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      After a hurricane, Democrats try to snatch rare victory in swing state North Carolina

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      Eric “Rocky” Farmer is stoking a bonfire of what’s left of his life. Billows of smoke rise from a mound of debris burning in front of what he once called his home – a large two-storied house that is now a contorted mass of twisted metal and broken beams.When Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina last month, the North Fork New River that runs beside his property broke its banks, rising more than 20ft. The raging waters lifted up a mobile home from upstream as effortlessly as if it were a rag doll, slamming it into the corner of his house and causing the structure to crumple.Farmer, 55, will have to dismantle the mess and rebuild it, largely with his own hands. “It’s a bad scene, but we’ll get back up,” he said, sounding remarkably serene.Farmer’s struggle has now become entangled in the painfully close and hyper-tense election in North Carolina. The state is one of seven battlegrounds that will decide the outcome of the presidential race on 5 November.Several tracker polls, including the Guardian’s, show the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to be neck-and-neck in the state.With polls so tight, the impact of Hurricane Helene has made a complicated election look as mangled as Farmer’s house. What the disaster does to turnout, and with that to the candidates’ chances, could tip the race.Amid the wreckage of his home, Farmer is taking a philosophical approach. “Politics is like mother nature,” he said. “You just watch what it does from the sidelines, then deal with the consequences.”Though he plans to vote on 5 November, he is still not sure whether that will be for Trump or Harris. “Guess I’ll go with the lesser of the two evils – they’re both evil as far as I’m concerned,” he said.View image in fullscreenThe hurricane that struck on 26 September hit the Appalachian mountain region of western North Carolina hard, killing at least 96 people. Many roads are still closed and thousands of people have been displaced or remain without power and running water.More than 1.2 million voters live in the stricken region – about one in six of the state’s total electorate. The obvious fear is that turnout will be depressed.“Nobody’s talking about politics here, because it doesn’t matter,” said Shane Bare, 45, a local volunteer handing out donated coats. “If you can’t flush your toilet or get to your mailbox, you could care less about the election.”Bare expects he will vote in the end, probably for Trump, whom he doesn’t much like but thinks has the edge on economic policy.Other voters are more upbeat about the election. Kim Blevins shared her passion for Trump as she was picking up free tinned food and bottled water from a relief station in Creston.“If Trump doesn’t get in, it’s going to be worse than the hurricane,” she said. “It’ll be world war three. Kamala Harris wants to make us a communist country.”Harold Davis, 68, a Harris supporter salvaging lumber from the side of the river, told the Guardian that he also cares more than ever about the election. “It’s so important. Maga is really Mawa – Make America White Again – and the sooner we can get back to treating everyone as equals the better,” he said.For Trump, the stakes in North Carolina could not be greater. For decades, the state has veered Republican, only backing Democrats twice in almost half a century (Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008).If Trump can take the state, as he did four years ago by a razor-thin 75,000 votes, along with Georgia and Pennsylvania, he will return to the White House. Without it, his path is uncertain.“It’s very hard for us to win unless we’re able to get North Carolina,” Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has said.Trump descended on North Carolina for two days this week, scrambling between Asheville in the storm zone to Greenville and Concord, and then Greensboro. He has been busily spreading lies about the hurricane response, accusing the Biden administration of refusing aid to Republican voters and falsely claiming that federal money has been redirected to house undocumented immigrants.His frenetic schedule and lies are perhaps indications of Trump’s anxieties about the impact of the hurricane on his electoral chances. Of the 25 counties hit by the disaster, 23 voted for Trump in 2020.“Outside the cities of Asheville and Boone, which are pretty Democratic, most of the hurricane area went strongly for Trump in 2020. So if turnout is down because of the disaster, it is likely to hit Trump most,” said David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College who runs the Meredith opinion poll.Republicans in the state have drawn comfort from the record-breaking early voting. In the first week of in-person early voting, almost 1.6 million people cast their ballots, surpassing the total crop of early votes in 2020.Four years ago, Republican early voting slumped in the wake of Trump’s false claims about rampant fraud. But this year’s record-smashing turnout suggests that the party has now put that behind it – Republicans and Democrats are virtually tied in their early voting numbers.“Despite all the challenges, people have shown they are determined to come and vote, a lot of them specifically against Kamala Harris,” said Matt Mercer, communications director for the North Carolina Republican party. “So we are feeling optimistic.”In the tranquil tree-lined suburbs on the north side of Charlotte, the effort to squeeze out every vote for Kamala Harris is entering its final heave. Here, sandwiched between the solidly Democratic city and the heavily Trumpian countryside, the suburban voters, women especially, could hold the key.Fern Cooper, 83, standing at the door of her detached suburban house, said she was powerfully motivated to vote because of her disdain for Trump. As a former New Yorker from the Bronx, she’s observed his flaws up close.She recalled how he was gifted huge sums of money from his real estate father; how he called for Black young men known as the Central Park Five to be executed for a rape they did not commit and for which they were later exonerated; how he treated his first wife, Ivana Trump, badly.“I know everything about Trump,” she said. “He’s not getting my vote.”Hannah Waleh, 66, is also all-in for Harris, for more positive reasons: “She will bring change, she is real, not a liar. She is for the poor and working-class people.”Waleh, a medical technician, has been urging her colleagues at her hospital and church to get out and vote early for the Democratic candidate: “I’m begging them. If everybody votes, I’m sure she will win.”View image in fullscreenShe might be right. The Meredith poll has tracked the extraordinary transformation in the race after Harris took over the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden.“Biden was losing North Carolina,” McLennan said. “Harris’s entry into the race returned the state to being 50-50 again – it’s back to being purple.”It is one thing bringing North Carolina back into contention and quite another to win. Part of the challenge is that, according to the poll, 2% of voters are still undecided, a tiny slice of the electorate that both campaigns are now frantically chasing.“I’ve never seen undecideds that low so close to the election,” McLennan said.They include Faith and Elizabeth, both 27, who have erected a 15ft Halloween skeleton on the lawn outside their house in the Charlotte suburbs. They told the Guardian that the most important issue, in their view, is abortion and the rights that women have already had taken away from them under Trump.And yet they still haven’t committed to voting for Harris. “We want to be certain,” Faith said.The Democrats are prioritising such suburban women, including those who formed part of the 23% of Republicans who backed Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary. They are doing so by focusing on abortion rights, with the Harris-Walz campaign warning that the state’s current restrictive 12-week abortion ban would be tightened under a Trump administration to a total nationwide abortion ban.They have also sought to tie Trump to extreme Republicans further down the ballot. The main target is the Republican candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, who has described himself as a “Black Nazi” and has been revealed to have made extreme racist remarks.During the past 18 months, Democrats have invested in the state, opening 28 offices with more than 340 staffers. They have even pushed into rural counties that previously had been assumed to be beyond the party’s reach.“The Democrats have prioritized getting the party’s message out in more rural parts – on the grounds that a vote from rural areas is just as useful as from the city,” said Jason Roberts, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Bolstering the party’s ground game is a vast alliance of non-profit progressive organizations such as the Black-led group Advance Carolina and Red Wine & Blue, which works with suburban women. The alliance, which playfully calls itself Operation We Save Ourselves, has a goal of knocking on 4m doors to promote candidates with progressive values – the largest independent program of its sort in North Carolina’s history.If hard work were all it took to win presidential elections, Harris would already have one foot inside the Oval Office. But anxieties continue to swirl around the Democratic ticket, led by concerns that early turnout from African American voters, who in past cycles have swung overwhelmingly Democratic, is lower this year than at the same stage four years ago (37% in 2020, compared with 20% today).As the months remaining until election day turn into days, and days into hours, the Harris-Walz campaign will be making last-ditch efforts to persuade Black voters to get out and vote – voters like Christian Swims, 21, a student at community college, who would be voting in his first presidential election.If he votes at all, that is.“I don’t follow the election much,” he said. “My friends don’t talk about it. People round here aren’t very political.”Or Joseph Rich, a Fedex worker, 28. “I don’t know too much about Trump and Kamala Harris,” he said. “I’ll read up on them, but now I’m not sure.”Time is running out for Democrats to connect with voters like Swims and Rich. Whether or not they succeed could make all the difference. More

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      Groping, greed and the lust for great power: what Wagner’s Ring Cycle tells us about Trump v Harris

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      ‘America is ready for a new chapter,” Barack Obama declared to the Democratic National Convention in August, “America is ready for a better story.” Many would agree, but as commentators try to explain the bewildering reversals and bizarre dynamics of this long and unprecedented election campaign they have often instead reached for stories that are old and familiar.Shakespeare has been a popular reference point: Joe Biden has frequently been compared to King Lear in his reluctance to relinquish power, Donald Trump to everyone from Richard III to Macbeth. Yet a rather different form of drama, ostensibly less realistic and less obviously relevant to contemporary politics, may in fact offer analogies that are more illuminating still.Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung was first performed in its entirety in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth almost 150 years ago. As the cycle of dramas begins, the dwarf Alberich, the Nibelung from whom it takes its name, gropes the beautiful Rhinemaidens and lasciviously compares their charms. They carelessly reveal that their river contains gold that could make its owner master of the world, but only if he renounces love. Alberich accepts this condition and steals the gold, an act of despoliation whose consequences ripple out through the work’s four evenings. With his brother Mime as his apprentice, he makes a ring and a magic helmet that bring him supreme authority. Similarities with Donald Trump, his beauty contests and gameshows, his misogyny, his exhortations to “drill, baby, drill” and his amoral lust for power, are not hard to find.View image in fullscreenLike Trump, Alberich holds on to power for much less time than he hopes. His enemies exploit his vanity to trick him out of the ring, effecting a transition whose legitimacy he will never accept. Alberich exhorts his followers to revolt, but without success, and regaining the ring is an obsession that endures for the rest of the story. In the final drama, Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), Alberich enlists the help of Hagen, the son he has fathered in a loveless union with a mortal woman. Trump, too, relies on younger family members to prosecute his interests: Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner were crucial figures in his presidency, Eric and his wife Lara have recently risen to prominence, Donald Jr is a constant presence.Trump’s latest surrogate is his vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, reputedly selected at Donald Jr’s behest. Like Hagen, Vance is a vociferous advocate of marriage: in Twilight of the Gods, Hagen seeks matches for his half-siblings Gunther and Gutrune, supposedly for their benefit but in fact as part of an elaborate strategy to trick Siegfried into giving up the ring. Both Vance and Hagen offer plausibility, engaging in social interactions and vice-presidential debates with a superficial courtesy of which Trump and Alberich are incapable.But both are less interested in serving their promoters than in securing for themselves the ultimate prize, whether that is the ring or the 2028 Republican nomination.View image in fullscreenThe parallels between Biden and Wotan – the character who seizes the ring from Alberich – are equally striking. Like the 46th president, the king of the gods has accomplished much during his long career as a legislator, notably building the magnificent fortress of Valhalla.But he is tormented by his waning abilities, and the reluctant realisation that the task he wants to accomplish himself – the recovery of the ring from the dragon, Fafner – can only be achieved by a younger proxy: stronger, fearless and less tarnished by a lifetime of compromise. Ultimately, it is a female authority figure, older even than himself, who persuades him to abandon his ambitions. Few people know what Nancy Pelosi said to Biden in July, but the agonised confrontation between Wotan and Erda in Act III of Siegfried gives some idea of the likely emotions involved.Wotan’s daughter, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, ends The Ring with an impassioned soliloquy. It is now impossible to predict whether Kamala Harris can emulate Brünnhilde by having the last word in this year’s election drama – but millions across the world cling to the hope that she will. Through most of Twilight of the Gods, Brünnhilde is exploited and humiliated by Siegfried, the hero she thought was her husband, and Hagen, the villain who uses her for his own ends. But in the drama’s final minutes, she emerges from her torment to convey a commanding message of love, laughter and joy. Harris’s willingness to embody these same values, conspicuously absent from recent political discourse, fuelled her swift transformation from patronised vice-president to plausible candidate. Journalists covering her campaign frequently comment on her personal warmth; her equally exuberant running-mate, Tim Walz, observes that “she brings the joy”.View image in fullscreenOf course, as many have noted, joy is not a political programme, and despite Harris’s success in changing the campaign’s character, she has struggled to define what she would do differently from the unpopular administration she has served. Late in the day though it came, Harris’s incursion into the hostile territory of Fox News, where she insisted that her presidency would not be a continuation of Biden’s, was a notable effort to do just that. The interview’s equivalent in The Ring is Brünnhilde’s searing encounter with Waltraute in act I of Twilight of the Gods, when she resists her sister’s pleas to halt their father’s decline by returning the ring to the Rhine. By doing so, she condemns Wotan to irrelevance, but also articulates what is most important to her, establishing the moral authority that allows her to command the cycle’s ending as she does.Needless to say, the parallels between Wagner’s story and that of the election only stretch so far. Incest and immolation, key motifs in The Ring, have not surfaced as themes even in the most surreal of Trump’s ramblings – though with a week to go, anything remains possible. Nor are there many swords and spears, dragons or talking birds in today’s American politics. Intrepid heroes, too, are notably absent, though perhaps there have been enough would-be Siegfrieds among Biden’s 45 predecessors. But if we take The Ring less literally, it offers extraordinary insights into how power passes from one generation to another, into the consequences of denuding the Earth of its resources, and into the transformative potential of love.Wagner has often been appropriated by the political right, notoriously during the Third Reich, and there is plenty in his writing to encourage fascists and authoritarians, not least the disgustingly antisemitic tracts that disfigure his posthumous reputation. But at the time he conceived The Ring, Wagner was a leftwing revolutionary, working to overthrow the regime in Saxony that employed him as Kapellmeister. As his idealism curdled into resignation, he experimented with different endings, giving Brünnhilde words that echoed the philosophy of renunciation of his new intellectual hero, Arthur Schopenhauer. He ultimately decided not to set these words, giving the final say instead to music, and to an ecstatic melody that he told his wife Cosima represented the “glorification of Brünnhilde”.View image in fullscreenThe Ring is many things: a practical realisation of a revolutionary theory of musical theatre; a compendium of brilliant orchestral sounds; a monumental physical and psychological challenge for singers; for some, a philosophical meditation or political tract. But it is also, perhaps above all, a supreme piece of storytelling, one that only truly exists when played out in a theatre. This need for perpetual recreation makes The Ring inescapably not just a story of its own time but of ours too, one that absorbs and reflects its audience’s preoccupations. And by allowing music to take flight in his drama’s final moments, Wagner invites his listeners to fill the imaginative space he has opened up, connecting his concerns with our own.Like The Ring, this election campaign still permits many possible endings, and like Wagner, the American electorate is leaving it uncomfortably late in the process to clarify which will prevail. The ultimate fate of Alberich is left ambiguous: almost uniquely among The Ring’s major characters, he is neither shown nor described as dying, though his world-view is discredited and his scheming thwarted, and he plays no part in the cycle’s final act. Perhaps the one certainty about this election is that whether defeated or victorious, Trump will not remain similarly silent. But whatever the outcome, old stories like Wagner’s can help us understand the newest chapters in our own. More

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      Do we have any idea who will win the US election? No. Uncertainty is sky-high | Cas Mudde

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      It is generally believed that Americans only start to care about presidential elections one month before election day. Hence, it is only in the last month that polls become meaningful. If that is true, the polls don’t tell us too much yet.Despite the fact that Donald Trump has become openly authoritarian and racist – promising to jail his “enemies” and referring to immigrants as “cannibals” – the race is still too close to call. Almost all national polls have Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in the popular vote, but the difference is mostly within the so-called “margin of error” – meaning, in essence, that the difference is too small to be certain. So what should we look out for in the coming weeks?The polls: national v swing statesFirst of all, it is important to note that the US president is not directly elected. There is little doubt that Harris will win the popular vote – Democrats have won the popular vote in all but one of the presidential elections this century. But to become president, a candidate does not need to win the popular vote but the electoral college – ironically, given that the electoral college handed Trump the victory in 2016 and could do so again next month, the institution was introduced by the founders to protect the country from electing a “populist” president.So, rather than focusing on the national vote, we should focus on polls in so-called “swing states”. For the 2024 elections, these are expected to be the following seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Unsurprisingly, given that they are swing states, the polls are extremely close in all seven states. It is doubtful that this will change before election day on 5 November.The electoral coalitionTrump has the most homogeneous electoral coalition, consisting overwhelmingly of religious white voters. Over the last decades, predating Trump, the Republican party has become more evangelical, male and white. Although that demographic is decreasing as a percentage of the population, the enthusiasm for Trump within the group is high. Moreover, polls are indicating that Trump is picking up Hispanic and, to a lesser extent, (male) African American voters.The main worry for the Republican party are (suburban) white women, who have supported Trump in majority before. Since the Dobbs ruling put abortion back at the top of the agenda, and younger women are much more liberal than previous generations, white women could cost Trump the election – particularly if young white women vote in similar numbers as older generations.Although Harris has a larger potential electorate, it is also much more changing and heterogeneous as well as much harder to mobilize. Traditionally, the Democrats win large majorities of both African American and Hispanic voters as well as a large minority of white voters. Although Harris has brought back the enthusiasm lost under Joe Biden’s lackluster campaign and debate performance, and largely closed the gap with Trump, there are several groups that could cost her the elections.Hispanic voters have been moving to the Republican party for several years now, while a group of African American men seem unwilling to vote for a woman as president. And then there is Gaza, which has turned a lot of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans – as well as progressive white voters – off the Democratic party. In most of these cases, the question is not so much whether they will vote for Harris or Trump but rather whether they will vote for Harris or not vote at all.Election day will not be decision dayIf you think it is frustrating that the polls don’t give us a highly likely winner before election day, you will be even more frustrated to hear that you still will probably not know the winner on 5 November. Four years ago, most major networks only called the election on 7 November, four days after election day. It will almost certainly take even longer this year, as Republicans have introduced a host of measures to make it more difficult and slower to count the votes (such as hand counting).skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd once the votes are finally counted, and particularly if they don’t hand Trump a victory, we can expect several institutional challenges to the results. Since their failed attempt to challenge the 2020 election, Republicans have tightened their grip on electoral boards and state courts, including in some swing states like Georgia. No wonder election experts have raised alarm that the vote counting and certifying will not just lead to delays but also to chaos.Post-electoral violence?Even when all the votes are counted, and the final result is certified, it is doubtful that the country will move on – particularly if Trump loses the election. This is in itself not that surprising: both Trump and his vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, still do not recognize Biden’s election, while 57% of Republicans believe Biden’s election was “illegitimate”. Moreover, both Trump and Vance have indicated that they would not recognize a defeat in November, a position shared by almost half of Republican voters (and more than a quarter of Democratic voters).Unsurprisingly, there is a growing worry in the country about post-electoral violence, among both Democrats and Republicans. In fact, almost half of the population thinks it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that the country would slip into a civil war! While the combination of conspiracy theories and a large number of (semi-automatic) weapons makes some post-electoral violence highly likely, I doubt we will see another insurrection, let alone a civil war. That said, there is little doubt we are in for a very tense period, which will last well beyond 5 November.

      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today More

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      US presidential election updates: Republicans in damage control after racist Puerto Rico comments at Trump rally

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      The fight for Puerto Rican voters emerged as an unlikely campaign theme on Sunday, after superstar Bad Bunny backed Kamala Harris for president, minutes after a speaker at Donald Trump’s triumphalist New York rally made racist remarks about the US territory.Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, speaking ahead of Trump at the rally in Madison Square Garden, said “there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”Millions of mainland US residents with Puerto Rican heritage will be voting on 5 November and the Trump campaign was quick to distance itself from the joke. A slew of Republicans also condemned the remarks, including Rick Scott and María Elvira Salazar from Florida, the state with the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the United States mainland.Here’s what else happened on Sunday:Kamala Harris election news

      Harris made a pitch for Puerto Rican voters, addressing the need to drive economic growth and job creation. The US territory has struggled after several hurricanes smashed the power grid and faced austerity measures after the local government filed for bankruptcy. Harris promised more effective use of recovery funds for the territory and discussed her plans while visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Pennsylvania. Of the swing state’s eligible Latino voters, 580,000 are of Puerto Rican descent.

      Harris was in Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania, on her 14th trip to the state since Joe Biden withdrew from the race. The vice-president spoke at a church service in west Philadelphia and answered questions on student loan debt at a nearby barbershop.

      At a rally on Sunday evening, Harris told supporters “no one can sit on the sidelines” ahead of the election, adding: “make no mistake: we will win.” Harris also targeted younger voters in the crowd. “You are rightly impatient for change,” she said. “You, who have only known the climate crisis … You, who grew up with active shooter drills. You, who right now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers.”

      Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, released statements acknowledging the sixth anniversary of a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. “Six years ago today, a white supremacist committed the deadliest attack on American Jews in our nation’s history,” Emhoff wrote. “We honor the lives of those lost on that horrific day by continuing our fight against antisemitism and hate in all its forms.”

      Governor Tim Walz joined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to play the American football video game Madden on a Twitch livestream and talk about the election. The unconventional campaign appearance came as the Harris-Walz campaign tried to drum up support among young male voters.
      Donald Trump election news

      Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally was marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants. Businessman Grant Cardone said Harris “and her pimp handlers will destroy our country”, while Tucker Carlson mocked Harris’s racial background: “As the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor to ever be elected president, no, she’s not impressive.” Wrestler Hulk Hogan, Dr Phil star Phil McGraw, and a rare surprise appearance from Melania Trump also garnered cheers from the 20,000 attenders.

      Trump promised to introduce a new tax credit for family caregivers and doubled down on his anti-immigration rhetoric. He said his administration would pursue the death penalty for migrants who kill Americans and that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

      Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, avoided calling Russia an “enemy” in an interview on Meet the Press. Vance said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “clearly an adversary” but “we have to be smart about diplomacy”.

      Chinese state-affiliated hackers intercepted audio from the phone calls of US political figures, including an unnamed campaign adviser of Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Various media outlets reported on Friday that the Trump campaign was made aware last week that the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate JD Vance were among a number of people inside and outside government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems.
      Elsewhere on the campaign trail

      Harris’s campaign has delayed taking up Joe Biden’s offers to campaign for his vice-president, Axios reports. “President Biden wants to campaign for vice-president Harris in the last days before the election,” the outlet writes. “Harris’ campaign keeps responding: We’ll get back to you, three people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.” The president will cast his early-voting ballot in the presidential election on Monday, according to the White House.

      An array of big tech executives have spoken with Donald Trump in recent days, seeking to rekindle their relationships with the ex-president as the possibility of his return to office looms, CNN reports. In recent weeks, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Amazon’s Andy Jassy have all called Trump. Earlier this summer, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also reached out to Trump after his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.
      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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      Racist remarks and playing to the base: key takeaways from Trump’s MSG rally

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      Donald Trump reveled in what advisers called his happy place at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, as he enveloped himself in the adulation ahead of the final stretch of campaigning until the November election.The capacity rally at the Garden – something Trump had talked about for years – was essentially a reboot of the Republican national convention this summer, widely seen as Trump’s most confident moment.Trump had the more polished speakers from the convention double down on crude and xenophobic rhetoric, while he had Hulk Hogan rip his shirt on stage again, and got Melania Trump to appear again.The rally was a safe space for Trump and the campaign to lean into their most caustic impulses: speakers falsely saying Kamala Harris allowed migrants to “rape and kill” Americans or questioning whether Harris was Black or “Samoan-Malaysian”.There was nothing about trying to broaden his base. The rhetoric of Trump and his speakers was designed to give the crowd what they wanted to hear, doubling down on immigration rhetoric which Trump thinks his supporters love to hear the most.That disinterest to reach undecided voters by moderating the rhetoric also underscored the confidence of the Trump team with fewer than nine days until the election – they have long seen their path to victory as juicing turnout.The Trump team in recent days have in hushed whispers suggested privately they might even get close to winning the popular vote, which Trump lost in 2016, describing him as a comeback story with momentum on his side.Here are the key takeaways from perhaps Trump’s final major rally before election day:1. Racist and crude remarksTrump’s warm-up speakers appeared to feel particularly emboldened to take shots at Latinos and African Americans at the rally, in an apparent attempt to copy the former president.From the very first speaker, Tony Hinchcliffe, the host of the Kill Tony podcast, there was a push to stoke racial animus. Latinos “love making babies … there’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country.”He added: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”The radio host Sid Rosenberg leaned into attacking Democrats, using ad hominem slurs to describe Hillary Clinton – a villain to Trump supporters who lapped it up.“Hillary Clinton. What a sick son of a bitch. The whole fucking party. A bunch of degenerates. Lowlives, Jew-haters and lowlives. Every one of ‘em. Every one of ‘em,” Rosenberg said.And Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who lost his prime time perch in the wake of the network getting sued for defamation over promulgating false 2020 election fraud claims, went after Kamala Harris.“As the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ, former California prosecutor to ever be elected president,” Carlson falsely said in a mocking tone of Harris’s racial background. “No, she’s not impressive.”2. Anti-immigration rhetoricTrump himself doubled down on his anti-immigration rhetoric, promising to pursue the death penalty for migrants who kill an American and that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.Trump’s actual border plans are filled with rhetoric but light on details. For instance, he has pledged mass deportations without saying how it would logistically happen or how it would be funded. The Alien Enemies Act allows for summary deportations of people from countries with which the US is at war, that have invaded the country or have engaged in “predatory incursions” – but it requires a link to actions by a foreign government.But Trump has noted to advisers his crowds seem most energized when he talks about deporting illegal immigrants, and his speech repeatedly veered back to immigration even as he touched on other campaign messaging.3. Light on economic agendaTrump kept himself disciplined enough to throw out a new economic promise as he competes with Harris to increase disposable incomes for Americans: to introduce a new tax credit for family caregivers.He also promised to cut energy prices in half if he was re-elected and to lower corporate tax rates for businesses.Trump was again light on details for his economic agenda, given changes to the tax code would require the approval of Congress and it is unclear whether Republicans will retain control of the House or take the Senate majority. More

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      Puerto Rican stars Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin back Kamala Harris after racist comments at Trump rally

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      Puerto Rican stars star Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin have thrown their support behind Kamala Harris on the same day that a comedian appearing at Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.On Sunday international reggaeton star Bad Bunny- whose official name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – shared a video of the Democratic presidential nominee to his more than 45 million followers on Instagram. His support could be a boost for the Harris campaign as it tries to bolster its support with Latino and Puerto Rican voters.Bad Bunny signalled his support for Harris moments after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made the remarks about Puerto Rico at the Trump rally in New York. Hinchcliffe also made crude remarks about Latinos.The comment was immediately criticised by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, another Puerto Rican pop star, wrote in a post to his 18m followers on Instagram: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.”Later, Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement said: “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”Other Latino singers who had already expressed support for Harris – including Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony – also shared the video from Democratic candidate.Bad Bunny has won three Grammy awards and was the most streamed artist on Spotify in 2020, 2021 and 2022, only surpassed by Taylor Swift in 2023. He was named artist of the year by Apple Music in 2022.The artist has increasingly waded into politics, especially in his native Puerto Rico, where he purchased billboards in protest of the pro-statehood New Progressive party and has been critical of the electric system, which was leveled by Hurricane Mario.The video he shared on Sunday shows Harris saying: “There’s so much at stake in this election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico.”He then shared another part of the clip where Harris says: “I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,” she says.Puerto Rican voters are crucial to both Trump and Harris, and Trump has recently been making inroads with the group. In Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, the majority of the 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent.Harris on Sunday visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia where she outlined plans to introduce an “economic opportunity taskforce” for Puerto Rico.She also recognized the need to urgently rebuild Puerto Rico’s energy grid, promising to work with local leaders to ensure all Puerto Ricans have access to reliable electricity, and cut red tape to ensure disaster recovery funds are used quickly and effectively.A year after the storm, public health experts estimated that nearly 3,000 perished because of the effects of Hurricane Maria.Trump’s actions and policies towards the island have repeatedly drawn criticism. He repeatedly questioned the number of casualties, saying it rose “like magic”. His visit to the island after the hurricane elicited controversy such as when he tossed paper towels. His administration released $13bn in assistance years later, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election. And a federal government watchdog found that officials hampered an investigation into delays in aid delivery.Bad Bunny also shared a part of the clip showing Harris saying that Trump “abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults”.A representative for the artist confirmed his endorsement. More

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      Trump to speak at Madison Square Garden after Harris rallies in Philadelphia – US politics live

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      Hulk Hogan, the retired WWE wrestler, has taken the stage, sporting yellow sunglasses and a red “Trump-Vance” tank top. He took a few jabs at Vice President Kamala Harris.“Kamala is responsible for the border crisis, and Kamala is also responsible for inflation,” he said. “She acts like she’s the victim, and then all of a sudden, she flips, she flops, she spins and turns it around and acts like she’s gonna be the damn hero.”The disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is expressing his support for former president Donald Trump at a campaign event in New York City.“He’s liberated us in the deepest and truest sense,” Carlson said about Trump. “And the liberation he has brought to us is the liberation from the obligation to tell lies. Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us, and that’s the single most liberating thing you can do for people.”Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in that order, took the stage at Donald Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. Ramaswamy made transphobic remarks, while Gabbard listed some of the ways she believes Vice President Kamala Harris will harm the country.“A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for economic hardship, high cost of living, poverty and homelessness,” Gabbard said. “And a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for economic prosperity and opportunity for every single one of us as Americans.”So far, the speakers at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City have resorted to lewd language and racist remarks in their speeches.A stand-up routine from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, for example, was filled with racist stereotypes of Latinos, Jews and Black people.“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Hinchcliffe, whose joke was flagged by Democrat Kamala Harris’ campaign.Speaker Mike Johnson made an appearance at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City.He said he felt a resurgence of the Republican party and pointed to a widespread dissatisfaction with current policies under the Biden administration.“We’re in a battle between two completely different visions for who we are as a nation and who we’re going to be,” Johnson said. ‘“This is not your father’s Democratic Party. They are now full on Marxism and socialism.”The vice-president said she would create an “opportunity economy taskforce” in efforts to foster economic growth in the Caribbean archipelago by creating more jobs.She also recognized the need to urgently rebuild Puerto Rico’s energy grid. The US territory is still facing the aftermath of several hurricanes that ravaged the power grid. Puerto Rico is also undergoing the effects of austerity measures imposed by a non-elected fiscal board after the local government filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.“I will cut red tape to ensure disaster recovery funds are used quickly and effectively, and work with leaders across the island to ensure all Puerto Ricans have access to reliable, affordable electricity,” she said.“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and incompetent leader,” she said. “He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” she added.Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, wrapped up her nearly 15-minute speech in Philadephia.She encouraged the crowd to convince their families and friends to get out and vote, using similar phrases to those in her campaign ads.“There is too much on the line, and we must not wake up the day after the election and have any regrets about what we could have done in these next nine days,” she said.Vice President Kamala Harris directed her remarks toward younger voters in the Pennsylvania crowd.“Is Gen Z in the house?” she asked. “You are rightly impatient for change. You are rightly impatient. You who have only known the climate crisis, you are leaders in what we need to do to protect our planet.”
      “You, who grew up with active shooter drills,” she said. “You, who right now know fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers understand the importance of fighting for the right of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.”
      The Vice President spoke about the war in Gaza less than five minutes into her speech.“We must seize this opportunity to end this war and bring the hostages home,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to meet that end.”Jacob Roberts, a 26-year-old voter from Westchester attending Harris’ rally in North Philadelphia, has already voted early for her.He told the Guardian that he feels optimistic about the outcome of the election, even as polls show a tied race in Pennsylvania.“I’m seeing a lot of Kamala yard signs around,” Roberts said. “I actually just drove out to western Pennsylvania. I didn’t see a lot of Trump signs on barns or anything, so I think we’re looking good.”Asked whether he was disappointed to miss some of the Eagles game to attend the rally, Roberts said it was well worth it.“This is our country we’re talking about,” Roberts said.Brenda Exon, a 60-year-old voter from Wallingford known as the “Philly Pride Lady,” is at Kamala Harris’ rally in Philadelphia with her “timeline to liberty” apron.The apron tells the story of Philadelphia, from the founding of Pennsylvania to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the civil rights movement.“Our Philly story is our nation’s story, and that’s what we’re fighting for really. We don’t want Donald Trump to take this away,” Exon said.“We’re coming up on our 250th [anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence], and who should be president celebrating that in 2026? Kamala Harris.”Trump approved Rudy Giuliani to be on the stage tonight at the Madison Square Garden rally, according to a person familiar.Giuliani walked into the stage at the Trump rally to the loudest cheers so far of the event and a standing ovation from a capacity Madison Square Garden.Giuliani opened by referencing when Pope John Paul came to NY in 1995, a visit Giuliani presumably recalls because it took place while he was mayor.It’s the kind of anecdote that will play well with most of the crowd here but there are many younger Trump supporters here who have no idea what that’s about.Governor Tim Walz joined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswoman from New York, on a Twitch livestream as the two played the American football video game Madden and talked about the election.The unconventional campaign appearance comes as the Harris-Walz campaign tries to drum up support among young male voters. In 2020, Ocasio-Cortez’s first appearance on Twitch was one of the platform’s most-watched events at that time.Here’s Michael Sainato with more on the stream:On the six-year anniversary of a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff have released statements acknowledging the mass shooting.“Six years ago today, a white supremacist committed the deadliest attack on American Jews in our nation’s history,” Emhoff wrote. “We honor the lives of those lost on that horrific day by continuing our fight against antisemitism and hate in all its forms.”A federal judge blocked the state of Virginia from removing suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls, CNN reported.The court cited potential violations of a federal ban on “systematic” removals within 90 days of an election.The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision paves the way for a potential Supreme Court battle as early voting begins in Virginia. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have rallied around the case, arguing that noncitizen voting is a significant election risk, despite its rarity.The order clarifies that Virginia can still prevent noncitizen voting by canceling registrations on an individual basis or prosecuting noncitizens who vote.Today so farThanks for joining us this morning. As I hand over to my colleague Coral Murphy Marcos, here are the main headlines we’ve been following today so far:

      In a bevy of Sunday morning talk show appearances, JD Vance defended Donald Trump against claims from former Trump staffers that the ex-president has authoritarian tendencies. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris described her choice to deliver her closing argument speech at The Ellipse, Lindsey Graham denounced attacks against Trump’s character and Bernie Sanders said Trump has “strong tendency toward authoritarianism”.

      This morning, Kamala Harris campaigned “neighborhood-to-neighborhood” in Philadelphia, kicking off the morning by attending services at a predominantly Black church before heading to a nearby barbershop to speak with young Black men. She’ll be stopping at a Puerto Rican restaurant later this afternoon before speaking at a rally this evening.

      Supporters of Donald Trump’s have already begun gathering at Madison Square Garden as the ex-president prepares to deliver his closing arguments there. Campaigning in Nevada today, Tim Walz has criticized the rally as “a direct parallel” to a Nazi rally held at the venue in 1939.

      Following the news that the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times will not endorse a presidential candidate this year, the New York Times opinion section has published a full page image reminding readers that it endorsed Kamala Harris last month. Earlier this week, our own editorial page strongly endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

      In the final days of the 2024 election, Harris’s campaign has slowballed Joe Biden’s offers to campaign for his vice-president, Axios reports. More

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      Harris and Trump lean into their faith in appeals to Christian voters in Georgia

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      Two Georgia megachurches hosted presidential candidates last week, highlighting the stark differences between how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump speak about faith and what Georgia’s Christian religious congregations expect of them.Though Trump and Harris communicate differently to the public about their faith, religious leaders on the left and the right are casting this election in apocalyptic terms. And both candidates know religious voters will be essential to winning swing states like Georgia.“It is so good to be here with everyone today and to worship with you,” Harris said from the pulpit to thousands gathered at New Birth Missionary Baptist church in south DeKalb county last Sunday. “On this day, then, I am reminded, with everything that we reflect on, on the parable from the Gospel of Luke.”Four thousand people packed the pews of the predominantly-Black megachurch outside of Atlanta, one of the most prominent and powerful Black churches in America – a point of which pastor Jamal Bryant regularly reminds his congregation. New Birth owns more land than any Black church in America. It gave away $83m in college scholarships last year, he said.It wields its political clout deftly. New Birth’s congregants include many of Atlanta’s most powerful political figures – mayors, sheriffs, members of Congress. Bryant said it has hosted appearances by five presidents.But people who attend New Birth aren’t there for a stump speech. And Harris didn’t give one.“You don’t want to give political speeches in a sanctuary, because you’re there to worship God,” said state senator Emanuel Jones, a DeKalb Democrat who attended church at New Birth last week. “To me, it is not a good use of a sanctuary to try and politicize – particularly on a Sunday, by the way – to try and mix politics with religion. I think she does a really good job of keeping them separate. She did that today, and we all should.”View image in fullscreenHarris campaigned in Georgia with her pastor Rev Dr Amos Brown, pastor at Third Baptist Church of San Francisco and a contemporary of Martin Luther King Jr and other luminaries in Atlanta’s civil rights history. She told a CNN townhall a few days later that her first call after learning that Biden would be withdrawing was to Brown.“I do pray every day,” she told Anderson Cooper. “Sometimes twice a day.”Harris will discuss her faith when it comes up, but doesn’t go out of her way to portray her campaign as religiously motivated. Conversely, she never mentioned her campaign directly while speaking at New Birth. She shied away from the political themes common to her political rhetoric – abortion rights, the cost of living and the general unfitness of her opponent. She used the word “faith” 16 times in her 14-minute address.“Faith is a verb,” she said. “We show it in action, in our deeds and in our service.”Though she had not come to deliver a political speech, in a church with the flags of dozens of countries lining the balconies, the subtext was clear enough – a repudiation of conservative xenophobia about immigrants.Elaine Montgomery heard it.“Like she said, when you don’t help people like my neighbors and we all in this world,” Montgomery said. “Everything belongs to God.”Montgomery, 69, from Stone Mountain, Georgia, was wearing a pink hat big enough to see from space that Sunday. She was on her way to vote. Her disdain for Trump’s expression of faith was plain.“He’s a man speaking on a level that’s below God, I will say that,” Montgomery said. Her voice lowered. “I don’t really think Donald Trump had faith. I really don’t. I’m serious, you know, because if he had faith and he believed in Jesus Christ, he wouldn’t be doing the things he does.”Faith matters in Georgia. White Christian evangelical beliefs correlate with the strongest support for Donald Trump, and about 38% of Georgians fall into that category, according to the Pew Research Center. Black voters in Georgia are also much more likely to be religious than the baseline, and Black voters represent about 30% of the electorate.Georgia, in the heart of the Bible Belt, has one of the highest rates of regular church attendance in America at 42%.View image in fullscreenLast Sunday, 42,694 voters cast a ballot in Georgia, many going in a “souls to the polls” push regularly organized by churches, particularly in metro Atlanta. In the flurry of conservative election legislation that followed the 2020 election in Georgia, a plan to eliminate Sunday early voting floated through the legislature. Outcry from pastors across the state ended that gambit. Mobilizing religiously-motivated voters is a necessary, if insufficient, requirement for any candidate to win a Georgia election.Trump found himself in Zebulon, Georgia, last week, doing just that.He was 45-minutes late to the faith townhall held at Christ Chapel church. Thousands of people packed its hall and sprawled into a parking lot ringed by semi-truck trailers with snipers on the roofs.“You know, without religion, it’s like the – it’s like the glue that holds it all together. This would be a different country,” he said, noting a declining trend in religious participation, suggesting that “people started thinking a little bit differently and they got used to a different way of life” after the pandemic. He spoke about how Christians – particularly Catholics – faced unspecified “persecution” today in America.But most of Trump’s comments at the “Believers and Ballots” townhall were campaign fodder about illegal immigration, how great his rallies have been and attacks on Harris and the Biden administration.About 1,100 people live in Zebulon, about an hour-and-a-half south of Atlanta. Christ Chapel has about 1,600 members, with more at satellite campuses in middle Georgia.Brian Hood, a congregant at Christ Chapel, said he expected Trump to speak about the border and inflation, but also freedom of religion.“Donald J Trump professes to be a born-again Christian. Does that mean that he’s perfect? Of course not. None of us are. Anybody who says they are is a liar. He appeals to, not just Christians, but all the American people. He loves God and loves people, all walks of life.”Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, a Republican and ally of the former president, asked Trump about coping with the assassination attempts and the pressure of the campaign. “How do you lean into your faith and your family to deal with this?”“I say this. Faith – when you have faith, when you believe in God, it’s a big advantage over people that don’t have that. It’s a big advantage,” Trump replied.It was the only substantial reference Trump made to his own faith in the abbreviated 40-minute forum for faith voters.View image in fullscreenRalph Reed, chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition and a longtime activist on the Christian right, succinctly laid out the stakes for antiabortion conservatives as he warmed up the crowd before Trump’s arrival.Harris is “going to pass a federal law to impose abortion on demand on all 50 states,” Reed said. “And when she’s done doing that, she’s going to repeal the filibuster and then she’s going to pass a federal law imposing term limits on the supreme court which will instantly remove justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts from the court and she’s going to replace them with the most leftwing radical extremist justices ever nominated. That’s her agenda.”The first accomplishment listed on the campaign’s “Believers for Trump” website is how Trump appointed three supreme court justices, “which led to the end of Roe v Wade and broader protections for religious liberties.” Ending legal abortion is central to the religious conservatism of many of his supporters.“I believe that life begins in conception. I cannot follow the dictates of being able to abort at any time,” said Carol Whitcomb of Stockbridge, a conservative who attended the Trump forum.But it also may be a losing political position, even in Georgia. In every state where abortion rights have been a ballot referendum since the end of federal protections, voters have taken the more pro-choice position. Trump has generally avoided talking about abortion on the campaign trail, with no mention of it at all in a later appearance in Georgia last week.Sandra Stargel of McDonough, Georgia, who attended the forum, has registered a change in Trump’s posture toward abortion, she said. “But, you know, I believe God has been talking to him, too. God has him here for a reason. I understand that women want to be in charge of their bodies. I get that. But in that case, they make birth control. Use it. Don’t just keep killing babies.”Reed highlighted the stakes of the election: “We gather in this sanctuary 13 days before not only the most important election of our lifetimes but one of the most important elections in American history,” he said.While Harris was at New Birth a few days earlier, the church’s pastor Bryant used similar rhetoric, likening this political moment to the biblical story of Esther and her obligation to save Jews from death. “If you are silent in this moment, your family will not survive,” Bryant said. “This is not the time for y’all to be bougie and stuck up. Generations of your unborn family are waiting to see what you do next.” More