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      Democrats face campaign dilemma after second apparent Trump assassination plot

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      In comments to Fox News Digital on Monday, Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the repeated attempts on his life. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said.Also on Monday, the former president released a list of quotes that the campaign described as incendiary. At the top of that list was a quote from Kamala Harris saying: “Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.”The election is seven weeks away. Though Democrats want to place the threat of a repeat of political violence such as the January 6 attacks at the center of their political argument, Trump can adopt the language of victimhood, because he is a victim in this case – the target of a second apparent assassination attempt in less than two months. Democrats face a dilemma about how to effectively campaign against a candidate who has been the target of violence and who continues to claim that the other side’s rhetoric is inciting that violence.Democrats still talk about Trump as a threat to democracy. But they don’t lead with it any more. Instead, Trump is “weird”. Project 2025 is nightmarish and unpopular. Abortion will be illegal. It’s harder for Trump to allege that Democrats are inciting violence when they’re talking about unpopular policies.Leaders can also effectively reinforce social norms against violence, said Lilliana Mason of Johns Hopkins University, who studies political violence in the US electorate. “It can be pretty simple. You can just say ‘political violence has no place in a democratic election,’” she said. “Make it very clear, and often a very simple rejection of violence will make people step back.”Joe Biden delivered just that message Monday, condemning political violence in remarks in Philadelphia at the National HBCU Week Conference.There is “no place for political violence in America – none. Zero,” Biden said. “In America, we resolve our difference peacefully at the ballot box, not at the end of a gun.” Violence “solves nothing. It just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen.”Anti-violence political messaging is most effective when it comes from the political perspective of those who have committed violence, Mason said. “The problem with these attempts on Trump is that it’s really perpetrators who are not clearly from one side or the other.”Such is the apparent case with Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old entrepreneur from Hawaii who had donated to Democrats and supported Ukraine’s war against Russia, but also voted for Trump in 2016 and advocated for Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy to win the Republican nomination.Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg remembers how people reacted when a gunman shot at him in his campaign headquarters as he was running for office two years ago. There was an outpouring of support from both Democrats and Republicans, he said.“I think extremists on all sides need to turn down the heat of their rhetoric,” Greenberg said. “I think antisemites and racists have no place in political discourse.”Quintez Brown, a social justice activist running for the Louisville metro council, walked into Greenberg’s office on Valentine’s Day and shot at him six times. One bullet passed through Greenberg’s sweater before staffers could barricade the door. Support for Greenberg was bipartisan, though the rhetoric wasn’t always nonpartisan.“I think candidates and elected officials should be held to the highest standards and encourage civil discourse that does not fan the flames of hatred and violence,” Greenberg said. “This often happens, sometimes directly, more often indirectly, with dog whistles and metaphors and tweets.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStill, some see the need for Democrats to tread carefully as unnecessary, given Trump’s history of inciting violence.The idea that Trump – after the events of January 6 and recent fabrications about the conduct of Haitian refugees that have led to school closures amid threats – could offer criticism on incitement raised the rancor of David Brand, a Democratic activist and operative in Atlanta.“We have strongly condemned in the strongest possible term what he did, what this individual did and called for swift justice,” Brand said. “It is ironic also that he is being prosecuted by a Haitian American immigrant who will be protecting Donald Trump’s civil rights. Donald Trump never gave Paul Pelosi the same respect that we are giving again, and the same respect for the rule of law.”But Trump’s campaign described criticism of this contradiction as itself an incitement.But concerns among Democrats about how to effectively campaign may be short-lived. The most surprising thing about political violence right now is how quickly people move on, Greenberg said.“Whether it’s with the assassination attempts now on President Trump or other acts of political violence or violence in general,” he said. “I mean, just look at Georgia two weeks ago. [A] horrible school shooting. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but how quickly people seem to forget how much gun violence is impacting our country.” More

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      Why Republicans are raising double the money in down-ballot races

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      Since Kamala Harris launched her presidential bid in July, Democrats have showered her campaign with cash. Last month alone, the vice-president raised $361m, tripling Donald Trump’s fundraising haul of $130m for the month. According to Harris’s campaign, she brought in $540m in the six weeks after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race.Democratic congressional candidates appear to be benefiting from this financial windfall as well, as Republicans sound the alarm about their fundraising deficit in key races that will determine control of the House and Senate in November.But in one crucial area, Republicans maintain a substantial cash advantage over Democrats: state legislative races. In recent years, Republicans have controlled more state legislative chambers than Democrats, giving them more power over those states’ budgets, election laws and abortion policies.The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which supports the party’s state legislative candidates, has raised $35m between the start of 2023 and the end of this June, the committee told the Guardian. In comparison, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) – which invests in an array of state-level campaigns, such as supreme court races, in addition to legislative campaigns – has raised $62m in the same time period.That resource gap is now rearing its head in key battleground states, the DLCC says. In Pennsylvania, a crucial state for the presidential and congressional maps, Republican state legislative candidates have spent $4.5m on paid advertisements, compared with $1.4m for Democratic candidates.“When we think about the context of what’s at stake, we think about more than 65 million people being covered by our target map this year,” said Heather Williams, president of the DLCC. “And that means that the rights of all those people will be determined by who’s in power the day after the election.”A race to fill the funding gapDemocratic party leaders seem aware of the high-stakes surrounding state legislative races. Earlier this month, the Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced a transfer of $25m in funds to help down-ballot candidates, including $2.5m for the DLCC. Williams said the transfer represented the party’s largest investment to date focused solely on winning state legislative chambers.“The underlying story here is that the Harris campaign, our federal officials [and] the party believe that we need to win up and down the ballot,” Williams said. “We know that our freedoms are on the line, that democracy is on the line in the states, and so investing in state legislatures is really an emerging cornerstone of Democrats’ strategy to protect against Maga [‘Make America great again’] extremism.”But the $2.5m investment, while significant, does not come close to closing with DLCC’s resource deficit against the RSLC. Democratic-aligned outside groups, such as the States Project and the Super Pac Forward Majority, are trying to help close that gap: Forward Majority is now on track to spend $45m this election cycle on promoting Democratic state legislative campaigns, the group announced on Wednesday. The States Project has also announced plans to spend $70m this cycle, after investing heavily in state legislative races two years ago.Forward Majority formed in 2017, after Republicans notched significant victories up and down the ballot in 2016. At the time, Democrats controlled 31 legislative chambers compared with Republicans’ 68. In the years since, Democrats have chipped away at that disadvantage, now controlling 39 chambers.“It was incredible in that decade or so to see people pay more attention to it, to recognize this level of the ballot is critically important,” said Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer at Forward Majority.Despite that progress, Martes warned against complacency, as Republican-aligned groups have shown a willingness to invest heavily in state legislative races as well. During the legislative races in Virginia last year, the conservative Pac Americans for Prosperity spent $2.2m, which represented the largest contribution of any outside group.“We can’t let the Republicans flood the zone with late money,” Martes said. “They have access to it, and we can never underestimate their ability to come in late.”Post-Roe momentumDemocrats had a good year in 2022 when it came to state legislative elections. They flipped the Minnesota senate and both chambers of the Michigan legislature, giving them governing trifectas in both states thanks to the Democratic governors there. Some of that momentum was attributed to Democratic voters’ increased focus on state legislatures after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf the 22 states that currently enforce an abortion ban of some kind, 19 of them are fully controlled by Republicans. (A judge struck down North Dakota’s abortion ban on Thursday, but the law had not yet been enjoined as of Friday afternoon.) Meanwhile, several states controlled by Democrats – including California, Minnesota and New Jersey – have expanded abortion rights since Roe was overturned. That contrast has enlightened many voters on the importance of state elections, Martes argued.“I think most people did not believe that Roe was going to fall,” she said. “And I think it’s been incredibly impactful for people to now know it’s up to the states … I think that’s really helped people focus in on state legislatures.”Williams hopes that greater awareness will translate into electoral success down ballot, as Democrats look to sustain the trifectas they won in 2022 and flip more legislative chambers.The DLCC’s to-do list for November is long. Democrats want to keep their control of the Michigan house and the Pennsylvania house, where they repeatedly defended their slim majority through several special elections since 2022. The party also hopes to break a Republican supermajority in North Carolina, where the state legislature was able to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a 12-week abortion ban. And in Arizona, Republicans have only one-seat majorities in both chambers, giving Democrats an opportunity for their first governing trifecta in the state since 1966.It is no coincidence that much of Democrats’ state legislative map overlaps with their presidential and congressional maps, Martes said.“The key to winning back Congress also runs through a path of picking up state legislative seats and protecting important incumbents,” Martes said.While leaders of both political parties are fond of saying that every vote matters, the truism is particularly relevant when it comes to state legislative races. Because the voting pool is smaller compared with a congressional or presidential race, a couple hundred votes often separate the winner from the loser in state legislative elections.In one stunning case that arose in 2018, a tied Virginia legislative election was decided by pulling a name out of a bowl, and the lucky Republican winner gave his party control of the house of delegates.While the narrow margins of such races may seem daunting, they can also be motivating, Williams argued.“It’s going to take one vote at a time and one legislative win over and over in all of these states,” Williams said. “I think we’re at such a moment where those efforts – seemingly small efforts – will make a huge difference. And we’ll be able to protect the rights of millions of people across the country.” More

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      Biden’s green policies will save 200,000 lives and have boosted clean energy jobs, data shows

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      The environmental policies of Joe Biden’s administration will save approximately 200,000 Americans’ lives from dangerous pollution in the coming decades and have spurred a surge in clean energy jobs, two independent reports outlining the stakes of the upcoming US presidential election have found.The first full year of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sprawling climate bill passed by Democratic votes in Congress in 2022, saw nearly 150,000 clean energy jobs added, according to a new report by nonpartisan business group E2.Nearly 3.5 million people now work in these fields in the US, more than the total number of nurses nationwide, with 1m of these jobs centered in the US south, a region politically dominated by Republicans.Clean energy jobs grew by 4.5% last year, nearly twice as fast as overall US employment growth, and account for one in 16 new jobs nationally, the report found. New roles in energy efficiency led the way, followed by an increase in jobs in renewable energy, such as wind and solar, electric car manufacturing and battery and electric grid upgrades.But the future of the IRA, which provides tax credits and grants for new clean energy activity, is a flashpoint in the election campaign, with Donald Trump vowing to “terminate Kamala Harris’s green new scam and rescind all of the unspent funds”.The former president and Republican nominee has accused Harris, his Democratic opponent, of waging a “war on American energy” and called for an end to incentives encouraging Americans to drive electric cars.Harris, who has promised in unspecified ways to build upon the IRA, has attacked Trump for “surrendering” on the climate crisis as well as in the US’s attempts to compete with China, the world’s clean energy manufacturing powerhouse.Bob O’Keefe, executive director of E2, said the IRA has helped lead “an American economic revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations”.“But we’re just getting started,” Keefe added. “The biggest threats to this unprecedented progress are misguided efforts to repeal or roll back parts of the IRA, despite the law’s clear benefits both to American workers and the communities where they live.”Should Trump return to the White House, he will need congressional approval to completely repeal the IRA, although his administration could slow down and even claw back funding allocated but not yet released for clean energy projects, such as the $500m pledged for a green overhaul of a steel mill in JD Vance’s home town of Middletown, Ohio.A new Trump administration would have more discretion, though, over the future of air pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Biden. “One of the things that is so bad for us is the environmental agencies, they make it impossible to do anything,” Trump has complained while on the campaign trail.Any major rollbacks will have a heavy toll upon public health, however, with a new analysis of 16 regulations passed by the EPA since Biden’s term started in 2021 finding that they are on track to save 200,000 lives and prevent more than 100m asthma attacks by 2050.The analysis, conducted by the Environmental Protection Network, a group founded by retired EPA staff, calculated the public health benefits of the suite of new rules that aim to limit pollution flowing from cars, power plants and oil and gas operations.Jeremy Symons, a former climate policy adviser at the EPA and a co-author of the report, said the findings were “jaw-dropping”. He added: “The EPA’s accomplishments have been nothing short of lifesaving over the last four years. These are real people who wouldn’t be alive if not for the non-partisan work of the EPA to start doing its job again after the last administration.”It’s unclear what Trump’s exact plan for the EPA would be should he regain power but he attempted to radically cut the agency’s budget when he was president, only to be rebuffed by Congress, and oversaw the elimination and weakening of a host of pollution rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has directly promised oil and gas industry executives a fresh wave of deregulation should he return to the White House, in return for $1bn in campaign contributions.Project 2025, a conservative blueprint authored by many former Trump officials but disavowed by the Trump campaign, demands the dismantling of parts of the agency, a rollback of environmental rules and a politicization of decision making.“This would put polluters in charge of air regulations and put millions of Americans at needless risk of cancer, heart disease and asthma,” said Symons.“Several of the authors of Project 2025 used the years of working at the EPA under Trump as a training ground for more reckless plans should they get their hands on the agency again. This plan would be a wrecking ball to the EPA.”Asked to comment, the Trump campaign criticized the Biden-Harris administration on inflation and what it called its “war on energy”.“Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which actually created the worst inflation crisis in a generation. She proudly helped Joe Biden implement all of his disastrous policies including his war on American energy that is driving up prices astronomically for American consumers,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary.“President Trump is the only candidate who will make America energy dominant again, protect our energy jobs, and bring down the cost of living for all Americans,” Leavitt added.An EPA spokesperson said: “We appreciate the work of the Environmental Protection Network and look forward to reviewing their report. EPA remains committed to protecting public health and the environment by implementing science-based pollution standards that address climate change and improve air quality for all Americans.” More

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      RFK Jr’s name will remain on ballot in swing state Wisconsin, judge rules

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr’s name will remain on the ballot in the swing state of Wisconsin, a judge ruled on Monday.Dane county circuit judge Stephen Ehlke ruled that Wisconsin law clearly states presidential candidates who have submitted nomination papers can’t be removed from the ballot unless they die. Kennedy’s campaign submitted nomination papers before the state’s 6 August deadline.“The statute is plain on its face,” Ehlke said, adding later: “Mr Kennedy has no one to blame but himself if he didn’t want to be on the ballot.”Time is running out for Kennedy to get his name off the Wisconsin ballot. County clerks face a Wednesday deadline to print ballots and distribute them to more than 1,800 local officials in cities, towns and villages who run elections.Kennedy asked a state appellate court to consider the case last week, days before Ehlke issued his ruling. The second district court of appeals has been waiting for Ehlke’s decision before deciding whether to take the case.The Wisconsin elections commission voted 5-1 earlier this month to approve Kennedy’s name for the ballot after an attempt by Republican commissioners to remove him failed. The commission noted the statute that prevents candidates from removing themselves from the ballot short of death.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe presence of independent and third-party candidates on the ballot could be a key factor in Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by between 5,700 votes and about 23,000 votes.In 2016, Green party nominee Jill Stein got just over 31,000 votes in Wisconsin – more than Trump’s winning margin of just under 23,000 votes. Some Democrats have blamed her for helping Trump win the state and the presidency that year.Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump. Kennedy said he would try to get his name removed from ballots in battleground states while telling his supporters that they could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome.Kennedy won a court order in North Carolina earlier this month to remove his name from ballots there. Kennedy filed a lawsuit on 3 September an attempt to get off the Wisconsin ballot, arguing that third-party candidates are discriminated against because state law treats Republicans and Democrats running for president differently.Republicans and Democrats have until 5pm on the first Tuesday in September before an election to certify their presidential nominee. Independent candidates such as Kennedy can only withdraw before the 6 August deadline for submitting nomination papers. More

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      Should we take Elon Musk’s and Taylor Swift’s political endorsements seriously? | Siva Vaidhyanathan

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      What should we make of the fact that the richest person in the world has joined forces with Donald Trump and promises now to serve the United States as some sort of czar of government “efficiency”? And what should we make of the world’s biggest pop star endorsing Kamala Harris for president?Why should it matter that these mega-celebrities tell us what they want from politics and government?The morning after Taylor Swift endorsed Harris for president, Elon Musk defended his new buddy, Trump, in the most disturbing and bizarre fashion, referring to the Republican obsession with women who have chosen not to have children and have cats. “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” Musk, who has impregnated at least one of his employees and has reportedly propositioned others, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.Swift, in contrast, has declared over the past four years that she cares deeply about women’s issues and has motivated her followers around the world to register to vote and get active in politics. Her engagement has been serious and sincere. Swift, more than any other celebrity, has the opportunity to assume the role of the champion of democracy in America. She writes and sings about the personal yet connects the personal to the political through the descriptions of power and mistreatment in relationships. To many, the connections between power imbalances and mistreatment in personal relationships and those in society at large are strong yet implicit. Swift has moved in recent years to make them explicit.So Swift’s endorsement is not so much about swaying undecided voters through her charisma. That’s a myth. Rather her endorsement is about harnessing all the activist energy she has been building over the years and focusing it on getting young people registered to vote and willing to volunteer for a cause. She is expanding the electorate and infusing it with optimism and purpose. That’s a blessing to anyone who cares about the fate of democracy in the United States.In stark contrast, the other billionaire in this spat has done everything he can to undermine belief in government by the people and for the people. His long hostility to safety and securities regulation makes sense, given his role as a corporate leader. His deep-seated racism and sexism have become even more vocal since he found common cause with Trump and other Republicans. Musk wants a smaller set of political actors in the world. They should be his buddies, all men, and all who assume they know what’s best for the world. It does not help that he is neither smart nor serious about policy nor politics.Yet the nominee of one of the two major American political parties has declared he wants Musk to assume a powerful role in the next government. We could approach this question by examining Musk’s record as a corporate leader, which is spotty at best. We could address Musk’s habits of exaggeration and prevarication, which are significant. We could wonder how a person who is supposed to be running five companies already might have the time to also head up a major government initiative.Or we could just conclude that neither Musk nor Trump are serious people with any idea how to execute policy, let alone devote time, energy and thought to the process. That’s not a reason to suspend concern about this partnership. Musk’s threats to the United States go far beyond any potential office he might hold in the future.Policy is not for amateurs. We learned this the hard way during the first Trump administration, when the few veteran policymakers who were willing to keep the government operating were one by one pushed out of power by Trump or his cronies.To change the way any federal government office operates, one must generate a feasible proposal and seek affirmation and criticism from stakeholders. Those stakeholders might include corporations and their lobbyists, unions and their lobbyists, and public interest groups that range from the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club. They also include elements of the executive branch who might have to implement that policy. And, of course, plenty of lawyers and economists must weigh in. Often, if generated by an office of the executive branch, the public must be invited to submit comments on a draft of a policy statement.And, once all of that happens, policy changes are subject to court scrutiny if an interested party decides to sue over it. In other words, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to change even small things that the government does. It takes skill, knowledge, diligence and a whole lot of patience to enact policy.It’s not work appropriate for the flippant, unserious or easily distracted.Now, that’s how it’s done in normal times. We can assume that normal times would come to a permanent end in the United States if 78-year-old Donald Trump takes the oath of office again on 20 January 2025. He has promised radical change in the basic workings of government, down to promising to ignore or “terminate” the constitution if he does not get his way.How he would do this is unclear. We can assume that he would have some elements willing to use force to wrest control of the government away from processes and the limits of law. And we know that Trump has managed to turn the federal courts into instruments of his own interests. All of that would take work, of course. The only thing that saved the government from complete breakdown during Trump’s term in office was his inability to focus and follow through on his indignation and ambition. The friction of bureaucracy turned out to be one of the last bastions holding up the fragile republic.The best Trump can hope to accomplish is chaos and breakdown along with massive corruption that would flow as the failsafes of oversight and accountability collapse.That’s what makes the whole Musk partnership so absurd. Assume for a moment that Musk were a serious, committed, competent leader and manager. Under the Trump style of administration, what possibility would there be for him to discipline a sprawling federal agency such as the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Defense?It would not matter. Again, it’s folly to take this effort seriously as an effort to do what Trump or Musk say it would do. Musk, like Trump, is only interested in how any effort could smooth the way for his own benefit. Over the past decade or more, Musk has found his various companies, especially Tesla, entangled with regulators over issues ranging from safety to securities violations.His leadership of SpaceX and its subsidiary Starlink, which provides satellite internet access to many millions of people around the world including essential elements of the military and government of Ukraine, has come under scrutiny as Musk has grown closer to the Russian view of the invasion of Ukraine. SpaceX is a major defense contractor. The United States government already depends on SpaceX way too much, and SpaceX depends on the United States government for much of its revenue.Having Musk involved at the highest levels of a government that is supposed to be curbing his excesses and protecting the public interest from the worst externalities of his companies is beyond a conflict of interest. It’s naked corruption. And that is the point. It’s positively Putinesque.Musk is, of course, unlikely to even assume such an office or hold a meeting if he did. He does not have the ability to focus these days. His incessant tweeting at all hours is increasingly unhinged from reality. His drug use, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, has reached a concerning level at which investors in Tesla are worried about his ability to protect their interests. He seems not to be putting in the time to do his current jobs well, even the one at Tesla that supplies him with most of his wealth.Musk’s closeness to Trump is itself a cause for concern. Even without Musk in office, Trump would probably order his cronies to suspend regulatory scrutiny of SpaceX and Tesla. Musk depends on the goodwill of the Xi regime in China to keep parts flowing for Tesla and to keep China open as a market for the cars. Musk needs the new extremely rightwing government of Argentina to remain friendly to the United States to maintain access to new lithium mines for Tesla batteries. And Musk infamously owes the Saudi royal family for funding his disastrous purchase of Twitter.This level of entanglement with troublesome and oppressive foreign governments makes Musk a security risk to the United States whether inside or outside government, whether Trump or Harris runs the government.The choice for America’s future could not be starker, especially when we contrast the roles, goals and personalities of the two highest-profile celebrities active this fall. Swift offers a serious and sincere opportunity for engagement. Musk offers snark and selfishness. Yet for some reason, too many people consider Musk, with his wealth, worthy of pontification on matters of public policy. Maybe it’s time we took Swift and her followers more seriously. The future is theirs.

      Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy More

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      Former Ronald Reagan staffers endorse Kamala Harris for president

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      More than a dozen former Ronald Reagan staff members have joined dozens of other Republican figures endorsing the Democratic nominee and vice-president, Kamala Harris, saying their support was “less about supporting the Democratic party and more about our resounding support for democracy”.In a letter obtained by CBS News, former Reagan aides and appointees – including Ken Adelman, a US ambassador to the United Nations and arms control negotiator, as well as a deputy press secretary, B Jay Cooper – said they believed that, if alive today, Reagan would have supported Harris.“President Ronald Reagan famously spoke about a ‘Time for Choosing.’ While he is not here to experience the current moment, we who worked for him in the White House, in the administration, in campaigns and on his personal staff, know he would join us in supporting the Harris-Walz ticket,” the group wrote.“The time for choosing we face today is a choice between integrity and demagoguery, and the choice must be Harris-Walz,” the group added. “Our votes in this election are less about supporting the Democratic party and more about our resounding support for democracy.”The letter comes as more than 230 former Republican administration officials have also backed Harris. Karl Rove, George W Bush campaign strategist and senior adviser, wrote “there’s no putting lipstick on this pig” after Donald Trump’s debate performance. Bush has said he has no plans to endorse any 2024 candidate.While there are more Republican-for-Harris defectors than vice-versa – Trump has gained the support of the Democrat outcasts Robert F Kennedy Jr. and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard – natural alignment resets are increasing.The conservative columnist George Will floated in the Washington Post last week that “a Harris presidency, tempered by a Republican-led Senate, might finally revive a more normal politics.”Will wrote that the outcome required the removal of Donald Trump – “that Krakatau of volcanic, incoherent, fact-free bombast” – from public life and the rekindling of genuine liberal-conservative debate.The Reagan staffers said they were looking to convince former colleagues to back their stand for Harris and the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as “the only path forward toward an America that is strong and viable for our children and grandchildren for years to come”.Other Republicans backing Harris include former vice-president Dick Cheney and daughter Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman, Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan. The latter three accepted speaking slots at the Democrats’ convention in August.But few Republicans endorsing Harris over Trump are in the political game.Trump’s nomination rival Nikki Haley has not backed Harris and said she agrees with Trump’s policies. But challenged last week to go further, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, failed to say she thought Trump was a good candidate.“I think he is the Republican nominee,” Haley replied. “Do I agree with his style, do I agree with his approach, do I agree with his communications? No.”Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, said before the Harris-Trump debate in Philadelphia last week that “many people who have worked for Donald Trump have said that they do not support Donald Trump coming back to the presidency. And I think that speaks volumes, because we know him.” More

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      ‘It’s such a dramatic contrast’: Harris turns North Carolina into a toss-up

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      Landon Simonini found himself standing in the middle of a Charlotte highway lane at 2.30 in the afternoon, stuck in an artificial traffic jam while drivers waited for Kamala Harris’s plane to land and the motorcade to clear for the rally later that day.He was out of his car, because why not? He wasn’t going anywhere soon. His red Make America great again cap stood out among others cursing the traffic gods.Simonini, born and bred in Charlotte, builds houses. His livelihood depends to some degree on Charlotte’s tremendous growth. But not all growth is great, he said.“This is a traditionally southern state,” Simonini said. “Over 100 people move to Charlotte a day. That is changing the election map. I am born and raised in Charlotte, for 33 years. I have lived here my entire life. I went to school at UNC Charlotte. This is my city. It is a conservative city and I want to keep it that way.”But in America’s nail-biting 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is now in play. It rejoins a select list of crucial swing states whose voters will decide if Harris becomes America’s first woman of color to win the White House or if Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office from which he wreaked political chaos for four years.Up until about two months ago, the odds didn’t look like this.Though the margins in North Carolina have been close for decades in presidential races, Obama in 2008 was the last Democrat since 1976 to win the state, eking out a win by three-tenths of a percentage point. Biden’s weakness earlier this year threatened to turn North Carolina into an also-ran contest. Every poll through June had Trump beating the president by at least two points, with an average around six.Party affiliation can only tell so much in a state with a storied history of split-ticket voting. Almost four in 10 of North Carolina’s 7.6 million registered voters choose not to affiliate with a political party. But between August 2020 and August 2024, Republicans added about 161,000 new registered voters in North Carolina while Democrats lost about 135,000 registered voters.Trump won the state by about 75,000 votes in 2020, a margin of about 1.3 percentage points, his closest winning state, before losing the election. Biden won the four states with closer margins – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’s ascent scrambled the math. North Carolina’s secretary of state, Elaine Marshall, described the reaction as euphoric.“It’s such a dramatic contrast from that venom, that poison, that hatred that’s coming from Republican events,” she said. “That contrasts so strongly with the hope and the expectations of the future from Democratic party events.”The Trump campaign reportedly abandoned its efforts to mount a serious contest in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Virginia recently. That leaves seven states in the political battleground – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and now North Carolina.Counting electors aside from the remaining non-battleground states, Harris starts with 226 and Trump with 219. North Carolina can deliver 16 electoral votes to the victor. A candidate must have 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Only Pennsylvania has more electors among the remaining battleground states.A re-energized Democratic electorate has been visible in polling data, which now shows the state as tied. Part of that is the roughly 20% of North Carolinians who are Black; increased African American voter turnout helped Obama win the state in 2008.But the enthusiasm is far more widespread, and was visible this week, when Harris drew 25,000 people to two rallies this week, one in Charlotte and another a few hours later in Greensboro. It was the vice-president’s 17th trip to North Carolina and her ninth just this year.If Harris wins North Carolina and holds in Michigan and Wisconsin, she need only win one of the four other swing states to clinch the presidency. But if Trump wins North Carolina, he can win the presidency with Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin even while losing elector-rich Pennsylvania and Michigan.Melissa Benton waited on one foot for traffic to clear on Tuesday night outside the Greensboro coliseum. Her right knee rested on a scooter, keeping her broken ankle off the ground. She came up from Charlotte for the event, she said.Benton is an Atlanta-area transplant. She left Georgia out of frustration with how her community had changed with growth. The irony is not lost on her.Locals complain about the rising cost of living, and soaring housing costs are first on the list. Even people who have weathered the slow-motion collapse of the furniture industry over the last 30 years are being saddled with property tax increases as their homes rise in value.“Every time I meet a native Charlottean, I’m always like, ‘Listen, I’ve been where you are right now,” Benton said. “I swear I’ll be a great citizen, because I understand what it’s like for new people to come in.” She has a keen eye on municipal problems, services and infrastructure. “But it’s also keeping Charlotte Charlotte, and we’ve lost sight of that in some big cities.”Affordable housing is a crisis in Charlotte, much like it is in Atlanta and Greensboro and most large cities in the US. But in North Carolina, it’s not just an urban problem. Lenoir – pronounced “len-OR” – up at the edge of the Brushy mountain range of the Appalachians, is in one of 73 rural counties in the state, and it has a problem with market rate housing too. About a third of North Carolina’s voters live in rural counties.The Democratic party has a field office in Lenoir. The lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, held a campaign event there on Wednesday for his gubernatorial run. Marshall, the secretary of state, held a discussion there last week. No part of the state can escape battleground politics today.View image in fullscreenDemocrats have long expected a brutal fight in North Carolina, and have been investing time, money and personnel into the state for the last year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The Democratic party is certainly trying to reach young people,” Marshall said. It’s also trying hard to connect with young women who may have abortion politics on their mind. “They’ve got Sunday school, and they’ve got work, getting the kids fed and kind of stuff. So suburban mom, working professional women, you know.”Harris’s visit to North Carolina for her first rallies since the debate is no accident. North Carolina is that important. Trump has planned a rally in Wilmington on North Carolina’s coast next week. JD Vance, his running mate, will be in Raleigh next week as well. The Republican campaign has been sending surrogates to local events regularly. Two weeks from now, the former housing secretary Ben Carson will speak at the Salt and Light conference of the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition.The Democratic party has 26 field offices in North Carolina with 240 paid staff, according to the campaign. The choices of placement for some of the offices, such as rural Wilson county in the state’s “Black belt” and Lenoir in western mountain country, speak to movement away from a focus on high-density urban territory that’s friendly to Democrats.Democrats are also using their significant financial advantages in fundraising to swaddle broadcast and social media in a blanket of Harris advertising. Organizers say they have been on the air with ads for a year. The ad tracking firm AdImpact notes that Democrats have reserved about $50m in ad buys through the end of the cycle, with particular attention paid to Black and Spanish-language media outlets. Trump only began advertising in earnest in August.But Republican campaign leaders view much of that effort as artificial.“We feel like, from our standpoint, that the race is a toss-up, but we feel like we still have an advantage,” said Matt Mercer, director of communications for the North Carolina GOP. “One of the big reasons is our leadership. You know, we didn’t abandon a ground game at any level in 2020. What you’re seeing from Democrats is an effort to catch up.”The Republican campaign is decentralized, Mercer said, accommodating far-flung efforts in a state that’s 560 miles wide from Manteo in the east to Murphy in the west. “You win statewide by going across the entire state, and that means going west of I-77 and east of I-95.”“For every person that’s moving to Charlotte or Raleigh, you’ve also got retired couples moving to the coast, or you’ve got military deciding to stay in the state,” Mercer said. “You know, I think Democrats kind of fall into this trap where they think growth is all going to benefit them, and they’re just missing it.”The GOP dominates North Carolina’s legislative branch, which has enough Republicans to override a gubernatorial veto. But North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat and the state has elected a Democratic governor for most of the last 30 years, even as it has delivered wins to Republican presidents.Josh Stein, North Carolina’s attorney general and the Democratic nominee to succeed Cooper, has maintained a consistent lead over Robinson throughout the year. Robinson is an unusually controversial candidate even by standards set in the Trump era, with a litany of offensive and antisemitic attacks made on social media or in public statements.View image in fullscreenRobinson has tried to keep a low profile over the last few months, even as Stein has used his financial edge to batter Robinson with ads drawing primarily on the lieutenant governor’s own words. In recent weeks, Robinson has taken to the campaign trail, meeting with small groups in small towns far away from urban centers, haranguing the media and calling Stein’s ads deceptive. “Josh Stein is a liar,” he said, demanding that a news reporter convey that message to his opponent, along with a demand for a debate.Stein has, so far, declined.James Adamakis watched a Robinson speech, from a seat at Countryside BBQ in the small town of Marion, North Carolina, on Tuesday. It’s a popular stop for politicians in North Carolina’s rural mountains. A picture of Barack Obama’s visit in 2011 hangs proudly on the wall next to the cash register.Adamakis works in juvenile justice. The military veteran supports Republicans because they’re tougher on crime he said. But he acknowledges that even people who share his political values may vote in peculiar ways in North Carolina.He described the conversion of one of his friends into a Republican. “It was the economics, where he just kept seeing the inflation and buying groceries and everything,” Adamakis said. “He was like, why is the media and Biden saying that it’s good when it’s not? I think that the economy cuts across lines.“Everybody you meet in western North Carolina still may vote Democrat, but they still don’t like that.”But political diversity is about more than race in North Carolina. The economy of a place like Research Triangle Park near Durham is fundamentally different from the banking sector in Charlotte, or the tourism of the southern coast, or mountain towns struggling to reinvent themselves.“It might be easier in my job if there were just one [swing voter], but there’s not,” Mercer said. “And I think that dynamism is what makes the state so interesting and so hard to win, and why you truly need to understand the entire state.” More

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      Trump ‘likelier winner’ unless Harris tackles two failings, says ex-ambassador

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      Donald Trump will remain the “likelier winner” of the US presidential election on 5 November unless the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, addresses key failings in her campaign, a former British ambassador to Washington says on Sunday.Kim Darroch says that despite clearly getting the better of Trump in last week’s televised head-to-head debate, Harris risks making two crucial mistakes in the final weeks of campaigning, which mean the former Republican president is still the favourite.View image in fullscreenWith a Trump return to the White House on the cards, Lord Darroch says it is important that the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who met US president Joe Biden and other leading Democrats in Washington on Thursday, should also now be seeking a meeting with Trump and his team before polling day, so he has built links with both sides.“It is important that if Starmer meets one, he meets both,” Darroch says in an article for the Observer. “It will be noticed and resented by the Trump team if he doesn’t.”Darroch was UK ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, when he resigned in a row over leaked confidential emails in which he criticised Trump’s administration as “clumsy and inept”. Darroch’s position became untenable after Boris Johnson, then involved in the Tory leadership contest to succeed Theresa May, failed to give the ambassador his unequivocal backing.Darroch, who remains a respected figure in diplomatic circles on both sides of the Atlantic, says Trump is now “a less formidable campaigner” than in 2016, “down on energy, more liable to become confused, with a mind cluttered with grievances. And he remains a policy-free zone.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“But,” he adds, “he is still capable of connecting with the ‘left behind’ to a level few others can match, a talent which ensures a devoted and enduring support base in a country where one in three workers say they live paycheck to paycheck.”Darroch argues that the Democratic campaign is at risk of making two hugely important errors. Urging Harris to be “laser-focused” on voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin won by Biden in 2020, Darroch warns that they may drift back to Trump unless Harris is able to offer “some crisply worded, specific, targeted policies to bring jobs and hope back to these blighted neighbourhoods”.The second error is that Harris appears to be hiding from the media, repeating a mistake made by Hillary Clinton. “Back in 2016, Trump was ever-present. He would accept any and every invitation. He would even, unbidden, phone the morning news shows to offer his views on the day’s issues. By contrast, Hillary Clinton locked the media out – and lost.”Harris, he claims “seems to have adopted the Clinton playbook”.View image in fullscreenDarroch says the UK embassy in Washington will no doubt be advising Starmer to try to meet Trump, perhaps taking time out from a meeting of the UN general assembly this week to do so.“There is a lot to discuss with him, starting with his views on Ukraine. And however badly Trump performed in the debate, however visible his personal decline, he remains for many of us the likelier winner.” Last week, Starmer’s former pollster Deborah Mattinson met Harris’s campaign team in Washington to share details of how Labour pulled off its stunning election win by targeting key groups of “squeezed working-class voters who wanted change”, further strengthening contacts with the Democratic side. More