Elections

Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who has faced renewed questions about the 2020 election since refusing at the vice-presidential debate this month to acknowledge that former President Donald J. Trump lost, falsely suggested on Saturday that the election had been “rigged.”“I think the election of 2020 had serious problems,” Mr. Vance said at a campaign event in Johnstown, Pa. “You want to call it rigged. Call it whatever you want to, it wasn’t OK.”Mr. Vance was asked five times in an interview with The New York Times this week whether Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election, and he declined to answer each time. Taking questions from reporters at a rally at a factory for military vehicles in Johnstown, Mr. Vance again refused to acknowledge his running mate’s defeat and downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol even as he condemned it.“Yes, there was a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but there was still a peaceful transfer of power in this country,” Mr. Vance said, describing the rioters as “a few knuckleheads who went off and did something they shouldn’t do.” The rioters, hundreds of whom were convicted of crimes in connection to the attack, had interrupted the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as they stormed the Capitol that day.Johnstown, which has a storied history in the Pennsylvania steel industry, is in an overwhelmingly Republican county east of Pittsburgh that Mr. Trump won by 38 points in 2020. Some members of the audience at the event, filling roughly half the seats in the venue, stood up in their chairs and booed reporters as they asked questions about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot.Mr. Vance repeated his assertion that censorship by tech companies had hurt Mr. Trump in 2020. And he chided the press for asking him about that election, saying that he had not been asked one question about inflation or the economy.“I’m a hell of a lot more worried that American citizens can’t afford a good life in their country,” Vance said, “because Kamala Harris has been the vice president, and that is what I’m trying to change.” The audience of Trump supporters gave Mr. Vance a standing ovation, and broke out into chants of: “JD.”Later, after Mr. Vance departed Johnstown for a town-hall event in a packed airport hangar in Reading, Pa., Mr. Vance said that the attorney general would be the most important job in a second Trump administration. He vowed to “clean house” at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, and to fire those people who were responsible for Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, which he characterized as “fake.”“Here’s what President Trump and I are going to do when we get in there: We’re going to fire the people responsible,” Mr. Vance said to raucous applause. More

The president will visit communities ravaged by Hurricane Milton on Sunday. The disaster declaration will enable funds for the state to be deployed.President Biden approved a major disaster declaration for Florida for communities ravaged by Hurricane Milton, freeing up federal funding to assist in the state’s recovery and rebuilding.A statement from the White House on Saturday said that Mr. Biden had approved the deployment of the additional resources to Florida. It comes before he is set to travel there on Sunday to visit communities damaged by the hurricane and speak to emergency medical workers and residents trying to pick up the pieces. It will be his second such visit to the state this month.The White House typically approves disaster declarations for states after major natural disasters. The president makes the declaration after a state’s governor — in this case, Gov. Ron DeSantis — makes a request for the federal assistance.Mr. Biden finalized the declaration on Friday, freeing up federal funding for 34 counties, as well as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The move also provides grants for temporary housing and home repairs, loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help residents and businesses, according to the White House.“I want everyone in the impacted areas to know we’re going to do everything we can to help you pick back up the pieces and get back to where you were,” Mr. Biden said during a hurricane briefing with top cabinet officials at the White House on Friday.Total economic losses from Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, which struck several states in the Southeast last month, could soar to over $200 billion, according to early estimates. Mr. Biden has said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has enough resources to respond to the immediate needs of communities in the wake of both storms. But he has warned that Congress will need to pass more funding for longer-term recovery.“We’re going to be going to Congress,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re going to need a lot of help. We’re going to need a lot more money as we identify specifically how much is needed.”FEMA has approved $441 million in assistance for survivors of Hurricane Helene and over $349 million in public assistance funding to help rebuild communities, according to a statement from the agency.The visit to Florida on Sunday also comes amid rising frustration in the White House with the flood of misinformation about the federal response to recent natural disasters, led by former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, and his allies.“The misinformation out there is not only disgusting but dangerous,” Mr. Biden said on Friday. More

Pvt. Cole Bridges pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to murder U.S. military service members.A former soldier in the U.S. Army was sentenced on Friday to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempting to provide ISIS with information to help plan an ambush he thought would result in the deaths of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East, according to the U.S. Justice Department.The soldier, Pvt. Cole Bridges, 24, of Stow, Ohio, also discussed potential locations for terrorist attacks in New York City with an undercover F.B.I. agent whom he believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State.Private Bridges enlisted in the military in 2019 and joined an infantry division in Fort Stewart, Ga. Before enlisting, he had already been persuaded by radical ideologies, according to the Justice Department.“Cole Bridges used his U.S. Army training to pursue a horrifying goal: the brutal murder of his fellow service members in a carefully plotted ambush,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.Beginning in at least 2019, Private Bridges began researching jihadist propaganda and posted his support for ISIS on social media. About a year after joining the Army, he began a correspondence with an F.B.I. agent who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with the group in the Middle East.A criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York detailed the soldier’s fervent intent on aiding the Islamic State, describing Private Bridges as “a supporter of ISIS and its mission to establish a global caliphate.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The far-right website The Gateway Pundit acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that there was not any fraud during ballot counting in Atlanta in 2020 when Donald Trump lost the presidency, a significant concession from one of the most influential conservative sites that plays a key role in spreading election misinformation.The statement, the first acknowledgment from the site that there was no proof of fraud in Atlanta, came days after the site settled a defamation lawsuit with Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, two local election workers who the site falsely accused of wrongdoing. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed publicly, but the site appears to have removed all mention of the two women.“Georgia officials concluded that there was no widespread voter fraud by election workers who counted ballots at the State Farm Arena in November 2020,” the site’s co-founder, Jim Hoft, said in a statement posted on Gateway Pundit on Saturday. “The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night. A legal matter with this news organization and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement.”As Trump sought to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden, Gateway Pundit relentlessly amplified a misleading video it said showed poll workers fraudulently counting ballots on election night. Gateway Pundit was the first site to identify Freeman and Moss as the two women in the video and published dozens of articles falsely accusing them of wrongdoing.Moss and Freeman have publicly spoken out about the severe harassment they faced. They received many death threats. People showed up unannounced at Freeman’s home, and she feared they were going to kill her. Both women testified last year that they were still afraid to go out alone in public.Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, who is also a contributor to the site, refused to back down from their false claims. They held a press conference on the sidelines of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee in July insisting that the video showed wrongdoing.Freeman and Moss previously settled a lawsuit with One America News Network, another far-right conservative outlet, which subsequently broadcast a correction to its reporting and noted the two women had not engaged in fraud.A Washington DC jury also ordered Trump ally Rudy Giuliani to pay the two women nearly $150m in damages last year. Giuliani has appealed the verdict and undertaken legal maneuvers to avoid payment. Lawyers for Freeman and Moss have asked a federal judge in New York to give them control over his assets.Gateway Pundit still faces a defamation lawsuit from Eric Coomer, a former employee of Dominion voting systems, whom the outlet falsely accused of rigging the election. More

These are some of our favorites from among more than 800 submissions in response to our request for variations on traditional letters.Elections of Yore(to the tune of “Yesterday”)Yesterday, politics was just a game we’d playNow hostility is here to stayOh, I believe in yesterdaySuddenly, there’s an absence of civilityThere’s no common ground that I can seeOh, yesterday came suddenlyWhy we disagreeI don’t know, it’s hard to sayWe’re so far apartNow I long for yesterdayYesterday, bipartisan was just how we’d playNow consensus just has gone awayOh, I believe in yesterdayWhy things are so wrongI don’t know, I’m sad to sayAll my hope is goneMy heart longs for yesterdayYesterday, I looked forward to Election DayNow the discord takes my joy awayOh, I believe in yesterdayBill ArchibaldArlington, Va.Trump’s Campaign Love Song to AmericaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

How These Polls Were Conducted

Here are the key things to know about this set of polls from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College:

• Interviewers spoke with 808 voters in Arizona from Oct. 7 to 10, 656 voters in Montana from Oct. Oct. 5 to 8, and 857 voters in Pennsylvania from Oct. 7 to 10.

• Times/Siena polls are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in both English and Spanish. Overall, more than 95 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone for these polls.

• Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For these polls, interviewers placed about 235,000 calls to nearly 90,000 voters.

• To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample at the bottom of the page, under “Composition of the Sample.”

• The margin of sampling error among likely voters is about plus or minus four percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When the difference between two values is computed — such as a candidate’s lead in a race — the margin of error is twice as large.

If you want to read more about how and why the Times/Siena Poll is conducted, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.

Full Methodology

The New York Times/Siena College polls of 656 voters in Montana and 808 voters in Arizona and the New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of 857 voters in Pennsylvania were conducted in English and Spanish on cellular and landline telephones. The Arizona ran from Oct. 7 to 10, the Pennsylvania poll ran from Oct. 7 to 10, 2024, and the Montana poll ran from Oct. 5 to 8.

For each poll, the margin of sampling error among the likely electorate is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points in Montana, plus or minus 3.9 percentage points in Arizona and plus or minus 3.8 percentage points in Pennsylvania.

The Times/Siena polls of Pennsylvania in 2024 were conducted in partnership with the Philadelphia Inquirer and were funded in part by a grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The poll was designed and conducted independently from the institute.

Sample

The survey is a response-rate-adjusted stratified sample of registered voters taken from the voter file maintained by L2, a nonpartisan voter-file vendor, and supplemented with additional voter-file-matched cellular telephone numbers from Marketing Systems Group. The sample was selected by The New York Times in multiple steps to account for differential telephone coverage, nonresponse and significant variation in the productivity of telephone numbers by state.

To adjust for noncoverage bias, the L2 voter file for each state was stratified by statehouse district, party, race, gender, marital status, household size, turnout history, age and homeownership. The proportion of registrants with a telephone number and the mean expected response rate were calculated for each stratum. The mean expected response rate was based on a model of unit nonresponse in prior Times/Siena surveys. The initial selection weight was equal to the reciprocal of a stratum’s mean telephone coverage and modeled response rate. For respondents with multiple telephone numbers on the L2 file, or with differing numbers from L2 and Marketing Systems Group, the number with the highest modeled response rate was selected.

Fielding

The sample was stratified according to political party, race and region. Marketing Systems Group screened the sample to ensure that the cellular telephone numbers were active, and the Siena College Research Institute fielded the poll, with additional fieldwork by ReconMR, the Public Opinion Research Laboratory at the University of North Florida, the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College, the Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at Winthrop University in South Carolina and the Survey Center at University of New Hampshire. Interviewers asked for the person named on the voter file and ended the interview if the intended respondent was not available. Overall, more than 95 percent of respondents were reached on a cellular telephone.

In Arizona and Pennsylvania, the questions were translated into Spanish by ReconMR. Bilingual interviewers began the interview in English and were instructed to follow the lead of the respondent in determining whether to conduct the survey in English or Spanish. Monolingual Spanish-speaking respondents who were initially contacted by English-speaking interviewers were recontacted by Spanish-speaking interviewers. Overall, 6 percent of interviews (9 percent of the weighted sample) among self-reported Hispanics were conducted in Spanish, including 2 percent of the interviews (3 percent of the weighted sample) among self-reported Hispanics in Arizona and 26 percent of the interviews (34 percent of the weighted sample) among self-reported Hispanics in Pennsylvania.

An interview was determined to be complete for the purposes of inclusion in the questions about whom the respondent would vote for if the respondent did not drop out of the survey after being asked the two self-reported variables used in weighting — age and education — and answered at least one of the questions about age, education or presidential-election candidate preference.

Weighting (registered voters)

The survey was weighted by The Times using the survey package in R in multiple steps.

First, the sample was adjusted for unequal probability of selection by stratum.

Second, each poll was weighted to match voter file-based parameters for the characteristics of registered voters.

The following targets were used:

• Party registration (L2 data) by whether the respondent has requested an absentee ballot for the 2024 general election (L2 data), in Pennsylvania

• Party registration (L2 data) by race (L2 model), in Arizona

• Six categories of partisanship (Classification based on an NYT model of vote choice in prior Times/Siena polls), in Montana

• Partisanship (L2 model based on commercial data and partisan political contributions), in Montana

• Race or ethnicity (L2 model)

• Age (self-reported age, or voter-file age if the respondent refused) by gender (L2 data)

• Education (four categories of self-reported education level, weighted to match NYT-based targets derived from Times/Siena polls, census data and the L2 voter file)

• White/nonwhite race by college or noncollege educational attainment (L2 model of race weighted to match NYT-based targets for self-reported education in Pennsylvania; L2 model of race weighted to match NYT-based targets derived from census data in Arizona)

• Marital status (L2 model)

• Homeownership (L2 model)

• Turnout history (NYT classifications based on L2 data)

• Method of voting in the 2020 elections (NYT classifications based on L2 data), in Montana and Arizona

• State region (NYT classifications)

• Census block group density (A.C.S. 5-Year Census Block Group data), in Montana

• History of voting in the 2020 presidential primary (L2 data), in Pennsylvania

• Census tract educational attainment, in Arizona

Finally, the sample of respondents who completed all questions in the survey was weighted identically as well as to the result for the general-election horse-race question (including voters leaning a certain way) on the full sample.

Weighting (likely electorate)

The survey was weighted by The Times using the R survey package in multiple steps.

First, the samples were adjusted for unequal probability of selection by stratum.

Second, the first-stage weight was adjusted to account for the probability that a registrant would vote in the 2024 election, based on a model of turnout in the 2020 election.

Third, the sample was weighted to match targets for the composition of the likely electorate. The targets for the composition of the likely electorate were derived by aggregating the individual-level turnout estimates described in the previous step for registrants on the L2 voter file. The categories used in weighting were the same as those previously mentioned for registered voters.

Fourth, the initial likely electorate weight was adjusted to incorporate self-reported intention to vote. Four-fifths of the final probability that a registrant would vote in the 2024 election was based on the registrant’s ex ante modeled turnout score, and one-fifth was based on self-reported intentions, based on prior Times/Siena polls, including a penalty to account for the tendency of survey respondents to turn out at higher rates than nonrespondents. The final likely electorate weight was equal to the modeled electorate rake weight, multiplied by the final turnout probability and divided by the ex ante modeled turnout probability.

Finally, the sample of respondents who completed all questions in the survey was weighted identically as well as to the result for the general election horse-race question (including leaners) on the full sample.

The margin of error accounts for the survey’s design effect, a measure of the loss of statistical power due to survey design and weighting.

The design effect for the full sample is 1.24 for the likely electorate in Montana, 1.29 for the likely electorate in Pennsylvania and 1.30 for the likely electorate in Arizona.

Among registered voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.3 points in Montana, including a design effect of 1.26; plus or minus 3.8 points in Arizona, including a design effect of 1.20; and plus or minus 3.7 points in Pennsylvania, including a design effect of 1.23.

For the sample of completed interviews, among the likely electorate, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 points in Montana, including a design effect of 1.29; plus or minus 4 points in Pennsylvania, including a design effect of 1.35; and plus or minus 4.1 points in Arizona, including a design effect of 1.30.

Historically, The Times/Siena Poll’s error at the 95th percentile has been plus or minus 5.1 percentage points in surveys taken over the final three weeks before an election. Real-world error includes sources of error beyond sampling error, such as nonresponse bias, coverage error, late shifts among undecided voters and error in estimating the composition of the electorate. More

The Times reviewed the minutes of 10 meetings among Hamas’s top leaders. The records show the militant group avoided several escalations since 2021 to falsely imply it had been deterred — while seeking Iranian support for a major attack.For more than two years, Yahya Sinwar huddled with his top Hamas commanders and plotted what they hoped would be the most devastating and destabilizing attack on Israel in the militant group’s four-decade history.Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, provide a detailed record of the planning for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as Mr. Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the assault or at least commit to a broader fight with Israel if Hamas staged a surprise cross-border raid.The documents, which represent a breakthrough in understanding Hamas, also show extensive efforts to deceive Israel about its intentions as the group laid the groundwork for a bold assault and a regional conflagration that Mr. Sinwar hoped would cause Israel to “collapse.”The documents consist of minutes from 10 secret planning meetings of a small group of Hamas political and military leaders in the run-up to the attack, on Oct. 7, 2023. The minutes include 30 pages of previously undisclosed details about the way Hamas’s leadership works and the preparations that went into its attack.The documents, which were verified by The Times, lay out the main strategies and assessments of the leadership group:Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack, which it code-named “the big project,” in the fall of 2022. But the group delayed executing the plan as it tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate.As they prepared arguments aimed at Hezbollah, the Hamas leaders said that Israel’s “internal situation” — an apparent reference to turmoil over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plans to overhaul the judiciary — was among the reasons they were “compelled to move toward a strategic battle.”In July 2023, Hamas dispatched a top official to Lebanon, where he met with a senior Iranian commander and requested help with striking sensitive sites at the start of the assault.The senior Iranian commander told Hamas that Iran and Hezbollah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to prepare; the minutes do not say how detailed a plan was presented by Hamas to its allies.The documents also say that Hamas planned to discuss the attack in more detail at a subsequent meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader at the time, but do not clarify whether the discussion happened.Hamas felt assured of its allies’ general support, but concluded it might need to go ahead without their full involvement — in part to stop Israel from deploying an advanced new air-defense system before the assault took place.The decision to attack was also influenced by Hamas’s desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the entrenchment of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israeli efforts to exert greater control over the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, sacred in both Islam and Judaism and known to Jews as the Temple Mount.Hamas deliberately avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years from 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the Oct. 7 attack. As the leaders saw it, they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”Hamas leaders in Gaza said they briefed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, on “the big project.” It was not previously known whether Mr. Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in July, had been briefed on the attack before it happened.Prelude to WarThe documents provide greater context to one of the most pivotal moments in modern Middle Eastern history, showing it was both the culmination of a yearslong plan, as well as a move partly shaped by specific events after Mr. Netanyahu returned to power in Israel in late 2022.Yahya Sinwar in April 2023 in Gaza City. Documents show that he and other Hamas leaders wanted time to lull Israeli leaders into a false sense of security before attacking Israel. Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A rating agency’s warning about the country’s ballooning debt comes as the prime minister tries to push an austerity budget through a divided Parliament.France has become one of the most financially troubled countries in Europe, with an outsize debt and deficit that are likely to keep ballooning despite efforts by a fragile new government to address the problem, the Fitch Ratings agency said on Friday.A day after France’s new prime minister, Michel Barnier, introduced a tough austerity budget aimed at mending the nation’s rapidly deteriorating finances, Fitch issued a negative outlook for France’s sovereign credit rating. The rating was left unchanged at an AA– level for now, but Fitch warned that it could be revised lower if the government’s budget plans fall apart.The outlook reflects greater financial risks that have swirled in France since President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the lower house of Parliament in June and took until last month to appoint a new government. The episode left Parliament deeply divided, split nearly evenly between warring political factions on the left, right and center, and leaving Mr. Barnier with no clear majority. That will make it harder to pass a belt-tightening budget and assuage nervous international investors at a time when France’s national debt has ballooned to more than 3 trillion euros ($3.28 trillion).In a statement late Friday after Fitch’s announcement, France’s economy minister, Antoine Armand, said the government was determined “to turn around the trajectory of public finances and control debt.”France is the second-largest economy among the 20 countries that use the euro currency, and as such, is considered too big to fail. European Union rules require members to have sound finances, including capping debt at 60 percent of economic output and not letting government spending exceed revenues by more than 3 percent.But France is now well in excess of both of those limits, drawing a formal rebuke recently from the European Union. France’s debt has spiraled to more than 110 percent of economic output, the worst in the bloc after Greece and Italy. Fitch warned that the debt could surge to more than 118 percent of gross domestic product by 2028 if nothing is done. The annual budget deficit is set to widen to 6.1 percent of gross domestic product this year, much higher than expected, and an increase of more than 10 percent from last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More