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    US Republican politician must resign after pleading guilty to sexual assault

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    Days after winning elected office, a Republican politician in Indiana pleaded guilty to trying to sexually assault a woman in Las Vegas and now must resign his position.John Jessup, commissioner of Hancock, Indiana, is at the center of one of the more bizarre tales to emerge from the down-ballot 5 November elections across the US.As noted by the local Greenfield Daily Reporter newspaper and KLAS, authorities in Nevada charged Jessup, 49, in June in connection with a sexual assault that occurred in January. But he remained in office as a county commissioner; ran for a seat on the Hancock council, which is a distinct elected body; and emerged as one of three victors after collecting about 15,000 votes.Jessup’s satisfaction with his victory – secured while he was under house arrest in Nevada – may have been fleeting, however. Records show he pleaded guilty in Nevada court on 13 November to attempted sexual assault, which is a kind of felony that can carry multiple years in prison, according to state law.Indiana prohibits convicted felons from serving in state or local elected offices, though a decisive majority of its voters on 5 November helped vault Donald Trump to a second US presidency just months after a New York City jury convicted him on felony charges of criminally falsifying business records.Therefore, Jessup must resign – unlike Trump, who has also faced multimillion-dollar civil penalties for a rape allegation that a judge determined to be substantially true.Jessup on Monday told the Guardian that he must fill out certain paperwork before he could step down. The county council chair had mailed him those papers, but they had not immediately arrived, said Jessup, who is awaiting a sentencing hearing tentatively scheduled for April.According to what Jessup told the Daily Reporter, he was prepared for prosecutors to argue that he deserves between eight and 20 years in prison. Jessup reportedly said that his attorneys were going to seek a sentence of probation.“It’s been my greatest honor serving the people of Hancock county and I’m deeply, deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry for the shame that I brought to the county,” Jessup told the Daily Reporter.An affidavit obtained and reported on by the outlet said Jessup’s criminal charges came after he flew to Las Vegas with a woman in January.Multiple witnesses allegedly told authorities that Jessup got the woman intoxicated by constantly “feeding” her Long Island iced teas. Purportedly, as Jessup repeatedly said the famous slogan “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” she became so intoxicated that she needed a wheelchair to get back to her hotel room.There, she recalled showering while clothed – and her immediate next recollection was waking up naked as Jessup sexually assaulted her, authorities wrote in the affidavit cited by the Daily Reporter.The woman reported the assault to police in just a few days, and authorities arrested him in Indiana in June before extraditing him to Nevada. According to the Daily Reporter, during an interview with investigators, Jessup acknowledged that he “fucked up” – and spoke of taking his life – yet also maintained that he had not done anything criminal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJessup posted a $100,000 bond to await the outcome of the case against him under house arrest in the Las Vegas area.In a statement to the Indiana news outlet WXIN, a Republican party official in Hancock county denied that her organization had any role in Jessup’s case “until the legal process concludes or he resigns”.“Mr Jessup decided to keep his name on the ballot after charges were filed,” Janice Silvey, Hancock county Republican party chairperson, said in a statement. “He later verbally and via text committed to resigning if elected.”Silvey added that the local Republican party would arrange a caucus to fill Jessup’s position once his resignation takes effect.Hancock county is part of a region that includes Indianapolis, the state capital. It has a population of about 80,000. More

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      Trump fake-elector scheme: where do five state investigations stand?

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      After the 2020 election, a group of 84 people in seven states signed false documents claiming to be electors for Donald Trump. This year, despite the fact that four states have brought criminal charges against the fake electors, 14 of them will now serve as real electors for the president-elect.The 14 once-fake-and-now-real electors were selected by state Republican parties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. They will meet in their state capitols on 17 December to cast their ballots for Trump.Prosecutors in many of the states where fake electors signed false documents are moving forward with charges, as the federal charges against Trump for election subversion and other alleged crimes are up in the air after his re-election.Five of the seven states pursued charges related to the issue. Authorities in New Mexico and Pennsylvania did not pursue charges because the documents the false electors there used hedged language that attorneys said would likely spare them from criminal charges.The fake electors in some instances are high-profile Republicans: people in elected office, in official party roles, prominent members of external conservative groups.Here’s where the state cases stand.ArizonaKris Mayes, the Democratic attorney general for Arizona, said on Sunday that her office will not be dropping any charges related to the fake electors.A grand jury in Arizona charged 18 people involved in the fake electors scheme, including the 11 people who served as fake electors and Trump allies Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman. Some of the fake electors are high profile: two state senators (Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern), a former state Republican party chair (Kelli Ward) and a Turning Point USA executive (Tyler Bowyer).“I have no intention of breaking that case up. I have no intention of dropping that case,” Mayes told MSNBC. “A grand jury in the state of Arizona decided that these individuals who engaged in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2020 should be held accountable, so we won’t be cowed, we won’t be intimidated.”Arizona charged people in April 2024, so the case is still in its early stages.GeorgiaGeorgia’s case will be the most watched, especially if all federal charges against Trump are dropped. It is the only state case where Trump himself is charged, though he will seek to have the charges dropped because of the supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling, or at least paused until he’s no longer in office. Several of the 19 people charged pleaded guilty and received probation and fines.Fake electors David Shafer, Cathleen Latham and Shawn Still were charged in the criminal racketeering case, but not all of the fake electors in Georgia were charged – many were granted immunity to cooperate with the case.The US supreme court rejected an attempt by Meadows on Tuesday to move the case to federal court.The next step is set for December: the Georgia court of appeals will hear arguments on whether prosecutor Fani Willis can continue on the case herself despite a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor on the case. A lower court previous ruled that she could continue.MichiganSixteen fake electors were charged in Michigan in mid-2023. One of them agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and had his charges dropped in return.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case is working its way through the court process, with the last of the defendants sitting for examinations in October as the judge decides whether the case should go to trial.Six of those charged will serve as Trump’s actual electors this year. Attorneys for those fake and now real electors have said their role this year shouldn’t have any bearing on their legal cases.NevadaSix Trump electors in Nevada were charged at the end of 2023 with state forgery crimes for their roles in the scheme.In June, Clark county district court judge Mary Kay Holthu dismissed the case, saying it was in the wrong venue and should not have been filed in Las Vegas. Democratic attorney general Aaron Ford vowed to appeal the ruling, but defense attorneys have said the charges are now outside the statute of limitations.“My office’s goal remains unchanged – we will hold these fake electors accountable for their actions which contributed to the ongoing and completely unfounded current of distrust in our electoral system,” Ford said. “Our drive to seek justice does not change with election results. We are committed to see this matter through, either through winning our appeal or filing anew before the new year. This is not going away.”Two of the fake electors will again serve as Trump electors this year: Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, and Jesse Law, chair of the Republican party of Clark county.WisconsinThe fake elector scheme allegedly began in Wisconsin, where pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro is from.Those who served as fake electors did not get criminally charged in Wisconsin, though three people involved in the scheme – Chesebro, Roman, and James Troupis – were charged in June by the state attorney general for their role in orchestrating the scheme.The state’s fake electors settled a civil lawsuit in 2023 that required them to agree not to serve as electors when elections involve Trump and to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Some of the electors have publicly claimed they were misled about the purpose of the alternate slates. More

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      in US Politics

      Contested state supreme court seats are site of hidden battle for abortion access

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      Abortion will be on the ballot in 10 states on Tuesday, and it’s one of the top issues in the presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. But it is also key to less publicized but increasingly contested races for seats on state supreme courts, which often have the last word on whether a state will ban or protect access to the procedure.This year, voters in 33 states have the chance to decide who sits on their state supreme courts. Judges will be on the ballot in Arizona and Florida, where supreme courts have recently ruled to uphold abortion bans. They are also up for election in Montana, where the supreme court has backed abortion rights in the face of a deeply abortion-hostile state legislature.In addition, supreme court judges are on the ballot in Maryland, Nebraska and Nevada – all of which are holding votes on measures that could enshrine access to abortion in their state constitutions. Should those measures pass, state supreme courts will almost certainly determine how to interpret them.Indeed, anti-abortion groups are already gearing up for lawsuits.“We’re all going to end up in court, because they’re going to take vague language from these ballot initiatives to ask for specific things like funding for all abortions, abortion for minors without parental consent,” said Kristi Hamrick, chief media and policy strategist for the powerful anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, which is currently campaigning around state supreme court races in Arizona and Oklahoma. “Judges have become a very big, important step in how abortion law is actually realized.”In Michigan and Ohio, which voted in 2022 and 2023 respectively to amend their state constitution to include abortion rights, advocates are still fighting in court over whether those amendments can be used to strike down abortion restrictions. Come November, however, the ideological makeup of both courts may flip.Spending in state supreme court races has surged since Roe fell. In the 2021-2022 election cycle, candidates, interest groups and political parties spent more than $100m, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. After adjusting for inflation, that’s almost double the amount spent in any previous midterm cycle.View image in fullscreenIn 2023, a race for a single seat on the Wisconsin supreme court alone cost $51m – and hinged on abortion rights, as the liberal-leaning candidate talked up her support for the procedure. (As in many other – but not all – state supreme court races, the candidates in Wisconsin were technically non-partisan.) After that election, liberals assumed a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin supreme court. The court is now set to hear a case involving the state’s 19th-century abortion ban, which is not currently being enforced but is still on the books.It’s too early to tally up the money that has been dumped into these races this year, especially because much of it is usually spent in the final days of the election. But the spending is all but guaranteed to shatter records.In May, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Planned Parenthood Votes announced that they were teaming up this cycle to devote $5m to ads, canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts in supreme court races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Meanwhile, the ACLU and its Pac, the ACLU Voter Education Fund, has this year spent $5.4m on non-partisan advertising and door-knocking efforts in supreme court races in Michigan, Montana, North Carolina and Ohio. The scale of these investments was unprecedented for both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, according to Douglas Keith, a senior counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Judiciary Program who tracks supreme court races.

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      “For a long time, judicial campaign ads often were just judges saying that they were fair and independent and had family values, and that was about it. Now, you’re seeing judges talk about abortion rights or voting rights or environmental rights in their campaign ads,” Keith said. By contrast, rightwing judicial candidates are largely avoiding talk of abortion, Keith said, as the issue has become ballot box poison for Republicans in the years since Roe fell. Still, the Judicial Fairness Initiative, the court-focused arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee, announced in August that it would make a “seven-figure investment” in judicial races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.Balancing the federal benchAbortion is far from the only issue over which state courts hold enormous sway. They also play a key role in redistricting, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights and more. And with the US Congress so gridlocked, state-level legislation and its legality has only grown in importance.For years, conservative operatives have focused on remaking the federal judiciary in their ideological image – an effort that culminated in Donald Trump’s appointments of three US supreme court justices and has made federal courts generally more hostile to progressive causes. Now, the ACLU hopes to make state supreme courts into what Deirdre Schifeling, its chief political and advocacy officer, calls a “counterbalance” to this federal bench.“We have a plan through 2030 to work to build a more representative court,” said Schifeling, who has a spreadsheet of the supreme court races that will take place across eight states for years to come. (As a non-partisan organization, the ACLU focuses on voter education and candidates’ “civil rights and civil liberties” records.) This cycle, the organization’s messaging has centered on abortion.“Nationally, you’re seeing polling that shows the top thing that voters are voting on is the economy. But these judges don’t really influence the economy,” Schifeling said. “Of the issues that they can actually influence and have power over, reproductive rights is by far the most important to voters.”Abortion rights supporters are testing out this strategy even in some of the United States’ most anti-abortion states. In Texas, where ProPublica this week reported two women died after being denied emergency care due to the state’s abortion ban, former US air force undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones has launched the Find Out Pac, which aims to unseat three state supreme court justices.Justices Jane Bland, Jimmy Blacklock and John Devine, the Pac has declared, “fucked around with our reproductive freedom” in cases upholding Texas’s abortion restrictions. Now, Jones wants them out.“Why would we not try to hold some folks accountable?” Jones said. “This is the most direct way in which Texas voters can have their voices heard on this issue.” (There is no way for citizens to initiate a ballot measure in Texas.) The Pac has been running digital ads statewide on how the Texas ban has imperiled access to medically necessary care.However, since state supreme court races have long languished in relative obscurity, voters don’t always know much about them and may very well default to voting on party lines in the seven states where the ballots list the affiliations of nominees for the bench. Although the majority of Texans believe abortions should be legal in all or some cases, nearly half of Texans don’t recall seeing or hearing anything about their supreme court in the last year, according to Find Out Pac’s own polling.“This conversation that we’re having in Texas, around the importance of judicial races, is new for us as Democrats,” Jones said. “It’s not for the Republicans.” More

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      in Elections

      Uncertainty Reigns in Nevada With Rise of Nonpartisan Voters

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      With early voting coming to a close, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris must now ensure their respective bases show up on Election Day, while chasing down those whose choice is less clear.As early voting came to a close in Nevada, many of the state’s most veteran pollsters, pundits and political operatives — no strangers to close elections and their accompanying jitters — are finding it uniquely difficult to predict what happens next.Republicans, thrilled with their surprise early voting edge, say they are well on their way to making former President Donald J. Trump the first Republican to win the state since 2004. Democrats agree that Republicans have seized an unusual and anxiety-inducing advantage, but insist that their prized organizing machine will put Vice President Kamala Harris over the top.But what’s making this presidential election different is the sheer number of voters who don’t officially identify with either party. Thanks to the state’s relatively new automatic voter registration law, nonpartisan voters became Nevada’s largest voting bloc in 2022, outpacing both Democratic and Republican registrations.Figuring out who those voters are, and how or if they will cast a ballot, has been a crucial challenge for the campaigns scrambling to find and sway those last few persuadable people. Changes in voting patterns wrought by the pandemic four years ago are also throwing prognosticators for a loop.“The Achilles’ heel of early vote analysis is that it’s really difficult to make cycle-to-cycle comparisons,” said Adam Jentleson, who was a senior aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the longtime Democratic leader, “and that has never been more true than in this cycle.”All of those factors combined mean “you are flying blind,” he added.The race is tied, according to The New York Times’s polling average. Both Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris have visited Nevada multiple times, emphasizing that every ballot will make a difference.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Play: Election-Night Bingo

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      Listen up for these terms as the votes roll in. Find them on the board to be the night’s big winner.This article is part of A Kid’s Guide to the Election, a collection of stories about the 2024 presidential election for readers ages 8 to 14, written and produced by The New York Times for Kids. This section is published in The Times’s print edition on the last Sunday of every month.After months and months and months of hearing about it, the election is finally here! Every four years, millions of Americans cast their ballots for president. Then, they wait and watch for the results on election night. It’s exciting! But also kind of … a lot.The news is a jumble of numbers, some very intense maps and a bunch of politics wonks talking a mile a minute about “exit polls” and “returns.” Not the most kid-friendly introduction to participatory democracy. But like most things, the more kids understand what’s going on, the more interesting it can be.That’s where this game comes in. Think of it as a mash-up of bingo and a language scavenger hunt. LINGO!InstructionsPrint out the bingo board and the definitions of the terms on it. Skim the terms to familiarize yourself.Set a timer for 30 minutes and settle in for an evening of election excitement.Anytime you read or hear one of phrases from the board, check it off. Check your printout (or scroll below) to read the explanation, too!We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

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

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

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      in US Politics

      These seven states will decide the election. Here’s what we learned reporting on the ground

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      Spare a thought for beleaguered Pennsylvanians. During the past few weeks, they have been pummeled with $280m worth of election ads blazing on their TV and computer screens, part of an eye-popping $2.1bn spent so far on the US presidential election.Pennsylvania is one of the seven battleground states that, when it comes to choosing presidents, can seem as revered as the seven wonders of the world. Forget Democratic California, ditch reliably Republican Texas – it is these seven states that, come 5 November, will decide the outcome of one of the most consequential elections in modern times.Their names are seared into the minds of politically aware Americans: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Under America’s arcane electoral system, the occupant of the Oval Office is elected not through the popular vote but by electoral college votes harvested state by state.Among them, the seven states control 93 electoral college votes (Pennsylvania has the largest number, 19, which is why its residents are so bombarded). In the final days, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and their running mates, JD Vance and Tim Walz, will be scrambling all over them in a bid to reach the magic number: 270 electoral college votes to win.The states are called battlegrounds for a reason – their loyalty cannot be taken for granted by either side. This year, though, their unpredictability has reached dizzying heights. The Guardian’s presidential poll tracker shows five of them essentially tied within a three-point margin of error, with only Arizona (where Trump is up four points) and Wisconsin (where Harris is up five) pulling away. Nate Cohn, the New York Times’ polling expert, has drily noted that the presidential polls are “starting to run out of room to get any closer”.Guardian reporters are on the ground in each of the seven battlegrounds to test these confounding waters.– Ed PilkingtonArizona‘Why isn’t Trump doing a little better here?’View image in fullscreenOn a stiflingly hot afternoon last month, Lynn and Roger Seeley relaxed into an air-conditioned co-working space in a suburb east of Phoenix. They had come to hear the Democratic candidate for US Senate, Ruben Gallego, make his pitch to a roomful of small-business owners. Lifelong Republicans, they might have felt out of place at a Democratic campaign event in the pre-Trump era. But not now.“The Arizona Republican party is not the same Republican party,” said Lynn Seeley, who plans to vote for Kamala Harris in November. “It just doesn’t represent me anymore.”The Seeleys are among a group of disaffected Arizonans known as “McCain Republicans” – moderates and independents who prefer the “maverick” brand of politics of the late Arizona Senator John McCain to Trump’s Maga movement.The Trumpification of the state GOP, as well as rapid population growth, a large number of young Latino voters and a suburban shift away from the Republican party have created an opening for Democrats in recent election cycles, turning once ruby-red Arizona into a desert battleground.View image in fullscreenPolling shows Donald Trump with a narrow edge over Harris in the presidential race. The Senate race, which is critical to the party’s slim hope of maintaining control of the chamber, appears to trend in Gallego’s favor. The state also features two of the most competitive House races in the country, both key to winning the speaker’s gavel. Arizonans are also voting on an initiative to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.Across the sprawling Phoenix region, one of the fastest-growing in America, Trump and Harris signs dot xeriscaped yards. But roughly a third of Arizonans are unaffiliated, and since Trump’s election in 2016 they have broken for Democrats in key statewide races.In 2020, Trump lost the state by fewer than 11,000 votes, the narrowest of any margin. It was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and before then, it was Harry Truman in 1948.“Arizona is not a blue state,” said Samara Klar, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona. “Arizona has had very high inflation rates, very high increases in the cost of living, and an increase in the cost of gas. It’s a border state during a border crisis. A Republican candidate should be cleaning up in Arizona. So the question is: why isn’t Trump doing a little better here?”Lauren Gambino | Chandler, ArizonaGeorgiaEarly voting hits records – but offers few cluesView image in fullscreenMary Holewinski lives in Carrollton, Georgia, which is home turf for the far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Holewinski is a Kamala Harris supporter and has a sign in her yard. It draws nasty looks, she said: “I’ve lost neighbor friends.”Those tensions are ratcheting up, because the presidential election is already well under way in Georgia. More than 2 million Georgians – a quarter of its electorate – have already gone to the polls, setting early voting records each day.Both Harris and Trump consider Georgia – no longer a stereotypical “deep south” state but one propelled by the economic and cultural clout of Atlanta – a crucial pickup. In 2020, the state went for Joe Biden by 11,780 votes– and Trump has since been charged in an election interference case after calling Georgia’s secretary of state and asking him to “find” those 11,780 votes. A Georgia victory would represent belated validation for the former president.The candidates may as well have leased apartments in Atlanta, for all the time they’re spending here. The difference between a Democrat winning 80% and 90% of their votes could be larger than the overall margin of victory.But Georgia is no longer a state defined by Black and white voters. Asian and Latino population growth has changed the political landscape in suburban Atlanta, which helped drive the Biden victory here in 2020. And the conflict between conventional conservative Republicans and the Maga insurgency may also be determinative: suburban moderates in the Atlanta region turned against Trump in 2020, and he has done little since to win them back.Still, while historically Democrats in Georgia have been more likely to vote early than Republicans, Trump has pointedly instructed his supporters to vote early in person in Georgia, and many appear to be doing just that.“I could care less about whether you like him or not. It’s not a popularity contest,” said Justin Thompson, a retired air force engineer from Macon. “It’s what you got done. And he did get things done before the pandemic hit. And the only reason why he didn’t get re-elected was because the pandemic hit.”George Chidi | Atlanta, GeorgiaMichiganTurnout is key in state where many are angry over GazaView image in fullscreenThe trade union official had much to say, but he wasn’t going to say it in public.The leader of a union branch at a Michigan factory, he was embarrassed to admit that most of its members support Donald Trump – even though he’s also disparaging about what he saw as the Democratic party elite’s failure to put the interests of working people ahead of powerful corporations.“I don’t want to disagree with the members in public because they have their reasons to do what they think is good for protecting their jobs,” he said. “I’ve tried to explain that they’re wrong but they don’t want to hear it.”Like many in Michigan, he found himself torn: despairing of Trump yet not greatly enthused by Harris. A Rust belt state that once prospered from making cars, steel and other industrial products, Michigan lost many jobs to Mexico after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) by Bill Clinton, an enduring source of resentment against the Democrats for some voters that helped Trump to power.That goes some way to explain why opinion polls continue to have the two candidates neck-and-neck in Michigan, even though the Harris campaign is heavily outspending Trump here and appears to have a better ground game with more volunteers.Turnout will be key: Trump won here by just 10,704 votes in 2016, then lost narrowly to Biden four years later. High on the list of demographic targets are Black voters in Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, whose low turnout in 2016 was a factor in Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the state. Harris is also targeting white suburban women, many of whom previously supported Trump but have cooled on him over abortion rights, his continued false claims of election fraud and his criminal convictions.For all of that, the election in Michigan may be decided by events far away.More than 100,000 Michigan Democrats, many of them from the state’s Arab American community around Detroit, abstained from supporting Biden in the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. So far, Harris has not significantly wavered from Biden on the issue. With polls this close, it could be decisive if Harris loses a fraction of these voters.Chris McGreal | Saginaw, MichiganNevadaIs Harris or Trump better for the working class?View image in fullscreenUrbin Gonzalez could have been working inside, in the air conditioning, at his regular job as a porter on the Las Vegas Strip. Instead, in the final days before the US election, he had chosen to go door-knocking in the 104F (40C) heat.“I don’t care because I’m fighting for my situation,” said Gonzalez, dabbing the sweat from his neck. “All Trump wants to do is cut taxes for his buddies, for his rich friends, not for us. Not for workers … This is personal.”While the US economy broadly bounced back from the pandemic, Nevada has lagged behind. Nearly a quarter of jobs here are in leisure or hospitality, and although the Las Vegas Strip, where Gonzalez works, is back to booming with tourists, unemployment in Nevada remains the highest of any US state, and housing costs have skyrocketed.Both Trump and Harris have promised to turn things around: both have promised to eliminate federal income taxes on workers’ tips, and both have vowed to expand tax credits for parents – though their plans widely differ when it comes to the finer points.Although Nevada has leaned Democratic in every presidential election since 2008, winning candidates have scraped by with slim margins. About 40% of voters don’t identify with either Democrats or Republicans, and although a growing number of Latino voters – who now make up 20% of the electorate – have traditionally backed Democrats, the party’s popularity is slipping.The state, which has just six electoral votes, is notoriously difficult to accurately poll – in large part because the big cities, Reno and Las Vegas, are home to a transient population, many of whom work unpredictable shifts in the state’s 24/7 entertainment and hospitality industries. But many voters remember the days early in the Trump administration when costs were lower. “I think the economy was just better when Trump was president,” said Magaly Rodas, 32, while shopping at her local Latin market. Her husband, an electrician, has struggled to find work since the pandemic, while rent and other expenses have continued to climb. “What have the Democrats done for us in four years?”Maanvi Singh | Las Vegas, NevadaNorth CarolinaA hurricane is a wild card that could depress turnoutView image in fullscreenKim Blevins, 55, knows what it’s like to survive a disaster. She was locked inside her home without power for eight days when Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina last month.So when she uses the experience as a frame through which to view the impending election, she is not being frivolous. “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 and we can’t survive that. The illegals coming over the border, the inflation of food and gas prices, we can’t do that.”Hurricane Helene has raised a critical challenge for Donald Trump.It affected a rural mountainous region that is Trump’s natural base – some 23 out of the 25 stricken counties are majority-Maga. So any decline in turnout would most likely hurt him.Trump needs to win North Carolina if he is to have an easy shot at returning to the White House. The state veers Republican, only voting for a Democratic president twice in recent times (Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008). Trump took it in 2020 by just 75,000 votes.Yet Harris has succeeded since she took over the Democratic mantle from Joe Biden in making this race neck-and-neck.In the final stretch, Trump is focusing on getting his base of largely white rural voters to the polls, hurricane be damned. His campaign has been heartened by the first week of early voting, which has smashed all records, with Republicans almost matching Democrats in turnout. (In 2020 and 2016, Republicans lagged behind.)On her side, Harris is waging an intense ground game, with hundreds of staffers fanning out across the state to squeeze out every vote. The thinking is that if Trump can be blocked in North Carolina, he can be stopped from regaining power.For that to happen, Harris has to mobilize her broad tent of support, with special emphasis on women in the suburbs of Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham. She is also trying to shore up the male African American vote, which has shown some softness.Not least, she is trying to tie Trump to Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidate. Robinson has described himself as a “Black Nazi”, and has been revealed to have made extreme racist remarks.Ed Pilkington | Creston, North CarolinaPennsylvania‘If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing’View image in fullscreenPennsylvania provided one of the most enduring images of the fraught US election cycle: Donald Trump raising his fist to a crowd of supporters after a gunman attempted to end his life at a campaign rally in July. As Trump left the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with blood dripping from his ear, his supporters chanted: “Fight! Fight!”Days later, Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, clearing the way for Kamala Harris to ascend to the Democratic nomination.Both Trump and Harris have returned to Pennsylvania dozens of times since, confirming that the Keystone state could play a definitive role in the presidential race. “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania last month. “It’s very simple.”As the fifth-most-populous US state, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes of any of the battlegrounds. Much of the population is clustered around Philadelphia and smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Scranton, where Biden showed strength in 2020, but the more rural regions could play an outsized role in the election. White, blue-collar voters in these rural areas have sharply shifted away from Democrats in recent elections.Some Democrats expected Harris to choose the popular governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate, given his impressive ability to secure consistent victories in such a closely-contested state. Harris instead chose Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, a decision that could come back to haunt her depending on the results in Pennsylvania.In her bid to sway undecided voters, Harris has walked back some of her most progressive proposals from her 2020 presidential campaign – such as a ban on fracking, a major industry in Pennsylvania, on which she has now reversed her stance.It could all come down to Pennsylvania. Tom Morrissey, a 67-year-old voter from Harleysville attending a Democratic campaign event last month, was optimistic . “We love the enthusiasm. It’s so important at this time,” Morrissey said. “We have to save democracy.”Joan E Greve | Ambler, PennsylvaniaWisconsin‘Let the anxiety wash over you and then refocus’View image in fullscreenWearing matching hats emblazoned with the words “Sauk County Democrats”, Deb and Rod Merritt, a retired couple from southern Wisconsin, joined the crowd to hear Barack Obama stump for Kamala Harris.“We’re so apprehensive that the polls say they’re close,” said Rod Merritt.Sauk county is one of a handful of Wisconsin counties that has flipped from Democrats to Republicans and back. It’s exactly the kind of place – a swing county in a swing state – that the campaigns are fighting over.A midwestern state in the Great Lakes region known for dairy production, manufacturing and healthcare, Wisconsin is considered to be part of the “blue wall” – the states Democrats consistently won in the 1990s and early 2000s.Trade unions historically helped drive voter turnout for Democrats, but a series of anti-labor laws passed under the Republican-controlled state government in 2011 dealt them a blow. Rural areas have increasingly turned to Republican candidates, leaving cities like Milwaukee – Wisconsin’s most racially diverse – and the liberal stronghold of Madison as Democratic bastions.With the economy the top issue, it all comes down to turnout, with Republicans focusing on rural voters and young men, who have increasingly looked to conservative politics.The Democrats, meanwhile, hope the closeness of the race – in which a half-million people have already voted – will mobilize volunteers. “In some ways, the most important thing is learning some breathing exercises so that you can let the anxiety wash through you – and then refocus on knocking on the next door,” said Ben Wikler, the chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin.Alice Herman | Madison, Wisconsin More

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      Democrats are scrambling to keep the Senate. Could an old-school bipartisan help save it?

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      “Everybody’s got their comfy shoes?” Jacky Rosen scanned the room full of union workers who were preparing canvas for her in Reno, Nevada. The room erupted in response.“Those gym shoes are going to be worn out,” the Democratic senator told the crowd. “But that’s OK. Those holes in the bottom mean you’re doing the good work … helping return the Democratic majority in the United States.”Rosen has been wearing out her own shoes – crisscrossing the state and running one of the most aggressive and persistent re-election campaigns in the country as she fights to preserve her own career, and a precarious party advantage in the US Senate. Her campaign message has matched her practical footwear.Her platform has focused on a few big, national issues – including the cost of living and abortion – but also many small ones specific to her geographically vast, politically enigmatic state. She touts her record preserving a local postal hub in northern Nevada, bringing in money for a solar facility.“We’re trying to take care of what we have here, and we want our kids to have a good place to grow up,” she told members of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 – a powerful organisation representing tens of thousands of hospitality workers in the state. “That’s what everyone wants.”With early voting in Nevada already underway, Rosen holds an eight-point lead in polling averages. But she’s not letting up or taking any chances. Armies of volunteers from unions and a coalition of moderate and progressive political groups are knocking on doors on her behalf. And a barrage of advertisements, on the radio and television, in English and Spanish – are tearing down her opponent Sam Brown, a Donald Trump-backed Republican that Rosen has characterised as extreme.The race will be a test of whether candidates like her – a pragmatic, old-school bipartisan focused on local issues – can prevail in a politically polarised country. The outcome in Nevada will help determine which party controls the closely divided Senate, with the power to either impede of enable the agenda of Trump or Kamala Harris.In April, the non-partisan Cook Political Report had ranked the race a “toss-up” – in a swing state that appeared increasingly inscrutable to pollsters. In 2022, the Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto won her seat by fewer than 8,000 votes.And Rosen’s challenger, Sam Brown, a military veteran and Purple Heart recipient, had the makings of a model candidate – one who could help Republicans pick up a Senate seat and flip the chamber for the party. But by August, the polling agency had moved the race to “leaning Democrat” – citing growing enthusiasm for Democrats following Harris’s entry into the race, as well as Brown’s failure to drum up much enthusiasm.“Sam Brown just didn’t turn out to be the candidate that I think Republicans hoped he would be – in terms of energy, in terms of fundraising, in terms of just doing what’s needed,” said David Byler, chief of research at the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “And then you have a Democratic incumbent who doesn’t have any obvious flaws.”Paradoxically, Rosen’s unobtrusive temperament and heads-down approach to her first term could become her greatest asset. In Las Vegas and Reno, dozens of voters told the Guardian they weren’t particularly familiar with Rosen’s record – but she seemed to be doing just fine.“She does what she says she’s gonna do,” said Vivian Jackson, 69, of Las Vegas. “They try to attack her, but she’s not like that. She’s a real person.”“She’s occasionally said some stuff that’s given me pause,” said her neighbour Kenneth Logan, 65, a retired bartender and veteran who lives in west Las Vegas. On several issues, his politics are to the left of Rosen’s. “But I’m probably going to vote for her. She’s doing fine, and I can’t think of a candidate I’d vote for instead of her.”Rosen is a former computer programmer and synagogue president who was hand-picked to run for Congress, and then the Senate – seemingly out of nowhere – by Harry Reid, the former Democratic senate leader from Nevada who helped reshape the state’s politics over his long political career. In 2018 – after serving just two years in Congress – she unseated Republican senator Dean Heller with a five-point margin, largely relying on support from the state’s powerful labour unions and by emphasising her support for the Affordable Care Act and immigration reform. Heller had embraced Trump and voted to repeal the popular health care law.Six years later, Nevada – like the US at large – is much more politically polarised. Canvassers for the Libre Initiative, a conservative group affiliated with mega-donor Charles Koch’s political network, have been messaging to mostly Latino voters that Rosen is closely tied with the Biden administration. “She voted 94% of the time with Joe Biden,” said Eddie Diaz, a strategic director at Libre in Nevada. “And people are not better off than they were before.”But unlike many of her colleagues, Rosen has shied away from a national profile, forgoing the Democratic national convention in August in favour of staying in Nevada to campaign there.“I think she’s done a decent job so far, and that’s largely because she’s moderate, and bipartisan,” said Kim, 66, a mental health and wellness educator who said she didn’t want to share her full name because many of her family and clients are staunch Republicans.Her partner, Luis, 55, used to belong to the same synagogue as Rosen. “It’s a small world,” he said.Gladis Blanco, a political organiser with the Culinary Workers Union in Reno, said she credits Rosen for working with the administration to lower the cost of asthma medication. A single mother of five, Blanco said both she and several of her children have asthma – and new price caps on inhalers have transformed her family’s monthly budget. “When I tell voters about that they get so excited,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile Miguel Martinez, a Reno city council member who has been canvassing on behalf of Rosen and Harris, said he was especially impressed that Rosen successfully fought against the US postal service plan to move all mail processing from its Reno facility to California, which locals, especially in remote regions of rural northern Nevada, worried would result in delayed medication deliveries and mail ballot processing. “That was a really big win in our community,” he said.And much like her mentor Reid, who was famous for funnelling funds to the state, Rosen has managed to win allies by delivering federal aid to the state’s cities and rural communities.In recent weeks, several rural Republican officials have backed Rosen over Brown – noting, simply, that they’re happy with the incumbent’s record. “Jacky Rosen helped bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass the largest infrastructure investment in a generation,” said Nathan Robertson, the Republican mayor of the small eastern Nevada town of Ely. “That law is now leading to better and safer roads for our residents, including $24m in federal transportation funding to improve Ely’s streets and sidewalks and revitalise our downtown.”Ed Lawson – the Republican mayor of Sparks, a small city just outside Reno – similarly cited all the funding she has brought to his region. Just a day prior to his endorsement, Rosen and Cortez Masto announced that they had secured $275m in federal funding to enhance a major highway corridor east of Sparks.“I’m a lifelong Republican who has never voted for a Democrat, but this November I’ll be voting for Jacky Rosen,” he said.It has helped Rosen’s cause that Brown has floundered though the election cycle.With early voting underway, the Senate Leadership Fund – the Republican party’s main outside group supporting Senate races – announced it would spend an addition $6.2m on TV, radio and digital ads for Brown. But it’s unclear if the funds will come too late.Brown has often leaned on his personal story in appeals to voters. In 2008, when he was a US army officer in Afghanistan, his Humvee hit a roadside bomb. The explosion caused third-degree burns and Brown had to endure dozens of reconstructive surgeries. The experience was transformative, Brown has said. “God saved me for a purpose,” he wrote in a recent campaign email.But while he has made clear why he’s running for office, he has struggled to define how for voters he would govern.Trump endorsed Brown just days before the primary elections and since then Brown has clung tightly to the former president and his platform. Brown said he wouldn’t have supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Inflation Reduction Act – Biden administration programs that have brought unprecedented federal dollars into the state and help fund a range of projects. His past support for storing nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – a third rail of politics in the state – has also left the impression that he is out of touch with Nevada.Such missteps have opened the opportunity for an easy critique – that Brown is a newcomer, one who moved from Reno to Dallas in 2018, and simply doesn’t know enough about the state.His muddled stance on abortion has also played badly. In attack ads, Rosen has called Brown a “Maga extremist” who would take away abortion rights. And though Brown has responded by saying he supports Nevada’s current law, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks – he has repeatedly dodged questions on whether he’ll support the state’s abortion ballot initiative, which aims to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution.Nearly 70% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats said they opposed criminalising abortion, according to a recent poll by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland.Diane Gutierrez, a 65-year-old real estate agent based in Reno, said she is personally opposed to abortion, due to her faith, but believes it should remain protected. “I don’t believe that that should be taken away from any woman,” she said. “It’s just not OK to go backwards.”A registered non-partisan, Gutierrez said she’s voted for both Republican and Democratic candidates in the past. But in recent years, she has gotten more involved in volunteering with the Democratic party – and has largely steered clear of Republicans. “The party has had time, but they haven’t selected good candidates,” she said, adding they’ve failed to make a good case to voters. Initially, she thought Brown bucked the trend.“Being from a military family – my dad was a marine – I appreciate Sam Brown and thank him for his service because obviously he paid a huge price,” she said. “When you’re in the military, you have respect.”But his failure to define a platform of his own has been disappointing, she said. “I would like him to speak up more,” she said. “Where’s Sam Brown? Is he in Nevada? It’s like, ‘Sam – say something.’” More