Eliana Willis

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    US election 2020: why are so many Americans being denied a vote? – podcast

    Millions of American voters will be unable to cast their ballot in this year’s presidential election and those affected will be disproportionately first-time voters and from minority groups, reports Sam Levine

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

    As the November election approaches, Donald Trump is continuing to make stark claims about voter fraud, particularly focused on postal voting. Despite a lack of evidence, many are interpreting the president’s claims as a prelude to his challenging the result should he be defeated. Fears of fraud are also being used by many states to place more hurdles in the way of voters trying to cast their ballots. The Guardian’s Sam Levine tells Anushka Asthana about the bureaucratic steps required to cast a legal vote in some states and how research shows that they mean the discounting of votes from disproportionately younger and minority voters. He also describes how millions of former prisoners are being denied votes decades after release due to bureaucratic errors or minuscule unpaid fines. He met Alfonso Tucker, a resident in Alabama, who was struck from the register over a $4 fine and whose son of the same name was also prevented from voting. Meanwhile, there are growing fears of intimidation at the polls, not least following Trump’s performance at the presidential debate in which he failed to denounce white supremacists, telling the rightwing Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by”. More

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    Trump holds packed rally after Covid diagnosis as he struggles in polls

    US elections 2020

    President addresses mostly maskless crowd in key swing state of Florida: ‘I feel so powerful’

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    ‘I’ll kiss everyone’: Trump claims he has immunity at first rally since Covid diagnosis – video

    Keen to appear lively and well after his recent hospitalization for Covid-19, Donald Trump held his first rally since being diagnosed, addressing a packed, largely maskless crowd in Florida – a state he desperately needs to win.
    “I feel so powerful,” he boasted to his cheering supporters, 11 days after announcing his infection. “I’ll walk into that audience. I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women – everybody,” he added, his voice still a bit hoarse.
    With just weeks to go before election day, and early voting under way, Trump has been eager to return to a full schedule of in-person rallies as he scrambles to hold on to supporters. Polls have his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, ahead by an average of 10.4 points as of Friday. Trump is also losing support from seniors, who are the most vulnerable in a pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans.
    In a frenetic push to solidify support, Trump and his campaign have sought to downplay the threat of coronavirus. The president’s own demonstrations of reckless, maskless bravado appear to be key to that strategy, as Trump characterizes his opponent as frail and confined to his basement. More

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    Joe Biden in Ohio: Trump 'turned his back on you' – video

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    Joe Biden told a drive-in rally in Ohio that Donald Trump ‘turned his back on you’ during the pandemic and its economic fallout.
    Biden questioned why Republicans had time for supreme court hearings but no time to come to an agreement with House Democrats on another economic relief package to help individuals, businesses and city and state governments.
    Trump has alternately called off Covid-19 relief talks, then pushed for a deal. Late last week, the White House expanded its offer to Democrats, but the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said it was unlikely Congress could pass a bill before the election and House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the White House offer didn’t include enough money.
    Trump won Ohio by eight percentage points in 2016, but polls have tightened and it is now a key battleground state in the upcoming election. 
    US election polls tracker: who is leading in the swing states?

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    Biden campaigns in red state Ohio, hoping to expand battleground map

    US elections 2020

    Biden stressed an economic message and touted his own record while casting Trump as having abandoned working-class voters

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    Joe Biden in Ohio: Trump ‘turned his back on you’ – video

    Joe Biden’s campaign went on a fresh offense against the Trump administration on Monday, campaigning in a red state and accusing Republicans of hypocrisy as they sought to portray Democrats as anti-religious during the supreme court hearings for the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
    Biden campaigned in Ohio, attempting to expand the battleground map and keep Trump on the defensive in a state thought to be out of reach for Democrats after Trump’s wide margin of victory there four years ago.
    A slew of recent polls has had the Democratic challenger leading Trump in national polls, often by double digits. Likewise, many battleground state surveys, though often narrower than the national picture, have Biden with healthy leads. The situation has led several top Republicans to make rare public warnings of losing the White House – and maybe even Republicans losing the Senate.
    On the campaign trail Biden stressed an economic message and touted his own record while casting Trump as having abandoned working-class voters who helped him win rust belt states that put him in the White House in 2016.
    In Toledo, Biden addressed United Auto Workers who represent a local General Motors’ powertrain plant. The former vice-president spoke in a parking lot with about 30 American-made cars and trucks arrayed nearby, and he struck a decidedly populist note, praising unions and arguing that he represented working-class values while the Republican Trump cared only about impressing the Ivy League and country club set.
    “I don’t measure people by the size of their bank account,” Biden said. “You and I measure people by the strength of their character, their honesty, their courage.”
    Meanwhile as the nomination hearings for Barrett began back in Washington the Biden campaign took umbrage at Republican criticisms that they had targeted Barrett’s Catholic faith as a reason not to nominate her – despite the fact that Democrats focused almost entirely on issues like healthcare.
    A spokesperson for Biden accused Republicans of double standards, noting the Democratic nominee would be only the second Catholic president in US history if elected next month. “Where were these Republican senators when Trump outrageously attacked Biden’s faith, saying he’d ‘hurt God’?” Andrew Bates said in a tweet.
    Trump said during an August campaign event that Biden would “take away your guns, destroy your second amendment. No religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God.” Trump added of Biden: “He’s against God, he’s against guns, he’s against energy, our kind of energy.”
    In Ohio Biden highlighted his role as vice-president as the Obama administration rescued the US auto industry after the 2008 financial collapse. George W Bush signed the aid package after the 2008 election, but the Obama administration managed most of the rescue program.
    “The auto industry that supported one in eight Ohioans was on the brink,” Biden said at the drive-in rally, eliciting horn honks from people listening from their vehicles. “Barack and I bet on you, and it paid off.”
    Trump, meanwhile, was resuming campaign travel for the first time since testing positive for the coronavirus, holding an evening rally in Florida. And Vice-President Mike Pence staged his own midwestern event in Ohio’s capital, Columbus, concluding remarks at Savko & Sons, an excavation company that hosted Obama at one of its job sites in 2010, shortly before Biden took the stage in Toledo.
    In a nod to Senate confirmation hearings on Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court – where Biden’s running mate, California senator Kamala Harris, was participating remotely – Pence declared to applause that “we’re going to fill that seat”.
    Pence also noted that Biden has refused to say whether he will heed the calls of some progressive Democrats who would like to see the party expand the number of seats on the supreme court, should Democrats win the White House and the Senate on 3 November while retaining control of the House.

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    What Dr Fauci actually said versus how Trump used clip in campaign ad – video

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    Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has criticised Donald Trump’s re-election campaign for using his words out of context to make it appear as if he was praising the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In the video released on Saturday, Fauci can be heard saying: ‘I can’t imagine that … anyone could be doing more’ as the advert boasts of Trump’s response to Covid-19, which in the US has killed more than 214,000 and infected more than 7.7m. The clip came from an interview Fauci gave to Fox News, in which he was describing the work that he and other members of the White House coronavirus task force undertook to respond to the virus 
    Anthony Fauci criticises Donald Trump for using his words out of context

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    Trump claims he no longer has Covid-19 and is 'immune' – live updates

    Biden retains double-digit national lead over Trump as election looms
    Forecast projects 395,000 US Covid-19 deaths by February
    Taliban says it hopes Trump wins election
    Republicans express fears Trump will lose presidential election
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    Jaime Harrison sets Senate fundraising record in race against Lindsey Graham

    South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison has shattered congressional fundraising records, bringing in $57m in the final quarter for his US Senate campaign against Republican incumbent and Trump ally Lindsey Graham as the Republican party tries to retain control of the chamber in November’s election.Harrison’s campaign said Sunday that the total was the largest-ever during a single three-month period by any Senate candidate. That tops the $38m raised by Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018 in the final fundraising period of his challenge to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who won the race.Graham, a longtime senator, is tied with Harrison in a highly competitive race.Graham hasn’t released fundraising totals for the previous quarter, although it’s likely he’s been eclipsed by Harrison. Last month, Graham made a public plea for fundraising to help him keep up with Harrison, saying on Fox News that he was “getting killed financially” by Harrison, who he predicted would “raise $100m in the state of South Carolina.”“The money is because they hate my guts,” Graham added.At the end of June, both candidates were roughly matched at about $30m apiece, money that has come largely from out of-state donors. For the race overall, not including the most recent quarter, Harrison’s in-state contribution amount is 10%. Graham’s is 14%.“This campaign is making history, because we’re focused on restoring hope back to South Carolina,” said Guy King, Harrison’s campaign spokesman. “While Lindsey Graham continues playing political games in Washington, Jaime Harrison is remaining laser-focused on the real issues impacting people here – like health care, broadband access, and Covid relief for businesses and families.”The latest fundraising report comes one day before the start of what is predicted to be a contentious hearing in the Senate judiciary committee on Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court. Graham is the committee chairman.His commitment to confirming Trump’s third nominee to the court has become a focal point in the Senate campaign, with Harrison frequently chiding Graham for reversing on previous promises not to consider election-year nominations. Graham has responded by saying he feels Democrats would do the same if given the choice.Attributing the fundraising success to grassroots support, Harrison’s campaign said the $57m came in the form of 1.5m donations from 994,000 donors. The average contribution was $37.During Harrison’s debate with Graham on 3 October, social media users across the country chimed into tweet threads with pledges to donate as often as they could. In the two days following that matchup, Harrison’s campaign said they brought in $1.5m – as much as the effort had raised in some previous entire fundraising quarters.At the beginning of the campaign, Harrison, an associate Democratic National Committee chairman, told The Associated Press he felt it could take $10m to win the race, an amount he felt he could raise given his national-level connections. To date, he has brought in nearly $86m. More