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      Biden’s economic legacy could decide the presidential race in Scranton

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      From the north, motorists pull into Scranton via the Joseph R Biden Jr Expressway. Cutting through the scenic Pocono Mountains, now at the start of autumn color season, they are greeted with a towering, electric billboard, blaring an encapsulating – if divisive – message to this working-class town: “Democrats for Trump,” it reads. “Economy,” it continues, with a green checked box next to the word.The sign in Biden’s hometown is the perfect fall 2024 welcome mat in this crucial swing state filled with voters whose economic anxiety or satisfaction will decide next month’s election.The US has staged a remarkable recovery since the pandemic and Biden has successfully pursued an economic agenda, Bidenomics, that should benefit Scranton and the state – $13bn has been earmarked from his infrastructure bill for repairing highways and bridges alone. But poll after poll shows deep-seated worries about the economy – worries that could sink Democrats’ chances of keeping the White House come November.Like many mid-sized upper midwest cities that have faced post-industrial decline, Scranton, a longtime Democratic stronghold, has grown more conservative in recent elections. With the city’s native son leaving office, and pocketbook issues top of mind, some believe Trump could finally take Scranton – a more-than-symbolic win.But with Kamala Harris, Biden’s successor, and Donald Trump tied in the polls, guessing who will take Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the White House is a fool’s errand. And this politically split town shows why the race is so close. On the street, one person’s economic reality may be entirely different to the next.The complicated political mix of fears about the local economy, faith and mistrust in both Harris and Trump and shifting political allegiance was evident at the Marketplace at Steamtown, a downtown mall filled with local mom-and-pop shops.Pete, 78, a swing voter who declined to provide his last name, said inflation had been a problem over the last four years, but added prices were coming down, the stock market was high, and said he didn’t blame Biden for the economic challenges.“Every president is stuck with what happened before, and the pandemic happened, so Biden was in a hole to begin with,” Pete said. But the veteran added the main issue driving him to Harris was Trump disrespecting veterans: “He called us suckers and losers.”The argument for Trump’s economics is ironclad, said Lori Higgins with a scoff: “Look at the last four years – everyone is paying more for everything. What more do you need to know to make a decision?” Now 52, she voted for Democrats until Trump convinced her to switch sides in 2016.Even on the most basic details, there is disagreement: Pete said he had just paid $2.99 for gas, citing it as evidence that inflation was coming under control. Two Trump supporters said they paid as much as $3.50 for gas, evidence, they said, that inflation is still squeezing Scranton.Trump and Harris have made close to 50 visits to Pennsylvania so far this election cycle and poured nearly $1bn into ads – a record spend that reflects how crucial its 19 electoral votes, the biggest prize of any battleground, make the keystone state. Trump made his second visit to Scranton in as many months last week. “Go get everyone you know and vote immediately,” he urged rallygoers.But persuading any part of the deeply divided electorate to swap their vote looks difficult.View image in fullscreenHarris may yet hold Scranton, said Berwood Yost, a Pennsylvania pollster, but that is “surprising” given the level of economic discontent in the city and the county. “The dissatisfaction with Biden is really high and views on personal finances are very negative, so Trump should be clearly ahead,” Yost said. And yet polling averages show Harris ahead by a point in Pennsylvania, (firmly within the margin of error) which “speaks in part to some voters’ concerns about Trump and his personal character”.Since 2000, Democrats have won the county with as much as 63% support, but Hillary Clinton narrowly won with less than 50% of the 2016 vote. Biden’s home-field advantage may have buoyed Dems in 2020 – he was born and raised in Scranton until the age of 10, when his family moved to Delaware, and he has name-checked the city throughout his long career and is still nicknamed “Pennsylvania’s third senator”. Biden beat Trump in the county by 53.7% to 45.3%.Still, Scranton has become “ground zero for demonstrating the appeal of Trump and the Maga movement, and places that traditionally voted Democrat and ended up changing their stripes in a significant way”, Yost said.‘Way more optimistic’Once a powerhouse city in the nation’s coal capital, Scranton’s economy is now driven by small business, retail, healthcare, education and the service sector, said Satyajit Ghosh, a University of Scranton economist. Though there is no shortage of empty storefronts downtown, it is noticeably livelier than many similar Rust belt urban cores.University of Scranton’s surveys of downtown businesses found owners in April had concerns about the current economic climate but were decidedly more optimistic about the next six months: “Way more optimistic than they were a year ago,” Ghosh said.View image in fullscreenYost’s most recent polling put Harris up three points statewide and found the economy to be the top issue for 34% of residents. Other recent polling found 60% of Pennsylvanians said their economic situation was worse compared with 40% who say it was better or no different.James Simrell is part of the latter group. As he closed up his boxing gym in Steamtown, the lifelong Democrat was upbeat about Scranton’s economy. His gym is just one of his three businesses, and all stay busy – he also designs jewelry and runs a small farm that produces butternut squash and pumpkins. He sells pumpkins to Blackwatch Cafe, and squash to Abe’s Delicatessen, which uses it in their soup. “Everyone is doing well,” Simrell said.In contrast, the Trump economy was “falling apart” as the former president left office amid a poorly managed pandemic, Simrell said. He has other reasons for not voting for Trump. His two adopted children are Black and Trump is “a little bit prejudiced – it drives my wife crazy”.Echoing longtime Democratic voters’ sentiment, he added: “My mom and dad were Democrats and I follow what they believe, and Kamala’s the best person to be president – she’s not crazy.”But lingering inflation is still a drag for Eric Flesher, who runs a collectibles and vintage store, Rock-N-Models. He likened the economy to a “tightening sphincter”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe declined to talk about politics, but said everything remained expensive: “I’m in a business that sells stuff that nobody needs unless they have disposable income, so it gets much more difficult” when there is inflation, Flesher said.Flesher added that he disagreed with the “mindset here that I should vote for someone because that’s how my mom and dad voted – then you’re just voting for a party and not a person”, he added.‘She’s not the kind you can trust’The economic indicators in Scranton track those of the wider US. Inflation, which peaked at an annual rate of 9.1% in mid-2022, has eased to 2.4%. Prices are similarly down in Scranton, the economist Ghosh said. Unemployment in the region was 4.8% in August, above the 4.1% national average but down from 9.2% when Biden took office in January 2021.“In this area, which I’ve covered for many years, I really haven’t ever seen this strong of a performance in terms of employment,” said Ghosh. Still, there’s an after-effect of inflation that consumers feel, Ghosh added, and some high prices, like those for rent or food, are still hurting.Outside a Walmart in Dickson City, a retail hub just north of Scranton, husband and wife John and Carol Gardner still feel the pinch. The Mount Cobb residents used to pay $150-$200 a month on groceries, and now they pay twice that. Carol is out of a job on disability, while John assembles buffet trays for $12 an hour to make ends meet, even though he said he should be retired.View image in fullscreen“Trump at least made sure we could go shopping, and Biden is making sure we can’t,” Carol said. “I hope the lady doesn’t get in because we’re going to go straight downhill – she’s not the kind you can trust.”The view is different at Bethel AME, a 153-year old Black church on downtown’s west side. Pastor Mark Alexander sees an improving economy, and blames inflation on Trump.“Inflation was more so because of Covid, and how the former president handled that situation, because when you have supply chain interruptions and poor leadership guiding the nation, it exacerbates things,” he said.The Federal Reserve, not the president, decides rates, Alexander noted, and he pointed to low unemployment, the Chips Act – which is pouring billions into domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors – and Biden’s infrastructure bill as evidence of the president’s economic success.Moreover, at Bethel AME, there is “excitement for someone who looks like us and has experienced some of things we have gone through and comes from a middle-class upbringing”, Alexander added. “As opposed to a billionaire who has no clue what it is like day to day for middle-class people,” he said. That’s especially true with younger people because Harris “speaks their language”, Alexander added.For others, neither candidate is appealing. Mike Gilson owns a flooring business, a maintenance company, and manages artists and chefs. He said the economy was strong locally because its economic backbone was made up of longtime small businesses, and it fared better during the last session than most other areas because of that composition.View image in fullscreenBut the city’s relatively strong economic standing is not persuading Gilson to vote for Harris. He said the president was a “ceremonial position” and big corporations run the nation. “If the president actually wielded the power that people think they do then voting would make a lot more sense to me,” Gilson said.History will decide which of Scranton’s many voices will decide this election. Right now it is unclear whether the legacy of the city’s most famous son will be enough to carry Harris over the line or finally hand Scranton and the state to Trump.With the race essentially a toss-up at this point, the key for either party is going to be turnout, Yost said. But in that battle, Trump may have an advantage – people who are less likely to vote have in recent elections voted for Trump.“Democrats have to counter that by getting their voters to the polls,” Yost said. “Think about the election as a mosaic – there are many pieces and some are bigger than others, but they’re all going to matter.” More

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      Elon Musk promises to award $1m every day to voters as he steps up campaigning for Trump

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      Elon Musk said his Trump-supporting political action committee – America Pac – will give $1m every day until election day to someone who signs his petition that effectively encourages Republicans in the key battleground states to register to vote.The commitment, which started on Saturday as Musk handed a lottery-style check to the first winner of his contest at a town hall event, could mean Musk is on the hook for $17m if he remains the sole donor to his own Pac.The America Pac petition is for any registered voter in Pennsylvania to pledge their support for the first and second amendments. The petition effectively encourages Trump voters to register to vote so they can be in the $1m draw. Attendees of Saturday’s town hall event had to sign the petition, which allows America Pac to garner contact details for more potential voters that it can work to get to the polls for Trump.The petition does not require signers to be a Republican; any Democrat registered to vote in Pennsylvania could sign it too.Musk’s event in Harrisburg on Saturday was the third in as many days in Pennsylvania, where Musk is painting November’s election in stark terms and encouraging supporters to vote early and get others to do the same.Musk has so far donated $75m to America Pac, which is doing the bulk of Donald Trump’s ground game operation in the battleground states, according to FEC disclosures filed this week.But the ground game operation appears to have issues. Earlier on Saturday, the Guardian reported that roughly 25% of the door-knocks done by America Pac in Arizona and Nevada were flagged internally as potentially fraudulent – when canvassers falsely claim to have visited a home.The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, which is betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.But leaked America Pac data obtained by the Guardian shows that roughly 24% of the door-knocks in Arizona and 25% of the door-knocks in Nevada this week were flagged under “unusual survey logs” by the Campaign Sidekick canvassing app.America Pac declined to comment. A person familiar with the Pac’s field operation denied there was actual door fraud to that extent in Arizona and Nevada and said they were doing their own auditing.But the extent of the flagged doors in America Pac’s operation underscores the risk of outsourcing a ground-game program, where paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate’s victory compared with volunteers or campaign staff. More

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      US presidential election updates: Stars turn out for Harris while Trump tells story about Arnold Palmer’s ‘anatomy’

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      On the first day of early voting in Detroit, Michigan, rapper Lizzo campaigned for Kamala Harris, saying she rejected the argument that America was not ready for a female president, adding, “It’s about damn time”. In Atlanta, Georgia, Harris was joined by singer Usher, with the Democratic candidate describing Donald Trump’s speeches as “nonsense”.With Harris and Trump essentially tied in the most competitive states, both campaigns are focused on early by mail or in person voting, with just 17 days until the 5 November election.In the battleground of Pennsylvania, Trump escalated his personal attacks on Harris, calling her a “shit vice-president”. The Republican candidate had billed the event as the start of his final argument to voters but quickly went off script with a long story about Arnold Palmer that included remarks about the genitalia of the late golfing legend.Here’s what else happened on Saturday:Kamala Harris election news and updates

      In both Detroit and Atlanta, Harris urged her supporters to put in an all-out effort to win. “On election day, we don’t want to have any regrets about what we could have done these next 17 days,” she said. Harris hammered Trump for a second straight day for cancelling events and for avoiding another presidential debate because of what she called “exhaustion”. Her campaign called Trump’s Pennsylvania rally “junk”, saying he had focused on the issue “most important to voters in this election: a deceased golfer’s ‘anatomy’.”

      In Atlanta, Harris said Trump was “cruel” for how he talked about the grieving family of a Georgia mother who died after complications from an abortion pill. Harris blamed Amber Thurman’s death on Georgia’s abortion restrictions and referenced a clip of Trump at a Fox News town hall. When asked about the Thurman family joining a separate media call, Trump reportedly said “we’ll get better ratings, I promise.” “Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and the suffering he has caused,” Harris said.

      Harris repeated her call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and said it was important to seize the opportunity provided by the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Harris dodged a question on whether Arab American and Muslim anger over US support for Israel could cost her the election in the battleground state of Michigan, but said she would continue speaking out about the tragic loss of innocent lives. “I speak publicly all the time about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from Gaza,” Harris said.
      Donald Trump election news and updates

      In Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump said Harris is further to the left than Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, adding “You have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it any more.” Trump underscored the importance of the eastern state’s electoral college delegates to the overall election: “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing.”

      Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter. The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Elon Musk, betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.
      Elsewhere on the campaign trail

      Early voting also began on Saturday in Nevada, where Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Las Vegas. The former president poked fun at Trump, telling the audience “we don’t need to see what an older, loonier Donald trump with no guard rails looks like.”

      Billionaire Mark Cuban – who has emerged as an energetic campaign surrogate for Harris – has told the Guardian that Trump’s planned tariffs could put “small retailers and manufacturers out of business.” “Small businesses don’t have the pricing elasticity of larger companies. They can’t pass on the incremental and administrative costs associated with tariffs.”

      Elsewhere another billionaire – Elon Musk – campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania. Speaking in Harrisburg, he announced he would start randomly distribute cash awards – $1m each day until the election – to a registered voter in the state who signed his organisation’s petition. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has taken an increasingly visible role in Trump’s campaign and has donated almost $75m to his political organisation America PAC.
      Read more about the 2024 US election:

      Presidential poll tracker

      Harris and Trump policies

      What to know about early voting More

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      Kamala Harris joined by Lizzo at campaign event; Donald Trump rallies in Pennsylvania – live

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      Senator Bob Casey showed support for some Trump-era policies in his new ad, which aired on Friday in parts of the state,The ad features a Republican-Democrat couple from Old Forge praising Casey as an independent leader. They say he opposed Biden on fracking and backed Trump on trade issues like ending NAFTA and imposing tariffs on China.Barack Obama will hold an event on Saturday to rally voters for Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting in Nevada.The Harris campaign said the former president will encourage voters to turn out and vote for Harris, Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Democrats up and down the ballot.Former NFL star Antonio Brown is in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, for Donald Trump’s latest rally. Brown has continued to show his support for the former president before next month’s US presidential election.The ex-Steelers star addressed the crowd of Trump supporters after teasing his appearance on social media earlier this week.In Detroit, Kamala Harris was asked whether the war in Gaza could cost her the election. She didn’t directly answer the question, but she pointed to the Biden administration’s calls for peace days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.“This creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing hostages home,” Harris told reporters in Michigan.Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the Democratic vice-presidential pick, paid a visit to the city of Chicago before heading to a rally in Omaha, Nebraska.He spoke at a hotel ballroom in the city’s downtown area and was introduced by Senator Dick Durbin.“It’s pretty clear the tired, divisive and old rhetoric of Donald Trump matches the tired, divisive and old Donald Trump,” Walz said.Americans are paying attention to Kamala Harris’s media blitz and Donald Trump’s campaign rallies, according to a CNN poll.A CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential nominees throughout the race revealed that the word most commonly used in describing the news about Harris was “interview”.Survey respondents referenced appearances on CBS’s 60 Minutes and the podcast Call Her Daddy, as well as interviews with Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert.When Americans were asked to describe the news about Trump, “rally” was the second-most commonly used word in response.Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters she’s seeing “record turnouts” of early voting in North Carolina and Georgia.“In Michigan, I will challenge the folks here to do the same,” Harris said during a campaign stop in Detroit.Kamala Harris told reporters that she’s dedicated more time on the campaign trail and called former president Donald Trump “increasingly unstable and unhinged” as she rallied in Detroit, Michigan.The vice-president was asked about her rapid response toward her rival, which seems like a more aggressive shift than the way she was handling his attacks before.“It requires that response,” she said. “The American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.”On Friday, the Democratic vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, joined sportscaster Rich Eisen to discuss his football coaching past, which included a high school state championship. He also talked about his love for sports in general.“Look, people come here to get away from it like I do, I don’t watch political programs on TV. I watch ESPN, I watch sports,” Walz said. “It gives us that commonality. And I think there’s people that are hungry for that, and I’ve seen that at sporting events.”Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat woundA former Montana park ranger has now publicly accused Tim Sheehy – a Republican running for a US Senate seat in the state – of lying about getting shot while at war in Afghanistan.In an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday, 67-year-old Kim Peach went on the record about how Sheehy – a former US navy seal – actually shot himself on a family trip in 2015 at Glacier national park. Peach’s account explicitly contradicts Sheehy’s claim that he was shot in the arm during military combat, a story that the Republican candidate has shared throughout his US Senate campaign.Peach said that Sheehy’s allegedly self-inflicted wound left him with a bullet lodged in his right arm at Glacier national park in Montana’s Rocky Mountains. He told the Post that he first met Sheehy at a hospital in the area of the park during the aftermath of the 2015 episode.Read the full story here:The Vice President delivered remarks at Western International High School in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday. Her comments come a day after Harris traveled across the state with presidential campaign rallies in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County.“We’re not falling for the other guy trying to get rid of the Department of Education, because we know what we stand for,” Harris said, referring to her rival Donald Trump.Donald Trump has previously said he wants to shut down the US Department of Education, saying that it should be disbanded to “move everything back to the states where it belongs”.Lizzo, who’s real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, showed her pride in being a Detroit native during the rally.“They say, if Kamala wins, then this whole country will be like Detroit. Well, I say proud, like Detroit. I say resilient, like Detroit,” said the singer. “This is the same Detroit that innovated the auto industry and the music industry. So put some respect on Detroit’s name.”Lizzo said she voted early, and encouraged the audience to do the same, calling an early vote “a power move.”“This is the swing state of all swing states. So every single last vote here counts,” she said.Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said Elon Musk as a surrogate in the Trump campaign “could resonate with a demographic in Pennsylvania.”In an interview with Politico, the Democratic lawmaker recognized Donald Trump’s campaign is perfoming well in Pennsylvania.“He’s undeniably popular, and it’s going to be very close,” Fetterman said.He said that Musk, who’s been recently campaigning for the former President, is a “meaningful surrogate in a business where most surrogates really are not that critical.”Donald Trump’s campaign announced it will host a “Black Men’s Barbershop Talk Roundtable Event” on Sunday in Philadelphia.“This event will focus on the challenges facing Black men today, including economic struggles, community safety, and the negative impact of Kamala Harris’ policies on the Black community,” reads the campaign email.Florida Representative Byron Donalds and local community leaders are scheduled to host the roundtable at 4 pm ET.Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, shared a photo from her mother Ethel Kennedy’s memorial, showing her brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alongside President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders.The image includes Kennedy family members gathered around a portrait of Ethel Kennedy, with Biden at the center next to Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines, seen at the edge, were notably unsmiling. Many family members, including Kerry, criticized Robert’s challenge to Biden, and he now campaigns for Donald Trump after suspending his bid in August.As the US presidential election looms, the billionaire Mark Cuban has emerged as an energetic campaign surrogate for Kamala Harris. Making the case for business leaders to support the Democrat over Donald Trump, Cuban has drawn on his experience (in tech, investments, healthcare and now sports, as minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team), celebrity (as a lead “shark” for 15 seasons of ABC’s Shark Tank) and willingness to confront Trump-supporting billionaires, Elon Musk prominent among them.The road has not been smooth. Last week, Cuban clashed with congressional progressives after criticizing Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, over her tech-sector antitrust work. That issue and others, including Cuban’s thoughts on Trump’s championing of tariffs and the perennial question of whether Cuban harbors presidential ambitions of his own, are addressed below, in emailed answers to 10 questions posed by Guardian writers and editors.Read the full interview here: More

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      Harris and Trump pushed to extreme plays for support in knife-edge race

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      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

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      Call Her Daddy to Theo Von: how podcasts became a vital election tool

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      For much of this strange and unprecedented presidential campaign cycle, candidates have been making news for the press they aren’t doing, rather than what they say when they actually give interviews. Kamala Harris was criticized for a lack of real sit-downs following her sudden ascent to the nomination over the summer. Donald Trump, meanwhile, keeps pulling out of major-press interviews, including one with NBC News, as well as a 60 Minutes segment. (Harris did appear on the TV newsmagazine institution as scheduled.) But both candidates have firmed up their dedication to traveling into less traditional media territory: podcasts. Between the two of them, this may be the most podcast-favoring presidential campaign ever conducted.It might seem like an odd strategy. Even for hardcore podcast enthusiasts, it might feel like a medium that peaked in excitement a couple of election cycles ago, now lingering somewhere above Pokémon Go but below TikTok and Netflix. Format-wise, talk-based podcasts still hew closely to old-fashioned radio and – with video components now popular – talk shows, which don’t exactly feel like the most forward-thinking reference points. And though they can produce plenty of sound bites, podcasts aren’t exactly concise, either. Isn’t doing a big entertainment podcast akin to sitting for a lightweight Jimmy Fallon interview but at marathon length and, depending on the host, featuring even more self-satisfied cackling?Even if it is, though, it’s also considered a major avenue of access to certain broad audiences that might include undecided or undermotivated voters. Harris has initially gone both broader and more selective. Her biggest move was sitting for a 40-minute interview on Call Her Daddy, a relationships and advice podcast that’s a staple of the top five on Spotify’s charts. In other words, it’s the kind of broad-based show that sees itself as a relatively big-tent affair with a politically diverse audience. Host Alexandra Cooper began her episode practically apologizing for talking to a politician – the sitting vice-president of the United States! – because she generally tries to avoid politics.The first chunk of the interview did, indeed, largely avoid talking politics per se, given the show’s focus on mental and physical wellbeing, allowing Harris to get both personal and (in terms of her candidacy) pretty vague. But Harris did have the opportunity to talk about the major issue of abortion rights in the wake of Roe v Wade’s 2022 overturn, something Cooper obviously feels strongly about. And though the Call Her Daddy audience is too big to be completely homogenous, having Harris talk about this stuff with Cooper did feel like a tacit pitch to younger white women: here’s why this issue and this candidate should matter to you.View image in fullscreenIn that demographic sense, Call Her Daddy felt like an outlier in this recent season of podcast interviews. Harris’s other major podcast appearance so far was a longer (if often more personally focused) interview with All The Smoke, hosted by former basketball players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. So maybe the correct analogy isn’t the diminished influence of late-night talk shows or general-interest radio after all, but the unstoppable, evergreen blather of sports talk radio. Even Call Her Daddy, which has nothing in particular to do with sports, was owned by Barstool Sports for several years before it went to Spotify.Trump also went on a Barstool-affiliated show, Bussin’ With The Boys, hosted by former NFL players. His podcast playbook seems to be more focused on energizing the younger end of his base, the strange intersection of sports fans and comedy bros, where attaining some mixture of being perceived as kinda athletic or vaguely funny trumps, so to speak, all other concerns. Like Call Her Daddy, these shows also affect a kind of independent-thinking, quasi-apolitical posture – while also flattering their audience with the practiced pandering of a classic politician. In other words, it’s Trump country for people who don’t think of themselves as Trump country. So Trump gets to yuk it up with cult-of-personality comedians like Andrew Schulz or Theo Von, giving off the impression that, if you don’t pay too much attention, he’s a fun anti-woke bro who talks common sense. Even the occasional pushback he receives doesn’t actually question his basic worldview. When he misidentified the Olympic boxer Imane Khelif twice (as transgender, which she’s not; and as a man, which she’s not) on Bussin’ With The Boys, the hosts argued that her opponent should have stayed in the ring, rather than actually correct him about her gender status.Of course, no one is listening to a Barstool Sports podcast looking for heavy interrogation of a presidential candidate, and none of this seems likely to move the needle for truly undecided voters. (At best, it might raise a candidate’s profile among dudes who are undecided about whether they’ll remember to vote at all.) Maybe there was a point during the pre-Trump era where appearing approachable, sincere, funny or game on TV would change some minds in that classic Kennedy-over-Nixon way; the majority of voters seem too entrenched for that kind of perceptible shift today.That doesn’t make these shows aggressively marketing themselves as harmless, down to earth and essentially bipartisan are actually either of those things, though. Much as cultural critics are losing favor compared to friendlier, more “fun” influencers who serve as an ideally eager-to-please audience surrogate rather those cranky experts, actual journalists are losing ground to personalities like Joe Rogan – people in media positions who aren’t any more qualified to interview presidential candidates than a TV personality is to run the country. To wit: Harris is said to be considering an appearance on Rogan’s show because of its pull with a young and male audience. In the short term, in an close race, it might even make sense. But in pursuit of friendly, casual access to a lot of voters, candidates might well wind up in a podcast quagmire of their own making, where anyone can be turned into a harmless morning-zoo personality. By imitating the low-stakes bluster of sports talk, this chosen corner of the podcast world is upholding a questionable old-media tradition: turning a serious political moment back into a horse race. More

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      US presidential election updates: Trump and Harris spar over stamina in Michigan

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      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:

      Presidential poll tracker

      Harris and Trump policies

      What to know about early voting More

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      Kamala Harris questions Trump’s stamina: ‘Is he fit to do the job?’

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      Kamala Harris used a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday to seize on reports that Donald Trump had been canceling media interviews to question whether he has the stamina for a second presidency if voters choose him over her in November’s election.“If he can’t handle the rigors of the campaign trail, is he fit to do the job?” the Democratic vice-president, 59, told rallygoers about the 78-year-old Trump.She said: “Trump is unfit for office.”Harris and her Republican opponent were in Michigan as the weekend began while trying to shore up support in a battleground state that could decide their 5 November race. Polling suggests Michigan as well as its fellow “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remained in play for both candidates as the campaign’s waning days arrived.“This is the place that is going to decide the election, right here,” Democratic congresswoman Hillary Scholten told Friday’s audience as she opened the event.Among the crowd, some Harris supporters struck a hopeful tone. “It’s about time for a woman to lead,” said Jenifer Lake, who took her daughter Adeline Butts to the rally for a chance to “see history in the making”.Butts, who will be old enough to vote for the first time this election, described herself mostly concerned about the cost of living, tuition and housing affordability. And her fellow attender Bill Bray, who came to the rally from Adrian, Michigan, said he believed Harris would better promote economic opportunity for those situated like him than Trump would.Bray grew up “in a poor neighborhood” but said he is doing well thanks to benefits from his prior military service as well as his long career at Ford Motor Company. He said he wants other people to have a chance at that same trajectory.“Trump doesn’t understand equality,” said Bray, a veteran of the Vietnam war who also accused the former president of dodging the military draft that would have sent him to the same conflict.Bray also said he supports stronger federal gun control after seeing “what guns to do to people” and has no faith in Trump – who is widely supported by the firearms industry – taking that issue seriously.Other attenders said abortion access was at the top of their mind. Harris has campaigned on preserving abortion access while three of Trump’s appointees to the US supreme court helped eliminate federal abortion rights in 2022.“It’d be nice to have control of my body back, and then I’ll think about listening to the other side,” Kim Osborn said.Lauren Rockel said she would like to see Harris fight to reinstate the Roe v Wade protections that Trump’s supreme court appointees helped strip away.“There are people dying” as a result of abortion restrictions that have since gone into effect in many states, Rockel said. “It’s awful.”To them, Harris said it was “time to turn the page” on Trump.The Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, spoke before Harris took the stage. Four other Democratic state governors joined her.Her presence and that of the other governors “shows how important you are, Michigan,” Whitmer said. She told the crowd that they would be the ones to “take our country forward” if they helped send Harris to the White House.Michigan’s Democratic US senator Debbie Stabenow also spoke before Harris, alluding to how it got “scarier and scarier” the more she thought about the proposed policies of Trump’s supporters. The former president has sought to distance himself from the far-right Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 plan calls for the mass firings of civil servants and exalts the idea outlawing abortion altogether during a second Trump presidency.But he has struggled to effectively do that, with Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, having written the foreword for a book by the Heritage Foundation’s president. And, echoing Stabenow, many attenders said they were fearful and terrified of what a return to the Oval Office for Trump may produce.The Democratic nominee’s message resonated with Richard Bandstra, who described himself as a “former Republican”. Bandstra said he came to the rally to hear a message of hope – and, as he saw it, to fight for what he called the most important issue of the race: preserving American democracy. More