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      Nevada is in a profound economic rut. Its working-class voters could swing the election

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      Urbin Gonzalez could be working inside, in the air conditioning, at his regular job as a porter on the Las Vegas strip. Instead, in the final few days before the US election, he chose to go door-knocking in the 104F (40C) heat, with the hopes of mobilising a few more voters to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris.“I don’t care because I’m fighting for my situation,” said Gonzalez: for his retirement in 10 years, for a more affordable life, for housing that he and his family can afford. “I’m doing this for me.”Gonzalez – like many workers on the strip – has struggled to keep up with rising costs in recent years. While the US economy broadly bounced back from the pandemic, Nevada has lagged behind. Nearly a quarter of jobs here are in leisure or hospitality, and although the Las Vegas Strip, where Gonzalez works, is back to booming with tourists, unemployment in Nevada remains the highest of any US state.And working-class voters are wrestling with a big question: which candidate will help dig them out of a profound economic rut?Their decision will help decide the election. Nevada is one of seven US swing states that help determine the outcome of the presidential race. With its six electoral votes, Nevada has leaned Democratic in every presidential vote since 2008 – but winning candidates have scraped by with slim margins. This year, the outcome could come down to working-class voters who have been worn down by low wages and ever-higher costs.“Nevada is a blue state, but it’s a very, very, very light blue state,” said David Byler, chief of research at the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “It wouldn’t take a lot of swing to turn any of those into a functional tie or a Republican win.”Both presidential campaigns are pitching solutions that – at least at first glance – look nearly identical.Trump raised the idea of ending taxes on tips at a June campaign rally. Harris came out with a plan to do so in August, and combined it with a promise to end the federal sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, which is $2.13 an hour.JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, floated the idea of expanding the child tax credit to $5,000. Harris and Walz have made their plan to expand the child tax credit and cap childcare costs one of their top campaign priorities.Gonzalez doesn’t believe Trump will do anything to help workers – after all, the glittering hotel and casino that bears the former president’s name on the strip fought fiercely to block workers from unionising ahead of the 2016 elections. “All Trump wants to do is cut taxes for his buddies, for his rich friends, not for us,” he said. “He has shown us that.”View image in fullscreenIn past years, the state’s powerful, politically engaged unions have helped buoy Democratic candidates to victory – and this year, the Culinary Union alone aims to knock on at least 900,000 doors. The AFL-CIO has also been canvassing for Harris, and the Nevada Teamsters have made a point to endorse Harris, even as the national organization declined to make an endorsement.“The people I talk to, they hear talking points from the Trump campaign, they hear a plan from the Harris campaign,” said Max Carter, a state assemblyman and former union electrician who has been canvassing on behalf of the Harris campaign.But Republicans have also positioned themselves as the champions of workers. “Trump’s big innovation was really going after these working-class voters,” Byler said. The former president has messaged populism and managed to distinguish himself from a past era of Republicans focused on fiscal and social conservatism, and hawkish foreign policy.Increasingly, voters say they trust Trump over Harris to improve economic conditions and follow through on policy promises. A September poll from Noble Predictive Insights, for example, found that 47% of voters trusted Trump to ban taxes on tips, compared to 40% who trusted Harris more on the matter.Many voters remember the days early in the Trump administration when costs were just lower. “I think the economy was just better when Trump was president,” said Magaly Rodas, a 32-year-old mother of two who was deciding on the cost of groceries at her local Latin market.Her husband, an electrician, has struggled to find work since the pandemic, she said – even as rent and other expenses have continued to climb. He’s also an immigrant, who has struggled to attain legal status in the US for more than a decade. Biden, Rodas said, keeps letting immigrants into the US, without any plan to help those who are already in the country. “What have the Democrats done for us in four years?” she said.That’s a common complaint that canvassers for Make the Road Action in Nevada, a progressive group focused on turning out Latino and other minority voters. “A lot of people think – ‘Oh, the economy was better under Trump,’” said Josie Rivera, an organiser for the group.” And it’s been really disappointing to hear that a lot of Black and Latino men especially are turning more conservative or just sitting out the election and staying home.”A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the weeks leading up to election day found that Trump trailed Harris by just two percentage points among Hispanic men.Canvassers for Make the Road have been working to fact-check Trump’s rhetoric that the economy was at its “best” under his presidency. They have also been talking to voters about Project 2025 – the ultra-conservative roadmap that details how the former president and his allies would restructure the US government – launching mass deportations, or dismantling education and climate programs, with disastrous consequences for immigrant and Black communities.View image in fullscreen“Still, we’re facing a lot of misinformation,” Rivera said. “We try to combat that, when we go door to door, with one-on-one conversations and personal testimonials. But it can still be hard to get to voters.”Many voters of color are turned off by the president’s racist rhetoric about immigrants, but don’t necessarily take him seriously, or believe he will actually enact the extreme policies he says he will, Rivera noted. Many voters do, however, seem to trust the former president’s business acumen.“I don’t like him as a person, but I like his economic standpoint,” said Maile McDaniel, a 22-year-old resident of Reno. “Because he’s shown that he can do it before. He’s shown he can keep inflation down, he’s shown he can make things affordable.”As an expecting mother, McDaniel said, she’s especially concerned about childcare costs and inflated prices at the grocery store.Childcare in Nevada is also more expensive than elsewhere in the country, and other basic expenses in the state remain, for some, unattainably high. The median home price in the Las Vegas area, for example, has far outpaced national averages, and the average rent increased by nearly a third between 2020 and 2022.Democrats argue that Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan brought in billions to fund everything from education to housing programs. And the president’s Inflation Reduction Act has also brought in unprecedented funding for new construction. But many of these projects are in the early stages, and it may take a while before Nevadans see the benefit.The potential benefits of the rival proposals not to tax tips are also unclear. An analysis from the Yale Budget Lab estimated that more than a third of tipped American workers already pay no federal income tax because they earn too little.Harris’s version of the plan would also aim to end the practice of paying tipped workers less than minimum wage, though in Nevada, all workers already are entitled to a minimum of $12 an hour, regardless of whether they earn tips. And a tax exemption for tips could also leave some workers worse off – disqualifying them from other tax credits.Voters leaning toward either candidate also wondered why either Trump or Harris hadn’t tried to pass any of these reforms already.“Trump was president for four years,” said Kenneth Logan, a retired bartender who lives in Las Vegas. “He says a lot of things, but he normally doesn’t follow through on them. I say if somebody tells you who they are, believe what they tell you.”For decades, Nevada has been an election bellwether, voting for the winner of every presidential contest since 1912 with two exceptions – the state broke for Gerald Ford in 1976, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, this year, even seasoned strategists and pollsters have struggled to predict which way the Silver state will swing.Indeed, reaching voters has long been a struggle in Nevada. Its largest cities – Reno and Las Vegas – are home to a transient population, many of whom work unpredictable shifts in the state’s 24/7 entertainment and hospitality industries. The state is also incredibly diverse, and home to several immigrant communities who primarily speak Spanish or a language other than English.Residents’ political affiliations can also be difficult to parse. Many Nevada voters have been fiercely independent for decades – voting for Democratic and Republican candidates. But new changes to the voter registration system – which automatically registers eligible voters at the DMV, and lists them as “non-partisan” by default – has increased the ranks of voters who are unaffiliated with any political party, even as voters beliefs have grown increasingly entrenched and polarised. Campaign operatives have been struggling to find these independents and figure out if they can be swayed.Another uncertainty is how the state’s mostly Mexican American Latinos, who make up nearly 20% of Nevada’s electorate, will sway. Latino voters here have traditionally backed Democrats, though the party’s popularity is slipping. And both parties have struggled to strategically and thoughtfully message to Latinos, even as they seek desperately to win their votes.Asian-American voters – who make up 12% of the state’s population – are another increasingly important voting bloc, and the Harris campaign especially has worked to court a growing constituency of Filipino-American voters in the state.In addition, there are indications that Nevada’s Latter-day Saints, who make up 6% of the state’s population and have historically been reliable Republican voters, have been turned off by Trump’s Christian nationalism.More than any other group, however, the campaigns in Nevada have remained focused on winning the state’s workers.“I think it’s time for all the people like us who work in those hard jobs in this country to have someone working hard for us,” said Claudio Lara, 49, who works as a housecleaner in Vegas.He is voting for Harris, he said, because she is a child of immigrants, and a woman. “It’s time for a woman, and it’s time for a change,” he said. “We need a strong change, a sharp change in this country.” More

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      How will the outcome of the US election affect Australia, Aukus and our region?

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      More people have gone to a ballot box in 2024 than in any other year in human history. Billions have cast votes across scores of countries, including some of the largest, most powerful democracies on Earth.But America’s remains the world’s global election, the most forensically examined, the most consequential all over the world. America matters.“The US is still the most powerful actor in the international system,” Dr Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, told the Guardian this week. “It is the richest company, with the biggest military, the biggest economy.“It is the only country that runs a truly global foreign policy, the only country that can project power anywhere on Earth.“It is the democratic, meritocratic superpower … it still attracts so many people around the world … the whole world is remarkably well-informed about the US election.”And Australia’s future is bound up in America’s electoral decision. As one of America’s closest allies – supporters might argue for “staunchest”, opponents might claim “uncritical” – Australia’s economic, security and multilateral landscape is tied to that of the US and the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.How could the election of a second Donald Trump presidency impact Australia? Or how might the quasi-continuity of Vice-President Kamala Harris ascending to the White House?Trump, neccesarily, is the object of much of Australia’s focus. Harris, as Joe Biden’s vice-president, is the continuity candidate – promoting policy positions in line with the current administration – meaning a Trump victory would raise many more questions.The election too, will be keenly fought over a host of domestic issues which have no direct – though some peripheral – impact on Australia. This includes issues such as reproductive rights (the overturning of Roe v Wade by the supreme court and a mooted national abortion ban), migration (particularly on the country’s southern border), gun control and law and order – issues excluded in this piece.Watching the crescendo of an increasingly vituperative election campaign, Fullilove said that politically “America is running a high temperature at the moment”.“My real hope for the election is that there is a clear result, that the loser accepts defeat, that the transfer of power is peaceful – that might sound like a low bar – but it is critical, for America and for the world.”Values and democracyResponding to the unpredictability of Trump’s first presidency, Australian politicians repeated the refrain that the Australian-US alliance runs deeper than a president or prime minister and that it is one founded on shared values and democratic principles.Trump has said he would not be a dictator, “except on day one”. He said he would seek retribution on his political opponents: “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.As commander-in-chief, he said he would consider using the military to attack domestic enemies: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the national guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen John Kelly, said this week Trump was a “fascist” who “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government”. Trump has repeatedly lied that he won the 2020 election and mused on “terminating” the constitution.He told a rally in July that if he was elected president again, “you won’t have to vote any more”.“In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going have to vote.”Harris has denounced Trump as a “fascist” who wants “unchecked power” and a military personally loyal to him.In her speech to the Democratic National Convention, she cited the supreme court’s split decision in July stating Trump enjoyed broad immunity for official acts taken while in office.“Consider the power he [Trump] will have, especially after the United States supreme court ruled he will be immune from prosecution,” she said. “Imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”ClimateClimate change is “one of the greatest scams of all time”, Trump said last month. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he told the Republican National Convention when accepting the party’s nomination. “We will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.”He has said he would prohibit, by executive order, all offshore wind projects on the first day of his presidency, saying they kill whales.In his first term, Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement (the US rejoined under Biden). But his campaign has indicated a second Trump presidency might re-abandon the Paris agreement, as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which underpins it. 198 countries have committed to the UNFCCC: none has left it.The withdrawal of the US – the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter and the country that has contributed the largest share of historical emissions – would increase political uncertainty around the transition to net zero and deter investment. It would weaken the influence of the so-called umbrella group – of which Australia is a member – and give succour to climate laggards, such as the petrostates, to further slow global reduction efforts.Some have argued that much of the impetus and funding for global emissions reductions is locked in and emissions reductions efforts are working on timescales far longer than a four-year presidential cycle.But Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, has argued “a second Trump term is game over for the climate”.Harris has called climate change an “existential threat”. As attorney general in California, she prosecuted oil companies for breaches of environmental laws. As vice-president, she was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided about US$370bn to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.But during Harris’s vice-presidency, the US produced and exported the most crude oil of any country at any time in history, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s figures. Crude oil production averaged 12.9m barrels a day in 2023, breaking the previous global record of 12.3m, set in 2019.Trade and the economyTrump is a fierce economic nationalist, hostile to free trade and intensely focused on America’s trade deficit, which he regards as a sign of weakness. He has pledged to impose a 10% tariff on all imports to the US, with a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports and a 100% tariff on Chinese cars.Economists argue the policy will lead to higher prices and lower growth. The nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated the proposed tariffs would lower the incomes of an average American household by US$1,700 a year: poor Americans would be more affected than the rich.In September, Trump said: “Together, we will deliver low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates and low inflation so that everyone can afford groceries, a car and a home”. He has promised to reduce regulation and cut taxes, but some economists argue his tax cuts would benefit America’s wealthiest while hurting the poorest.Australia is not dependent on direct trade with the US, but the majority of Australia’s trade is with China. If China’s economy, already weak, is damaged further by a trade war with America, Australia will be exposed.Harris has criticised Trump’s tariff policies, arguing they would act as a “sales tax on Americans” and lead to higher prices and inflation. But the Biden administration – of which she has been vice-president – has extended Trump-era tariffs and used tariffs to influence trade on industries it sees as strategic – particularly in relation to China. The administration extended tariffs on solar panels in 2022, and in May this year, increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 100%.As a senator, Harris opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement (involving Australia) negotiated by President Obama and from which Trump withdrew.Defence and AukusWhile Trump has been critical of Nato, he has not criticised Australia as a military ally or the Aukus deal, a tripartite agreement (between the US, UK, and Australia) for Australia to acquire up to eight nuclear-powered submarines between now and the mid-2050s, the first in the 2030s.Australia’s deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said his government believed Trump would honour the agreement: “Every engagement we’ve had with the Trump camp in the normal process of speaking with people on both sides of politics in America, there is support for … Aukus,” he said.

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      But John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser – now a fierce critic of the former president – said of Aukus: “I think it could be in jeopardy”.Fullilove asked Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance this year for his position on the agreement. Vance replied he was “a fan of Aukus”.“I suspect that Aukus would be safe under Trump too,” Fullilove told the Guardian.“Australia is an example of an ally that is contributing to deterrence and contributing to the US industrial base. You could imagine Trump threatening to unpick it, but my conclusion is it is safe.”Aukus was signed by the Biden-Harris administration. The administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy commits to the deal, but does not give a timeline: “Through the Aukus partnership, we will identify the optimal pathway to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy at the earliest achievable date.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAirbases in Australia were used for US airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen this month. The defence department confirmed Australia provided support for the US strikes “through access and overflight for US aircraft in northern Australia”.Israel-GazaBoth Trump and Harris have declared their support for Israel and reiterated support for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.The US continues to supply Israel with billions of dollars of weapons and munitions as Israel carries out its bombardment of Gaza, Lebanon, and, this week, strikes on Iran.The US is, by far, the largest supplier of arms to Israel: 69% of Israel’s imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023 came from America, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The US has signed an agreement to provide Israel with $3.8bn in annual military aid under a 10-year-agreement.1,200 Israelis died in the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas. More than 42,000 people have died in Gaza since, including more than 16,000 children.Trump has expressed his support for Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza. He has also urged Israel to “finish up” the war because it is losing support.“You have to finish up your war … you’ve got to get it done,” he told Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. “We’ve got to get to peace. You can’t have this going on, and I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support.”Trump said of Harris: “She hates Israel. If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now.”In his first term, Trump released a peace proposal he called a blueprint for a two-state solution: it would not have created an independent Palestinian state and was seen as strongly favouring Israel.“Israel has a right to defend itself,” Harris said in September’s presidential debate.She continued: “How it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children. Mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out.”Harris has consistently reiterated support for a two-state solution.The war in UkraineNearly three years on since Russia invaded Ukraine – and a decade since its initial assault on Crimea – the US remains the largest backer of Ukraine’s war effort. It is by far the single biggest contributor of money and materiel, outspending the next largest contributor, Germany, by five to one.Trump has made it abundantly clear he wants the war over – or, more precisely, he wants to stop paying for it.He told a rally: “I think [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived. Every time he comes to our country he walks away with $US60bn.”Influencing Republican allies in Congress, Trump stalled the last funding package from passing for months while Ukrainian forces – critically short of ammunition and artillery – struggled to hold back Russian advances. Trump’s manoeuvring was criticised as essentially backing Vladimir Putin’s irredentism.Trump has also repeatedly claimed if re-elected he would end the war in a day – “I’ll have that done in 24 hours” – without detailing how. It is presumed a deal to stop the conflict would involve the ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia.Trump’s disposition towards Ukraine has broader implications for the collective security principle underpinning Nato. Trump has compared Nato to a protection racket and said he would not protect “delinquent” allies.“In fact, I would encourage them [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay! You gotta pay your bills.”Trump has repeatedly upbraided European countries for failing to live up to their commitment to spend 2% of their GDP on defence.Harris has pledged to continue Biden’s support for Ukraine and for the Nato alliance. She said as vice-president “I helped mobilise a global response – over 50 countries – to defend against Putin’s aggression.“And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our Nato allies.”Harris, however, has wavered on Ukraine being admitted as a member to Nato, saying the question was among the “issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point”.China“Trump and Kamala Harris are two bowls of poison for Beijing. Both see China as a competitor or even an adversary,” Prof Zhao Minghao, from the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, told the Financial Times.Trump was hawkish towards China in his first term, confronting Beijing over what he argued were a suite of unfair practices and abuses such as intellectual property theft, currency manipulation and economic espionage. He pledged to “completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas,” including electronics, steel, pharmaceuticals, and rare earths. And he has flagged new laws to stop US companies from investing in China and a ban on federal contracts for any company that outsources to China.His first administration rejected Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, condemning Beijing’s “campaign of bullying” of other countries.Harris spoke on China in September, saying her government would work to ensure the US “is leading the world in the industries of the future and making sure America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century”.“China is not moving slowly … if we are to compete, we can’t afford to, either.”She condemned Trump as having “constantly got played by China” and said his administration shipped advanced semiconductors to China, allowing them to upgrade their military.“I will never hesitate to take swift and strong measures when China undermines the rules of the road at the expense of our workers, our communities, and our companies.”The PacificClimate change is an urgent existential threat for the islands of the Pacific. Trump does not mention the climate crisis in his platform, nor is it mentioned in Agenda47.The Heritage Foundation – the conservative thinktank behind the Trump-linked Project 2025 – has urged for partnership with the Pacific islands, but on American terms and in its interests. “The US must adopt a clear-eyed approach about putting American interests and objectives in the Pacific islands first,” it said.The Biden-Harris administration have held two Pacific islands-US summits which have been big on ambition – with commitments of more than $1bn to resilience regionalism and sustainable development – but seen as lacking, so far, in application and results.The 2022 US-Pacific partnership declared a shared vision for “a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity”.Fullilove said while Harris sits within the mainstream traditions of US foreign policy over recent decades, “it’s hard to get a really accurate fix on what she thinks about the world”.“At a broad level, she believes in American leadership, she believes in alliances, she prefers democracy to dictators, she more pro-trade than Trump. But beyond that, it’s very hard to know how she will approach Asia, the part of the world Australia is in, because she hasn’t been a prominent foreign policy voice in the Biden administration.”Read more about the 2024 US presidential election:

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      Harris and Trump policies

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      Five days out, Arab Americans are split on Harris v Trump: vote ‘strategically’ or ‘morally’?

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      It’s a Saturday afternoon at Al Madina Halal market and restaurant in Norcross, Georgia, and the line is four people deep for shawarma sandwiches or leg of lamb with saffron rice and two sides.A television on the wall by a group of tables has Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from several countries on a split screen about Israel’s attack on Iranian military targets the day before.Mohammad Hejja is drinking yogurt, surveying the bustle in the store he bought in 2012. There are shoppers and employees from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Morocco and other countries – a clear sign of what makes surrounding Gwinnett county, with nearly a million residents, the most diverse in the south-east.Hejja has Jordanian and US citizenship, but his family is Palestinian. Soldiers of the nascent nation of Israel drove his grandparents out of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe caused by Israel’s creation.Asked about how he expects his community to vote when Americans head to the polls next week, he says: “Everybody is confused about this election.” His No 1 concern is to “stop the war”, referring to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and recent attacks on Lebanon.The issue is top of mind for Arab American voters nationwide. Some polls suggest Arab Americans could abandon the Democrats in droves over the Biden administration’s support for Israel; elsewhere, advocates and community leaders are urgently organizing to prevent a Donald Trump victory, warning about impacts in the Middle East and on domestic issues such as immigration if the GOP candidate is re-elected.Less than a week from 5 November, one thing is certain: “You cannot assess Arabs as a coherent voting bloc,” says Kareem Rifai, a Syrian-American graduate student at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Rifai, who co-founded the University of Michigan Students for Biden chapter in 2020, calls himself a “foreign policy voter”, and is sticking with the Democratic candidate this cycle due to the party’s “strong stance on Russia”.Rifai weighed in on the Arab American vote on X recently, saying he was “pulling out my Arab Muslim from Metro-Detroit card” to let non-Arabs know that people hailing from across the Arab world have differing takes on the upcoming election.“Pro-Hezbollah socially conservative Arab community leaders … are not representative of Arab Americans in the same way that secular liberal Arabs or Christian anti-Hezbollah Arabs, etc, etc, are not representative of all Arab Americans,” Rifai wrote.At the same time, before this year, Arab Americans were clearer in their preference for Democrats – at this time in 2020, Joe Biden led Trump by 24 points, and exit polls showed that more than 85% of Arab American voters backed Democrats in 2004 and 2008.Today, Arab American voters seem more willing to look past Trump’s ban on travel from certain Muslim-majority countries – and his vow to reimpose a ban if re-elected – as well as his staunch support for Israel.Michigan, Rifai’s home state, is home to an estimated 392,000-plus Arab Americans – one of 12 states in which 75% of the nation’s estimated 3.7 million Arab Americans live.But as if to underscore its swing state status, dueling endorsements of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have come from Michigan in the last week alone. Over the weekend, a Yemeni-American organization upheld Trump as capable of “restoring stability in the Middle East”. The following day, a group assembled at the American Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, to back Harris, calling her “the first to call for a ceasefire and also to call for Palestinian self-determination”. (The statement also noted that “Arab Americans are not a single-issue people, we care about the environment, an existential issue for families and children, workers, rights and a fair wage, civil rights, women’s rights and so much more.”)Also in the last week, dozens of “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive” leaders in Arizona issued a statement backing Harris, underlining that support for an arms embargo on Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza has mainly come from Democrats. “In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement,” the statement says.Arizona is home to an estimated 77,000 Arab Americans, according to the Arab American Institute.Meanwhile, back in swing state Georgia – with its estimated 58,000 Arab Americans – the staterepresentative Ruwa Romman spoke about her choice to vote for Kamala Harris.Romman is the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia statehouse and the first Palestinian to hold public office in the state’s history. Speaking with fellow Muslims and Arabs about this election “feels like talking about politics at a funeral”, she wrote in a recent article for Rolling Stone.She believes that organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo would be easier under a Harris administration. “I don’t know how advocating for Palestine would survive under Trump,” she said, adding that many of her constituents – including immigrants – would suffer if he were re-elected.Over at Al Madina, owner Hejja was arriving at a different conclusion. His wife has aunts in Gaza; she had not been able to reach them in three weeks. “The minimum thing we can do is pray five times a day,” he said.As for the election, he said: “If the president of the United States wants to stop the war, he can – with one phone call to Israel. He has the power.” Hejja believes “if Trump wins, Netanyahu will stop the war … [Trump] said he wants peace, and I believe him.”About 12 miles south-west, at Emory University – site of some of the harshest police responses to pro-Palestinian protests early this year – the Syrian-American senior Ibrahim had already sent an absentee ballot to his home state of Kentucky, marked for the Green party’s Jill Stein. “I see it as an ethical decision,” he said of his first time voting for president.“Voting for an administration that is supporting genocide crosses an ethical red line,” he added, referring to Harris.Fellow student Michael Krayyem, whose father is Palestinian, said he would “probably be voting down-ballot” on 5 November, but not for president. “I can’t support Kamala Harris because of what her administration has done to my people,” he said.Romman says she feels this dilemma facing fellow Arab Americans deeply. At the same time, she says: “Ultimately, in this election, I view voting as a strategic choice, and no longer a moral one.” More

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      in US Politics

      Opinion polls have Harris and Trump locked in a tight race. ‘Gambling polls’ say otherwise

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      Most gamblers might want to sit out the US election. It’s too close to call with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck, according to official polls. But the former president’s campaign has latched on to signs he says prove he’s actually “leading”.In a close race, Trump and his allies claim some “gambling polls”, as he described them last week, put him significantly ahead of Harris. “Like, 65 to 35, or something like that.”The irony of touting an apparent lead in betting markets at a Believers and Ballots campaign event in Georgia aimed at Christian voters was not lost on Trump. “But nobody here gambles,” he continued. “Does anybody here gamble? No, no, no, no. Great Christians don’t gamble, do they? Oh no.”The “gambling polls” Trump cited are forecasts generated by several election betting platforms, which put his chances of regaining the White House markedly ahead of his Democratic rival’s. With many questioning the accuracy of political polling, supporters including Elon Musk, have started to claim such estimates are more accurate.As of Wednesday, Polymarket, one leading service, put Trump’s chances of winning back the presidency at about 67%, with Harris at 33%. Another, Kalshi, put Trump at 62% and Harris at 38%.And while Trump’s audience last Tuesday was not interested in gambling on the result of the presidential election, many others appear to be getting involved. High-profile legal battles, promotion by the likes of Musk and Trump, and growing media coverage, have helped propel the activity into the spotlight as the campaign gathered steam.Interest around betting on this election is “orders of magnitude larger” than previous ballots, according to Thomas Gruca, a professor of marketing at the University of Iowa, and director of Iowa Electronic Markets, an election-focused futures market first established in 1988.America’s gambling boom, led by the legalization of sports betting, “has increased the number of people who like to throw away their money on things they don’t understand”, said Gruca. “People think, ‘I picked the Raiders-Jets game, therefore, I can pick a president.’”He also pointed to opinion polling errors at previous elections, and how many polls this time around suggest the contest is extremely tight. “I haven’t looked at the polls in the last 15 minutes, so I don’t know who’s winning. In previous years there was a lot of clarity.”In the magazines and newspapers section of Apple’s iPhone store, Polymarket has reigned supreme in the top spot, leaving the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and, yes, the Guardian, in its wake. Another platform, Kalshi, has likewise surged up the store’s chart of financial apps.“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these markets have been becoming more popular as trust in the media has been declining,” said Harry Crane, a professor of statistics at Rutgers University. “The public wants information and is looking for sources of information it can trust.”

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      Should you have turned to, say, Polymarket, on Wednesday and bet on Trump, you would receive $1 for every 67 cents you wagered if he wins the election. If you bet on Harris, on the same platform, on the same day, you would receive $1 for every 33 cents wagered if she wins.These bets are bids on political futures contracts. Buying a contract drives its price – or the perceived probability of it happening – higher.This ecosystem spans far beyond the race for the White House. Other markets on Kalshi include the margin of victory in the Senate, which state will have the closest presidential election result and what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates two days after the election.View image in fullscreenBut how reliable are the headline figures? “I think you should take them seriously,” said Grant Ferguson, political scientist at Texas Christian University. “The people who bet on these markets largely think they know more than the average person as to how things are going.”Leading platforms put Hillary Clinton ahead on election day in 2016 (she did win the popular vote if not the presidency), and Joe Biden in the lead in 2020, “but by less than the polling, in both cases”, said Ferguson. 2024 will be the biggest test of these predictions so far.“Broadly these markets are actually quite efficient – particularly they’re quite good at things that are 50:50, 60:40,” said Eric Zitzewitz, professor of economics at Dartmouth College. “In the sort of circumstance we’re in right now … I take that pretty seriously.”Provided a market is run “efficiently, or with good rules, the prices before the event happens will reflect what the smart people think, and not just random people”, suggested Gruca.The Iowa Electronic Markets allows participants to bet up to $500 on a given contract, and PredictIt, run out of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, has a $850 limit. But other platforms do not have such tight restrictions, and big bets may have moved the odds in Trump’s favor.Polymarket, which did not respond to requests for an interview, confirmed last week that one person – a French national – was behind four accounts which had placed bets on Trump worth around $28m, but insisted to the New York Times this was “based on personal views”, rather than an attempt to manipulate the market.“Without limits,” said Gruca, “you can have prices move away from what they should be.”If one person tries to tilt the odds toward their favored candidate, those betting would quickly back the other if their odds slipped too low, Ferguson suggested. “Does it probably happen? Yeah,” he said. “But I’m not real worried about it.”There is a small, but significant, difference in the question at the heart of election surveys, and election bets. While poll respondents are indicating which candidate they want to win, those gambling on the contest are saying who they think will. Veterans of the space like to say that polling participants focus on their heart, and bettors use their head.The betting markets “are asking the more relevant question”, argued Crane. “The polling information is in the markets. The people who are in the markets know what the polls are, but they have other information.”Regulators are not happy. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which fined Polymarket $1.4m in 2022 and ordered it to exclude US users as part of a settlement, has tried to shut down PredictIt and Kalshi.But Kalshi was recently cleared to take US bets on election outcomes, when a federal appeals court ruled that the CFTC had failed to show how the agency or public interest would be harmed by its event contracts.While the CFTC is appealing, the legal breakthrough appears to have set the stage for a further increase in bets placed on who will prevail in the presidential campaign – by both individual betters, and large institutions. Polymarket is also scrutinizing activity on its platform to ensure users are outside the US, amid reports of domestic usage.“The markets are only as smart as the people trading in them,” said Gruca. “If you are dumb as a rock and have a lot of money, you can move the markets in whatever direction you want by simply moving money.” More

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      Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands? | Rebecca Solnit

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      Lots of memes and tweets and posts and videos are popping up, assuring women that they can keep their votes secret from their husbands and boyfriends. The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.On the one hand, I’m glad there’s outreach to those voters. On the other, the way these messages are framed seem to regard the grim reality that a lot of women live in fear of their spouses as a given hardly worth stating outright, let alone decrying. I get that right now we’re fighting for the future of democracy in America, the public version in which rights and norms and the rule of law are preserved – as the Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri put it: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.”But a lot of households are not democracies; they’re dictatorships. This may impact public life, in that it seems to generate a meaningful amount of voter intimidation and suppression. As in previous election cycles, people doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door or who believe their registered-Democrat wives are Republicans and women fearful of speaking or of disclosing their party and chosen candidates.One Pennsylvania man who has been canvassing for several weeks told me: “So many times we … have knocked on doors and when both husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend have come to the door together, after hearing what we were there for so often the man stayed and the woman walked away ‘to do other things’, or the man came out to talk to us. Often the woman would come out by herself and say or whisper: ‘I’m with her and he doesn’t know it.’” Another friend reached a voter by phone, who told her that because her husband wasn’t in the car, she could admit she was voting Democratic. Coercive control is an issue in households of all races and political orientations, but only this configuration – Maga man, Democratic-leaning woman – seems to impact the right to vote in such a visible and potentially impactful way. Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that his wife “secretly voting for Harris” was like having an affair and it would be “D day,” the d presumably standing for divorce.A Lincoln Project video shows a clutch of spectacularly mainstream white couples (they look like they fell out of a real estate brochure or are going to the golf course) entering a polling place. One of the men asks a second man who his wife is voting for. “She doesn’t like him but she’s voting for him,” he replies, and the first says: “Same with mine.” It’s followed by footage showing three women casting furtive glances at their husbands and each other as they choose Harris. It’s a hostage video. Another version of the video is narrated by Julia Roberts, who declares: “You can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know.” It’s not just that the party eager to deny women bodily autonomy is full of husbands eager to deny their wives political autonomy. It’s also a reminder that democracy and its opposites exist at all scales.

      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility More

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      ‘This is too serious to drown out’: six US voters on what they’re most anxious about

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      Hundreds of US voters from across the country shared with the Guardian how they are coping with the stress of the looming election, and which issues and possible outcomes make them the most anxious or concerned.Here are six of them.‘I worry about a further erosion of women’s rights’As a gynecologist in Georgia, I worry about a further erosion of women’s rights. Pregnancy is already dangerous here. Once Roe was overturned, the six-week ban went into effect and we quickly saw we couldn’t provide medically appropriate care to our patients.It also created a lot of fear and confusion amongst healthcare providers who didn’t want to put their license or livelihood on the line. The confusion was the purpose of the law, causing delays in care and “preventing” abortion. Unfortunately all it did was mean that patients had to be very sick before a doctor would intervene. We are seeing women bear the consequences – getting very sick, unable to get pregnant again, losing babies, and in some cases, dying.As a queer family with children, our marriage, rights, privacy and ability to make healthcare decisions [may] be impacted. We can’t watch TV as is, with all the hateful anti-trans ads. It’s hard to sleep. B, an obstetrician gynecologist, from Georgia‘We need a strong leadership to handle international problems, whoever wins the election’I’m worried that other countries don’t realize what motivates Americans to vote for Trump. I don’t think he’s the best president we’ve ever had, he’s kind of like a New York playboy. But I think he had a good successful term, despite being an amateur politician, rather than a career one.The continuous character assassination of him when he first ran was a slick orchestration. Every newspaper was immediately against him, it was like somebody had pressed a button, like a set-up or something. This motivated me to vote for him, to oppose the organised media and political establishment.People in Europe seem to think we’re simple-minded for voting for him, but we’re not. We all just felt – ‘Let’s try him for a while.’ We’re all so tired of liberals from California running the country. They created a machine of sorts, and Trump startled that machine.I hope Trump gets his second term now, and I’m very much impressed by his running mate. But I’m concerned about the ability of both Trump and Harris to handle the many international problems we have now, such as threats from Russia. The dollar is losing security. In the Middle East, anything could happen. It’s important that we have a good leadership who can sort this all out, whoever wins. Rob, a retired computer programmer, from Maine‘American democracy will survive another excruciating Trump term’Calling the re-election of Trump the end of democracy is dramatic. Calling his return to power the end of democracy as we know it, is apt.I believe America’s democracy, flawed and vulnerable as it may be, is resilient enough to withstand another Trump term. I think it’s politically expedient to proclaim that a second Trump term would drive us directly into purely despotic rule.The day-to-day of watching [Trump] run the country that I love would be excruciating, again, but I think what really is nightmare fuel is [the prospect of a] Vance presidency, which feels likely and could [entail] a dismantling of nearly all social goods left in the US.Under either man, US support for beleaguered or aspiring democracies could crater; alliances with Nato and other democratically aligned organizations could be severed or allowed to atrophy. But perhaps most dishearteningly, the election of a Maga Republican would signal that the leader of the free world would now be supplanted by a leader of the strongman world.What makes it worse is the countervailing hope of a Democratic term or two, where the country would finally have room to heal. They actually give me hope, and I would grieve the loss of hope.I’m not drinking at the moment, on purpose. Quit weed, too. I feel this is too serious to drown it out. Nile Curtis, 48, a massage therapist, from Hawaii‘America is now unable to discuss different viewpoints’Our greatest concern about the election, aside from the outcome, is the potential eruption of violence. The inflammatory rhetoric, the noxious stereotypes and the intractable position of Trump’s supporters who might or might not like him, but will vote for him anyway, is proof that the US is currently incapable of conducting any sort of discourse. Regardless of who wins, the threat of impending doom feels very real.We are older parents of a disabled adult. While the economy is a pressing issue for everyone, social security seems to be in danger. As people who are closer in age to retirement, and caring for a disabled adult, we are unsure of the impact either candidate would have on our “bigger picture”, but we feel that Mr Trump’s rhetoric brings an added layer of threatening behavior from people on both sides, who have become increasingly defensive and unwilling to accept and discuss different viewpoints.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHow do we manage our anxieties around these issues? We keep to ourselves. We do not engage in political or ideological discussions with anyone and limit our time watching and reading the news. The constant barrage of reporting, which has become pseudo-journalistic in pursuit of increasing [audience] numbers, appears to be geared to stoke the anxiety. The 24/7 news cycle has injected a stream of fear into everyone. MG, a mother and grandmother, from North Carolina‘I’m tired of having to vote against a candidate instead of voting for one’I want to vote for a president who supports the causes that I’m most concerned with: climate change, healthcare, cost of living, availability of housing. I will vote for Harris, but more as a vote against Trump.I think the Democratic party has shown that they’re willing to invest in renewable energy, which is fantastic. But I’m concerned with the promotion of record oil and gas numbers by the Democratic campaign this election cycle. That being said, I think the Republican party would be significantly worse.I believe that not enough housing is being constructed, period, and what is being built is only for those who can afford it. There’s a lot of short-term Airbnb-type rentals in Portland that further reduce the housing stock, and I’m concerned about ever being able to afford a house.I think for gen Z the biggest issues aren’t being reflected by either campaign. The rapid spread of disinformation on divisive, extremist social media [is another one].I have close friends and family who are queer and am increasingly concerned with the way anti-LGBT rhetoric has, I feel, exploded back into popularity. I’m frustrated that the Harris campaign has made an effort to expand rightwards and not leftwards. This will be my second presidential election and I’m tired of having to vote against a candidate instead of voting for one. Nate, 24, Ocean engineer, Portland, Maine‘I no longer trust Trump after January 6’My voting record is quite mixed. I voted for Bush twice, then McCain in 2008, Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020 and I plan to vote for Harris in 2024. I disagree with much of the Harris-Walz platform on police reform, abortion and immigration. But after January 6, I no longer trust Trump or anyone allegiant to him in the White House.It feels like an election between poor policy choices or an overpowered executive branch that will stop at nothing to retain control. I will not vote for anyone who called the 2020 election “stolen”. So many of my neighbors and people who go to my church still believe Trump’s lies about the election.Trump is a divisive character in our family’s discussions and we’ve lost relationships with kin because of our not supporting him. We also expect violence, perhaps even at the polling places, regardless of who wins.[Part of our anxiety management strategy] is preparation: we have a few days’ food, water and household needs on-hand, and we’ll have a full tank of gas if we need to leave town. Some is avoidance. We live in a very Trump-heavy area, lots of Trump yard signs. I realized the other day that I’ve drunk every day for the last three weeks. I’ve made a point of walking every day and doing some kind of exercise. But really nothing can fully prepare us. An anonymous male IT worker in his 40s, from Missouri More