Democrats

With just half a month to go, the US presidential election is deadlocked, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump jockey for any advantage in ways that illuminate their stark political differences; the Democratic nominee most recently announced a plan to campaign with the Obamas, while the Republican nominee doubles down on threatening his enemies.In the past week, Trump has gone further than ever in branding his political opponents “the enemy within” and talking about deploying the military against them, while Harris herself entered uncharted territory by finally agreeing to label him “fascist”.The latest polling figures seem to mirror such sharply polarised rhetoric, with the seven crucial swing states almost split down the middle in allegiance.In a particularly graphic example, a Brookings Institution/Public Religion Research Institute survey published on Friday showed more than a third of voters – 34% – agree with one of Trump’s most incendiary contentions: that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America, rhetoric that has drawn comparisons with Hitler and fueled warnings of looming fascism.Evidence that such warnings are failing to electorally hurt the Republican nominee is displayed in the Guardian’s most recent 10-day poll tracker. As of 16 October, it showed Harris ahead nationwide by just two points, 48% to 46% – figures unchanged from a week ago and a significantly tighter margin than she enjoyed several weeks ago.The races in the battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona – are, if anything, even more cliffhanging, with numbers within error margins in each.The pair are level pegging in Michigan and North Carolina, well within any statistical margins of error. The latter state saw early in-person voting begin at 400 sites on Thursday, as it continues to clear up the devastation left by Hurricane Helene last month, an operation marked by lies and misinformation from Trump and his supporters.Harris has tiny leads in Pennsylvania and Nevada, while Trump is ahead in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, though the races remain far too close to predict with any certainty.With Harris scrambling for a vital edge, Barack and Michelle Obama announced on Friday that they would campaign alongside her next week. It will be the former first lady’s first appearance since a widely lauded speech at the Democratic national convention in August, when she skewered Trump.The lack of clarity over the election’s outcome seems all the more remarkable in a race that has had so many seemingly clarifying moments, not least within the past week.One came last Saturday when Trump, in a speech in Coachella, California – a state Harris is certain to carry emphatically – talked darkly about “the enemy within”. a description he applied to the Democratic congressman Adam Schiff. He repeated the riff the following day in a Fox News interview with a friendly host, going on to suggest that the armed forces or national guard should be used against agitators causing “chaos” on election day – while stressing that these would not be on his side.The line seemed to give Harris an opening. Last Monday evening, at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, she took it, labelling Trump “unstable and unhinged” while playing her audience footage of the most extreme rhetoric from the Republican nominee’s public appearances in what was seen as an unusual political innovation.At almost the same moment, in a scene of disconcerting levity, Trump stood onstage swaying along to some of his favourite songs after a town hall event near Philadelphia had been interrupted by two medical emergencies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRather than continue a question-and-answer session, he requested a playlist that included James Brown, Luciano Pavarotti and Guns N’ Roses while importuning the gathering to listen and dance along for the next 40 minutes.Harris’s campaign attempted to highlight the episode as more evidence of Trump’s unfitness for office and supposed declining mental condition.The vice-president went further the following day, agreeing with Charlamagne Tha God in an interview for a Black radio station in Detroit that Trump’s vision amounted to “fascism”.“Yes we can say that,” she said, while still avoiding actually uttering a word that has been applied to Trump by others, including Gen Mark Milley, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff, who has called him “a fascist to the core”.The gaping chasm between the two candidates was further illustrated in contrasting appearances on two Fox News events on Wednesday.Trump went into one, an all-female town hall gathering, with the stated aim of wooing women voters, among whom polls shows he lags far behind Harris. In a comment that again provided fodder for Democrat mockery, he proclaimed himself to be “the father of IVF”, a form of fertility treatment that Senate Republicans voted against earlier this year. CNN later reported that Republican women’s groups had arranged for the audience to be packed with Trump supporters.For her part, Harris engaged in a combative interview with one of Fox’s Bret Baier in what was broadly viewed as a successful exercise in entering hostile terrain by going on a rightwing network that has vocally cheerled for Trump.Yet despite – or perhaps because of – these sharply diverging pictures, surveys show voters remain locked in entrenched positions,with the next couple of weeks likely to feature a desperate trawl on both sides for independent or undecided electors, bolstered by late get-out-the-vote efforts aimed at the less motivated sections of their respective bases. More

Kamala Harris took aim at Donald Trump’s energy levels as both candidates scrambled across the battleground state of Michigan, with election day looming. Harris referenced a report that the former president was “exhausted,” saying “being president of the United States is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world and we really do need to ask … is he fit to do the job?”Questions about Trump’s energy levels emerged after he backed out of some interviews with mainstream media outlets, including 60 Minutes and CNBC. But speaking before a rally in Detroit, the Republican candidate shot back, saying: “I’ve gone 48 days now without a rest … I’m not even tired. I’m really exhilarated.”With both candidates in Michigan, focus turned to the midwestern state that promises the winner 15 electoral college votes. Polling shows razor-thin margins in the state, which Trump won by 11,000 votes in 2016. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump by 155,000 votes.Here’s what else happened on Friday:Donald Trump election news and updates

Trump was back in Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, for a rally that got off to a difficult start after the former president’s microphone stopped working. “I won’t pay the bill for this stupid company that rented us this crap,” he said after the audio started working.

In a Fox & Friends interview earlier in the day, Trump griped about negative television ads on Fox and said he would ask Rupert Murdoch to ensure such ads are not broadcast until Election Day.

Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan”, the Wall Street Journal reported. “I would say: if you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150% to 200%,” the former president was quoted as saying. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese president Xi Jinping respected him.

Trump has raised more money from the oil and gas industry than at this stage of his previous campaigns for the US presidency, with a surge of fossil fuel funding coming in the six months since he directly requested $1bn from oil executives and then promised he would scrap environmental rules if elected. While the Republican nominee hasn’t quite managed to get to that $1bn figure, he has received $14.1m from the oil and gas industry in the period up to 31 August, donation filings show.
Kamala Harris election news and updates

Harris campaign in Grand Rapids, the heart of more conservative western Michigan. She is reportedly shifting the strategy of her whirlwind campaign to win over more Republicans and men of all races.

In Oakland County, Harris welcomed members of the Arab American community to her rally and touted prospects for peace in the aftermath of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Some prominent Lebanese Americans endorsed Harris, saying in a letter that the US had been “unrelenting” in its support for Lebanon under the Biden administration. A number of Arab Americans and Muslims are abandoning the Democratic party over the administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail

A new poll has revealed that more than a third of Americans agree with Trump’s warning that undocumented immigrants in the US are “poisoning the blood” of America. “This is a truly alarming situation to find this kind of rhetoric, find this kind of support from one of our two major political parties,” said Robert Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute.

At a campaign event in Arizona, former president Barack Obama said: “I understand why people are looking to shake things up … What I cannot understand is why anyone would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you.”

Barack and Michelle Obama will make their first appearances alongside Harris on the campaign trail next week, aiming to provide a powerful boost in the closing weeks of the election. Harris is scheduled to appear with the former president in Georgia on 24 October and with Michelle Obama in Michigan on 26 October.
Read more about the 2024 US election:

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What to know about early voting More

Meanwhile, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Kamala Harris slammed Trump’s performance at the Univision town hall yesterday, when he referred to 6 January 2021, when rioters stormed the capitol and injured over 140 police officers, “a day of love”.“The American people are exhausted with his gaslighting. Enough. We are ready to turn the page. We’re done,” she said.During the Univision town hall, a Republican voter told Trump the former president had lost his vote due to his response to the January 6 riots and the coronavirus pandemic. Trump responded: “Nothing done wrong at all.”“There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns,” he said. “And when I say we, these are people that walked down – this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love.”

Joe Biden has released a statement on Israel’s killing of Hamas’s chief Yahya Sinwar. In his statement, Biden called the killing a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” adding that he planned to speak to Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.

Kamala Harris also commented on Israel’s killing of Yahya Sinwar while on the campaign trail in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “This moment gives us an opportunity to end the war in Gaza,” the US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president in this election, said.

Donald Trump told the audience at the Univision town hall last night that “we can’t destroy our country” in order to save the planet from the climate crisis. Answering a question from a veteran construction worker, who had seen first-hand “the devastating impacts of climate change”, whether he still believed global warming was a hoax, Trump launched into a lengthy tirade.

At a rally in Durham, North Carolina, Tim Walz delivered a fiery criticism of Donald Trump.“When Trump is talking about bringing back stop-and-frisk policies, those are harassment that went on to the Black community, specifically Black males, and put a disproportionate number of them into incarceration,” he told supporters.

Biden announced today further student debt relief for public servants – amounting to about $4.5bn. The action affects about 60,000 borrowers across the country, said the White House, touting the efforts of the US president and Harris to improve loan forgiveness since taking office.
Surrogates for the Walz/Harris campaign, meanwhile, are questioning Trump’s cognitive abilities, pointing to his recent 40-minute musical interlude at a town hall where he was meant to be answering voters’ questions.Here’s Mark Cuban, the billionaire executive and TV personality who appeared alongside Harris in Wisconsin:Bill Clinton, who appeared with Walz in North Carolina, quipped: “Heck, I’m only two months younger than Donald Trump. But the good news for you is I will not spend 30 minutes swaying back and forth to music.”Meanwhile, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Kamala Harris slammed Trump’s performance at the Univision town hall yesterday, when he referred to 6 January 2021, when rioters stormed the capitol and injured over 140 police officers, “a day of love”.“The American people are exhausted with his gaslighting. Enough. We are ready to turn the page. We’re done,” she said.During the Univision town hall, a Republican voter told Trump the former president had lost his vote due to his response to the January 6 riots and the coronavirus pandemic. Trump responded: “Nothing done wrong at all.”“There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns,” he said. “And when I say we, these are people that walked down – this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love.”At a rally in Durham, North Carolina, Tim Walz delivered a fiery criticism of Donald Trump.“When Trump is talking about bringing back stop-and-frisk policies, those are harassment that went on to the Black community, specifically Black males, and put a disproportionate number of them into incarceration,” he told supporters.Walz also slammed the idea that Trump “understood” the needs of voters. “If any of our relatives … tells us ‘Donald Trump understands us’, that’s bullshit. He does not understand us. He does not understand you,” Walz said, noting that the former president didn’t “give a damn” if social security checks cleared.He appeared at the rally alongside former president Bill Clinton.Senior Democrats in US cities are preparing to defend their communities in the event of Donald Trump’s return to the White House after the former president has repeated threats that he would use presidential powers to seize control of major urban centers.Trump has proposed deploying the military inside major cities largely run by Democrats to deal with protesters or to crush criminal gangs. He has threatened to dispatch large numbers of federal immigration agents to carry out mass deportations of undocumented people in so-called “sanctuary” cities.He also aims to obliterate the progressive criminal justice policies of left-leaning prosecutors.“In cities where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order … I will not hesitate to send in federal assets including the national guard until safety is restored,” Trump says in the campaign platform for his bid to become the 47th US president, Agenda47.Trump provoked uproar earlier this week when he called for US armed forces to be deployed against his political rivals – “the enemy within” – on election day next month. But his plans to use national guard troops and military personnel as a means to attack those he sees as his opponents go much wider than that, spanning entire cities with Democratic leadership.Mayors and prosecutors in several US cities are collaborating over strategies to minimize the fallout. Levar Stoney, the Democratic mayor of Richmond, Virginia, a city of more than 220,000, said he was aware how difficult it would be to resist Trump given the enormous powers at a president’s disposal.“It’s very difficult to autocrat-proof your city,” he said. “But you have to have backstops, and mayors are working in coalition to ensure they can be a backstop against these divisive policies.”Read more:Newly unsealed divorce records show Arizona congressman Ruben Gallego, the Democratic nominee for an open Senate seat, petitioned a court to end his marriage with Kate Gallego, Phoenix’s mayor, just before she gave birth to their son. But it contained none of the potentially damaging details conservatives had hoped to uncover.Gallego’s opponent, Kari Lake, has long alluded to the filings, making insinuations that their contents would tarnish his public persona. Ahead of the release, one of her advisers sought to distance the campaign from the effort to unseal the documents, an effort brought by the conservative outlet, Washington Free Beacon.The couple split in 2016 after six years of marriage. The congressman has previously said that his post-traumatic stress disorder from serving in Iraq contributed to the demise of their marriage.The Gallegos had fought the release, expressing concern that the public disclosure could endanger their son, Michael. The effort to keep the records sealed fanned rightwing speculation about what was in them.Kate Gallego has endorsed her husband’s Senate bid.In June, Yavapai superior court judge John Napper, who originally presided over the Free Beacon’s case, tempered expectations well in advance, according to a video obtained by 12 News.“Everyone’s going to be rather deflated with the results of it,” Napper said, adding: “I’m not a politician, and maybe this will be very, very important information but this looks to me like one of the most garden-variety divorce files I have ever seen.”The US has granted temporary protected status to Lebanese nationals amid Israel’s deadly war on the country. The Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports:The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a new “temporary protected status” allowing Lebanese nationals in the US to remain in the country and apply for work permits, as the “ongoing armed conflict” in Lebanon continues with Israel expanding its invasion and its attacks on Hezbollah.As of July 2024, around 11,500 Lebanese nationals were believed to be in the US on nonimmigrant visas for business, tourism, temporary work or other opportunities, with California and Michigan hosting the most. About 11,000 of them will probably now be eligible to apply for temporary protected status, as well as for deferred enforced departure – in other words, protection from deportation. An additional 1,740 students from Lebanon may also be eligible for special student relief.For the full story, click here:The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has also weighed in on Israel’s killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, saying in a statement on Thursday:
Sinwar has the blood of countless innocents in Israel and Gaza on his hands and the world is a much better place without him …
Sinwar in his beliefs and actions have caused so much pain to the Israeli and Palestinian people; and I pray that his elimination from the scene will clear a path to urgently and immediately bring home all the hostages – including the seven Americans – and negotiate an end to hostilities that will ensure the security of the Israeli people and provide full humanitarian relief and a new path forward for the people of Gaza.
Schumer made no mention of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.The US will try to push forward a ceasefire and hostage-release proposal following Israel’s killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, Reuters reports.Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Over the past few weeks, there have been no negotiations for an end to the war because Sinwar has refused to negotiate.”Joe Biden has released a statement on Israel’s killing of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar.In his statement, Biden called the killing a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world”.Biden went on to add, “As the leader of the terrorist group Hamas, Sinwar was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and citizens from over 30 countries.”“Over 1,200 people were killed on that day, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, including 46 Americans. More than 250 were taken hostage, with 101 still missing. That number includes seven Americans, four of whom are believed to still be alive and held by Hamas terrorists. Sinwar is the man most responsible for this, and for so much of what followed,” Biden continued in his statement.He added that he will be speaking soon with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to “discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.”Notably, Biden made no mention of the 42,400 Palestinians – including healthcare workers and journalists – that Israeli forces killed since October or the nearly 2 million survivors who Israeli forces have forcibly displaced across the narrow strip.Moments ago, Kamala Harris stepped up to a podium while on the election trail in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and commented on Israel’s stating that it killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in a battle in Gaza today.“This moment gives us an opportunity to end the war in Gaza,” the US vice-president and Democratic nominee for president in this election, said.She said “justice has been served” over the reported killing of the leader of the Islamist militants that control Gaza.Harris reiterated the administration’s stance that “Israel has the right to defend itself and called for the remaining hostages held by Hamas since it led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to be released.But she added that “the suffering must end” in Gaza and said it was “time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power”. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not pledged a ceasefire.We are live blogging all the developments in Gaza, Lebanon and Israel, here.In the Middle East, the government of Israel has announced its military forces have killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in a battle in Gaza. This comes less than three weeks after Israel also killed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, during air strikes on the outskirts of Beirut in Lebanon.Confirmation on Sinwar’s death is awaited from the Palestinian side. If verified that means the heads of Iran’s two most powerful proxy forces opposed to Israel have been wiped out. We are following all the developments on this live in our international blog and you can find all that news here.Hello, US politics blog readers, it’s another lively day on the campaign trail with less than three weeks to go before the election. There’s a lot more news to come and we’ll keep up with developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand:

Donald Trump told the audience at the Univision town hall last night that “we can’t destroy our country” in order to save the planet from the climate crisis. Answering a question from a veteran construction worker, who had seen first-hand “the devastating impacts of climate change”, whether he still believed global warming was a hoax, Trump launched into a lengthy tirade.

Kamala Harris posted that “Donald Trump incited an attack on our nation’s democracy because he didn’t like the outcome of the election. If January 6 [2021] was a bridge too far, there is a place for you in our campaign.” This is further outreach from the Democratic nominee for president herself, including to hammer home facts about the insurrection at the US Capitol that day. It came a day after she did an interview with rightwing Fox News and led a rally attended by more than 100 prominent Republicans.

Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, will campaign in Durham and Winston-Salem in North Carolina with Common today, to mark the first day of early voting in that important swing state. The Emmy-winning rapper and voting rights activist is to join Walz in Winston-Salem, in a push to get out the vote.

Harris is on a swing through two vital “blue wall” states today, with campaign stops including Milwaukee, La Crosse and Green Bay in Wisconsin, then heading to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Joe Biden announced today further student debt relief for public servants – amounting to about $4.5bn. The action affects about 60,000 borrowers across the country, said the White House, touting the efforts of the US president and Harris, his vice-president and successor as presidential nominee, to improve loan forgiveness since taking office. More