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      Beyoncé to appear with Kamala Harris in Houston to highlight abortion rights – reports

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      Beyoncé will appear with Kamala Harris in Houston on Friday, according to media reports.The star turn will confirm that, following Harris’s endorsement by Taylor Swift last month, the Democratic vice-president and US presidential candidate has the support of the two most popular musicians in the world – a potentially invaluable asset for galvanising young voters.Harris is rallying in Texas, a Republican stronghold, to highlight abortion rights and support Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred, who trails Republican Ted Cruz in opinion polls.Beyoncé, 43, will appear in her home city along with her mother, Tina Knowles, and 91-year-old country music giant Willie Nelson, according to sources cited by the Washington Post newspaper.The event presents an opportunity for Beyoncé to give a live performance of Freedom, a song from her 2016 album Lemonade, which the vice-president has been using as walk-on music at rallies while making freedom a central theme of her campaign.Beyoncé, who has hundreds of millions of followers on social media, sang a cover of Etta James’s At Last at one of President Barack Obama’s inaugural balls in 2009, before singing the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration ceremony in 2013.She performed Formation at a rally for Democrat Hillary Clinton three days before the presidential election in 2016 and told the crowd: “I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman leading the country. That’s why I’m with her.”Her backing of Harris is therefore no surprise and fed fevered speculation – and inaccurate reporting – that she would make a dramatic entrance at this summer’s Democratic national convention in Philadelphia.Beyoncé becomes the latest celebrity to bring star power to the Harris campaign. On Thursday, the Democrat is holding a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, with musician Bruce Springsteen, film director Spike Lee, actor Samuel L Jackson and actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry as well as Obama.Other musicians supporting the Democrat include Eminem, Cher, Billie Eilish, Barbra Streisand, Carole King, John Legend and Stevie Wonder. Trump has the backing of Jason Aldean, Lee Greenwood, Kanye West and Kid Rock, while the Republican national convention was shown a video featuring rapper Forgiato Blow and reality TV star Amber Rose. More

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      This race could affect Pennsylvanians more than the presidential election. Can Democrats win?

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      In a Pennsylvania suburb whose voters are coveted by both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Nicole Ruscitto walked from house to house on a gloomy Tuesday afternoon, informing residents that there is another important race in November.“I’m Nicole, I’m running for state senate in your district,” she told voters on the doorsteps of their red brick houses in Bethel Park, a town about 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, which, if yard signs and election results are any gauge, is about evenly divided between Trump and Harris supporters. “I want to go to Harrisburg to help our families.”In a swing state that’s considered by both Trump and Harris as perhaps the most important to deciding the presidential election, Ruscitto is running for an office that receives less attention than the occupant of White House or members of Congress, yet may have far more impact on the day-to-day life of Pennsylvanians.For three decades, Democrats have been locked out of power in the state’s general assembly. On 5 November, the party is hoping the elections of Ruscitto, a school teacher and former town councilmember, and three other candidates to the state senate will change that.Should they wind up with control of the senate and the house of representatives – the party’s majority in the latter is just one seat – Democrats will finally be able to send Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, a host of legislation that Republicans are currently blocking, ranging from increasing the minimum wage to abortion rights.“If we could have that trifecta, Governor Shapiro would be able to do so many great things for the people here in Pennsylvania, and I plan on doing that 100%,” Ruscitto said in an interview at her campaign office.While many Americans are fixated on the presidential election, there are 5,808 legislative seats in 44 states up for grabs in November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and voters’ choices may be more impactful than ever before. State governments across the United States have in recent years picked up the policymaking slack from Washington DC, where partisan gridlock and uncooperative Congresses have meant successive presidents have failed to enact many of their campaign promises.The results can be seen in the stark differences between laws in red and blue states.Where Democrats rule, governors have enacted laws to protect abortion access, cut down on emissions tied to climate change, curb gun violence and streamline the process to cast ballots. Republican-led states, meanwhile, have banned abortion to varying degrees, targeted gender-affirming care for transgender youths, restricted cities from passing gun control measures and expanded the role of religion in public education.Many states have legislatures and governor’s mansions controlled by the same party. A smaller group of states, including Wisconsin, Kansas and North Carolina, have governors of one party and legislatures controlled by the other. Pennsylvania is the only state in the union where the two houses of the general assembly are held by different parties.Considered a part of Democrats’ “blue wall” along the Great Lakes, the Keystone state has supported the party’s presidential candidates in most recent elections, though this year’s polls show Trump and Harris essentially tied. Democrats have also seen victories at the state level with the election of Shapiro and the US senator John Fetterman in 2022.But control of the general assembly has eluded them since 1994. John J Kennedy, a political science professor at West Chester University and an expert on the state legislature, credited that to a push by Republicans to draw district maps in their favor, as well as Democratic voters’ tendency to be clustered in states’ urban areas.“Democrats are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to the geography of a state like Pennsylvania, because they waste more votes,” he said. “Democrats are so concentrated, they’re at a sort of a natural disadvantage when it comes to accumulating a majority of seats.”The tide began to turn two years ago, when Democrats barely took control of the house in midterm elections that saw the party perform far better than expected nationwide, fueled by voters’ outrage at the US supreme court for overturning Roe v Wade. But Republican control of the state senate has meant many of their legislative ambitions – including a bill intended to protect abortion seekers in the state, where the procedure is legal up until about 24 weeks of pregnancy – have gone nowhere.Vincent Hughes, a Democratic senator who is the campaign chair of the Pennsylvania senate Democratic campaign committee, said he believes more voters are aware of the importance of legislative races, citing Trump’s attempts to get Republicans in Pennsylvania and other swing states to go along with his plan to block Joe Biden from taking office in 2020.“What has happened is that the importance of state legislators nationally has become much clearer in the last four or five years, and I think that will lead to more folks getting more engaged in down-ballot races at the state legislative level,” he said in an interview.Democrats’ hopes for a majority hinge on winning purple districts around the city of Erie, the state capital Harrisburg, and two in Pittsburgh’s suburbs – including the one in its western outskirts where Ruscitto is running against incumbent Devlin Robinson. A Marine Corps veteran and businessman, Robinson unseated a Democratic officeholder four years ago and promptly signed a letter, along with many of his colleagues, encouraging the top Republicans in Congress to delay certifying Pennsylvania’s election results as part of Trump’s disproven campaign of election denialism.

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      Ruscitto hopes her emphasis on cost-of-living issues and personal experience as a teacher, as well as attacks on Robinson for voting for a state constitutional amendment that could be used to curb abortion access, will give her an edge.“We have the lowest minimum wage, and it sits in our state senate, and it’s not getting passed. And, to me, that’s absurd,” she said.Residents of the district say Robinson has been stepping up his outreach to constituents as election day approaches. Joyce Reinoso, a retired teacher and campaigner for candidates who backs organized labor and public education, said he also has the power of incumbency.“I don’t care what party, it’s always harder to beat the incumbent because the name recognition, if nothing else,” she said.The Ruscitto campaign’s internal polling has found her leading Robinson by a mere two percentage points, within their survey’s margin of error. This week, the University of Virginia’s center for politics rated Pennsylvania’s house as a toss-up, but said the GOP has the edge in keeping the senate.In Bethel Park, which was briefly thrust into the national spotlight in July when a man from the town tried to kill the former president, houses with Trump yards signs and flags sit across the street from those backing Harris, and the two candidates’ ads are ubiquitous online and on television. But signs for Ruscitto and Robinson are relatively scarce – as are strong opinions.As she sat down for an early dinner at Ma and Pop’s Country Kitchen, Sandy Messiner, a retired bookkeeper, expressed no doubts about voting for Trump again.“If Trump gets in, my investments will go up. We need a businessman to run this country,” the 70-year-old said. And though she knew less about them, she planned to vote for all the other Republicans on the ballot.“I don’t care who gets in as long as they’re Republican.”Sitting at the other end of the counter was Pam Cirucci, an 83-year-old retired nurse who was sure she would not be voting for Trump, because “he doesn’t respect females”.A former Republican, Cirucci was less concerned with who controlled the legislature – or what the lawmakers in Harrisburg were up to at all.“There are so many things that are more important,” she said. More

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      An unlikely Oakland mayor is fighting for political survival amid a billionaire-backed recall

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      The Oakland mayor, Sheng Thao’s political rise was precarious from the start.For progressives, her narrow victory in 2022 affirmed their city’s radical, leftist roots. By electing a daughter of Hmong refugees and a domestic violence survivor who promised to advocate for the city’s most vulnerable residents, it seemed Oakland had defied the tech billionaires and venture capitalists who were working to transform the political landscape in neighbouring San Francisco.Almost as soon as she was sworn in, her detractors were questioning the legitimacy of her leadership and called for a recount. Things only got messier from there.This summer, just 18 months into Thao’s tenure, a recall effort against her qualified for the ballot – the first in Oakland in more than a century. Bankrolled by wealthy tech and crypto executives and a hedge-fund manager, the recall gave voice to voters who were furious over what seemed like a decades-long failure by city hall to fix everything from potholes to crime and homelessness.“Since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Pamela Drake, a longtime activist and political commentator who moved to Oakland in 1968. “This recall is a reaction during a time when the whole country is in somewhat of a state of reaction, when the whole world is sort of chaotic.”The town where Kamala Harris was born and launched a political career has been under a spotlight lately – or, perhaps, a microscope. National politicians on the right have all too eagerly cast it as a dysfunctional hellscape with runaway crime. But its struggles of late have been painfully real.View image in fullscreenA spiralling housing crisis has driven hundreds of people into sprawling encampments. Acclaimed restaurants have closed, blaming crime and rising costs. And the city’s last remaining major league sports team has left Oakland’s crumbling Coliseum.Many of the same groups backing the recall against Thao helped launch a recall effort against the county’s top prosecutor, the progressive Pamela Price.“People are fed up with crime and homelessness,” said Dan Lindheim, a former Oakland city administrator and now professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. “And they want to hold somebody accountable. It was like: ‘We don’t like what they’re doing, so – symbolically – it’s off with their heads.’”It didn’t matter that homicides had spiked under Thao’s predecessor, and that neither Thao nor Price had direct or total control over the police department or crime rates. Nor does Thao have broad authority to quickly fix a housing crisis that has plagued nearly every corner of California. “But I don’t think this movement was sort of the sum of rational decisions,” Lindheim said. “I think it’s sort of an emotional tidal wave.”Just one day after the effort to recall Thao qualified for the ballot, the city saw one of its worst mass shootings in years: 14 people were shot at a Juneteenth celebration, after a sideshow – an illegal street takeover – developed nearby and fighting broke out.As if to put a finer point on the city’s turmoil, the day after that, FBI agents descended on Thao’s home, carrying out boxes of evidence in an investigation that has neither implicated the mayor in any wrongdoing, nor absolved her of it. “It was just piling one thing on top of another,” Lindheim said. “That was the seal of death for her mayoral position.”Two years into office, Thao has argued she is just getting started. “We’re doing all this great work,” she told the Guardian in an interview. “The first year was about trying to figure out what our ills are, and finding solutions to our ailments. And now we’re seeing wins come in.”At recent rallies and town halls, the mayor and her supporters have pointed to statistics that in Oakland, as in cities across the US, crime, and especially violent crime, has been declining. This summer, a report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents the police chiefs of big cities, found a 17% decrease in the number of Oakland’s homicides from January through June, compared with the same time period last year. The local news outlet Oaklandside reported that the number of robberies, assaults and rapes had also dipped.They’ve questioned the extent to which the recallers’ grievances can be pinned to Thao, or any mayor. Crime was increasing before she took office, as was homelessness. The Oakland As – the town’s beloved major league baseball team – had been in talks to leave the city for years. Thao points out that she helped bring in the Ballers, an independent league team that began competing this summer in West Oakland.She has contradicted her critics’ characterizations of her as soft on crime by pointing out that she has expanded surveillance and policing, by calling in state funds and resources. And – much to the chagrin of some of her progressive backers – she recently ordered the city to take a more aggressive approach to removing homeless encampments.View image in fullscreenShe also has insisted on her innocence in the scandal that followed the FBI’s raid on her house. Thao had said she is not the target of the investigation, but the agency has not publicly commented on the case, nor has it confirmed her claim. It has also raided properties of the politically powerful Duong family, who hold the city’s curbside recycling contract and who had previously been under investigation by the city’s ethics commission. Thao has called out the agency for refusing to clarify the situation and timing the raid so close to the recall. “It shouldn’t look like they’re putting their finger on the scale when it comes to elections,” she said.Her arguments appear to have done little to quell broader anxieties about crime and calls for more policing. It hasn’t helped that even California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has jumped into the morass, publicly urging Oakland’s leaders to change a policy to allow more police vehicle chases, after observing “criminals often fleeing with impunity”.“Since taking office, Thao has shown herself incapable of handling the city’s most pressing challenges, while repeatedly deceiving the public about her actions and their consequences,” Seneca Scott, a recall organizer who also ran against Thao for mayor, said in a statement. “The effort to recall Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao isn’t about a single issue – it’s about a pattern of dishonesty, mismanagement and failure to provide effective leadership for the people of Oakland.”Scott and other recall supporters frequently point to reports by the San Francisco Chronicle that Oakland’s police department had been publishing misleading crime data for years. “Overall crime rates have worsened under Thao,” he said.But, at issue in the Chronicle report is the department’s weekly crime reports, which misstated some non-violent crimes. The Chronicle also found that the department had far overestimated violent crime.Longtime activists see the recall efforts against Thao and the county’s progressive district attorney as part of a broader backlash against calls for reforms following the George Floyd protests against police brutality.“I don’t know that there’s been any other time in Oakland besides that, where things had swung so far to the left,” said Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project.During the George Floyd protests, thousands were screaming in the streets in support of defunding the police – and briefly, it seemed that officials at the local and national levels were starting to pay heed. “And so I think what we’re seeing right now is a really big swing to the right,” Brooks said.Harping on the discontent are Thao’s longtime political detractors.Mere days after the election, the moderate councilmember Loren Taylor, whom Thao defeated in the mayoral race, said Oakland’s ranked-choice voting system was a form of “voter suppression” – even though the system has been in use for decades, and got him elected to his own seat.Taylor has continued his criticism of Thao, leading a group called Empower Oakland, which endorsed the recall, and vowing to run for election if Thao is removed. Thao’s predecessor, Libby Schaaf, who backed Taylor, has also endorsed the recall, telling KQED she believes Thao “is not capable of growing into the job”.Another major critic is LeRonne Armstrong, the former chief of Oakland’s troubled police department, which for decades has been under federal oversight. Thao fired Armstrong after an investigation implicated him in systemic failures within the department and after he publicly accused the federal watchdog of corruption, without evidence. But Armstrong – who is now running for a city council seat – had been well-liked in Oakland, and his dismissal triggered a fresh wave of animosity toward the mayor.Brenda Harbin-Forte, a former Alameda county superior court judge and police commissioner whom Thao removed after taking office, ended up leading the campaign against the mayor – focusing in large part on public safety and Thao’s dismissal of Armstrong.Leaders within the Oakland chapter of the NAACP have also backed the recall, with Cynthia Adams, the chapter president, calling Armstrong’s firing a “modern-day lynch”.“If you go down the streets of Oakland, it looks like a third-world country. Oakland never looked like this,” Adams told the Guardian.Meanwhile, several current and former members of the NAACP chapter have said the group has been “hijacked” by conservatives.Adding fuel to the recall effort’s momentum are hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy benefactors. Oaklandside revealed that the recall’s biggest funder was one man – Philip Dreyfuss, a hedge-fund manager who lives in the nearby wealthy enclave of Piedmont and was also top donor in the successful effort to oust San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022. Ron Conway, a billionaire tech investor who was also involved in the San Francisco recall effort, is another major funder.In recent weeks, several prominent Democratic lawmakers have voiced their support for Thao – or, at least, their opposition to the recall. “The voters – through regular elections, not a few billionaires – are the ones with the power to ensure our democratic process remains strong and in place,” said Barbara Lee, a longtime ranking member of the US House, representing Oakland and neighbouring communities.“Except in rare circumstances of serious misconduct,” said Nancy Skinner, a state senator, “recalls are undemocratic and a waste of public funds.”Thao, too, has been on the offensive, holding public rallies and town halls.Whether it will be enough to fight off the challenge is unclear. At a public-safety town hall event in Oakland’s bustling Temescal neighbourhood earlier this month, Thao appeared alongside the city’s new police chief, fire chief and transportation director to reassure voters that things were getting better.The city had managed to hire dozens of new 911 operators and was in the process of hiring more, and crisis call response times had gone down since Thao took office. Also, Thao had overseen the revival of Operation Ceasefire, one of the city’s marquee gun violence prevention strategies that had been watered down under the previous administration.“We are seeing a decline in our crimes,” Thao told the crowd. “And we are seeing that we are intervening before crime actually gets started.”Attenders, many of them members of the spiritualist church that was hosting the event, seemed dubious. Were the city’s new license-plate readers making any difference? When did they expect to fill the vacancies in the police department, and hire more officers?There were stacks of notecards with questions about potholes, littered streets and illegal dumping. Thao and her team projected statistics showing that Oakland had fixed nearly as many potholes over the last fiscal year as it had during the entire 10-year period between 2008 and 2018.Linda St Julian, 75, remained unconvinced. “I’m just so upset with how nasty the city has gotten. I’m just hurt to see my city go down like this” she said. “But I’ll be dead before they fix things.”St Julian had already decided she was in favor of the recall; Thao hadn’t done enough to address crime or homelessness, she felt. Nor had Schaaf, a moderate who is now running for state treasurer. “I don’t like any of them,” St Julian said, shaking her head, referring to the city’s last several mayors.Laux Williams, 37, agreed. The last mayor they felt had done a good job was Ron Dellums, who served from 2007-2011. Williams didn’t want to say whether or not they would vote to recall Thao – but said Oakland had been suffering. “I’m just waiting on a change,” they said. More

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      What I learned when Turning Points USA came to my campus | Cas Mudde

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      This Tuesday, Charlie Kirk brought his You’re Being Brainwashed Tour to the campus of my public university in a Republican-controlled state. It was nothing like the last time Kirk and his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization had visited. Although the different timing matters – this was literally two weeks before election day – the differences between the 2018 and 2024 events in many ways reflect the dangerous radicalization of the US right wing.In 2018, Kirk had a fairly similar agenda when coming to my university: “exposing leftist lies and progressive propaganda” at US universities. I wrote a column about the rather bland event, describing it as a “rightwing safe space”, in which Kirk railed against the “cultural Marxists”. Most students seemed more amused than aggrieved. How different this week’s event was.When I came to campus early, I saw them set up their stands. I drank my coffee opposite to a lone female student with a Trump hat – a rare sight even at my university. I then went to teach my course on far-right politics, where TPUSA’s event was the talk of the class. I told my students that I totally understood if they wanted to observe the event – who am I to stand in the way of them getting “de-brainwashed”? – and approximately half of my students indeed left halfway through class to attend the event.After class, I walked down to Tate Plaza, the open space in front of the student center, and was perplexed by the sight. I saw what looked like a sea of Maga hats on the large open space. I bumped into one of my students, who told me that TPUSA handed out the Maga hats for free, and that he was leaving because you couldn’t hear anything anyway. In the background Kirk was droning on about Kamala Harris, wokeism and his other favorite enemies. But there was something to the meeting, an energy that was lacking six years ago. This was not just a safe space, this was a boisterous and proud rally!Sure, almost anyone wearing their own Maga hat was older and not related to the university, but a couple hundred students happily accepted and wore the hat. Moreover, most kept them on when they left the rally, and went to the food court, to class or even downtown. Turns out that a hat that is the most recognizable symbol of support for a man that has been loudly and openly authoritarian and racist in the last months is a rather cool gimmick for privileged young white men.View image in fullscreenThere are important broader lessons to be drawn from the differences between these two TPUSA events. First, the 2024 meeting shows the radicalization of conservative America. While Turning Point was already supportive of Trump in 2018, it still had a largely independent program, ostensibly focused on traditional conservative values as small government and capitalism. In the past years, Kirk has not only fully embraced the authoritarian and nativist agenda of Trump, he and his organization have pivoted to full-on Christian nationalism.Second, Turning Point USA targets college and high school students, that is, those 21 and under. These kids and young adults have been socialized in a world in which 1 Trump is a former president; 2 the Republican party is the party of Trump; and 3 the US Capitol got stormed by Trump sympathizers. For those raised in Republican households, which means most of the students at my university, this means that Trump and the far right are completely normal. What we see as far right, they see as mainstream conservatism. They have no conception of the Republican party of George Bush Sr or Jr.Third, radicalized organizations like TPUSA have overtaken the role of mainstream conservative organizations such as the College Republicans, not just on campus but also as training grounds for the next “conservative” elite. Kirk has literally been training the cadres for the next Trump administration, should it happen. This is a very different kind of “Republican”, if they are Republicans at all. They are more assertive and extremist but less tied to traditional conservative organizations, including the Republican party.Fourth, and most optimistically, the sea of Maga hats also gave me a shimmer of hope for the upcoming election. Since Trump’s shock 2016 win, the media has obsessed about “shy Trump supporters”, that is, people who support Trump in the elections but do not say so in polls because of social desirability. Although empirical evidence has always been weak, the “shy Trump voter” never disappeared from the public debate. Seeing these students wear the Maga hats, not for fun or provocation, but as a “normal” expression of support for the “conservative” candidate in the presidential election, confirmed my suspicion that there are no “shy Trumpers” left in 2024.And, if this is true, there might still be hope, in the sense that the current polls are overrepresenting the Trump vote, because they are overcompensating for a dated phenomenon, the shy Trump voter, yet another victim of the normalization of Trump.

      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today More

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      US students rally college voters on campus: ‘We brought the polls to them’

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      College students formed a steady line outside a campus art museum to vote early on Tuesday at a pop-up polling place at the University of Minnesota.The one-day site, enabled by new state laws that allow for pop-up early voting, helps populations like student voters, who may not have access to transportation to get off campus, easily access the polls.“We brought the polls to them,” said Riley Hetland, a sophomore and undergraduate student government civic engagement director, who helped plan the event.Hetland said the group has been going to classrooms and hosting tables around campus for weeks to get people registered to vote and help them make a plan to cast ballots. So far, they have gotten 12,000 students to pledge to vote, double their goal of 6,000, a sign of the enthusiasm young people have to perform their civic duty in the presidential election, she said. More than 600 people voted during the seven hours the pop-up site was open on Tuesday, organizers said.Across the country, college campuses and campaigns have ramped up efforts to register and energize college voters, especially in critical swing states. The Democratic party is counting on high turnout on college campuses, which tend to lean Democratic..Kamala Harris’s campaign on Wednesday announced it was launching an early voting push targeting students on campuses in battleground states, including a seven-figure ad buy to primarily target students on social media.College campuses are also organizing their own get-out-thevote efforts. At the University of California Berkeley, hundreds of students came together recently for an event called Votechella, which featured music and on-site voter registration, the state university system said. The name is a nod to Coachella, the popular music festival held annually in southern California.At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, students have reacted positively to outreach efforts on campus, where a second voting hub opened on Monday, according to CBS News.Nevaeh McVey, a student, told CBS: “I come from a place where I wasn’t really educated about how to vote or who to vote for, and I think getting the younger population to vote is extremely important in times like these. I just think [this initiative] makes it really easy and accessible for us students to do.”The push to mobilize young voters comes as some students are facing challenges in casting their ballot. Leaders of some Republican-controlled states have worked to limit student voting, writing legislation to limit the use of student identification cards as an ID at polls and shuttering on-campus polling precincts.Proponents of these measures claim that they are necessary to prevent voter fraud, while others have railed that voting is too easy for university students.The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin has urged the US justice department to investigate text messages they believe targeted young people to dissuade them from voting. The organization received complaints from voters who received a text that read: “WARNING: Violating WI Statutes 12.13 & 6.18 may result in fines up to $10,000 or 3.5 years in prison. Don’t vote in a state where you’re not eligible.”College students could prove integral in tipping swing states, as they are traditionally permitted to vote either in their home state or where they attend school. Some students have registered in the state where they believe their vote might have the most impact.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’ve seen dozens of elections up and down the ballot over the course of the last few years that have been decided by as close as one vote,” Clarissa Unger, co-founder and executive director of Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, told ABC News.“Every single college student’s vote can be consequential.”Throughout the day on Tuesday, the line for the pop-up site in Minnesota held dozens of people who passed by between classes, came to campus specifically for the voting site or walked over from their dorms. A 30ft inflatable eagle helped set a fun atmosphere for voting – and the free pizza didn’t hurt.There are election day polling places on campus, but the pop-up site is the only on-campus early voting opportunity. And it doesn’t require voters to live in any specific precinct – any Minneapolis voter could cast a ballot there on Tuesday. Joslyn Blass, a senior and undergraduate student government director of government and legislative affairs, said the group has pushed for early voting because there could be various obstacles – like an exam or getting sick – that can get in the way of voting solely on 5 November. “We really prioritize the early voting site, just because you never know what’s gonna happen,” she said.Madelyn Ekstrand finished her class for the day and waited about an hour to cast her ballot. The 21-year-old senior said abortion access and the climate crisis were important to her, so she was voting for Harris.“I’m happy to see people my age getting out and voting and being proactive and not waiting till the last second,” she said. More

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      US presidential election briefing: Early voting records smashed as Trump urges Republicans to head to polls early

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      Nearly 25 million Americans have already voted, less than two weeks out from the US election, with records broken in multiple battleground states, at least partly driven by Republicans embracing early voting at Donald Trump’s direction.Either through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots, more than 1.9 million voters have cast early votes in Georgia, where Trump lost by a mere 11,779 votes four years ago to Democrat Joe Biden, while North Carolina also set a new record of more than 1.7m despite the chaos caused by Hurricane Helene last month.At an event in Georgia, Trump celebrated the state’s record-breaking vote levels, and at a separate rally urged his supporters to “just vote – whichever way you want to do it.”Here’s what else happened on Wednesday:Donald Trump election news

      A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993, in what she believed was a “twisted game” between the two men. The Trump campaign called the allegations by Stacey Williams “unequivocally false”, calling it a fake story “contrived by the Harris campaign”.

      Trump appeared in Zebulon, Georgia, with lieutenant governor and 2020 election denier Burt Jones, at a faith-focused event his campaign dubbed a “Believers and Ballots town hall”. Trump praised tech mogul Elon Musk, for providing hurricane relief where he claimed the federal government did not.

      Trump stayed in Georgia for a rally in Duluth with guests Tucker Carlson, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. He escalated his personal insults against Kamala Harris, saying she was “crazy” and inviting voters to tell his opponent: “‘You’re the worst ever. There’s never been anybody like you. You can’t put two sentences together. The world is laughing at us because of you.’”

      The US justice department warned Musk’s Super Pac that the billionaire and Tesla CEO’s $1m-a-day giveaways may violate federal law, according to multiple reports. Musk, who has thrown his support behind Trump, announced on Saturday while speaking before a crowd in Pennsylvania that he was giving away $1m each day until election day to someone who signs his online petition supporting the US constitution.

      Writing on Truth Social, Trump assailed John Kelly as a “a bad general” gripped by “pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred”. Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and a retired Marine general, on Tuesday said he believed Trump met the definition of “fascist” and was “certainly an authoritarian”. Two retired army officers said they agreed with Kelly, while Republicans including the governor of New Hampshire dismissed the comments.
      Kamala Harris election news

      Kamala Harris denounced Trump as a “fascist” who wants “unchecked power” and a military personally loyal to him. In a surprise speech from her Washington DC residence, the Democratic nominee jumped on Kelly’s claims. Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the president also agreed with those calling Trump a fascist.

      Harris repeated the fascist claim during a televised town hall with undecided voters in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In response to CNN moderator Anderson Cooper asking her: “Let me ask you tonight, do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”, Harris answered: “Yes, I do.” Trump was invited to attend the same town hall but declined.

      Harris’s campaign announced she will deliver a major “closing argument” address next week in the same location that Donald Trump rallied January 6 rioters before they stormed the US Capitol in 2021.

      Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz voted early along with his wife, Gwen, and son, Gus. Leaving the voting booth in St Paul, Minnesota, Walz said his vote was “an opportunity to turn the page on the chaos of Donald Trump and a new way forward”.

      Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband, rallied Democrats in Florida, marking a break from his recent stumping in more competitive states including Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Both parties expect the Sunshine state to once more swing for Trump, but the Harris campaign’s rare foray drew attention to the close Senate race between the Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger.
      Elsewhere on the campaign trail

      The Los Angeles Times opinion editor resigned after the newspaper’s owner blocked the masthead from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. Mariel Garza said she was standing up against the decision by Patrick Soon-Shiong, the paper’s billionaire owner. In a social media post, Soon-Shiong wrote that the Los Angeles Times editorial board had rejected a proposed alternative to a typical presidential endorsement editorial, which he described as “a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House”.

      China-linked social media bots are targeting Republicans including Marco Rubio, according to new research from Microsoft, while a senior US intelligence official said groups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting Tim Walz.

      Pennsylvania’s highest court allowed people whose mail ballots were rejected on technicalities to cast provisional ballots, likely affecting thousands of early voters. The decision was another defeat for the Republican National Committee’s legal campaign, after it argued some provisional ballots cast during the April primary should have been rejected.
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      Harris praises John Kelly for sending ‘911 call’ to the US over Trump’s fitness to serve

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      Kamala Harris praised Donald Trump’s former chief of staff for sending a “911 call” to the nation about the former president’s unfitness to serve a second term, attacking her opponent as a “fascist” who would send the nation down a dangerous path.Harris participated in a CNN town hall with undecided voters in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, as the battleground state appears poised to play a potentially decisive role in the presidential race. While taking voters’ questions on everything from the cost of living to abortion access, Harris repeatedly steered the conversation back to questions over Trump’s fitness for office.The town hall came a day after the Atlantic published a story detailing former Trump advisers’ accounts of the then-president expressing a wish for “the kind of generals that Hitler had”. The article quoted Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, who described the former president’s consistent pattern of demeaning members of the military. The Trump campaign has denied these accounts.“I do believe that Donald Trump is unstable, increasingly unstable, and unfit to serve,” Harris told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper at the town hall. “The people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House … they have said explicitly he has contempt for the constitution of the United States. They have said he should never again serve as president of the United States.”Harris predicted that, if elected to a second term, Trump would not have advisers like Kelly who might help put guardrails around the former president’s behaviour in office.“[Kelly] is just putting out a 911 call to the American people,” Harris said. “And this time, we must take very seriously, those folks who knew him best and were career people are not going to be there to hold him back.”When asked explicitly by Cooper whether she considered Trump to be a fascist, Harris said, “Yes, I do.”View image in fullscreenWhile criticizing Trump’s character and platform, Harris sometimes sidestepped difficult policy questions from Cooper and audience members. In one of her most substantive answers of the night, Harris said she believed Democrats needed to “take a look at the filibuster” to expand abortion access in the country.Democrats have pledged to reinstate Roe v Wade if they win the White House and regain full control of Congress, but such a proposal could be blocked by the Senate filibuster, which requires the support of at least 60 out of the chamber’s 100 members to advance bills. The filibuster became a fundamental obstacle to implementing much of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and could present more challenges if Harris were to win the presidency.While Harris’ openness to amending the filibuster might prove popular with the Democratic base, some of her other answers may fall short for the progressives she needs to turn out on election day. Harris reiterated her opposition to a ban on fracking and offered a somewhat muddled answer on ending the war in Gaza.Voter Annalise Kean asked Harris, “What would you do to ensure not another Palestinian dies due to bombs being funded by US tax dollars?”Harris replied, “Far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed. It’s unconscionable, and we are now at a place where, with [Yahya Sinwar’s] death, I do believe we have an opportunity to end this war, bring the hostages home, bring relief to the Palestinian people and work toward a two-state solution.”Although much of the town hall focused on criticism of Trump and policy questions, the discussion occasionally turned to the personal. Harris talked about the role of religion in her life, noting that she prays every day and spoke to her pastor the day Biden withdrew from the presidential race.Toward the end of the town hall, Anderson asked Harris about her experience grieving her mother, who died from cancer 15 years ago.“You don’t stop grieving,” Harris said. “It is important to try and remember them as they lived, not as they died.”With less than two weeks left before election day, Harris and Trump appear locked in a neck and neck race that will come down to a handful of battleground states, including Pennsylvania. In her closing message at the town hall, Harris returned to Trump’s stability, pointing to his recent comments describing Democrats as “the enemy from within” as evidence of his unfitness to serve.“He’s going to sit there – unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list,” Harris said. “My list will be a list of how I address and continue to address the issues that you all are raising this afternoon and evening. It will be a to-do list about how we can impact the American people.” More