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      To defeat Trump, Harris must talk more about the economy | Robert Reich

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      I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling more anxious about the outcome of the upcoming election. I’m still nauseously optimistic, but the nausea is growing.I’m as skeptical of polls as any of you, but when all of them show the same thing – that Kamala Harris’s campaign stalled several weeks ago, yet Donald Trump’s continues to surge – it’s important to take the polls seriously.The US vice-president will give her closing message to the American people on Tuesday at a rally on the Ellipse on the Washington mall.Over the last several weeks she’s focused on a woman’s right over her body and the rights of all Americans to a democracy. Obviously, Trump threatens both.Tuesday night, though, she needs to respond forcefully to the one issue that continues to be highest on the minds of most Americans – the economy.She must tell Americans simply and clearly why they continue to have such a hard time despite all the economic indicators to the contrary. It’s because of the power of large corporations and a handful of wealthy individuals to siphon off most economic gains for themselves.Most Americans are outraged that they continue to struggle economically at the same time as billionaires are pulling in ever more wealth. Most know they’re paying too much for housing, gas, groceries and the medicines they need. They also know that a major cause is the market power of big corporations.They want someone who’ll stand up to big corporations and the politicians in Washington who serve them.They want a president who’ll be on their side. A president who will crack down on price-gouging, who will bust up the monopolies and restore competition, who will fight to cap prescription drug costs, who will get big money out of politics and stop the legalized bribery that rigs the market for the rich and who will make sure corporations pay their fair share and end tax breaks for billionaire crooks.A president who will put working families first – before big corporations and the wealthy.Harris needs to say she will be this president.Her policy proposals suggest this. She’s committed to strong antitrust enforcement – cracking down on mergers and acquisitions that give big food corporations the power to jack up food and grocery prices, prosecuting price-fixing and banning price gouging. She needs to remind voters of this.She also says she’ll raise taxes on the rich, provide $25,000 in down-payment assistance to help Americans buy their first home, restore the expanded child tax credit to $3,600 to help more than 100 million working Americans, and implement a new $6,000 tax cut to help families pay for the high costs of a child’s first year of life.All should be parts of her speech this Tuesday about why she will be the champion of working people.She wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, make stock buybacks more expensive and expand Medicare to cover home healthcare – paid for with savings from the expansion of Medicare price negotiations with drug manufacturers.She needs to frame all of this as a response to the power of big corporations and the wealthy – and say in no uncertain terms that she’s on the side of the people, not the powerful.If she fails to do this in her closing argument, Trump’s demagogic response will be the only one the public hears – that average working people are struggling because of undocumented workers and the “enemy within”, including Democrats, socialists, Marxists and the “deep state”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris should fit her message about democracy inside this economic message. If our democracy weren’t dominated by the rich and big corporations, fewer of the economy’s gains would be siphoned off to them. Average working people would have better pay, more secure jobs, and be able to afford homes, food, fuel, medicine, childcare and eldercare.A large portion of the public no longer thinks American democracy is working. According to a new New York Times/Siena College poll, only 45% believe our democracy does a good job representing ordinary people. An astounding 62% say the government is mostly working to benefit itself and elites rather than the common good.In her closing argument, Harris should commit herself to reversing this, so the government works for the common good.Harris started her campaign in July and early August by emphasizing these themes about the economy and democracy. But in more recent weeks, she’s focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. Her campaign seems to have decided that she can draw additional voters from moderate Republican suburban women upset by Trump’s role in fomenting the attack on the US Capitol.That’s why she’s been campaigning with Liz Cheney, and gathering Republican officials as supporters. And why she has chosen to give her closing message on the Ellipse – where Trump summoned his followers to march on the Capitol on 6 January 2021.But when she shifted gears to Trump’s attacks on democracy, Harris’s campaign stalled. I think that’s because Americans continue to focus on the economy and want an answer to why they continue to struggle economically.If Trump gives them an answer – although baseless and demagogic – but Harris does not, he may sail to victory on 5 November.Hence, in her closing message she must talk clearly and frankly about the misallocation of economic power in America – lodged with big corporations and the wealthy instead of average Americans – and her commitment to rectify this.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      ‘Biden has failed me’: at a Michigan soup kitchen, people are torn between Harris and Trump

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      People on the east side of Saginaw city are more used to seeing buildings come down than go up. Bulldozers have erased houses, schools, department stores and factories over recent years as jobs disappeared and the population plummeted.But builders will soon be at work in one corner of the Michigan city constructing a sprawling extension to Saginaw’s largest soup kitchen after demand soared through the Covid-19 pandemic and then as rampant inflation hit a community where many people live on the edge financially.The East Side Soup Kitchen now serves meals to more than 800 people a day, double the number provided during the pandemic, which itself was up on previous years. It also distributes food to children through local youth clubs and churches.Few of those who use of the kitchen think that whoever is elected as president next week will slow the demand in a city with a 35% poverty rate, but that does not mean they don’t think it will make a difference. And their votes, too, are up for grabs in a bellwether county that Joe Biden won by just 303 votes in 2020.On the day that Harris campaign canvassers visited the soup kitchen, Angelica Taybron was eating lunch with her three-month-old daughter, Tyonna, sleeping at her side. Taybron, who is unemployed, could not say enough good things about the kitchen.“They really help me out here with my baby. They helped with formula and Pampers when I need it. They help me provide for my daughter,” she said.Help, said Taybron, is what she’s looking for in a president and so she’s voting for Kamala Harris.View image in fullscreen“She’s gonna help the people that’s lower. Trump is for people that’s higher. Kamala is for the people that’s struggling,” she said.Taybron’s partner, Darshell Roberson, also relies on the food kitchen as she struggles to find work. She sees it differently.“I voted for Biden but I really feel like Biden has failed me. I trust Donald Trump. In the last election I didn’t vote for him. I was kind of scared of him a little bit, but once I really got to watch him and look at him I liked him,” she said.The soup kitchen’s director, Diane Keenan, said those who arrive for a hot meal each day, and cake for dessert, come from every walk of life. Sitting at the large round tables dotting the dining room are elderly people struggling to get by on small pensions and those driven into debt by medical bills alongside former prisoners rebuilding their lives, and the unhoused, some of them brought down by drug addiction.“Many are working but they’re working poor,” said Keenan. “They work but they just don’t make enough money to make ends meet with the cost of food, the cost of gas, rent, mortgage payment, insurance, that type of thing. We have a lot of senior citizens and elderly come through. They’re on a limited income and sometimes they have to choose, do I get my medicine or can I get some food?”The need is so great that earlier this month the state donated $1m to help fund an expansion to the soup kitchen with a larger dining hall and kitchen, freezers big enough for forklifts to drive into.In a city with one of the highest crime rates in the US, Keenan is trailed by two security guards as she walks around the outside of the building to describe the closure of a neighboring road to provide a covered area for people to pick up meals by car.The drive-through began when the dining hall closed during the pandemic. Keenan kept it going because she said there are people in need of food who are too embarrassed to come into the building or are not well enough to do so.Keenan described the kitchen is “felon-friendly”, helping to provide a fresh start for those who have been in prison.View image in fullscreenStanley Henderson served 30 years for a non-violent robbery. After his release in 2015, he worked at a steel mill known for employing former prisoners and then volunteered at the soup kitchen. A couple of years later, he was taken on as a worker and is now in charge of providing coffee and soft drinks.Henderson has watched demand for the soup kitchen rise as Saginaw’s factories closed and jobs were lost. He hasn’t seen a notable improvement in economic conditions under the US president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The minimum wage isn’t enough for people to sustain themselves through a whole month. We see people coming in when their money runs out for groceries,” he said.The vice-president is promising to make the economy work better for ordinary Americans if she’s elected. Henderson is sceptical.“I am hesitant to say that she will because I don’t know. I just don’t know whether there’s more jobs under a Republican or Democrats. I don’t know if the job environment is going to improve. It’s possible it will improve up under the Republicans. They may push employment harder than the Democrats,” he said.For all that, Henderson said there was “no question” that he will vote and that it was going to be “straight Democrat” because he believes the party does more to look after people living in poverty. He said his friends and neighbours were paying attention to the election in an area of the city with traditionally low turnout, and that he thinks most of them will vote.View image in fullscreenHenderson, who is Black, also thinks Harris’s race will bump up turnout in his part of the city, although not like for Barack Obama’s election.“She might encourage people to vote who don’t normally want to. I’d say about 5% more,” he said.But there are those who do not see the point in voting.Auralie Warren is retired and struggling financially after working at KFC for much of her life. Inflation has hit her limited income hard as she helps raise her grandchildren after her eldest daughter died of a brain tumor in February and her youngest daughter was diagnosed with stomach cancer.“It’s getting harder out there. Food prices are going up. [The soup kitchen] helps me because I’ve got a fixed income. So when I eat here it saves money on food that I can then spend looking after the grandkids,” she said.“I also come to mingle with people and then I get clothing for my grandkids. If you ask for something, like my daughter needed earmuffs because she has cancer and her ears get cold, they make sure to add them.”But Warren has never voted in her 76 years and has no plans to do so. Politics didn’t seem worth her time or effort.“Whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen. I figure, even if I go [and vote] it won’t make no difference. I mean, it’s shocking but I just never did. I got so busy, I just don’t bother myself, I guess,” she said. More

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      ‘I’ve lost friends’: in bitterly divided Georgia, can Democrats score another win?

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      Mary Holewinski lives in Carrollton, Georgia, home turf for the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Holewinski is a Kamala Harris supporter and has a sign in her yard. It draws some nasty looks, she said. “I’ve lost neighbor friends.”It helps that Carrollton is a college town, and discussing politics is possible – to an extent. “I feel like the people I live around, you can sit down and have a conversation with them, and they are willing to listen … but not everybody. There are some people who don’t want to hear your side of it.”These tensions are ratcheting up, because for voters in Georgia, it can feel like the entire US election is on the line. The state went for Biden in 2020 by 11,779 votes, out of 5m ballots cast – the first time since 1992 that the state turned blue. Its 16 electoral college votes were a bulwark – psychological as well as practical – for Democrats, illustrating the nation’s rejection of Donald Trump, however slim.Georgia has personal significance for Trump, and his war on the 2020 election results. The former president still faces charges in an election interference case in Atlanta’s Fulton county, after he made what he described as a “perfect phone call” to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” another 11,800 votes. A Georgia win would represent belated validation for the former president.Now the question is which Georgia will turn out in greater force this year: the Democratic-leaning Georgia represented by the burgeoning Atlanta suburbs, or the Georgia where conservatism holds sway in its smaller towns and rural regions. Polling suggests that Trump has a lead of one to two points, well within the margin of error.The election is already under way. About 7 million Georgians are registered to vote and about 3 million voters – more than 40% of the electorate – have already gone to the polls, setting early voting records each day.Both Harris and Trump may as well have leased apartments in Buckhead, an upscale part of Atlanta, for all the time they are spending in Georgia in the last-minute election push. Earlier this month, Trump rallied at a sports arena in the northern Atlanta suburb of Duluth, in the middle of one of the most diverse areas of the state. Harris appeared on Thursday with Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen.View image in fullscreenSuburban moderates in the Atlanta region turned on Trump in 2020, and he appears to have done little in the years since to win their favor. Much has been made of Republican hopes of targeting Black men – about 1 million of Georgia’s 7 million registered voters – as a potential swing bloc for votes. The difference between a Democrat winning 80% and 90% of their votes will probably be larger than the overall margin of victory.But Georgia is no longer a state defined by Black and white voters. Asian and Latino population growth has changed the political landscape in suburban Atlanta, which helped drive the Biden victory there in 2020. Turnout in that voting demographic has been a challenge for both parties.The politics of Georgia are a delicate dance of cooperation between Atlanta, which tends Democratic, and the rest of the state. More than half the state’s population lives in the metro area of Atlanta. Music by Atlanta’s hip-hop artists has long dominated the charts. Marvel films its movies on Atlanta’s streets. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in the Atlanta area, from Home Depot, UPS and Southern Company to mainstays Coca-Cola and Delta.

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      Outside Atlanta, Savannah and pockets of Black voters in south Georgia’s historic Black belt, Georgia is solidly conservative. The Republican governor, Brian Kemp, remains the most popular political figure in the state. Moderate liberals approve of how he handled Trump’s election interference claims. Even Maga Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that his resistance to pandemic closures and libertarian gun position matched their interests.Rural, conservative Georgia is more likely to be religiously fundamentalist, less diverse and occasionally reactionary. Georgia has a six-week abortion ban because even the business wing of the Republican party in Georgia, which is solidly in charge of the state’s government, crosses evangelicals on that issue at its peril.The party’s challenges are exemplified by Rabun county, in Georgia’s picturesque, tourist-friendly mountains on the border of North Carolina. Here, and elsewhere, it is attempting to heal the standing conflict between conventional conservative Republicans and the Maga insurgency on the right.Rabun county Republicans have hosted a range of events, from a traditional low-country boil to a firearm raffle and screenings of a Reagan biography at the last remaining drive-in, said Ed Henderson, secretary of the Rabun county Republican party. Local Republicans have established a detente between the Maga wing and traditional conservatives, he said.“We’re not imposing purity tests on candidates,” Henderson said. They also don’t view Democrats as an existential threat. “They’re not demons with horns on their head, or Satan worshippers. They’re the opposition.”People from traditionally Democratic areas began moving into Rabun county during the pandemic, attracted by its lower cost of living and extraordinary natural beauty. The area historically favors Republicans by about four to one.But in a close race, chipping away at that margin may make the difference, said Don Martin, chair of the Rabun county Democrats. “If we can get Republicans down to 70% here, we will win the state.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth parties now see early voting as key. Trump has reversed his skepticism of early voting and absentee ballots, a posture that may have made the difference between winning and losing in 2020. His repeated refrain on the road in Atlanta is for turnout to be “too big to rig”, falsely suggesting that Democrats stole the 2020 election and intend to steal this one.View image in fullscreenHistorically in Georgia, Democrats have been more likely to vote early than Republicans. But Trump has pointedly instructed his supporters to vote early in person in Georgia, and many appear to be doing just that. So far this year, there’s little difference in turnout between metro Atlanta counties with large Democratic voting majorities and Republican-heavy rural counties.Ralph Reed, director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a venerable figure on the Christian political right, made a point of telling conservative voters to vote early at a recent faith town hall in Zebulon, about 90 minutes south of Atlanta.“We cannot and must not wait until election day to vote,” he said. “If you let them dominate the early vote for two or three weeks and run up a million- or a million-and-a-half-vote margin, then we are like a football team trying to score three touchdowns in the fourth quarter … If you want the texts and calls to stop, you need to vote, and you need to vote early.”And early concerns about Hurricane Helene disrupting the election appear to be unfounded so far. Turnout in areas affected by the devastating September storm is only slightly below that of the rest of the state.Gwendolyn Jordan lives in Grovestown, two and a half hours east of Atlanta and in the damage zone of Hurricane Helene. Two weeks ago, as early voting started, some residents were still without power, she said.Yet early turnout in her county is very slightly above the state average. Though Columbia county went almost two to one for Trump in 2020, Jordan is a Harris supporter. The role of the federal government and the competence of a presidential administration is no abstraction in the wake of a hurricane, she said.“I believe there’s going to be a big difference, because Kamala Harris is more for the people under the $400,000 income range, the people that really need the help,” Jordan said. “You know that’s who is struggling right now. We just had a hurricane that did a lot of damage to people.”In 2020, it took two weeks for Biden’s victory in Georgia to be confirmed. This year there was the prospect of other delays, after an effort by the Trump-aligned state board of elections to allow local elections officers the right to withhold certifications, to conduct open-ended investigations into poll irregularities and to mandate hand-counts of ballots on election night.But two superior court judges ruled the changes unconstitutional and the state’s superior court let the rulings stand pending appeal, which will not be heard until after the election.Georgia’s wounds from the fight over the election results in 2020 haven’t completely healed. And people are preparing themselves for a fresh round after voting concludes in November.“I could care less about whether you like [Trump] or not. It’s not a popularity contest,” said Justin Thompson, a retired air force engineer from Macon. “It’s what you got done. And he did get things done before the pandemic hit. And the only reason why he didn’t get re-elected was because the pandemic hit.” More

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      Kamala Harris to urge voters to ‘turn the page’ on era of Trump

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      With the presidential race deadlocked a week before election day, Kamala Harris will call on voters to “turn the page” on the Trump era, in remarks delivered from a park near the White House where the former president spoke before a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a last effort to overturn his 2020 loss.The Harris campaign has described the remarks as a major address that will underline the vice-president’s closing message, in a location she hopes will remind voters precisely why the electorate denied Trump a second term four years ago. She is expected to cast Trump as a divisive figure who will spend his term consumed by vengeance, leveraging the power of the presidency against his political enemies rather than in service of the American people.“Tomorrow, I will speak to Americans about the choice we face in this election—and all that is at stake for the future of this country that we love,” she wrote on X.Although the vice-president frames the stakes of the 2024 election as nothing less than the preservation of American democracy, her speech is anticipated to strike an optimistic and hopeful tone, standing in stark contrast to the dark, racist themes that animated Trump’s grievance-fueled rally at Madison Square Garden.In New York on Sunday, Trump repeated there that the gravest threat facing the US was the “enemy within”. In recent days, Harris has amplified warnings of her opponent’s lurch toward authoritarianism and open xenophobia. Her campaign is running ads highlighting John Kelly, a marine general and Trump’s former chief of staff, saying that the former president met the definition of a fascist. Harris has said she agrees.“Just imagine the Oval Office in three months,” Harris said, previewing her message at a rally in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday. “It is either Donald Trump in there stewing over his enemies’ list, or me, working for you, checking off my to-do list.”

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      In her remarks, Harris will attempt to balance the existential and the economic – focusing on the threat Trump poses to American institutions while weaving in the Democrat’s plans to bring down costs and build up the middle class. She is expected to cast Trump as a tool of the billionaire class who would eliminate what is left of abortion access and stand in the way of bipartisan compromise when it does not suit him politically.Polls consistently show the economy and the cost of living are the issues most important to voters this election. Protecting democracy tends to be a higher priority for Democrats and voters planning to support Harris.In the final stretch of the campaign, Harris has emphasized the breadth of her coalition, especially her endorsements from a slew of former Trump administration officials and conservative Republicans such as Liz Cheney and her father, the former vice-president, Dick Cheney.Trump has sought to rewrite the history of 6 January, the culmination of his attempt to cling to power that resulted in the first occupation of the US Capitol since British forces set it on fire during the war of 1812. Trump recently declared the attack a “day of love” and said he would pardon the 6 January rioters – whom he has called “patriots” and “hostages” – if he is elected president.Hundreds of supporters have been convicted and imprisoned for their conduct at the Capitol, while federal prosecutors have accused Trump of coordinating an effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Trump maintains that he played no role in stoking the violence that unfolded, and still claims baselessly that the 2020 election was stolen from him.Harris’s campaign has sought to lay out the monumental stakes of the election while also harnessing the joy that powered the vice-president’s unexpected ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.In an abbreviated 100-day campaign that Harris inherited from Biden after he stepped aside in July, the Democratic nominee has unified her party, raised more than a billion dollars, blanketed the airwaves and blitzed the battleground states. And yet the race remains a dead heat nationally and in the seven swing states that will determine who serves as the 47th president of the United States.After her speech, Harris will return to the campaign trail, where she will keep a frenetic pace until election day. More

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      Tuesday briefing: Some Democrats are grimly convinced that Trump is going to win. What does the evidence show?

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      Good morning. With a week to go until America votes, the polls consistently show Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a statistical dead heat.The nerds who simulate the race hundreds of times to model the likelihood of each result are consistently finding extraordinarily even chances between the two. And nothing that happens – not assassination attempts, Kamalamentum, convention speeches, running mate selections, celebrity endorsements, multi-million-dollar political ads, the debate, erratic rally performances, or plausible accusations of fascist tendencies – seems to change anything for more than a minute. The election, in summary, looks too close to call.All of which prompts the question: why are some Democrats so gloomily sure that Trump is going to win? Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, is about what we actually know, what Democrats should be worrying about, and what can be written off as a terrible case of the jitters. Here are the headlines.Five big stories

      Budget | The government is expected to announce an increase of about 4% to NHS funding, an increase that could translate to about £7bn for the health budget in England. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that the money would deliver more surgical hubs and radiotherapy machines in a drive to add 40,000 appointments each week.

      Middle East | Israel’s parliament has voted to ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from the country within 90 days. Alongside a decision to declare Unrwa a terror group, the move is expected to lead to the closure of Unrwa’s East Jerusalem headquarters and would effectively block the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza via Rafah.

      Crime | The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months for contempt of court for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, in breach of an injunction. Robinson had repeated his false claim that Jamal Hijazi, who had been filmed being attacked at a school in West Yorkshire, “violently attacks young English girls” despite losing a libel case.

      Justice | Prisoners serving controversial indeterminate sentences were given minimum terms of less than six months but have remained in jail for at least 16 years, newly released data shows.

      Wildlife | Hedgehogs are now listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list, after a decline in numbers of at least 30% over the past decade across much of their range.
      In depth: Democrats are afraid of underestimating Trump – againView image in fullscreenWhatever the polls say, some Democrats will not be swayed. They can feel it in their waters, and sniff it on the air: Trump is closing in on a second term in the Oval Office.We might hazily date this phenomenon to early October, when betting markets got ahead of the electoral models in their assessment of the odds of a Trump victory. Meanwhile, the leads Harris established after replacing Biden started to disappear.“After the incredible sugar high of Harris’ introduction, she inevitably was going to come down to earth a bit,” David Smith said. “And compounding that is the fact that Democrats are serial ‘bed-wetters’, as they’re sometimes known, often prone to panicking about things going wrong.”For many of the bed-wetters, it may come down to a set of intangible observations: Trump has been underestimated before. This matters so much – a classic confusion of stakes and odds. And we live in an era where, when an OK thing and a bad thing are in competition, there only ever seems to be one winner.One way to deal with all this is with an “emotional hedge”: work on the assumption that Trump is going to win, to soften the blow if it comes. The other is with information. I totally understand if you’re not in the mood for that, but here it is anyway.What do the national polls say?The headline national polling averages show an extraordinarily close race, with Harris ahead by 49% to 48%, by 47% to 46%, or by 48% to 47%, depending on who’s counting. Those results are within the margin of error, meaning they are not inconsistent with a victory for either candidate.The national polls have changed astonishingly little in historical terms: “This race is remarkable for its closeness but also the insane stability of polls here in the closing weeks,” Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, told NBC News. “This race just doesn’t seem to budge.”That is in line with what David is told by pundits and analysts studying the numbers. “The thing I keep hearing is that it could go either way. Anyone who says with certainty that either Harris or Trump is going to win is either foolish or has godlike powers.”What about the battleground states?Because of the electoral college system, the popular vote is of secondary importance in deciding the final result (a majority voted against Trump in 2016, after all, but he still ended up in the White House). But in the seven states that will probably decide the outcome, there isn’t a lot more to hold on to: polling averages in each are either tied or within a couple of points.There is some evidence for the bed-wetters to point to here. A piece (£) by the election data expert Nate Silver (quoted in this piece by law) on Sunday looked at what his modelling shows in these seven states, and found that Trump is a strong favourite (with a 64% chance of victory or better) in three of them; Harris’ strongest shot is in Michigan, where she has a 56% chance, and the others are virtual ties.You can see why this would make the Harris campaign nervous, but the reality is that these remain knife-edge numbers, David said. “It’s still hard to say that one candidate or another is winning in the swing states. In Pennsylvania, for example, it was half a percentage point in 2020, and there’s every reason to believe it’s going to be just as close, or even closer, this time.”Are the polls reliable?One point often cited by those betting on a Trump win is that his support was significantly underestimated in key states in 2016 and 2020. Why wouldn’t the same thing happen this time?It’s perfectly possible, but pollsters have tried to correct for the errors that have led them down the wrong path in the past – namely, weighting their results to account for more voters without a college degree, which appears to have been the problem in 2016. The 2020 error has been harder to pinpoint, but many experts blame “nonresponse bias” – the theory that Trump supporters don’t trust pollsters and are therefore less likely to tell them what they think. Pollsters have attempted to address that problem in different ways.As the New York Times’ chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, explains, what it may come down to in the end is whether the less engaged voters who support Trump show up in greater numbers than the pollsters anticipate – and that’s certainly possible. On the other hand, it is also possible that pollsters have overcorrected in a way that means Harris is underestimated. The unsatisfying but sensible solution is to wait a week and see what happens.What are the vibes like?Oh, the vibes are frantic. Broadly speaking, Republicans are rubbing their hands and Democrats are wringing theirs. This piece on Axios from Friday, with the headline “Dems fear they’re blowing it”, gives you a flavour: they’re worrying about early voting trends in Nevada, agonising over whether calling Trump a fascist is helpful, and reflecting grimly on the hand Harris inherited from Joe Biden. “She is who she is,” is the best one strategist can muster. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”There is a long history of Democrats taking an Eeyorish view when the stakes are high. Still, it’s not a totally insane position. It’s unscientific, but it feels like most reporters visiting swing states – like Chris McGreal in Michigan – are finding voters edging towards Trump. There is plenty of polling suggesting that Trump has made inroads with Black men and Hispanic voters.High inflation has worked against incumbent governments all over the world this year; Trump seems to be immune from criticism for behaviour that would disqualify any other candidate. And many voters blame Harris for irregular immigration across the US’s southern border.Could the vibes be wrong?Absolutely. There are counterpoints to all of this, including evidence of Harris’s success with suburban white women, and recent polling that shows her improving among Hispanic and Black voters. There is evidence that a majority of voters see her as embodying “change” more genuinely than Trump does. And there is a sense that much of it is psychological anyway: Democrats got carried away by “Kamalamentum”, and so the return of the race to a more balanced state has had a disproportionate impact on their mood.As one source close to the Harris campaign suggested to ABC News: “Democrats … were hoping that she was going to pull away and are coming to the realisation that this race is much closer than they hoped.” They added: “The bed-wetting to me makes sense based on the stakes, but not so much based on the odds.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis dynamic may even be helpful to the Harris campaign, which has constantly reminded its supporters that they should avoid the complacency which some believe helped Trump beat Hillary Clinton. “The language you hear from Harris and the Democrats is, quite sensibly, ‘we are the underdog’,” David said. “That’s a big difference from 2016. The knowledge that Trump can win is part of motivating people to really knuckle down. Will it be enough? I have absolutely no idea.”In other words: Harris’s hopes are, still, more or less a coin toss. That is more than enough to worry about without insisting that her defeat is a done deal.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      Cecilia Nowell’s dispatch from an abortion clinic in Phoenix – operating at the fringes of Arizona’s restrictive abortion laws – highlights the high stakes faced by healthcare providers in states with limited access to abortion care. Nimo

      Reporting from Gaza is always incredibly difficult – but the tightening Israeli siege in the north of the territory has been subjected to an almost complete blackout, and five reporters were killed in Israeli airstrikes over the weekend. Bethan McKernan and Malak A Tantesh, who is in Gaza, do a superb job of piecing together the chilling details available. Archie

      Technically, Microsoft Excel is a millennial. As the software celebrates its 40th birthday, Dan Milmo reflects on the fallout of some of the biggest blunders made by spreadsheet users. Nimo

      Things you never knew: there are 16 polar bears living in the UK. Patrick Barkham’s piece, and Joshua Bright’s photos, tell the remarkable story – and ask whether it really makes sense that they should be here. Archie

      “Games invite us to break free from the tyranny of efficiency. Play matters precisely because it’s unnecessary,” writes Tim Clare, who urges us to stop justifying our gaming time and simply enjoy it. Nimo
      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Manchester United were closing in on Rúben Amorim (above) as the club’s new manager on Monday night after Erik ten Hag was sacked earlier in the day. Ten Had finally lost his job after the club continued one of its worst starts to a Premier League season with a 2-1 defeat at West Ham on Sunday.Football | Rodri and Aitana Bonmatí have been named winners of the 2024 Ballon d’Or at football’s annual awards ceremony in Paris. Real Madrid boycotted the ceremony after learning that Vinícius Júnior had been beaten to the men’s prize.Rugby | Tom Curry is poised to start his first Test at Twickenham in almost two years as England gear up for their showdown against New Zealand on Saturday. The flanker is back after a serious hip injury which threatened to end his career.The front pagesView image in fullscreenThe lead story today in the Guardian is “Budget vow to rebuild ‘broken not beaten’ NHS”. “Billions in budget still won’t cure NHS, admits Streeting” – that’s the Mail, and it’s on the front of the Times as well: “Tax rises won’t cure the NHS, Labour concedes”. The Telegraph takes it a bit further: “NHS will need more tax rises, signals Reeves”, while the Mirror has “Labour’s war on waiting lists” under the strapline “Hope for the health service”. “Budget NI hike will damage core services, charities warn” says the i. And the Daily Express says “Chancellor told ‘it’s not too late’ for U-turn on winter fuel”.The Financial Times goes offshore for its splash: “Volkswagen’s plan to axe 3 German factories sets up battle with unions”. Top story in the Metro is “Deepfake photo paedo – Geek jailed for turning child photos into AI pornographic images”. The Sun leads on a claim that Erik Ten Hag will receive a £15m payoff as he leaves Manchester United: “Erik Ten Swag”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenThe Trump supporters who took over Georgia’s election boardWhat happens when an election board in a crucial swing state is infiltrated by supporters of Donald Trump? Justin Glawe reportsCartoon of the day | Ben JenningsView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenSchool attendance rates in England and Wales declined during the pandemic and have as yet failed to recover. Last year, 150,000 students in England were classified as severely absent. Many teachers are trying innovative tactics to get pupils back into class, including offering therapy dogs, prize vouchers, wellness sessions and even taxi rides. Mary Immaculate high school near Cardiff in Wales went further by opening a £1.7m wellness centre, and its attendance rates are now above the national average.“We know it’s working,” says Nadia Yassien, head of a pastoral support programme at the school. “Students with low attendance are coming in regularly, on time, and happy – and that’s key, because they won’t learn if they hate the place.”Bored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      US election live: Harris says Puerto Ricans ‘deserve better’ as outcry grows over ‘hateful’ Trump rally remarks

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      The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released a statement condemning the “shameful rhetoric” displayed at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Monday, where speakers made racist remarks about immigrants, and one speaker described Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage”.In the statement, the caucus called the language and rhetoric at the rally as “not only divisive but dangerous”.
      Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences. When political leaders, influencers, and those with a large social platform choose language that dehumanizes communities, families get hurt, and hate crimes rise.
      The statement continues:
      This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on. It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.
      Donald Trump faced mounting suspicion of hatching a plot to steal next week’s presidential election as Democrats and commentators focused on his references to a “little secret” at Sunday night’s tumultuous Madison Square Garden rally.The allusions initially attracted little notice amid the angry backlash provoked by racist jokes and incendiary rhetoric from a succession of warm-up speakers, including an offensive comment about Puerto Ricans that even Trump’s own campaign felt obliged to disavow.However, some observers and Democratic politicians believed the most telling remark of the night came from the Republican nominee himself after he introduced Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, on stage and alluded to a shared secret.“We gotta get the congressmen elected and we gotta get the senators elected,” Trump told the crowd, referring to the congressional elections at stake next week.“We can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House. Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret – we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”Read more:Kamala Harris’s campaign has seized on the racist remarks about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s New York rally on Sunday in a new campaign ad in which the vice-president argues “Puerto Ricans deserve better.”In the ad released on Monday, Harris also criticized Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island and killed thousands of people in 2017. “He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” she said.A report from 2021 found that the Trump administration delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after the hurricane.Donald Trump has pledged to gut the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate law, even though some of his closest allies have benefitted from it.At least seven of Trump’s associates and fundraisers – or the companies they run – have obtained incentives thanks to the climate law, Reuters first reported.The IRA increased consumer interest in clean energy loans from California-based financial technology company Mosaic, which counts Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner’s private equity fund Affinity Partners as an investor. Another IRA beneficiary was carbon capture and sequestration project Summit Carbon Solutions, in which Trump ally Harold Hamm’s fossil fuel company Continental Resources invested $250m in 2022.Though its founder Elon Musk has attacked the IRA, Tesla has also received gargantuan subsidies from the IRA. Musk is one of Trump’s most consequential boosters.Vicki Hollub, the Occidental Petroleum CEO and a major Trump donor and fundraiser, has also benefited from the IRA’s carbon capture tax credit and other subsidies. And pipeline company Energy Transfer – headed by longtime Trump supporter Kelcy Warren – participates in carbon capture and hydrogen projects boosted by IRA tax credits.The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act represented the biggest green downpayment in American history. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the law.Kamala Harris took another swipe at her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, during her visit to a semiconductor plant in Michigan.She attacked the former president again for the tone and content of his Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, and defended the Chips and Science Act she said he wanted to abandon:
      We are eight days out from an election, so I’ve got to also talk about the contrast, because my opponent spends full time talking about, just kind of diminishing who we are as America, and talking down at people, talking about that we’re the garbage can of the world. We’re not.
      He just recently did a radio talk show and talked about how he’d get rid of the Chips act. That was billions of dollars investing in just the kind of work that’s happening here. And you know how we did it? We created tax credits to create the incentive for the private sector to do this work. That’s good work.
      When he was president, he sold advanced chips to China that helped them with their agenda to modernize their military. That’s not about what’s in the best interest of America’s security and prosperity, which should be two of the highest priorities for president of the US.
      There is a very serious choice presented in the next eight days. And as much as anything it is a question about what is the direction of the future that we want for our country.
      As Donald Trump’s campaign faces intense criticism over racist remarks from a speaker at the Republican candidate’s New York rally on Sunday, JD Vance has responded by saying that Americans need to “stop getting offended”.Tony Hinchcliffe, a podcaster and comedian who spoke ahead of Trump at Madison Square Garden, described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”. His comments have drawn widespread condemnation and outrage.Trump’s running mate said he had “heard about” the joke, and argued that Kamala Harris is painting the former president’s supporters as “Nazis”.“I think that it’s telling that Kamala Harris’s closing message is essentially that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis and you should get really pissed off about a comedian telling a joke. That is not the message of a winning campaign.“I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the joke, but I think that we have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I’m so over it.”The Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony has just posted a stinging attack on Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, reminding voters how the then president “blocked billions in relief while thousands died” on the island after 2017’s Hurricane Maria.“I’m here to tell you that even though some have forgotten … I remember. I remember what it was like when Trump was president. I remember what he did and said, about Puerto Rico … About our people,” he posted on X to his 11m followers:
      I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico ‘dirty’ and ‘poor.’

      But I was not surprised … because I ALSO remember … he launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists. He’s told us what he’ll do. He’ll separate children from their families and threatened to use the ARMY to do it.
      This election goes way beyond political parties. Now let’s remember what the United States represents and stands for. It’s our name – United. Regardless of where we’re from. I’m Marc Anthony … I remember.
      Police say they have identified “a suspect vehicle” connected to incendiary devices that set fire to separate ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state early on Monday, the Associated Press reports.Surveillance images captured a Volvo stopping at a drop box in Portland, Oregon, just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box, officials said.That fire damaged three ballots inside. Around the same time, a fire was set at a drop box in nearby Vancouver, Washington, on early Monday, and hundreds of ballots were destroyed.Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected, and were also linked to an incident on 8 October when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver.Read more:The Nevada supreme court on Monday upheld the state’s post-election deadline for mail ballots lacking a postmark, CNN reported. The ruling is a rejection of a lawsuit brought by Republicans and the Trump campaign.The lawsuit challenged Nevada’s acceptance of mail ballots that are missing postmarks up to three days after an election. The supreme court, however, said the plaintiffs had failed to make a convincing case.“Notably, the RNC [Republican national committee] presented no evidence or allegations that counting mail ballots without postmarks … would be subject to voter fraud, or that the election security measures currently in place are inadequate to address its concerns regarding these ballots,” the ruling said.According to CNN, a similar case was filed by Republicans in federal court, but the US ninth circuit court of appeals is unlikely to resolve that case before next Tuesday’s election.Kamala Harris has been touring a semiconductor plant in Saginaw county, Michigan, on Monday afternoon, and talking up the Chips and Science Act.The Democratic presidential nominee said that if she wins next week’s election she will be reassessing “on day one” which federal jobs require a college degree and which ones do not.The comment, at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility in Hemlock, is both a policy proposal and a political bridge, the Associated Press news agency said, reporting her visit.One of the clearest political divides in the nation over the past few presidential cycles has been between college-educated and non-college-educated voters, with Democrats acknowledging they need to cut into Donald Trump’s support among the latter group, it said.“One of the things immediately is to reassess federal jobs, and I have already started looking at it, to look at which ones don’t require a college degree,” Harris said. “Because here is the thing: that’s not the only qualification for a qualified worker.”Earlier in her speech, Harris said: “We need to get in front of this idea that only high-skilled jobs require college degrees.”Moms for Liberty, a rightwing activist group focusing on education, launched a video ad in four battleground states on Monday targeting a Biden administration rule protecting LGBTQ+ students from gender bias.The ad, titled That’s Not Fair, features a father comforting his athlete daughter after she lost a race. “Dad, it’s not fair! I had to run against a boy! It’s not right,” the girl tells her father, who replies: “I know.”The ad will air in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.In June, a federal judge in Louisiana appointed by Donald Trump blocked the Biden administration from enforcing an education department rule extending sex discrimination protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho. More

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      Therapy-speak and 80s hairstyles: will Harris’s Brené Brown sit-down swing white female voters?

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      In the quest to win over white female voters – 53% of whom showed up for Donald Trump in 2020 – Kamala Harris made her case on a podcast hosted by one of their beloved avatars, the vulnerability researcher Brené Brown. The episode, released on Monday, was a mostly fluffy discussion about leadership, trauma and the notion of voting as agency in an uncontrollable news cycle.Brown, a University of Houston professor and bestselling author who has spent two decades studying social sciences, became an overnight celebrity after giving a 2010 Ted Talk called “the power of vulnerability”. One could argue the talk, which birthed Brown’s Oprah-approved speaking empire, also spawned our culture’s current obsession with therapy-speak.Brown’s mottos, such as “courage over comfort” and “what we know matters, but who we are matters more”, align with Harris’s oft-maligned tendency toward a self-help speaking style and vibes-only posturing. Brown’s podcast, Unlocking Us, leads the relationship genre on Apple Podcasts. The vice-president’s campaign might have also hoped that an endorsement from Brown, a 58-year-old church-going Texan, will swing undecided white female voters – a crucial demographic that would help shore up Harris’s record support among women and counterbalance Trump’s popularity with men.That’s not to say Brown’s own politics are inscrutable: she reportedly donated to the White Women for Kamala Harris fundraiser, and she kicked off the episode by declaring herself an “unapologetic Harris/Walz supporter”. Thus began an hour-long chat about “courageous leadership”.Harris spoke about the importance of family and friends as a support system for leaders. She spoke lovingly of her mother, a late cancer researcher, and of her lifelong girlfriends whom she considers just as valuable, if not more so, than romantic partners – a line that probably resonated with gen Z women, who increasingly prioritize platonic relationships, and the many older women who are learning to live alone. When asked about her two biggest values in a leader, Harris called out “fairness and justice”. “That’s so powerful,” Brown cooed back.With just a week to go before election day, as she struggles to communicate policy issues with voters, Harris cycled through her greatest hits. While speaking on reproductive rights, she said she was the first sitting vice-president to have visited an abortion clinic. She imagined Trump in the Oval Office on the first day of his second presidency drafting an “enemies list”, unlike the “to-do list” she would be looking at – he’ll stew while she gets to work. In this vein, much of the conversation focused on fear of another Trump presidency. Using a favorite therapy buzzword, Harris said Americans were “traumatized” by the “cruelty” of Trump’s Maga movement. “Trauma blunts our senses,” and voting blue was a way to take back some of the power, she said.Harris seems to genuinely enjoy speaking to people in these lower-stakes, conversational formats, and some of her standout bits with Brown appeared off the cuff. We learned that her college nickname was “C Cubed”, which stood for “cool, calm and collected”. And despite having what Brown described as a “Depeche Mode haircut” in her 20s (a closely cropped, asymmetrical look), Harris said she was never big on the goth sound – though her husband, Doug Emhoff, loves the group.Except for the two women’s emphatic support of abortion rights, the chat came off as cozy and largely apolitical. That tactic could play well with Unlocking Us listeners, who probably come to Brown’s lovey-dovey podcast as an escape from the hyper-partisan news cycle. Harris seemed, if not the candidate you want to have a beer with, then the pleasant-enough person sitting next to you at an airport bar sipping on a glass of chardonnay.Positioned against Trump’s macho posturing, which reached an apex this weekend with an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast and the racist Madison Square Garden bonanza, Brown’s interview with Harris was like a cardigan on the first day of fall. And we know how much white women love fall. More

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      Is Kamala Harris alienating progressives as she courts anti-Trump Republicans?

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      As the daughter of a man who drove George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Liz Cheney seemed a strange political bedfellow for a Democratic candidate intent on reclaiming disaffected Arab support in one of the US presidential election’s key battlegrounds.But Cheney, the former third-ranking Republican in Congress before her career was derailed by her enmity with Donald Trump, was cast in precisely that role with Kamala Harris last week.The pair, whose ideologically conflicting views on abortion and a host of other issues would once have put them at loggerheads, appeared together in the vice-president’s trawl for votes in critical swing states, including Michigan. The state is home to a large ethnic Arab voting bloc that still remembers Dick Cheney’s controversial role as Bush’s vice-president but is now reassessing its traditional pro-Democratic sympathies amid anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.Trump, who has suggested that Cheney should be tried by a military tribunal for her congressional role in investigating his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, mocked it as a political gift.“Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris … is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the Middle East, also wants to go to War with every Muslim Country known to mankind,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.The argument – however warped in its expression – summarises one part of Harris’s conundrum in Michigan. She faces a serious hurdle after the Uncommitted movement, a pro-Palestinian protest group that is calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war and an arms embargo on Israel, declined to endorse her as she has sought to steer a careful middle path on the issue. The movement won more than 100,000 votes in Michigan when it contested last February’s Democratic primary against Joe Biden when he was still the party’s nominee.“I don’t think having Liz Cheney on the team helps at all, because she doesn’t bring a flock of votes with her,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute and a member of the Democratic National Committee.Yet the endorsement from Cheney – along with that of her father, who has also publicly backed the Democratic nominee – highlights a broader aspect of Harris’s campaign; to win, she is relying on the public support of high-profile anti-Trump Republicans to persuade enough hitherto GOP voters to set aside old habits and vote for her on 5 November.To that end, Harris’s coalition tent has expanded to include a broad swath of anti-Trump Republican refuseniks, including members of his former administration who have pledged themselves to the Democratic nominee in the interests of stopping him.Among them are Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary, Olivia Troye, a national security adviser to Mike Pence, Miles Taylor, a former homeland security department chief of staff, as well as Adam Kinzinger, a former Illinois congressman who – like Cheney – served on the House of Representatives committee investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.Other Republican Harris-endorsers include Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general in the Bush administration and a man generally acknowledged as a legal architect of the US torture programme used in the post-9/11 “war on terror”. And last week, Fred Upton a former Michigan congressman who served for three decades before retiring in 2022 after voting to impeach Trump over January 6.Harris’s campaign has welcomed them all, though few so warmly as Cheney.The strategy has been accompanied by Harris moving to the centre by jettisoning previously held leftwing positions such as Medicare for all and support for a fracking ban, while embracing a tougher stance on immigration, Trump’s most emblematic campaign theme.Prominent Democrat progressives like the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the outspoken House member for New York, have remained quiescent in the interests of maintaining a united front – until now.Sanders, who had previously defended the vice-president’s retreat from progressive policies as “pragmatic” and essential to “win the election” broke cover last week, warning that her embrace of Republicans risked “losing the working class”.“The truth of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot more working-class people who could vote for Kamala Harris than there are conservative Republicans,” Sanders – who has spoken at two dozen campaign events for Harris in October alone but, unlike Cheney, not appeared on a podium with her – told the Associated Press.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“She has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people.”Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a leftwing group founded as a spin-off of Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid, told AP that Harris’s approach could cost her 10% of the progressive vote – with some possibly casting a ballot for Trump.Zogby agreed. “Having an entire campaign focus on winning over quote-unquote moderate Republicans – and Liz Cheney is not a moderate Republican,” makes voters anxious, he said. “When somebody hears Liz Cheney being considered for a cabinet position, that makes people go into the panic mode. It may actually cost votes.“There is an importance in reaching moderate Republicans. [But] the definition of a moderate Republican is not somebody who rejects Donald Trump. It’s somebody who espouses policies that are themselves moderate in terms of their economic and foreign policy agenda.”But Mark Bergman, a veteran Democratic operative who has liaised with Republicans who have offered Harris their support, said that such ideological distinctions overlooked the personal risk many were taking by publicly disavowing Trump.“These people were not asked by the campaign. They took it upon themselves to act,” Bergman said. “By speaking out, they are putting a target on their backs. They deserve our utmost respect. There are lists of people [to be targeted if Trump wins] floating around. These are real conversations.”John Conway, strategy director of Republican Voters Against Trump – a group canvassing conservative-leaning voters to back Harris on the grounds that a second Trump presidency would endanger democracy – said it was a “false choice” to cast Harris’s embrace of dissident Republicans as a trade-off with maintaining her Democratic base.“This election is going to be decided by what the independents and centre-right swing voters do,” he said. “If Kamala Harris can win enough of them, she can win Pennsylvania, Michigan [and] Wisconsin and reach 270 electoral college votes.”For the strategy to succeed, Conway argued, Harris needed the example of GOP grandees of Cheney’s stature to win over diehard Republicans repelled by Trump but fearful of crossing a psychological barrier by voting Democrat.“It’s really important that she get all the endorsements from the right she can. So when somebody like Liz Cheney says, ‘I feel the same way you do. I’ve been a Republican like you’ve been. I’m going to get there on Kamala Harris, because we need to make sure that Donald Trump can never be president again,’ I think that does help [persuade] reluctant Republican voters.” More