With six days until the 2024 election, more than 57.5 million Americans have already voted as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Of the 57 million, just over 30 million voted early in-person and about 27 million voted by early mail.
In an op-ed for the Guardian, Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, addresses progressives concerns about voting for Kamala Harris given the administration’s support for Israel’s war.
He writes:
I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza. I am one of them.
While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have the right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.
It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were children, women and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza. It did not have the right to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and housing and healthcare systems. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza’s 12 universities. It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.
And that is why I am doing everything I can to block US military aid and offensive weapons sales to the rightwing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. And I know that many of you share those feelings. And some of you are saying, “How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?” And that is a very fair question.
And let me give you my best answer. And that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his rightwing friends are worse. In the Senate and in Congress Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The president and vice-president both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible.
Trump has said that Netanyahu is doing a good job and that Biden is holding him back. He has suggested that the Gaza Strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. It is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.
But even more importantly, and this I promise you, after Harris wins we will, together, do everything we can to change US policy toward Netanyahu – including an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.
A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday sided with Donald Trump’s campaign and agreed to extend an in-person voting option in suburban Philadelphia, where long lines on the final day led to complaints voters were being disenfranchised by an unprepared election office.
A lawsuit demanding an extension of Tuesday’s 5pm deadline in Bucks county until today was filed this morning after long queues outside the county’s election offices on the last day for applications led to security guards cutting off the line and telling some of those waiting they would not be able to apply.
Videos of the scenes were widely circulated on social media, fuelling rumours of voter suppression.
The Trump campaign was joined by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick in the lawsuit alleging that voters waiting outside election offices for mail ballots were turned away empty-handed and ordered to leave after the deadline expired at 5pm on Tuesday.
“This is a direct violation of Pennsylvanians’ rights to cast their ballot – and all voters have a right to STAY in line,” the Trump campaign said.
Judge Jeffrey Trauger said in a one-page order that Bucks county voters who want to apply for an early mail ballot now have until Friday.
The queues for late mail ballots were a result of Pennsylvania not having an early on-site voting system at designated spots, as is the case in some other states. Instead, voters can apply for ballots on-demand at election offices before filling them out and submitting them on the spot, a procedure that takes about 10 minutes.
The flood of late applicants overwhelmed electoral workers in Bucks county’s administration building in Doylestown, leading to a long queue which was cut off at around 2.45pm on Tuesday, according to CBS.
Protesters interrupted Harris about 8 minutes into her remarks here.
It was difficult to hear what they were saying, but I could hear the word “genocide”.
The crowd began chanting “USA!” and Harris reminded the crowd that democracy was on the line in this election. “Ours is about a fight for democracy and your right to be heard. That is what is on the line in this election,” she said. “Look, everybody has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.”
After another protester interrupted a few minutes later, she said: “At this particular moment it should be emphasized that unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy from within. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”
Shawna Barnes, a 45-year old healthcare worker from Philadelphia, said she’s concerned that men aren’t supporting Harris in this election. When she’s knocked on doors, she’s noticed that the women are often all in, but the men are “iffy”.
“Black and brown women are going to come out and support. White women of course are going to support. The men are just kind of like afraid,” she said as Mr Brightside by The Killers blasted on the sound system. “I don’t think it’s about gender, I just think it’s fear.”
Kamala Harris is speaking at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg, where she is promoting her economic proposals.
“We stand for working people, we stand for middle class growth and strength,” Harris said.
She derided Donald Trump’s tariff proposals, and warned that he would dismantle the popular Affordable Care Act. “We know what’s on the line. We know that Donald Trump will try, like he has so many times to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which would throw, millions of Americans off of their health care and take us back to when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions,” she said.
Donald Trump’s team is reportedly considering withholding federal grants from police departments that decline to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to ease deportations.
NBC News reports that the former president’s team is working on plans to force sanctuary cities such as Chicago, and states such as California to work with the federal government to help Trump deliver on his promise of mass deportations.
The Guardian has not independently verified NBC’s reporting.
Withholding funding from police departments who decline to work with Ice will undoubtedly face legal challenges. During Trump’s presidency, several states sued the administration after it cut off grants to sanctuary cities, and appealed a court decision that sided with Trump – running out the clock on Trump’s term before the supreme court could issue a final decision on the matter.
With six days until the 2024 election, more than 57.5 million Americans have already voted as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Of the 57 million, just over 30 million voted early in-person and about 27 million voted by early mail.
I spotted Minerva Ortiz-Garcia, 68, walking around with a small Puerto Rican flag before the rally started so I stopped her to ask what she thought of the racist joke a speaker made before Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
“I feel horrible. I’m Puerto Rican, I actually started to cry,” she said. “How could someone say that about an island that is trying to survive [Hurricane] Maria?”
Ortiz-Garcia, a flight attendant, lives in Easton, which is in eastern Pennsylvania, a part of the state that is extremely competitive and has a huge Latino population. She said she thought many Latino voters in her part of the state were waiting for Harris to reach out to them directly.
“I think that people want her to say something directly,” she said.
I’ve been chatting to a few voters at a Kamala Harris rally here at the Farm expo building in Harrisburg, where there’s a vague smell of horses as the crowd swag surfs and dances to Motown hits such as We Are Family and Aretha Franklin’s Respect.
I just spoke with Corine Wherley, a 38-year-old librarian from Harrisburg who is attending her first political rally ever. She said she decided to come to the rally because she was so alarmed by what she heard during Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
“A lot of it was the rhetoric around ‘this secret’ and other things like that they’re planning on doing,” she said, referring to Trump’s comment that he has a “little secret” with House speaker Mike Johnson, that many took to be a plan to contest the election. “They’re like: ‘I can do whatever I want,’ and I think that’s what scares me.”
Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Nicky Jam has withdrawn his support for Donald Trump after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.
On Wednesday, the singer posted a video on social media saying: “The reason I supported Donald Trump is because I believed it was what’s best for the economy in the United States, where a lot of Latinos live … a lot of immigrants that are suffering over the state of the economy … With [Trump] being a businessman, I felt it was the right move.”
He went on to add: “Never in my life did I think that a month later a comedian would come to criticize my country, to speak poorly of my country, and therefore I renounce any support to Donald Trump and move aside from any political situation. Puerto Rico deserves respect.”
In September, Nicky Jam made an appearance at one of Trump’s rally during which he was misgendered by the former president.
“Do you know Nicky? She’s hot!” Trump said to the crowd, adding: “Where’s Nicky? Where’s Nicky? Thank you, Nicky. Great to be having you here.”
The battleground states for the White House overlap significantly with the states where Democrats are fighting to keep or gain majorities in state legislative chambers, noted Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC).
“While the overlap has opened some opportunities for unprecedented collaboration, this environment has also produced steep challenges for state legislative candidates to get their message out, especially through paid communication,” Williams told reporters on a press call today.
Williams noted that the Harris campaign was now spending more on paid ads each week than the DLCC’s entire budget for this election cycle, which is $60m. The gap in resources could heighten the risk of “ballot rolloff”, the phenomenon of voters only filling out the top of their ballot without continuing down to lower-level races.
“Our historical data indicates that, in presidential years, we face the challenge of ballot rolloff most acutely,” Williams said. “Communicating and educating voters on who their state legislative candidates are is incredibly important to mitigate underperforming the top of the ticket.”
Although much of the country is focused on the presidential and congressional races, the results of this year’s state legislative elections will have vast consequences on Americans’ everyday lives.
On a press call today, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) reported that state legislative control appears to be a true toss-up in several battleground states, reflecting the neck-and-neck nature of the presidential race.
“Right now, just 12 legislative seats are deciding six legislative majorities in the biggest battleground states across the country, and all our polling shows that this election will be incredibly close,” said Heather Williams, president of the DLCC.
Democrats are looking to maintain their narrow majorities in state legislative chambers in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania while attempting to regain majorities in Arizona and New Hampshire. The new legislative maps in Wisconsin also represent a key opportunity for Democrats.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher, as nearly half of Americans currently have their rights protected by Democratic majorities in state legislatures,” Williams said.
“Decisions on fundamental freedoms are happening in the states, and many of the dangers of Project 2025 and Trump’s MAGA [’Make America Great Again’] agenda will continue to advance through our statehouses no matter the outcome at the top of the ticket.”
A new CNN poll shows Kamala Harris leading over Trump by 6 points in Wisconsin and 5 points in Michigan, key battleground states.
Harris leads Trump by 48% to 43% among likely voters in Michigan and 51% to 45% in Wisconsin.
The candidates are tied at 48% in Pennsylvania.
The vice president’s slim advantage is due in part to “relatively strong performance among White voters and White voters without college degrees, two groups which traditionally break Republican,” CNN said.
Here’s a look at where things stand:
Kamala Harris held a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, this afternoon. “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said.
Kamala Harris said that she strongly disagrees with criticisms of people based on who they voted for. Speaking on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday following Joe Biden’s “garbage” remarks, Harris said that Biden had “clarified his comments”, adding, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they voted for.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former California governor, has announced he is endorsing Kamala Harris. He joins a running list of Republicans crossing party lines to vote against Donald Trump.
The supreme court has paused the ruling by a lower court that would have restored voting rights to approximately 1,600 voters in Virginia. In its brief order, the supreme court wrote: “The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted.”
Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin has hailed the supreme court’s ruling, calling it a “victory for common sense and election fairness”. Youngkin had ordered state officials to identify and cancel the voter registration of alleged non-citizens unless they could prove their citizenship in two weeks.
Tim Walz appeared on Good Morning America, saying, “We know it’s going to be close but we’re going to win this thing.” Speaking to host George Stephanopoulos, Walz said, “We’ve got the better ground game, we’ve got the excitement, we’ve got the momentum on our side.”
“I see the promise of America in all the young leaders who are voting for the first time,” Kamala Harris said.
“You’ve only known the climate crisis and are leading the charge to protect our planet and our future. You young leaders who grew up with active shooter drills, who are trying to keep our schools safe, you who have known fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers and are standing up to fight for freedom to make your own decisions about your own bodies. None of this for you young leaders is theoretical. This is not theoretical for you. It is not political for you. For our young leaders, this is your lived experience, and I see you, and I see your power, and I am so proud of you,” she added.
“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy,” Kamala Harris said.
“He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,” she added.
“We have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump, who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other. We know that is who he is but, North Carolina, that is not who we are,” Kamala Harris said.
“It is time for a new chapter where we stop with the pointing fingers at each other, and instead let us lock arms with one another, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us,” she added.
Kamala Harris is now on stage in Raleigh, North Carolina, for a campaign rally.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.
Donald Trump is claiming – without evidence – that Pennsylvania is cheating and has filed a lawsuit against Bucks county.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that the state is “cheating, and getting caught, at large-scale levels rarely seen before”.
He did not specify what constituted the state’s cheating.
In a separate statement, Trump’s campaign announced on Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit against Buck county for “turning away voters.”
Again, without evidence, the campaign claimed that voters were being turned away early, saying:
“The Pennsylvania Department of State made clear if voters are in line at a county elections office by 5:00PM, the counties MUST give voters the opportunity to apply for their mail-in ballot. Pennsylvania voters were turned away as early as 2:30PM.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
