wisconsin and 2% in Pennsylvania. Winning all three states probably represents Harris’s clearest path to the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House. But the results remained within the survey’s margin of error…
This near-monolithic picture, emerging from multiple polls, has triggered suspicions among some analysts of “herding” around state poll averages by pollsters cautions of being proven wrong for the third time running after significantly underestimating Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020…
…Amid the uncertainty, one thing is certain: however close pollsters have depicted the contest for the past several weeks, as Harris and Trump go head to head in he final days of the most consequential US elections in decades, something has to give.
November 2, 2024: Harris widens lead on Trump in Virginia: Poll (The Hill)
Vice President Harris widened her lead over her opponent former President Trump in Virginia, with less than 3 days left before Election Day, according to a poll released on Friday.
The survey, conducted by the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College, found the vice president leading Trump by 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent, among Virginia’s likely voters.
Independent Cornel West and Libertarian Chase Oliver both received 2 percent support while Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 1 percent. Some 2 percent respondents were undecided while another 2 percent said they would choose another candidate.
The economy was the top issue for the likely voters at 43 percent. Abortion was second with 20 percent, followed by immigration at 12 percent. Foreign affairs was the fourth most important issue with 8 percent while crime was at 3 percent, according to the survey.
Respondents trusted Harris more on both crime and foreign policy, 49 percent to Trump’s 45 percent. They favored Trump on the economy, 49 percent to 46 percent. On immigration, both the White House contenders were tied at 48 percent. Likely voters had more faith in Harris on abortion, 57 percent to the Republican nominee’s 36 percent.
Approximately 46 percent of the poll’s respondents said that Harris cares and understands people like them, nearly 10 points higher than Trump’s 37 percent.
A Washington Post/Schar School released just over a week ago had Harris leading Trump by 6 points, 49 percent to 43 percent in Virginia.
The vice president is up by 5 percent over the GOP nominee, 50 percent to 45 percent, in Virginia, according to the latest The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s tally of surveys.
The survey was conduced from Oct 25 to 29 among 851 likely registered voters in the Old Dominion State. The margin of error was 4.6 percent.
November 2, 2024: Michigan city of Warren in focus amid worries about delayed election results (The Guardian)
Officials in the US battleground state of Michigan said they worry that the Democratic-leaning city of Warren could lag behind the rest of the state in reporting the results of Tuesday’s presidential election, raising early doubts about the state’s vote count.
Warren, unlike Detroit and most other cities in Michigan, opt not to take advantage of changes enacted in a 2022 state law allowing for up to eight days of pre-processing of absentee ballots, Reuters reported. Instead, the city of 135,000 people will wait until election day to verify and tabulate more than 20,000 mail-in ballots.
The potential delay from Warren has worried some Democratic leaders that it could leave the results appearing artificially high for Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday evening, and that the former president would seek to exploit the situation by falsely declaring victory in the state before all voter were in.
“If the state is close at all and we don’t have returns from Warren, which is our third-largest city, it’s going to create all kinds of concerns,” said Mark Brewer, an attorney and the former chair of Michigan Democratic Party. “It’s very, very worrisome.”
November 2, 2024: Slight popular vote win for Harris could equal Electoral College victory (The Hill)
A winning margin of just a couple of percentage points in the popular vote could translate into an Electoral College victory for Vice President Harris, a significant shift from the last two cycles where Democrats faced a significant disadvantage in the count.
The reason is shifts in the electorate that may allow Republicans to gain on Democrats when it comes to the popular vote, but that might not translate into more electoral votes for former President Trump and the GOP.
“Because of Republican gains in states like California, New York, Florida, it helps with the popular vote, and it even helps in the House, but it’s not efficient from an Electoral College standpoint,” said Zachary Donnini, a data scientist for Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).
“You can win some states that you win by a big margin, and they don’t help you anymore,” said Jason Roberts, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Winning a stat 80 to 20 doesn’t help any more than wining at 55 to 45.”
Democrats have mostly been the victim of this effect. Since 2020, Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. But they’ve won the Electoral College in just three of those cycles.
In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but fell shot of victory. She ran up the score on Trump when it came to the popular vote in states such as California and New York, but that was little solace when she won just 232 electoral votes.
To win the Electoral College, a candidate must secure at least 270 electoral votes.
Sixteen years later, Vice President Al Gore lost the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush, even though Gore won the popular vote.
In 2020, President Biden won both, but his advantage in the popular vote and Electoral College obscured how close the election was. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million and earned 306 electoral votes, but he only won in the key states that put him over the top by a few tens of thousands of votes at most.
Donnini said circumstances of the 2020 race allowed Trump to still have a chance in the electoral vote even if he lost by the popular vote by as much as 3.5 points. Biden won the popular vote by about 4.5 points.
This election cycle looks a little different.
If Harris wins the popular vote by 3.5 points, she would have an 80 percent chance or higher of winning the presidency, Donnini said. This is because polls show her performing better in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin relative to nationally.
As a result, Harris’s margin in the popular vote likely won’t have to be as large as past Democrats candidates margins.
“There’s a lot of random variation here based on this, but our DDHQ’s modeling, in our forecast right now, pegs that number in between 1.5 and 2.5 percent compared to the 3.7 percent it was in 2020,” Donnini said. “So we think it’s going to narrow, but we can’t be completely sure.”
Polls suggesting demographic shifts in each candidate’s support could explain some of the shift.
Chris Jackson, the senior vice president of public affairs for Ipsos, said Harris has not performed as well as Biden with minority voters but seemed to improve somewhat with white voters.
This could mean she loses some ground in Democratic strongholds like California and New York, while still comfortably winning them, but gains ground in key states needed for her to reach 270 electoral votes.
“Given the swing states, particularly the Midwestern swing states, are much whiter than the country as a whole, that stronger performance in white voters means that she’s got a little bit more space in those states to offset any potential losses with minority voters,” Jackson said.
He said Clinton was just a “coin flip” away from winning the Electoral College in 2016, only losing by a fraction of a percentage point in the key states. A 2-point Harris win in the popular vote, the same as Clinton, could deliver her the White House this year.
But just a 1-point win could fall short.
“I think anything less than 2 points, that’s a real, real troubling warning sign,” Jackson said.
And the possibility remains, although unlikely, that the opposite effect could happen with Trump winning the popular vote and losing the Electoral College.
John Cluverius, the assistant director of the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said he could see either scenario occurring, with Trump barely winning the popular vote and Harris barely wining the electoral vote if the former president can cut into the traditional Democratic lead in California and New York enough.
Another possibly viable path could be Trump “runs up the score” among Latino in states like Texas and Florida. Polls and recent elections have shown Republicans making gains with Latinos, through a majority of the group still favored Democrats.
Cluverius said a “traditional” situation of Harris winning the popular vote but not the electoral vote seems more likely, but some may underestimate how much certain key districts in blue states are talking about issues like immigration, which voter widely favor Republicans on.
“I think people going in with a lot of assumptions about the electorate that are based on that historical data,” he said. “Now that’s not a bad thing, but it also means that people are going to assume that what’s going to happen is traditional Democratic strength in the popular vote and traditional Republicans strength in the electoral vote.”
Cluverius added that the amount of split-ticket voting could be critical in determining the margins. Polling has regularly shown Democratic Senate candidates performing relatively strong compared to the top of the ticket, though in recent history, split-ticket voting has not occurred in significant numbers.
“Because there is so much uncertainty in the race, because the race is so close, we have to have a broad mindset in terms of what could possibly happen,” he said.
Jackson noted that more people ultimately support Harris and Trump and will vote for them in the election, meaning the side better be able to mobilize their supporters may be the victor. He said polling can sometimes struggle to adequately measure this, as it can measure how likely someone is to vote but not guarantee their behavior.
“We all should be prepared for a very close race to something that seems more of a blowout, which in a survey context, is still only a few percentage points, he said.
November 2, 2024: Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here’s how: (Des Moines Register)
Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa – a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential content as a certain Trump victory.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states.
The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has abandoned his independent presidential campaign to support Trump but remains on the Iowa ballot, gets 3% of the vote. That’s down from 6% in September and 9% in June.
Fewer than 1% say they would vote for Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver, 1% would vote for someone else, 3% aren’t sure and 2% don’t want to say for whom they already cast a ballot…
…The results come as Trump and Harris have focused their attention almost exclusively on seven battleground states that are expected to shape the outcome of the election. Neither has campaigned in Iowa since the presidential primaries ended, and neither campaign has established a ground presence in the state.
A victory for Harris would be a surprising development after Iowa has swung aggressively to the right in recent elections, delivering Trump solid victories in 2016 and 2020.
The poll shows that women – particularly those who are older or who are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.
“Age and gender are the two most dynamic factors that are explaining these numbers,” Selzer said…
November 2, 2024: Walz predicts women will send Trump a message on Election Day ‘whether he likes it or not.’ (The Hill)
Vice President Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, (D), predicted Saturday that women will send former President Trump a message on Election Day “whether he likes it or not.”
“Now, here’s the good news, I kind of have a feeling that women all across this country, from every walk of life, from either party, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump next Tuesday, November fifth, whether he likes it or not,” Walz said at a campaign event in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Saturday as the crowd then cheered and started chanting “vote.”
Walz comment in the battleground state of Arizona comes just a few days after Trump said at a Green Bay, Wis., rally that his advisor told him not to characterize himself as a “protector” of women.
“My people told me about four weeks ago, I would say, “No, I want to protect the people; I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women,” Trump said.
“They said, ‘Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say.’ I pay these guys a lot of money; can you believe it? the GOP nominee continued. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them. I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things.”
The former president made a similar comment in September during a rally.
“I am your protector. I want to be your protector,” he said. “As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go ‘Oh, he wants to be their protector.” Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector.”
Harris slammed Trump’s remarks, calling them “offensive.”
“It actually is, I think, very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” Harris said on Thursday. “And this is just the latest in a series of reveals by the former president on how he thinks about women and their agency.”…
November 2, 2024: “Harris and Trump tour key swing states as end of campaign draws close” (The Guardian)
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battled to woo voters in the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin on Friday, as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch.
Harris made several appearances in Wisconsin on Friday, including one that featured the musician Cardi B, while Trump visited both Michigan and Wisconsin.
At his rally in Warren, Michigan, on Friday afternoon, Trump tried to energize his voters, delivering an address replete with his characteristic fear-mongering about immigrants and tangents including musings about his hair.
He repeated aggressive attack on Liz Cheney, one day after he first said the former Republican US representative should be under fire with rifles “shooting at her.”
Harris meanwhile sought to draw a contrast, emphasizing at a rally in Wisconsin in the afternoon that she is looking to be a political consensus builder.
“Here is my pledge to you. Here is my pledge to you as president. I pledge to seek common ground and commonsense solutions to the challenges you face,” Harris said. “I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make. I will listen to experts. I will listen to the people who disagree with me. Because, you see, unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.”
“He wants to put them in jail,” Harris said, repeating a line she’s frequently invoked of late. “I’ll give them a seat at the table.”
During his appearance in Warren in the afternoon and in Milwaukee in the evening, Trump repeatedly stoked fears about immigrants. In Warren, he said: “every state is a border state” and falsely claim immigrants were being flown into the south-west.
He repeated some of his most racist tropes, saying: “All of our jobs are being taken by the migrants that come to our country illegally and many of those migrants happen to be criminals, and some of them happen to be murderers.”
The former president tried to tie Harris to the most recent jobs report, which showed the US added just 12,000 jobs in October.
And he again attacked Cheney, one day after he called her a “radical war hawk” in a conversation with Tucker Carlson and said she should face being under fire with rifles “shooting at her.”
“Let’s put a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face,” he said.
On Friday, Trump’s comments were similar.
“She’s tough one. But if you gave Liz Cheney a gun, put it into battle facing the other side with guns pointing at her. she wouldn’t have the courage or the strength or the stamina to even look the enemy in the eye, Trump said.
“That’s why I broke up with her,” Trump commented, prompting some laughs.
There was time for reflection, too. “We’re gonna miss these rallies, aren’t we?” Trump asked the crowd at one juncture.
At another point, he remarked: “I’m studying my hair. It looks not so good today … not a good hair day for me, ay ay ay.”
At a rally for Harris in the evening, Cardi B said the vice-president had inspired her to vote. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life”, the artist said.
“I’m not giving Donald Trump a second chance,” Cardi B said. “I am not taking any chances with my future, and I dam sure ain’t taking no chances with the future of my children.
“I’m with Kamala.”
Harris praised Wisconsin’s motto, forward, and addressed young voters at the rally: Here’s what I love about you guys. You are rightly impatient for change. You are determined to live free from gun violence. You are going to take on the climate crisis. You are going to shape the world you inherit. I know that. I know that,” she said.
She added, “And here’s the thing about our young leaders. None of this is theoretical for them. None of this is political for them. It’s their lived experience. It’s your lived experience, and I see your power, I see your power, and I am so proud of you.”
Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in swing state polling, and in Michigan, a Detroit Free Press survey shows her having a three-point lead.
Republicans and Democrats, as well as their unofficial boosters, have pounced on the tight split. Harris’s camp is pushing hard to convince young voters, who overwhelmingly support Democrats, to go out and vote.
With mere days before the 5 November election, some Democrats in Michigan described being “freaked out” by the prospect of another Trump victory in this state. Biden won Michigan in 2020, but Trump defeated Hillary Clinton here in 2016. Relying on polls showing her far ahead, the Clinton campaign had prioritized campaigning in other states, neglecting key Democratic segments such as Black communities and auto workers in the state.
Harris has spent more time on the ground in Michigan than in any other state with the exception of Pennsylvania. Harris and her running-mate, Tim Walz, have bounced around the state in an effort to attract Black voters, white suburban women, college students, and factory workers.
Last week, Barack Obama rapped with hip-hop legend Eminem at a rally in Detroit. Bernie Sanders, beloved by the Democratic left, tried to reassure young voters in the state that Harris is not just another corporate-minded Democrat.
Trump, too, has upped his efforts to woo Michigan voters. On Friday, the former president stopped in Dearborn to court Arab-American voters, many of whom had been left deeply disappointed by Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Many of the city’s Muslim leaders declined to meet with Trump, including Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah H Hammoud.
“The architect of the Muslim Ban is making a campaign stop in Dearborn. People in this community know what Trump stands for — we suffered through it for years,” Hammoud, a Democrat, said on X. “I’ve refused a sit down with him although the requests keep pouring in. Trump will never be my president.”
Hammoud, who is neither supporting Harris nor Trump in the race for president, also called fellow members of his party. “To the Dems – your unwillingness to stop funding & enabling a genocide create the space for Trump to infiltrate our communities. Remember that.”
Meanwhile, Michigan residents have for months been bombarded by campaign ads, many of which feature exaggerated or blatantly false claims. With the state seeing $759m in political ad spending, Michigan ranks among the top for such disbursements in this election, per NPR.
November 2, 2024: Harris has slight lead over Trump ahead of Election Day: YouGov (The Hill)
Vice President Harris is narrowly outpacing former President Trump just days before Election Day, according to YouGov’s final presidential estimate.
The election model, unveiled Friday, shows Harris leading Trump by 3 points nationally, 50 percent to 47 percent. The latest update shows the vice president with 240 electoral votes compared to her GOP rival’s 218. Around 80 remain a toss-up.
The previous model from Oct. 17 showed Harris ahead with 250 electoral votes and the former president with 219. In that release, on 69 voters were considered toss-ups.
YouGov listed Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia as the likely battlegrounds — leaving off Michigan.
In Nevada, Harris leads Trump with 50 percent support to his 48 percent. In Arizona, Trump takes the lead, outpacing Harris by the same 3-point margin, the model shows.
In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the vice president has a slight lead over the former president, 49 percent to 48 percent. She also outpaces the Republican nominee by 2 points in Wisconsin, 49 percent to 47 precent, according to the pollster.
Though in Georgia, the model shows the GOP nominee with a 1-point edge over his Democratic rival, 49 percent to 48 percent.
The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s polling index shows Harris with a razor-thin lead over Trump nationally, — 48.3 percent to 48 percent.
The national poll interviewed 57,784 registered voters from Oct. 26 to 31. The margin of error was 4.2 percentage points.
November 2, 2024: Dead-heat poll results are astonishing — and improbable, these days experts say (The Guardian)
The US presidential election campaign enters its final weekend with polls showing Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in seemingly permanent deadlock and few clues as to which of them will prevail on Tuesday.
At the end of another unruly week that began with Trump’s racially charged rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden and was punctuated by celebrity endorsements, misogynistic comments and insults about “garbage” being leveled left and right, the Guardian’s 10-day polling average tracker showed little change from seven days earlier, with voter loyalty to their chosen candidate appearing relatively impervious to campaign events, however seismic.
Nationally, Harris, the Democratic nominee, has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well with the margin of error of most polls.
The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat. The candidates are evenly tied at 48% in Pennsylvania, often seen as the most important swing state because it has the most electoral votes (19). Harris has single-point leads in the two other blue-wall states, Michigan and Wisconsin, while Trump is marginally head in the Sun belt: up by 1% in North Carolina and 2% in Georgia and Arizona. In Nevada, his average advantage in the polls is less than a percentage point.
The latest polling has come against a backdrop of unprecedented levels of early voting in multiple states which, as of Friday, had seen about 65 million Americans already casting their ballots.
It is notoriously difficult to predict anything about future results from early voting, though some 58% of early voters in Pennsylvania aged 65 or over were registered Democrats, Politico reported, compared with 35% from the same cohort who were registered Republicans; the two main parties have roughly equal numbers of registered voters in the state among older adults. About 53% of the demographic voted for Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020, even while he lost the state to Joe Biden.
Trump, in contrast with four years ago, has encouraged his supporters to cast early ballots. That Democrats are turning out in greater numbers may have been a positive indicator for them in a bellwether state where commentators have predicted turnout is key to the result. Democratic strategists have claimed they have a 10%-20% lead in senior voter turnout across the three blue-wall states.
But in a fractured political landscape that has featured threats of retribution from Trump, accusations of fascism and racism from Harris, and warnings that democracy itself is on the ballot, the bigger picture — that uniformity, over a prolonged period – has seasoned observers scratching their heads.
The polling-analysis site FiveThirtyEight’s simulator – based on a collection of national state data – on Friday morning forecast that Trump would win 53 times out of 100 compared with 47 times for Harris was, again, similar to a week before.
In one late burst of positive news for Harris, a Marxist poll own Friday held out the possibility that she could break the deadlock: it showed her leading Trump by 3% in Michigan and Wisconsin and 2% in Pennsylvania. Winning all three states probably represents Harris’s clearest path to the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House. But the results remained within the survey’s margins of error.
This near-monolithic picture, emerging from multiple polls, has triggered suspicions among some analysts of “herding” around state poll averages by pollsters caution of being proved wrong for the third time after significantly underestimating Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020.
Writing on NBC’s website, Josh Clinton, a politics professor at Vanderbilt University, and John Lapinski, the network’s director of elections, pondered whether the tied race reflected not the sentiments of the voters, but rather risk-adverse decision-making by pollsters. Some, they suggested, may be wary of findings indicating unusually large leads for one candidate and introduce corrective weighting.
Of the lat 321 polls in the battlegrounds, 124 – nearly 40% – showed margins of a single point or less, the pair wrote. Pennsylvania was the most “troubling” case, with 20 out of 59 polls showing an exact tie, while another 26 showed margins of less than 1%
This indicated “not just an astonishingly tight race, but also an improbably tight race,” according to Clinton and Lapinski.
Large numbers of surveys would be expected due to the randomness inherent in polling. The absence of such variation suggests that either pollsters are adjusting “weird” margins of 5% or more, Clinton and Lapinski argued – or the following second possibility, which they deemed more likely.
“Some of the tools pollsters are using in 2024 to address the polling problems of 2020, such as weighting by partisanship, past vote or other factors, may be flattening out the differences and reducing the variation in reported poll results,” they write.
Either explanation “raises the possibility that the results of the election could be unexpectedly different than the razor-close narrative the cluster of state polls and the polling averages suggest,” they added.
Amid the uncertainty, one thing is certain: however close pollsters have depicted the contest for the past several weeks, as Harris and Trump go head to head in the final days of the most consequential US election in decades, something has to give.
November 3, 2024: Harris and Trump both rally in Milwaukee area Friday Night (CBS News)
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned in the Milwaukee area Friday night, going into the final weekend of the 2024 campaign. Harris didn’t deviate much from her standard stump speech in West Allis, Michigan, a Milwaukee suburb of Milwaukee. She urged people to vote who haven’t yet cast their ballots.
“No judgement, no judgment at all — but do get to it,” Harris said, before reviewing the list of her campaign promises and litany of grievances against Trump.
Cardi B, who spoke shortly before Harris, told the crowd she didn’t intend to vote this year, but, “Kamala Harris changed my mind.”
She called Trump a “bully” and said, “I can’t stand a bully, but just like Kamala, I stand up to one.” Cardi B repeatedly said she was nervous about speaking at the rally. Women, she said, have to work 10 times harder than men “and still, people question us.”
November 3, 2024: Spike Lee, Kerry Washington, Jon Bon Jovi and others join Harris on campaign trail. (CBS News)
With just three days until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is making her final push in two battleground states – Georgia and North Carolina – as she seeks to strengthen turnout among voters in the South.
At a rally and concert in Atlanta, Georgia, Harris will be joined by director Spike Lee, Singer Victoria Monét will deliver remarks. There will be performances by 2 Chainz, Big Trigger, Monica and Pastor Troy.
Harris will then head to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she will be joined by actress Kerry Washington, who will deliver remarks. There will be performances by Brittney Spencer, Jon Bon Jovi, Khalid and The War and Treaty.
No Democratic presidential candidate has carried North Carolina since Barack Obama in 2008, although it had been decided by less than 3 points in every election since.
Harris is planning to make multiple stops in Michigan on Sunday, shifting to a Democratic-leaning state in the so-called Blue Wall where her allies believe she is vulnerable.
November 3, 2024: Harris criticizes House speaker for suggesting GOP would probably try to cut federal semiconductor aid (CBS News)
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson for his suggestion that Republicans would probably try to cut government subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing.
“It is my plan and intention to continue to invest in American manufacturing,” the Democratic nominee told reporters in Milwaukee.
Johnson has walked back his comments, saying he only meant that Republicans would “streamline: the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. The Louisiana Republican has said that there will be a “very aggressive” first 100-day agenda if Republicans win back control of the White House.
The CHIPS and Science Act has pumped billions of dollars into producing computer chips in the U.S. and has supported union jobs in battleground states.
Harris said Johnson’s comments are just “further evidence of everything that I’ve been actually talking about for months now about Trump’s intention to implement Project 2025.” She is referring to the multi-prong conservative initiative that includes a detailed blueprint for the next Republican president to usher in a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch. Former President Donald Trump has denied any involvement with Project 2025.
The vice president said Johnson only walked back his comments because “their agenda is not popular.”
“That’s why I have the support of Democrats and independents and Republicans because they want a president of the United States who stops playing politics with their lives,” she said.
November 3, 2024: Harris planning to vote by mail, campaign says (CBS News)
Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to cast her vote for the 2024 election by mail, her campaign said on Saturday.
Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communication director, said she did not have an exact update on whether or not her ballot has been submitted.
He said the vice president wants to “model behavior for other voters to continue to take advantage of the various modes of voting that we have.”
“On Tuesday, it is simply the last call for those final, low propensity voters that this campaign need to turn out and continue to convince all the way through polls closing on election Day, Tyler said.
Harris is a resident of California, where mail-in ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day. County elections offices must receive the ballot no later than Nov. 12.
November 3, 2024: Walz knocks on doors in Nevada (CBS News)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz went door-knocking in Nevada on Saturday as part of a final push to motivate voters ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, was joined by Nevada Rep. Dina Titus and a local field organizer as they knocked on doors in the Meridiana neighborhood in Henderson.
At one home, Walz spoke with a couple and acknowledge the race will be close in Nevada and conceded “We won’t get all of them.” He encouraged them to get their friends to vote.
Just before, Walz stopped by a local Democratic field office to kick off a Las Vegas “Get out The Vote” canvass launch. He was joined by Eva Longoria, Jordana Brewster, and Gina Torres to speak to volunteers and campaign organizers gathered at the office.
“You chose to come here because you love America and you know that all the privileges that come to this with this country,” Walz said during his remarks. “There is responsibility and generation who have come before us [that] protected this democracy in times of peril. And I think we all know we’re in one of those moments.”
Walz next heads to Arizona for a campaign stop.
November 3, 2024: Harris, Trump planes in tarmac standoffs in Wisconsin, North Carolina in final push in battleground states. (CBS News)
In a sign that both campaigns are targeting voters in battleground states as Tuesday’s election nears, the airplanes carrying the presidential and vice presidential candidates have been forced to share the tarmac.
Air Force Two — which Vice President Kamala Harris uses for travel – was parked near the plan used by former President Donald Trump at the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport overnight into Saturday. The candidates had spent the night at hotels just three blocks apart after dueling rallies on Friday night.
On Saturday, both planes were again parked near each other at Charlotte Douglas International Airport as both Harris and Trump held campaign events in North Carolina.
A CBS News reporter at the airport said both planes wrecked about half a football field apart.
Meanwhile, the planes used by Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were both parked near each other for the second day in a row.
On Friday their planes shared the tarmac at Detroit’s Wayne County Airport. It was the same sight at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas on Saturday.
November 3, 2024: Iowa Poll finds Harris leading Trump in the Hawkeye State (CBS News)
A poll released Saturday took the political world by surprise when it showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump in Iowa.
The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters, this after the same poll conducted in September showed Trump holding a four-point lead. The new poll had a margin of error of 3.4%.
In 2020, Trump easily carried Iowa, defeating President Biden there by a margin of 53% to 45%. The state has six electoral votes.
The last Democrat to carry Iowa was former President Barack Obama back in 2012. And this cycle, it has not been considered to be among the battleground states.
November 3, 2024: Harrison Ford endorses Harris, saying the nation needs a president who “works for all of us again” (CBS News)
Actor Harrison Ford endorses Harris in a series of videos released on Saturday in partnership with the Harris campaign, noting that with the endorsement, he’s “doing something I never thought I’d do: Telling people I’ve never met who I’m voting for, and why I think they might do the same.”
“This election I’m casting my ballot for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” Ford said, noting that he doesn’t agree with all of their policies or believe they’re perfect candidates. “But these two people believe in the rule of law, they believe in science, they believe that when you govern, you do so for all Americans.”
Ford added “these are people I can get behind,” urging that the nation needs a president “who works for all of us again.”
The “Indiana Jones” start said he’s been voting for 64 years and “never really wanted to talk about it very much.” But he said when former members of the Trump administration speak out against the former president and his ability to lead, “you have to pay attention.”
Ford contrasted the two candidates, saying Trump will demand “unquestioning loyalty.”
“Kamala Harris will protect your right to disagree with her about policies and ideas,” Ford said. “And then, as we have done for centuries, we’ll debate them, we’ll work on them together. And we’ll move forward.
November 3, 2024: How infrequent voters, GOP defectors could tip battlegrounds for Trump or Harris (CBS News)
With such a close presidential race estimated in the battleground races, a host of factors could tip the 2024 election. We focus on two that have potential to cause the key states to break towards Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. The first has to do with infrequent voters, and the second depends on how successful the Harris campaign is at peeling off Trump’s previous supporters.
In order to see how this scenario could play out, we tweak specific parameters in our Battleground Tracker model that is trained on tens of thousands of survey responses collected during the campaign. The resultant estimates below illustrate a range of possibilities to be on the lookout for this week…
Scenario 1: Infrequent voters show up big, driven by Trump-leaning men
The swingiest segment of the electorate — and most challenging to estimate in polling — consists of infrequent voters. We define them here as registered voters who didn’t cast a ballot four years ago.
Scenario 2: Harris peels off more Trump ’20 voters, driven by GOP women
The 2024 race is marked by a sizable gender gap, with the Harris campaign emphasizing reproductive rights and the state of U.S. democracy. Related to this, the Harris campaign has been deploying messengers like former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney to persuade moderate Republicans to back Harris this year.
That includes the millions of GOP primary voters who cast votes for Nikki Haley, even after Trump had clinched the party nomination. Most of these voters backed Trump in the 2020 general election.
November 3, 2024: Walz meets with HBCU Students in Georgia (CBS News)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz met with HBCU students from Spelman and Morehouse colleges on Sunday morning during a campaign stop in Atlanta, Georgia.
Walz asked the students how they were feeling, and while most of them expressed confidence, a young man from Morehouse said: “You want me to be hones with you? Scared.”
Walz, in response, said: “Well, you know what I hear? Somebody told me, look nauseously optimistic. Look it is okay before any big thing in your life, you always feel like, you always feel nervous. This is a big thing. But the biggest thing I’ve been telling everybody to get over that is going to action. You got, made an action to come out her today, all voted, getting people to vote.”
He said the election in Georgia is going to be “razor thin,” but that he was optimistic.
Look, it is such a privilege. I’ve done this, been on Earth for 60 years,” Walz said. “The idea that Wednesday morning we could wake up with Madam President more ready than almost anybody.”
November 3, 2024: Harris cast her ballot via mail, won’t say how she voted on California measure (CBS News)
Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed she voted in the 2024 election via mail, though declined to say how she voted on a key ballot measure in her home state of California.
Harris, speaking to reporters while campaigning in the battleground state of Michigan confirmed her mail-in ballot was on its way to her home state.
“I’m going to trust the system that it will arrive there,” she said.
In California, mail-in ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day. County elections offices must receive the ballot no later than Nov. 12.
As for the ballot initiative that would reverse criminal juste reforms approved in recent years, Harris punted on the question.
“I am not going to talk about the vote on that because, honestly, it’s the Sunday before an election, and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it,” she said.
The initiative, if passed, would make the crime of shoplifting a felony for repeat offenders and increase penalties for some drug charges, including those involving synthetic opioid fentanyl. It also would give judges the authority to order people with multiple drug charges to get treatment.
November 3, 2024: Trump and Harris head to North Carolina in campaign’s final weekend (The Guardian)
Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump head to North Carolina on Saturday to try and clinch support in the south-eastern battleground state just three days before Tuesday’s US presidential election.
It will be the fourth day in a row that vice-president Harris and former president Trump visit the same state on the same day, underlining the critical importance of the seven states likely to decide the race, which opinion polls show to be on a knife’s edge, Reuters reported.
More than 70 million Americans have already cast ballots, according to the Election lab at the University of Florida, below the record early-voting pace in 2020 during Covid-19, but still indicating a high level of enthusiasm.
Saturday also marked the last day of early voting in North Carolina, where over 3.8m votes have been cast, while the state’s western reaches are still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s deadly flooding.
Harris plans appearances with rock start Jon Bon Jovi in Charlotte, the biggest city in North Carolina, which is tied with Georgia for the second-biggest prize of the swing states. Each has 16 votes in the Electoral College, where 270 are needed to secure the presidency.
North Carolina backed Trump in 2020 but elected a Democratic governor on the same day, giving hope to both parties.
November 3, 2024: How Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to dispute the election results – again (CNN)
Donald Trump is re-using his 2020 playbook to baselessly claim the 2024 election is being stolen from him and is being joined by allies with big megaphones amplifying his falsehoods ahead of Election Day.
Trump has made repeated claims that Democrats are cheating in the election, and he’s twisted isolated problems with voting leading up to Election Day, all in an effort to prime his supporters to falsely believe the election is not legitimate if he loses.
This includes saying voting by noncitizens is a widespread problem. He’s claimed there’s no verification for overseas military ballots. He’s claimed election officials are using early voting to commit fraud. He’s claimed that massive swaths of mail-in ballots are illegitimate, even as he’s encouraged his supporters to use mail voting this time around.
Most importantly, Trump has claimed that the only way Vice President Kamala Harris can win the election is by cheating.
The claims are baseless.
It’s unfortunate that he sees his path back to the White House was denigrating a basic American institution like elections,” said Ben Ginsberg,a CNN contributor and Republican campaign attorney who has served as general counsel for several previous GOP nominees. “If you’re just starting to pay attention to this, the claims that you’re hearing in 2024 about the election system not being reliable is extraordinarily similar to what he and his supporters were saying in 2020.”
In 2020, Trump lost a close election, and then spent two months trying to overturn the result. In 2024, with polls signaling a razor-thin election in seven battleground states, election officials are bracing for another firehose of misinformation about the result – especially if the election hinges on the results of hundreds of ballots in one or two states.
Election experts say that despite the viral and hyperbolic claims, the vast majority of voters will almost assuredly experience a swift and uneventful experience whenever they vote, whether it’s through early voting, vote-by-mail or on Election Day.
As early voting has gotten underway, many local and state official are showing they intend to proactively knock down falsehoods about the election that spread like wildfire on social media.
Voter fraud is rare, but with it does happen, it is usually caught thanks to the layers of safeguards built into the voting processes, according to nonpartisan election experts.
“It’s really useful to remind people in this time of heightened anxiety, all the way around, that they’re still in charge (to decide the election outcome),” said Justin Levitt, a CNN contributor and election law expert at Loyola Law School who served as a voting rights advisor in the Biden White House.
“There’s a ton of noise out there right now. If this election is more than a 537-vote margin in any of the swing states, none of the noise will matter,” Levitt added, referencing the margin in Florida during the disputed 2000 presidential election.
Still, that hasn’t always stopped conspiracy theories from spreading on social media — including from Elon Musk, the CEO of X, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into boosting Trump’s campaign. Election officials warn they’re outmatched and struggling to combat the wave of falsehoods coming from Musk and his platform…
November 3, 2024: Likely voters nationwide tilt toward Harris, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds (CNN)
The latest national polling from ABC News/Ipsos shows Vice President Kamala Haris with a narrow lead over former President Trump among likely voters.
Forty-nine percent support Harris, compared with 46% who support Trump. That’s similar to a previous ABC News/Ipsos poll released last weekend, which showed Harris at 51% nationally to Trump’s 47%.
Likely voters are broadly dissatisfied with their choices, according to the ABC/Ipsos poll. Sixty percent say they are at least somewhat dissatisfied with Harris and Trump as major-party candidates for president this year — with nearly three quarters saying the country is on the wrong track (74%).
Perceptions of how the candidates would change things differently widely. A narrow majority (51%) say Trump would “shake things up in a bad way” if elected, while just 31% say Harris would do the same. Still, more see Trump’s brand of change as shaking up things in a good way than say Harris (45% for Trump compared with 35% for Harris). A sizable 34% say Harris would “leave things pretty much as they are.” A scant 4% of likely voters think things would remain as they are should Trump win Tuesday’s election.
More likely voters nationwide say Harris than Trump has contacted them to ask for their vote (45% say Harris has, 40% Trump has); among likely voters in seven key battleground states, 67% say they’ve heard from Harris’s campaign, 60% from Trump’s.
With the results of the new poll incorporated, the latest CNN Poll of Polls average of recent high-quality national polling of likely voters finds that 48% of likely voters nationwide back Harris and 47% support Trump, unchanged from the previous average.
November 3, 2024: NBC News poll finds tight race nationwide among registered voters (CNN)
A new poll from NBC News finds Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump running about even nationally among registered voters.
In a matchup with third-party candidates included 47% support Trump and 46% Harris. In a head-to-head matchup with those who originally backed third-party candidates or were undecided and leaned to Harris or Trump, the race is tied with 49% each.
That’s a similar picture to previous NBC polling, but a tighter race than in the ABC News poll of likely voters released earlier this morning.
Overall, most national polling on the race released recently has shown a tight race between Trump and Harris, with the CNN Poll of Polls average of surveys of likely voters standing at 48% for Harris to 47% for Trump.
November 3, 2024: Harris stops by a chicken and waffles restaurant in Detroit and greets customers (CNN)
Vice President Kamala Harris stopped by Kuzzo’s Chicken and Waffles in Detroit, a local restaurant owned by former Detroit Lions player Ron Bartell, according to reporters traveling with Harris.
During her stop at Kuzzo’s, the vice president greeted and spoke with customers, took selfies and picked up lunch.
Harris is spending the day in the critical battleground state of Michigan, where she’s making several stops in the Detroit area and will later hold a rally in East Lancing, a senior campaign official told CNN.
November 3, 2024: Harris kicks off final Michigan rally with pledge to do “everything in my power” to end war in Gaza (CNN)
Vice president Kamala Harris kicked off her final Michigan rally before Election Day by reaching out to the state’s significant Arab American community, acknowledging the human toll the war in Gaza has taken while pledging to do “everything in my power to end the war in Gaza,” if elected Tuesday.
“We are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan, and I want to say this year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon,” she said at a rally in East Lansing, Michigan.
“It is devastating, and as President, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination,” she added.
Harris has been interrupted at campaign stops across the country by demonstrators protesting Biden administration’s support for Israel in Gaza — at her first rally in Michigan after President Biden stepped down from the ticket, she told pro-palestinian protesters, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
She met the same evening with leaders of the “uncommitted movement”, though the group ultimately decided not to endorse a candidate after Harris and national Democrats failed to meet their demands for an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel…
November 3, 2024: Harris says “we have momentum” as she makes final pitch to Michigan voters. (CNN)
Vice President Kamala Harris made a final pitch to Michigan voters on Sunday evening, asking people who had not yet voted to cast their ballots on Election Day and those who had already done so to help get her campaign across the finish line in the battleground state.
With two days to go in “one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime,” Harris asserted, “we have the momentum. It is on our side.”
“We have the momentum because our campaign is tapping into the ambitions, the aspirations and the dreams of the American people, because we are optimistic and excited about what we can do together, and because we know it is time for a new generation of leadership in America,” she continued.
Harris chose to finish out her last scheduled swing through Michigan in East Lancing, home of Michigan State University, in an auditorium packed with many young people, as her campaign hopes to garner the youth vote to boost her over former President Donald Trump in the state. The city is also in a highly competitive congressional district that Democrats hope to retain to help them gain control of the House.
“Michigan, I am here to ask for your vote,” Harris said, to a prolonged cheer from the crowd. She again pledged to seek “common ground and common sense solutions” and vowed she was “not looking to score political points.”
“We need everyone to vote in Michigan. You will make the difference in this election,” she said.
CNN’s average of polling shows no clear leader between Harris and Trump in Michigan, with the vice president at 48% and the former president at 46%.
November 3, 2024: Walz on Trump’s “shouldn’t have left” the White House comment: “He didn’t learn it then, but he’s going to learn it on Tuesday night” (CNN)
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, speaking Sunday in North Carolina, reacted to former President Donald Trump saying earlier he “shouldn’t have left” the White House, telling supporters, “he didn’t learn it then, but he’s gonna learn it on Tuesday night.”
Walz painted Trump’s closing message as a debacle while speaking at a restaurant in Gastonia, North Carolina, on Sunday.
“Now you saw his final week, opportunity to close a campaign. On the other side, an absolute disaster, telling us this country doesn’t work, descending into madness and darkness and division, disrespecting our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico and across this country, they continue to do that. And today, reminiscing that he should have stayed in office,” Walz said. “Well, he didn’t learn it then, but he’ going to learn it on Tuesday night.”
Walz encouraged the dozens of people who gathered for the Minnesota governor’s final remarks in the Tar Heel state before Election Day, telling them if Harris is able to win North Carolina — something a Democrat presidential nominee hasn’t done since 2008, then, “this thing’s over.”
“You are ground zero of how this thing can be won,” he said.
November 4, 2024: History in the making: is the US finally about to elect its first female president? (The Guardian)
“This is monumental,” said 19-year-old Kai Carer as she stood in line behind the White House where Kamala Harris was about to take stage a week before the 5 November election.
Carter was ecstatic at the prospect of Harris making history as the first Black female president of the United States. She attended the event with a group of fellow students from Howard University, the historically Black college in Washington DC, which is also the vice-president’s alma matter.
Born in the United States of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris, the first female vice-president, is also potentially on the cusp of becoming the first Asian American president, as well as the country’s first female president. Yet she is not making a big deal out of it.
In her closing argument in Washington DC before one of the most consequential elections in the country’s history, Harris did not refer to her gender or her race or how she may be breaking a glass ceiling. It’s not something she brings up often on the campaign trail, choosing instead to focus on her middle-class upbringing and how she hopes to be a president for “all Americans”.
Her central message that night was about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. “This election is more than a choice between two parties and two different candidates. It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American. Or one ruled by chaos and division.”
Unlike Hillary Clinton, who made gender a central part of her 2016 run for office, at a time of historic polarization Harris chose to focus on issues over identity. That is also how she chose to run her unusually short campaign of 13 weeks after an aging Biden finally passed her the mantle on 21 July…
Identity politics
In the face of misogyny and racism, it is Harris’s detractors who have attempted to user her identity against her. Republicans regularly mispronounce her name or call her a “DEI hire” by focusing on how she looks different from those who preceded her and how she does not belong.
At the beginning of her campaign, Trump sought to steer the conversation towards race in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, questioning whether Harris is indeed Black. Man recognize these personal attacks as Trump’s hallmark. Their purpose is to undermine debate, take his opponent off script, stoke division and ultimately attract media attention.
Christina Reynolds, senior vice-president for communications for Emily’s List, a political action committee that backs pro-choice Democratic female candidates, including Harris, explains that women are often the butt of personal attacks whereas men are attacked for their policies. Reynolds has witnessed this first-hand after working on five presidential campaigns, including Hillary Clinton’s.
This is just one example of the double standards women and particularly women of color face to get to the top. Another is the pressure on women to be both likable and competent, whereas a man can be one of the other. Research by UC Berkeley’s Hass School of Business also shows that women in positions of power lose likability. This is particularly true of middle-aged women…
A champion of women’s rights
Despite Harris’s attempts to detract attention from her gender and race, she has campaigned heavily in the issue of women’s rights. “She may not frame things in terms of her gender, but the first president or vice-president invite abortion providers to the White House and to visit an abortion provider – both of those first were Kamala Harris,” Reynolds said.
The overturning of Roe v Wade by three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices in 2022 placed women’s rights at the forefront of voters’ concerns. The right to abortion was a hard-fought battle that was won in 1973. A poll from May 2024 from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center suggested that 63% of Americans believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Harris’s campaign slogan organically became “We are not going back.”
In perhaps one of the most moving moments of the Democratic national convention, three women wrestled brought up on stage to tell their harrowing personal stories of being denied medical care in states where abortions are restricted.
At the closing rally in Washington DC, Harris suggested Trump could take things even further: “He would ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put IVF at risk and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies,” she said.
Harris has also proposed policies to appeal to people – especially women – who need to care for parents and young children at the same time, known as the sandwich generation. She talks about how she had to care for her mother before she died of cancer in 2009, and she has talked about her plant to have Medicare pay for home healthcare.
Signs of Progress
Harris is running for office in a divided country, with Trump threatening violence against his political opponents. “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” she said in DC last week to a crowd of more than 75,000 people.
And while in he closing argument the Democratic nominee made clear that she pledged to be a “president for all Americans” and “to always put country above party and above self,” at the same time, Reynolds noted that “she has taken the communities that she has been a part of” and ensure that they “have a voice” and “that they are included in conversations.”…
November 4, 2024: Kamala Harris’s running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, also appeared at a rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Monday where he said the decisions made over the next days “will shape not just the next four years, they will shape the coming generations”. (The Guardian)
Walz, who was joined at the rally by his wife, Gwen, and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, said the election “quite literally could be won through the state of Wisconsin”.
“This is a generational opportunity for us to turn the page for just tot take this momentum going forward,” he said.
Walz also spoke about his confidence in the country’s election security, arguing that the US has “the fairest, the most secure elections in the world.”.
“We will count the votes. We will win the votes, and we will be able to know, too, that he have a part in not only moving on from the nine years of what we’ve seen, but charting, truly, a new way forward. The rest of the world is watching, so I have one request: win this for America.”
November 4, 2024: Kamala Harris holds a slight lead over Donald Trump in the final national PBS News/NPR/Marist poll published today, just hours before election day. (The Guardian)
The poll shows Harris holding a four-point lead over Trump, with the support of 51% of likely voters compared with Trump’s 47%. The lead lies just outside the study’s 3.5 margin of error.
A little more than half of independents support Trump, a 5-point lead over Harris, according to the poll.
Mostly notably, the poll shows that the gender gap has shrunk significantly in the last month of the campaign. Trump’s lead over Harris among male voter had dropped to just 4 points, down from the 16-point advantage in October.
At the same time, 55% of women say they will back Harris in the latest poll, meaning that her lead among women has dropped back from 18 points to 11 points since last month.
November 4, 2024: Jon Ralston, a veteran political forecaster and editor of the Nevada Independent, released his projections for the year, and does not think Trump can pull it off. (The Guardian)
From his article:
“The key to this election has always been which way the non-major-party voters break because they have become the plurality in the state. They are going to make up 30 percent or so of the electorate and if they swing enough towards Harris, she will win Nevada.
I think they will, and I’ll tell you why: Many people assume that with the GOP catching up to the Democrats in voter registration that the automatic voter registration plan pushed by Democrats that auto-register people as nonpartisans (unless they choose a party) at the DMV had been a failure for their party.
But I don’t think so. There are a lot of nonpartisans who are closet Democrats who were purposely registered by Democrat-aligned groups and nonpartisans. The machine knows who they are and will get them to vote. It will be just enough to overcome the Republican lead – along with women motivated by abortion and crossover votes that issue that issue will cause.
I know some may think this reflects my well-known distain for Trump, heart over data. But that is not so. I have often predicted against my own preferences; history does not lie. I just have a feeling she will catch up here, but I also believe – and please remember this – it will not be clear who won on Election Night here, so block out the nattering nabobs of election denialism.
It’s going to be very, very close. Prediction: Harris 48.5%; Trump 48.2 percent; others and None of these candidates, 3-3 percent.
November 4, 2024: How will the vice-president spend her election day? (The Guardian)
With her ballot already posted and her campaign stops finished, Harris will return to Number One Observatory Circle in Washington in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, following a late-night rally in Philadelphia.
Throughout the rest of the day, the campaign said she will be “on the airwaves” – calling into local radio stations in the seven battleground states.
The eleventh-hour calls are about “making sure that those final voters who are on their way to work, on their way home, taking a lunch break, understand the stakes, but understand her vision for where she wants to take this country over the course of the next four years,” Harris’s communications director, Michael Tyler, told reporters.
“And most importantly, make sure that they understand when, where and how to vote … she’s going to put in the work that it takes to hit 270, and that’s until polls close tomorrow…
November 6, 2024: Kamala Harris’s campaign was seen by many of her supporters, and others across the world, as having the potential of saving American democracy from an existential threat and a sign that US politics might be returning to a more normal state of affairs. (The Guardian)
With a Donald Trump victory on Wednesday morning, that potential disappeared.
After the shock exit of Joe Biden following his disastrous debate performance raised questions about his mental acuity, Harris and her team ran a campaign that by American standards was incredibly short. Despite having had support by stars like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, gathering more than a billion dollars in fundraising, and criss-crossing the country in relentless rallies, Harris’s bid to win the White House ended in defeat.
Here are some key moments, issues and events from the campaign:
The surprise Biden endorsement that started it
When Joe Biden announced he was stepping down from the race for the White House, it was after immense and growing pressure from a Democratic establishment panicked by his disastrous showing in the first presidential debate. It had felt for weeks that his decision to end his re-election bid was inevitable.
What was less certain was whether or not the Democrats would carry out some form of mini-primary to pick a new candidate. Biden’s virtually immediate decision to endorse Harris put an end to that debate quickly and the party rapidly fell in line.
A Democratic convention of ‘joy’
At a Democratic national convention once intended for Joe Biden and now portrayed as a coronation for Kamala Harris, the one emotion that seemed to sweep the hall was one not usually associated with American’s political landscape in 2024: joy. The mood of enthusiasm for a fresh face in a race dominated by two elderly white men who had fought an election before was palpable. The event passed off seamlessly, cementing Harris’s rising power in the polls as she clawed back Biden’s losses and started to move ahead.
A crushing debate performance beat Trump
If Donald Trump was expecting anything akin to his experience with Joe Biden when he turned up to debate Harris, he was soon brought back down to earth. Harris, an experienced prosecutor, rapidly grew in confidence and stature during the debate. She was poised and combative, alert and in control and – crucially – she knew how to bait Trump into losing his temper. Which he did. Despite the protestations of his supporters, Harris easily emerged as the winner – so much so that Trump refused a rematch.
The gender gap exposed as Harris courted women
The Harris campaign bet on the idea that the loss of federal abortion rights when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade would be a powerful motivator with women of all backgrounds. This was especially true in states where abortion was back on the ballot in 2024 as various states made efforts to protect rights.
In the financial days of the campaign there were numerous signs that women, especially white women, were starting to turn out in large numbers and favoring Harris by impressive margins. The Harris campaign even launched ads directly reminding women that the ballot box was a private space and they could hide their choice from their husband.
A defining speech in Washington focuses on the threat to democracy
The climactic big event of Harris’s campaign was a speech given on the Ellipse in Washington DC – the same spot from which Trump had help launch the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021. Harris used the event to highlight the main theme of her campaign: Trump is a threat to US democracy and to vote for him is to invite someone with autocratic sympathies back into the White House. More than 75,000 spectators flocked to hear her dire warning of the threat the US faces.
