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      Americans who believe in democracy have no choice but to vote for Harris | Observer editorial

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      ‘It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings” – that well-known if dated American sporting adage – may afford Kamala Harris a little comfort in the final, testing days leading up to the US presidential election on 5 November. The contest is too close to call. That has been the case for weeks, if not months. The latest national poll averages, putting Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, on roughly 48 points each, confirm it. The deadlock extends to the seven most closely fought battleground or swing states.And yet, in recent days, the impression, the feeling, the fear – call it what you will – has been growing that Trump may have the edge. Maybe the Democrats are scaring themselves unnecessarily. Maybe it’s media hype. Maybe it’s true. What is certain is that this nail-biter is going down to the wire. We hope, when it’s over, that there will be plenty to sing about – and that Harris will become the first woman and woman of colour to be elected president of the United States.If Harris pulls it off, it will be a remarkable achievement, a success against the odds. Due to the unexpected implosion of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in July, triggered by concerns about his age and mental fitness, her campaign has been unusually short-lived. As vice-president, Harris was best placed to take on the Democratic party’s nomination, and she did so with aplomb. Her national profile rose spectacularly overnight.Yet she was handicapped from the start by the unpopular Biden’s legacy and her inability, or unwillingness, to distance herself from his record. Harris has also struggled with perceptions that she lacks political savvy, is a relative unknown who is vague and uncertain on the issues, and that she failed as vice-president, or so Republicans claim, to curb illegal cross-border migration.A happy knack of connectingThese doubts have not been entirely dispelled in the ensuing three months. Harris comes across as a likable, energetic, trustworthy and inclusive politician. Confounding criticism that she speaks in “word salads”, she bested Trump in their only live TV debate, to the extent he declined a return bout. Harris seems to have the happy knack of connecting on a personal level with people she meets. She radiates joy, humour and humility.Yet Harris is no big-picture stateswoman, no powerfully impressive, slightly off-putting figure like Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016. Nor is she charismatic like Barack Obama. Her national approval ratings are historically low. And that points, in part, to the largely hidden question of how her gender may affect the outcome. Polls show Trump doing better among men, especially white men. Women and minorities lean to Harris, though less so this year. So while it’s evident this election will be no slam dunk, to use another American sports metaphor, it’s equally plain that Harris, if elected, would make a decent, honest, possibly trail-blazing president, a strong ally for Britain, and an unexceptional but reliable leader of the democratic world.None of this may be said of Trump – and this, really, is all that matters at this moment. This is the crux around which the election turns. American voters may think they have a choice. But if they value their democracy, if they value their laws, institutions and constitution, if they value personal liberty, their country’s safety and international peace and security, indeed if they hope ever to vote again, then they really do not. The only choice is Harris.A retribution presidencyAn exaggeration? Not at all. Trump has a plan for a second term that could make his first spell in the Oval Office – when his former chief of staff, John Kelly, says he behaved like a fascist – look normal. Narcissistic Trump says it will be a retribution presidency. For him it’s all about getting even. Yet, if it happens, it will also be about abuse of power on a scale never before seen in America.Just look at what he’s promising: mass deportations of immigrants; the jailing of political opponents and anyone he dislikes; the use of the US military against civilians, loosely defined as “enemies within”; officially approved vigilantism; and the abandoning, again, of the Paris climate agreement.Trump’s stated agenda includes possible, devastating military action to destroy the cities of hostile countries such as Iran; the deserting of US allies such as Britain and Ukraine and the appeasing of Vladimir Putin’s Russia; a likely global trade war involving punitive import tariffs, principally aimed at China; and, overall, utter disregard for America’s treaty obligations, global responsibilities, international law and the UN system.Even if Trump does not do half of what he threatens, victory for him would be a disaster for America and the world – and this time, there will be few if any “adults in the room” to restrain him. His first victim could be US democracy, targeted on 6 January 2021 by his Maga mobsters, and now once again in his sights. Basically, Trump wants to change federal, state and local rules to ensure future elections produce the “right” results.Trump appears only too happy to further subvert the supreme court and the justice department in pursuit of this objective. Abortion rights, a key issue for Harris, will be further eroded if Trump wins, cheered on by conservative Christian evangelicals and Republican-led state legislatures. And human rights in general will suffer, whether they be those of migrants and their families, black men and other minorities, or gay and trans people. Free speech and independent journalism will also be at risk. Trump cannot abide contradiction. He demands sycophancy or silence.The prospect of Trump #2 should make America’s allies tremble. This is the man who kowtowed to Russian, North Korean and Saudi dictators, tore up the landmark Iran nuclear deal, threatened to quit Nato and rowed constantly with Europe’s leaders. Trump encouraged Israel’s hard-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to ignore the Palestinians, cut money-making deals with Gulf Arabs and call it peace.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s past stupidity and cupidity played a big role in stoking the Middle East crisis, which has escalated with Israel’s latest bombing of Iran. On China, America’s most important global relationship, Trump promises only greater confrontation, especially after last week’s revelations that Chinese hackers targeted him and his weird running mate, JD Vance. On Ukraine, his policy is betrayal and surrender.All this can and must be avoided, yet America’s friends and allies, looking on powerlessly (despite the well-intentioned interventions of some Labour party activists), have no say in heading off disaster. Nor, in effect, do most Americans, because of the anachronistic, scandalously unreformed electoral college system. The Harris-Trump result in at least 40 of the 50 states is a foregone conclusion.Brutal, desperate personal attacksThis election may pivot on choices made by a few thousand people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. It could be that, as happened to Clinton in 2016, Harris wins the national popular vote but loses the electoral college. Or this wacky system could produce the opposite result. It’s estimated that about 15% of voters remain undecided. That’s more than enough to settle the outcome. It’s still all up for grabs.It’s going to get frantic. It could be terrifying. Expect bread and butter economic issues – food prices, jobs and housing – along with abortion and migration to dominate the final days, not weighty questions of governance, ethics and foreign policy. And expect ever more brutal, desperate personal attacks as each candidate demonises the other.This behaviour comes naturally to Trump. Not so Harris, though that will not stop her doubling down on her justified belief that this unhinged convicted felon, ageing roué, and most divisive, immoral and vindictive of politicians is indeed a fascist who cares only for himself and will sacrifice democracy, liberty and the constitution in an egotistic orgy of self-worship. Harris will doubtless remind voters, too, that Trump is again refusing to promise to accept the result if he loses. Endless, vexatious litigation and furious disputes are a certainty. Violence is a distinct possibility.It’s ironic – but those Americans who truly believe in democracy really have no choice at all on 5 November. The US remains a great country. It has many strengths. It also has many problems. Trump is not the answer. He will only make it worse. Vote Harris! More

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      Beyoncé brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight

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      Beyoncé on Friday lent her star power to Kamala Harris at a high-octane rally in her native Texas, declaring that the country was on the “brink of history” as the vice-president warned the state’s near-total abortion ban could become the law of the land if Donald Trump is elected.“For all the men and women in this room, and watching around the country, we need you,” Beyoncé told a crowd of 30,000 people at the open-air Shell Energy stadium in Houston.With the presidential race effectively deadlocked, Harris detoured from her frenetic race across the seven battleground states to appear in reliably Republican Texas, where she sought to highlight the state’s abortion restrictions for voters who have yet to make up their minds or cast a ballot.“Let us be clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris told the audience, her largest to date. Harris walked on to the stage, as she has ever since she became the presumptive nominee roughly 100 days ago, to Beyoncé’s hard-charging anthem, Freedom.Harris has centered her campaign on the theme of freedom. In the closing days of the campaign, she has painted Trump as posing a threat to hard-won progress, eroding access to reproductive care, seeking to walk back LGBTQ rights and targeting American democracy itself. Earlier this week, Harris agreed that Trump was a “fascist”.Harris spoke to an exuberant crowd, thousands of whom had waited hours in the sticky Houston heat to attend. Rally-goers were given flashing wristbands in all different colors. They danced and sang as a DJ spun pop ballads before the event began.But the message Harris came to deliver was sobering. She listed the sprawling impacts of abortion bans like the one in Texas, which she called “ground zero for the right for reproductive freedom.”“All that to say, elections matter,” Harris said.View image in fullscreenDespite the speculation, the megastar did not perform. “I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said. “We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,” Beyoncé told the roaring crowd.In the final days before the election, the Harris campaign is tapping the star power of the party’s most popular figures and celebrity supporters. On Friday night, Willie Nelson, the country music star and Texas resident, performed his best-known songs, including On the Road Again and actor Jessica Alba urged women to vote. Beyoncé was joined by her mother, Tina Knowles, and her former bandmate Kelly Rowland.“We are grabbing back the pen from those who are trying to write an American story that would deny the right for women to make our own decisions about our bodies,” Rowland said. “Today that means grabbing that pen and casting my vote for Kamala Harris.”The night before, Harris held her first campaign event with Barack Obama. They were joined onstage in Atlanta by rocker Bruce Springsteen, who played a three-song set and branded Trump an “American tyrant.” On Saturday, Harris will rally with Michelle Obama in Michigan.Harris does not expect to win Texas. But Democrats here are suddenly hopeful after polls suggest an unexpectedly close senate race between the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz, and the Democrat, Dallas-area congressman Colin Allred.Democrats face a daunting senate map this cycle. With a loss in West Virginia all but certain, and Montana slipping out of reach, their hopes of maintaining narrow-control of the Senate may rest on an upset in the Lone Star state.“Everything is bigger in Texas,” Allred said on Friday night. “But Ted Cruz is too small for Texas.”The emotional heart of the evening was the personal stories of Texas women who had nearly died from pregnancy-related complications because they did not receive proper care.Ondrea, a Texas woman who appeared in a new Harris campaign, became emotional as she shared her harrowing experience after a miscarriage at 16 weeks and needing an emergency abortion that she was denied under the state’s law. A video played before her remarks showed her with a wound and scars that stretched down her body, from her breast to her pelvis, after a six-hour surgery in which she said doctors had to cut open her torso in order to save her life.Texas residents Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who have become powerful surrogates for Harris on the campaign trail, also shared their story. At 18 weeks pregnant, Amanda Zurawski began to suffer complications and needed an abortion. There was no chance the foetus would survive, but doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy until she eventually developed sepsis, days later.“I was finally close enough to death to deserve healthcare in Texas,” Amanda Zurawski said.Todd Ivey, a reproductive health specialist in Houston, addressed the crowd surrounded by a team of doctors and medical professionals in white lab coats. He emphasized the challenges of administering care to patients when it could mean risking arrest. Since the Texas law took effect the state’s infant mortality has risen.“This is a healthcare crisis,” he said. This is unacceptable and it is cruel.”Among those in the crowd was Sara Gonzales, 32, of Splendora, Texas, who drove to the stadium straight from an early-morning shift at Starbucks. Gonzales said she considers herself an independent and in 2020, wrote in a candidate for president. But the political stakes changed, Gonzales said, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, and Texas enacted its near-total ban on abortion.“Being a woman in Texas right now, it’s not OK,” she said. “I should have freedom over my own body.” More

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      Democrats are scrambling to keep the Senate. Could an old-school bipartisan help save it?

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      “Everybody’s got their comfy shoes?” Jacky Rosen scanned the room full of union workers who were preparing canvas for her in Reno, Nevada. The room erupted in response.“Those gym shoes are going to be worn out,” the Democratic senator told the crowd. “But that’s OK. Those holes in the bottom mean you’re doing the good work … helping return the Democratic majority in the United States.”Rosen has been wearing out her own shoes – crisscrossing the state and running one of the most aggressive and persistent re-election campaigns in the country as she fights to preserve her own career, and a precarious party advantage in the US Senate. Her campaign message has matched her practical footwear.Her platform has focused on a few big, national issues – including the cost of living and abortion – but also many small ones specific to her geographically vast, politically enigmatic state. She touts her record preserving a local postal hub in northern Nevada, bringing in money for a solar facility.“We’re trying to take care of what we have here, and we want our kids to have a good place to grow up,” she told members of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 – a powerful organisation representing tens of thousands of hospitality workers in the state. “That’s what everyone wants.”With early voting in Nevada already underway, Rosen holds an eight-point lead in polling averages. But she’s not letting up or taking any chances. Armies of volunteers from unions and a coalition of moderate and progressive political groups are knocking on doors on her behalf. And a barrage of advertisements, on the radio and television, in English and Spanish – are tearing down her opponent Sam Brown, a Donald Trump-backed Republican that Rosen has characterised as extreme.The race will be a test of whether candidates like her – a pragmatic, old-school bipartisan focused on local issues – can prevail in a politically polarised country. The outcome in Nevada will help determine which party controls the closely divided Senate, with the power to either impede of enable the agenda of Trump or Kamala Harris.In April, the non-partisan Cook Political Report had ranked the race a “toss-up” – in a swing state that appeared increasingly inscrutable to pollsters. In 2022, the Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto won her seat by fewer than 8,000 votes.And Rosen’s challenger, Sam Brown, a military veteran and Purple Heart recipient, had the makings of a model candidate – one who could help Republicans pick up a Senate seat and flip the chamber for the party. But by August, the polling agency had moved the race to “leaning Democrat” – citing growing enthusiasm for Democrats following Harris’s entry into the race, as well as Brown’s failure to drum up much enthusiasm.“Sam Brown just didn’t turn out to be the candidate that I think Republicans hoped he would be – in terms of energy, in terms of fundraising, in terms of just doing what’s needed,” said David Byler, chief of research at the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “And then you have a Democratic incumbent who doesn’t have any obvious flaws.”Paradoxically, Rosen’s unobtrusive temperament and heads-down approach to her first term could become her greatest asset. In Las Vegas and Reno, dozens of voters told the Guardian they weren’t particularly familiar with Rosen’s record – but she seemed to be doing just fine.“She does what she says she’s gonna do,” said Vivian Jackson, 69, of Las Vegas. “They try to attack her, but she’s not like that. She’s a real person.”“She’s occasionally said some stuff that’s given me pause,” said her neighbour Kenneth Logan, 65, a retired bartender and veteran who lives in west Las Vegas. On several issues, his politics are to the left of Rosen’s. “But I’m probably going to vote for her. She’s doing fine, and I can’t think of a candidate I’d vote for instead of her.”Rosen is a former computer programmer and synagogue president who was hand-picked to run for Congress, and then the Senate – seemingly out of nowhere – by Harry Reid, the former Democratic senate leader from Nevada who helped reshape the state’s politics over his long political career. In 2018 – after serving just two years in Congress – she unseated Republican senator Dean Heller with a five-point margin, largely relying on support from the state’s powerful labour unions and by emphasising her support for the Affordable Care Act and immigration reform. Heller had embraced Trump and voted to repeal the popular health care law.Six years later, Nevada – like the US at large – is much more politically polarised. Canvassers for the Libre Initiative, a conservative group affiliated with mega-donor Charles Koch’s political network, have been messaging to mostly Latino voters that Rosen is closely tied with the Biden administration. “She voted 94% of the time with Joe Biden,” said Eddie Diaz, a strategic director at Libre in Nevada. “And people are not better off than they were before.”But unlike many of her colleagues, Rosen has shied away from a national profile, forgoing the Democratic national convention in August in favour of staying in Nevada to campaign there.“I think she’s done a decent job so far, and that’s largely because she’s moderate, and bipartisan,” said Kim, 66, a mental health and wellness educator who said she didn’t want to share her full name because many of her family and clients are staunch Republicans.Her partner, Luis, 55, used to belong to the same synagogue as Rosen. “It’s a small world,” he said.Gladis Blanco, a political organiser with the Culinary Workers Union in Reno, said she credits Rosen for working with the administration to lower the cost of asthma medication. A single mother of five, Blanco said both she and several of her children have asthma – and new price caps on inhalers have transformed her family’s monthly budget. “When I tell voters about that they get so excited,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile Miguel Martinez, a Reno city council member who has been canvassing on behalf of Rosen and Harris, said he was especially impressed that Rosen successfully fought against the US postal service plan to move all mail processing from its Reno facility to California, which locals, especially in remote regions of rural northern Nevada, worried would result in delayed medication deliveries and mail ballot processing. “That was a really big win in our community,” he said.And much like her mentor Reid, who was famous for funnelling funds to the state, Rosen has managed to win allies by delivering federal aid to the state’s cities and rural communities.In recent weeks, several rural Republican officials have backed Rosen over Brown – noting, simply, that they’re happy with the incumbent’s record. “Jacky Rosen helped bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass the largest infrastructure investment in a generation,” said Nathan Robertson, the Republican mayor of the small eastern Nevada town of Ely. “That law is now leading to better and safer roads for our residents, including $24m in federal transportation funding to improve Ely’s streets and sidewalks and revitalise our downtown.”Ed Lawson – the Republican mayor of Sparks, a small city just outside Reno – similarly cited all the funding she has brought to his region. Just a day prior to his endorsement, Rosen and Cortez Masto announced that they had secured $275m in federal funding to enhance a major highway corridor east of Sparks.“I’m a lifelong Republican who has never voted for a Democrat, but this November I’ll be voting for Jacky Rosen,” he said.It has helped Rosen’s cause that Brown has floundered though the election cycle.With early voting underway, the Senate Leadership Fund – the Republican party’s main outside group supporting Senate races – announced it would spend an addition $6.2m on TV, radio and digital ads for Brown. But it’s unclear if the funds will come too late.Brown has often leaned on his personal story in appeals to voters. In 2008, when he was a US army officer in Afghanistan, his Humvee hit a roadside bomb. The explosion caused third-degree burns and Brown had to endure dozens of reconstructive surgeries. The experience was transformative, Brown has said. “God saved me for a purpose,” he wrote in a recent campaign email.But while he has made clear why he’s running for office, he has struggled to define how for voters he would govern.Trump endorsed Brown just days before the primary elections and since then Brown has clung tightly to the former president and his platform. Brown said he wouldn’t have supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Inflation Reduction Act – Biden administration programs that have brought unprecedented federal dollars into the state and help fund a range of projects. His past support for storing nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – a third rail of politics in the state – has also left the impression that he is out of touch with Nevada.Such missteps have opened the opportunity for an easy critique – that Brown is a newcomer, one who moved from Reno to Dallas in 2018, and simply doesn’t know enough about the state.His muddled stance on abortion has also played badly. In attack ads, Rosen has called Brown a “Maga extremist” who would take away abortion rights. And though Brown has responded by saying he supports Nevada’s current law, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks – he has repeatedly dodged questions on whether he’ll support the state’s abortion ballot initiative, which aims to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution.Nearly 70% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats said they opposed criminalising abortion, according to a recent poll by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland.Diane Gutierrez, a 65-year-old real estate agent based in Reno, said she is personally opposed to abortion, due to her faith, but believes it should remain protected. “I don’t believe that that should be taken away from any woman,” she said. “It’s just not OK to go backwards.”A registered non-partisan, Gutierrez said she’s voted for both Republican and Democratic candidates in the past. But in recent years, she has gotten more involved in volunteering with the Democratic party – and has largely steered clear of Republicans. “The party has had time, but they haven’t selected good candidates,” she said, adding they’ve failed to make a good case to voters. Initially, she thought Brown bucked the trend.“Being from a military family – my dad was a marine – I appreciate Sam Brown and thank him for his service because obviously he paid a huge price,” she said. “When you’re in the military, you have respect.”But his failure to define a platform of his own has been disappointing, she said. “I would like him to speak up more,” she said. “Where’s Sam Brown? Is he in Nevada? It’s like, ‘Sam – say something.’” More

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      ‘It’s going to be tight’: Tim Walz rallies Pennsylvanians for final stretch in Biden’s home town

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      Tim Walz delivered a rousing pep talk in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Friday, encouraging supporters to do everything they can in the next 11 days to elect Kamala Harris as president.Addressing hundreds of voters at the Scranton Cultural Center, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee compared the final days of the neck-and-neck presidential race between Harris and Donald Trump to the fourth quarter of a football game, leaning on his background as a former high school teacher and coach.“It’s going to be tight. It’s the fourth quarter. We have got the best team on the field,” Walz said. “We have got to do this one inch at a time, one yard at a time, one door at a time, one call at a time, one dollar at a time, one vote at a time.”The rally came as polls show a deadlocked race between Harris and Trump, despite hundreds of millions of dollars having been spent in the battleground states. According to the Guardian’s poll tracker, Harris now leads Trump by less than 1 point in Pennsylvania, which could serve as the tipping point state in the electoral college.Walz, the governor of Minnesota, warned supporters in Scranton against the “dangerous complacency” of downplaying the threat that Trump represents to the country.“We are running like everything is on the line because everything is on the line. It is. We feel it. You know it,” Walz said. “[Trump] is telling you what he is going to do, and none of it is good.”Walz specifically reiterated Harris’s message from her CNN town hall on Wednesday, during which she said that Trump’s former advisers were sending a “911 call” to the nation. In an Atlantic article published this week, John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, recounted that the then president expressed a wish for “the kind of generals that Hitler had”. (Trump’s campaign has denied Kelly’s claim.)Walz told voters in Scranton: “Maybe Donald forgot that Hitler and his generals were on the other side of this thing, and it was the sons of Minnesota and Pennsylvania that were carrying the stars and stripes, that kicked his ass and saved this world from fascism.”After cultivating a persona as a “joyful warrior”, Walz has turned increasingly punchy in the final stretch of the presidential race. In Wisconsin on Tuesday, Walz described Elon Musk, who recently appeared alongside Trump at a campaign rally, as a “dipshit”, and the governor repeated the insult on Friday.“I used a midwestern euphemism. I said that he was prancing and dancing around like a dipshit. That is exactly what it was,” Walz said, prompting cheers from the crowd.On a more positive note, Walz took a moment to express his appreciation for Joe Biden, who was born in Scranton and remains a popular figure in the city.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This country owes a huge debt to you and a huge debt to Joe Biden,” Walz said. “[Presidents] have always put this country above themselves, no matter the cost to their personal ambitions or what happened to them. Joe Biden has secured his place in history by upholding that tradition.”The Scranton crowd erupted into cheers of “Joe!” as Walz spoke. Michael McNulty, a 47-year-old voter from Scranton, lives down the street from Biden’s childhood home and expressed his gratitude for the president but said he felt invigorated by the Harris-Walz ticket.“I think there’s a real sense of optimism and hope here. It’s not just against Trump,” McNulty, wearing a Harris-Walz camo hat, said after the Scranton rally. “They’re sharing a vision for the future of the country that is one I want to live in. It’s one that I want to raise my children in and that I’m really proud to go out and contribute to make happen.”Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.2 points in 2020, four years after Trump carried the state by 0.7 points. Although polls show a tied race, McNulty is confident that Harris will win the Keystone state this time around.“We’re going to push this over the finish line here for the Harris-Walz ticket,” he said. “PA is going to deliver, and we’re going to have Madame President.” More

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      Can this Trump-backed car dealer unseat the Ohio Democrat and win Republicans the Senate?

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      When the Democrat Sherrod Brown was first elected to the US Senate in 2006, Ohio, with its large urban populations and manufacturing industries, was fairly reliable territory for Democrats.Barack Obama claimed the state in 2008 and 2012 on his way to the White House. Democrats boasted strong representation in Ohio’s politics. Analysts zealously watched its voting patterns, such was its prominence as a bellwether state.In the years since, the state has become older, whiter and more conservative. Manufacturing has shrunk and population has stagnated.Brown is now the only Democrat holding a statewide seat in Ohio. And he is weeks out from a crucial Senate election against former luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno, a contest that could reshape US politics for years to come,For one, keeping Brown’s seat is crucial if Democrats hope to maintain their control of the US Senate.If Brown can win re-election, it would be notable in a state where Republicans have engineered a gerrymandering process to their advantage. They hold a supermajority in the state’s house of representatives and senate, and control the offices of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general as well as the state supreme court. Ohio’s second US senator is none other than Trump’s pick for vice-president, JD Vance.Brown is facing his most formidable on-comer yet – not because his Republican challenger has resonated particularly effectively with the Ohio electorate, but because Brown has, until now, never run in a year when Donald Trump was also on the ballot.For James Spencer, who has lived in Moraine, a working-class suburb of Dayton, for 27 years, the former president’s endorsement of Moreno is enough to secure his vote.As a retired construction contractor, he was unhappy to see the nearby General Motors plant that once employed thousands of blue-collar workers taken over by a Chinese auto glass manufacturer, Fuyao Glass. He believes the perceived problems associated with the company, including a raid by the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies investigating allegations of financial crimes and labor exploitation in July, have only worsened since.In the past, he said, “Everything went around the plant. Your friends, your family. It was like a big GM community … We’ve lost so much in this area.”The declining fortunes experienced by white working-class Ohioans such as Spencer have been seized on by Trump and Moreno.However, Brown, the incumbent, is hoping his longstanding position as a champion of workers’ rights can carry him over the line.His campaign and supporters have largely disassociated Brown from the Biden administration and Kamala Harris campaign, despite the former helping to bring billions of dollars in infrastructure funding to rural parts of the state.“Brown has crossover appeal among Ohioans. The labor vote, which has increasingly gone to Trump, has also gone to Brown,” said Thomas Sutton, a political science professor and acting president of Baldwin Wallace University.“He shares some of the same positions as Trump when it comes to protecting local industry, manufacturing [and] support for farmers.”Ohioans have been bombarded with ads featuring Brown riding a speedboat while wearing a bullet-proof vest, a scene meant to depict his tough-on-immigration stance.Critics of Brown say that despite him being an apparent champion of the working class, he has mostly never held a non-political job himself (he worked as a teacher for a few years in the 1970s and 80s).A representative of Brown’s campaign said he was not available for comment for this article. Emails sent to Moreno’s campaign were unanswered.Trump’s endorsement of Moreno, a relative political novice, has energized Ohio’s Maga electorate.“Moreno is doing a pretty good job in handing his campaign over to the professional ad people. They’re using the scare tactics against Brown, tying him to the Biden administration,” said Sutton.A cryptocurrency industry Pac has spent $40m on Moreno’s campaign, while polling conducted for Moreno’s campaign suggests their candidate has a three-point lead over Brown. Other polls suggest a very close race.But Moreno’s run, and his record, are not flawless.Last year, he settled more than a dozen wage-theft lawsuits and was forced to pay more than $400,000 to two former employees of his car dealership.Recently, he has been criticized for telling attenders at a town hall that women over 50 shouldn’t be concerned about reproductive rights.“When you take away women’s abortion rights, you take away healthcare, and we in Ohio have voted that that’s none of your business,” said Amy Cox, a Democrat who is running this year to unseat a Republican incumbent in the US House of Representatives in a district that includes Moraine, Dayton and Springfield.Last year, Ohio Democrats and liberals were revitalized by a rare win at the ballot box when voters decided by a 13-point margin to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.“Women and men are really energized by the fall of Roe, and Project 2025 is really motivating people to get out and vote,” said Cox.A bribery scandal involving a failing energy company and leading Ohio Republicans hasn’t helped them.The former speaker of the statehouse, Larry Householder, was jailed for 20 years last year for racketeering.“This is going to be won and lost in the three C’s,” the cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, said Sutton.And the election will be about “whether more typically Democratic areas have better mobilization and turnout to counteract what would be normal voter turnout in the Republican-leaning rural and small-town areas”, he added.For Spencer, who lives near the Fuyao Glass factory in Moraine, Moreno’s attack ads that feature Brown’s alleged failures on immigration have hit home.“I’m hoping that if Trump and JD Vance get in, they will deal with what’s going on over there,” he said. More

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      Harris holds rally with Obama while Trump calls US a ‘garbage can’ – US election live

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      Good morning and welcome to the US election live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest from the campaign trail over the next couple of hours.We start with news that vice-president Kamala Harris appeared with Barack Obama for the first time, offering closing arguments targeting Black voters in Atlanta’s eastern suburbs, a vibrant, symbolic part of Georgia.“Ours is a fight for the future,” Harris said at the rally in Clarkston. She touched on familiar themes – reducing the costs of drugs, housing and groceries. “I come from the middle class, and I will never forget where I come from.Harris said she believes “healthcare should be a right and not just a privilege for those who can afford it”, and said Trump would gut the Affordable Care Act and roll back the $35 cap on insulin.The Democratic nominee also reaffirmed her support for abortion rights, referring to the death of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman whose death was recently found to be a result of the state’s abortion ban. Harris said: “Donald Trump still refuses to acknowledge the pain and suffering he has caused … women are being denied care during miscarriages.”For more on the rally, see George Chidi’s full report here:Meanwhile, in other news:

      The family of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Black 28-year-old mother who died just weeks after Georgia’s abortion ban went into effect, was in attendance at the Harris rally. Harris is expected to make another high profile appearance today, this time alongside Beyoncé in Houston, where the vice-president hopes to rally support for Senate candidate Colin Allred.

      Donald Trump rallied supporters in Tempe, Arizona, where he spoke alongside Senate candidate Kari Lake. Earlier in the day, Trump made news when he vowed that, if elected, he would immediately fire Jack Smith, the justice department special counsel who is prosecuting him for allegedly plotting to overturn the 2020 election and hide classified documents.

      Trump called the country a “garbage can” because of immigration policies under the Biden administration. “We’re like a garbage can, you know, it’s the first time I’ve ever said that,” Trump said in Tempe, the home of Arizona State University. “And every time I come up and talk about what they’ve done to our country, I get angry. First time I’ve ever said garbage can, but you know what, it’s a very accurate description.”

      Phoenix police arrested a man suspected of setting fire to a mailbox there, damaging mail-in ballots. The news comes just days after Tempe police arrested another man in connection with three shootings at Democratic party campaign offices in Tempe. An Arizona prosecutor said the second man had more than 120 guns and more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition in his home, leading law enforcement to believe he may have been planning a mass casualty event.

      Harris picked up the endorsement of two Republicans, one a former congressman from Michigan, the other a mayor in a pivotal county in Wisconsin.

      Joe Biden announced he will issue an apology for the US government’s role in forcing thousands of Indigenous American children to attend Indian boarding schools – a policy which has been widely recognized as an element of genocide. The news comes as Harris is trailing in the polls in Arizona, a state that Biden famously won in 2020, largely due to the support of Indigenous American voters.

      More than 29 million people have voted already in the 2024 election, at least partly driven by Republicans embracing early voting at Donald Trump’s direction. So far, Republicans have cast 32% of ballots, up from 27% at this point in 2020. Whereas Democrats have cast 42% of the votes, down from 47% at this point in the last presidential election. More

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      Springsteen calls Trump an ‘American tyrant’ at Harris’s star-studded rally

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      Bruce Springsteen urged voters to back Kamala Harris in the presidential election, warning that Donald Trump is a would-be “tyrant”.“I want a president who reveres the constitution, who does not threaten but wants to protect and guide our great democracy, who believes in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, who will fight for a woman’s right to choose, and who wants to create a middle-class economy that will serve all our citizens,” Springsteen said at the Thursday evening rally.The rally at James R Hallford Stadium in Clarkston, Georgia, drew about 20,000 people, according to the Democratic nominee’s campaign, which would make it her largest political rally yet, besting the 17,000 Harris drew in Greensboro, North Carolina, in early September.“There is only one candidate in this election who holds those principles dear: Kamala Harris. She’s running to be the 47th president of the United States.”The Born in the USA singer is among the many celebrities stumping for Harris; directors Spike Lee and Tyler Perry, as well as actor Samuel L Jackson, were also in attendance.“Do not wait until election day to show your support, you can vote early,” Jackson, a Morehouse graduate, said, exhorting voters to go to the polls early. “Showing up at the polls is the only way.”

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      Early voting totals have been breaking records in Georgia, with about 30% of the electorate having already cast a ballot.“We’ve heard her favorite curse word is a favorite of mine too,” Jackson said, pointedly avoiding the use of the actual offensive term he is famous for. “That’s the kind of president I can stand behind.”Lee, also a Morehouse grad, said: “Power is knowing your past. Georgia is where the future is being written. Georgia is showing up and showing out, no matter what kind of shenanigans, skullduggery and subterfuge.”Beyoncé is expected to appear at a Harris rally on Friday night, according to the Associated Press. Rapper Eminem and singer Lizzo have also taken the stage in support of Harris at rallies in Detroit.“Donald Trump is running to be an American tyrant,” Springsteen said. “He does not understand this country, its history or what it means to be deeply American, and that’s why on November 5, I’m casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I urge all of you who believe in the American way to join me.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpringsteen’s appearance at the rally is eclipsed only by that of Barack Obama, as this event marks the first time the former president and Harris appear together on stage.Perry spoke about growing up poor and the power of the American dream. He noted how Harris’s initiatives to help seniors with medication costs, and youth with education expenses, were among the reasons he backed her.“I believe in affordable healthcare. It should not be replaced with a concept of a plan, what the hell?” Perry said, poking fun of Trump’s viral “concepts of a plan” comment on replacing the Affordable Care Act benefits.Neither “a government nor a man should be telling a woman what she can or cannot do with her body”, Perry said to cheers.Perry introduced Obama to the crowd shortly thereafter. More