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      The Presidential Primary Calendar Stinks. Now’s the Time to Shake It Up.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Presidential Primary Calendar Stinks. Now’s the Time to Shake It Up.Democrats should take the opportunity to reform an out-of-touch system.Ms. Cottle is a member of the editorial board.Feb. 19, 2021Credit…Jordan Gale for The New York TimesDon’t freak out, but Nevada’s Democrats are already looking ahead to the next presidential election — and, more specifically, how to pick their nominee.On Monday, a bill was introduced in the State Assembly that would replace the current caucus system with a primary. As conceived, the move threatens to throw the party’s national nominating calendar into conflict and chaos.It’s about time.Nevada’s nominating process has had a rocky run of late. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the caucuses, but complex delegate-selection rules led to chaos at the state party’s convention, when Bernie Sanders’s fans became convinced that the process had been “hijacked” for Mrs. Clinton. (Intraparty death threats are rarely a good sign.) The 2020 cycle was less explosive but still bumpy. Mr. Sanders scored a clear win, but there were initially competing claims for second place, the reporting of results was delayed, and Pete Buttigieg’s campaign claimed “irregularities.”Not all of this is poor Nevada’s fault. Caucuses are a convoluted, vaguely anti-democratic way to pick a nominee. The rules are mind-numbing and the process time-consuming, giving an unfair advantage to party activists and people with numerous hours to kill. If anything, Nevada’s 2020 headaches could have been far worse if the party hadn’t scrambled at the 11th hour to shore up its systems in response to the epic failure of the Iowa caucuses.For those who have already repressed the debacle, Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses suffered a meltdown last year. The system “crumbled under the weight of technology flops, lapses in planning, failed oversight by party officials, poor training and a breakdown in communication between paid party leaders and volunteers out in the field,” The Times found. The results were not reported for days and, even then, were a hot mess. More than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, incomplete or flat-out impossible under the rules.It’s not as though the caucus states weren’t aware of the potential for trouble. Post-2016, as part of a push to simplify and clarify the nominating process, the Democratic National Committee urged the state parties to shift to primaries. Most did. The few that refused were instructed to adopt measures to make voting more inclusive. Iowa and Nevada toyed with remote telephone voting, but those plans fell apart over security concerns.Despite adopting changes, including setting up caucus sites in casinos to accommodate workers and providing for early voting, Nevada Democrats have now decided that “the only way we can bring more voices into the process is by moving to a primary,” the state party chairman said in a statement.This is the sensible — and democratic — thing to do. But there’s a hitch.Nevada Democrats aren’t looking simply to shift to a primary system. They are looking to host the first primary election of the presidential cycle. “Nevada’s diverse population and firsthand experience in issues relating to climate change, public lands, immigration, and health care provide a unique voice that deserves to be heard first,” said Jason Frierson, the Assembly speaker, in announcing the bill.Nevada is a lovely, diverse state with much to recommend it. But its attempt to claim pole position in the presidential primaries will not be well received by New Hampshire, which has held that honor for more than a century. New Hampshire so values its first-primary status that state law requires that the state hold its vote at least seven days before any “similar election.” A caucus is considered different enough not to pose a conflict, but if Nevada tries easing toward a primary: Fight on. New Hampshire’s longtime secretary of state has already told the local media, in effect: Relax. I’ll handle it.It’s hard to blame early states for clinging to their privilege. Leading the presidential calendar means they get lavished with time, attention and obscene amounts of money from the candidates, the parties and the legions of journalists who cover the circus. Their voters and their issues receive preferential treatment. Who knows how many Iowa diners would fail if not for all the candidates and journalists jockeying to hobnob with “real Americans”?That said, oceans of words have been devoted to why Iowa and New Hampshire should not have a lock on early voting. Especially for Democrats, these lily-white states are hardly representative of the party’s electorate. This cycle, Joe Biden’s abysmal showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire had many declaring his candidacy deader than disco.After South Carolina Democrats, dominated by Black voters, saved Mr. Biden’s bacon, the calls to overhaul the nominating calendar grew even louder and more pointed. “A diverse state or states need to be first,” Tom Perez told The Times as he was wrapping up his tenure as head of the D.N.C. last week. “The difference between going first and going third is really important.”Yes it is.There is, in fact, a strong argument to be made that no state — even a superdiverse one — should have a permanent claim on that privilege. Many worthy states would love to have their parochial concerns receive saturation coverage during an election. And the denizens of small towns in Iowa and New Hampshire are no more entitled to having candidates fawn all over them than those in North Carolina or Ohio or Maine. The current nominating scheme is not the only option. Plenty of alternatives have been floated, including a system of rotating regional primaries. It’s past time to give them a serious look.Nevada Democrats are aiming to shake things up. The national party should seize the opportunity to shake even harder, reforming a system that’s increasingly out of touch with voters.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      State Capitols ‘on High Alert,’ Fearing More Violence

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutliveLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeInauguration SecurityNotable ArrestsIncitement to Riot?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyState Capitols ‘on High Alert,’ Fearing More ViolenceOfficials around the country are bracing for any spillover from last week’s violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. State legislatures already have become targets for protesters in recent days.A member of the Georgia State Patrol SWAT team looked on outside the Georgia State Capitol after the opening day of the legislative session on Monday in Atlanta.Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressNeil MacFarquhar and Jan. 11, 2021Updated 8:22 p.m. ETIt was opening day of the 2021 legislative session, and the perimeter of the Georgia State Capitol on Monday was bristling with state police officers in full camouflage gear, most of them carrying tactical rifles.On the other side of the country, in Olympia, Wash., dozens of National Guard troops in riot gear and shields formed a phalanx behind a temporary fence. Facing them in the pouring rain was a small group of demonstrators, some also wearing military fatigues and carrying weapons. “Honor your oath!” they shouted. “Fight for freedom every day!”And in Idaho, Ammon Bundy, an antigovernment activist who once led his supporters in the occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, showed up outside the statehouse in Boise with members of his organization carrying “wanted” posters for Gov. Brad Little and others on charges of “treason” and “sedition.”“At a time of uncertainty, we need our neighbors to stand next to and continue the war that is raging within this country,” Mr. Bundy’s group declared in a message to followers.State capitals across the country are bracing for a spillover from last week’s violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, with state legislatures already becoming targets for protesters in the tense days around the inauguration of the incoming president, Joseph R. Biden Jr.Gone is a large measure of the bonhomie that usually accompanies the annual start of the legislative season, replaced by marked unease over the possibility of armed attacks and gaps in security around statehouses that have long prided themselves on being open to constituents.“Between Covid and the idea that there are people who are armed and making threats and are serious, it was definitely not your normal beginning of session,” said Senator Jennifer A. Jordan, a Democratic legislator in Georgia who watched the police officers assembled outside the State Capitol in Atlanta on Monday from her office window. “Usually folks are happy, talking to each other, and it did not have that feel.”Dozens of state capitals will be on alert in the coming days, following calls among a mix of antigovernment organizations for actions in all 50 states on Jan. 17. Some of them come from far-right organizations that harbor a broad antigovernment agenda and have already been protesting state Covid-19 lockdowns since last spring. The F.B.I. this week sent a warning to local law enforcement agencies about the potential for armed protests in all 50 state capitals.In a video news conference on Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said that “everybody is on high alert” for protests in Sacramento in the days ahead.The National Guard would be deployed as needed, he said, and the California Highway Patrol, responsible for protecting the Capitol, was also on the lookout for any budding violence. “I can assure you we have a heightened, heightened level of security,” he said.In Michigan, the state police said they had beefed up their presence around the State Capitol in Lansing and would continue that way for weeks. The commission that oversees the Statehouse voted on Monday to ban the open carry of firearms inside the building, a move Democratic lawmakers had been demanding since last year, when armed protesters challenging government Covid-19 lockdowns stormed the building.Two of those involved in the protests were later arrested in what the authorities said was a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial.Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, took to Twitter to warn the public away from the Statehouse, saying it was not safe.Images from the Wisconsin state legislature in Madison showed large sheets of plywood being readied to cover the ground-floor windows. In St. Paul, Minn., the Statehouse has been surrounded by a chicken-wire fence since early last summer, when social justice protests erupted over the killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minneapolis.Workers boarded up the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison on Monday.Credit…Todd Richmond/Associated PressPatricia Torres Ray, a Democratic state senator, said the barrier had served to protect the building and the legislators, but concerns remained about possible gaps, such as the system of underground tunnels that link many public buildings in Minnesota to allow people to avoid walking outdoors in the winter.Gov. Jay Inslee in Washington ordered extra security after an armed crowd of Trump supporters breached the fence at the governor’s mansion last week while he was at home. State troopers intervened to disperse the crowd.In Texas, Representative Briscoe Cain, a conservative Republican from the Houston suburb of Deer Park, said that the legislature in Austin was likely protected by the fact that so many lawmakers carry firearms.“I have a pistol on my hip as we speak,” Mr. Cain said in a telephone interview on Monday. “I hope they’re never necessary, but I think it’s why they will never be necessary.”The Texas Legislature, dominated by Republicans, meets every two years and was scheduled to begin its 140-day session at noon on Tuesday.There may be efforts to reduce the presence of guns in the Capitol, Mr. Cain said, but he predicted that they would be doomed to failure given widespread support for the Second Amendment.In Missouri, Dave Schatz, the Republican president of the State Senate, said hundreds of lawmakers had gathered on Monday on the Statehouse lawn in Jefferson City for the swearing-in of Gov. Mike Parson and other top officials. Although security was tight, with the roads around the building closed, the presence of police and other security officers was normal for the day, Mr. Schatz said, and no fellow legislators had buttonholed him so far about increased security.“We are far removed from the events that occurred in D.C.,” he said.In Nevada, a Republican leader in Nye County posted a letter on Friday that likened recent protests of the election results across the country to the American Revolution, declaring: “The next 12 days will be something to tell the grandchildren! It’s 1776 all over again!”The letter — written by Chris Zimmerman, the chairman of the Nye County Republican Central Committee — prompted a rebuke over the weekend from Representative Steven Horsford, a Democrat who represents the county.Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri and his wife, Teresa Parson, waved outside the State Capitol in Jefferson City, escorted by members of the Missouri Highway Patrol during the governor’s inauguration celebration.Credit…Jeff Roberson/Associated PressNext door in Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, Democratic officials sent out a public safety alert on Sunday about potential violence across the state, warning, “Over the past 48 hours, the online activity on social media has escalated to the point that we must take these threats seriously.”While most of the protests announced so far are expected to focus on state capitals, law enforcement and other officials in various cities have said they believe that other government buildings could also be targeted.Federal authorities said on Monday that they had arrested and charged one man, Cody Melby, with shooting several bullets into the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on Friday night. Mr. Melby had also been arrested a couple of days earlier when, the police said, he tried to enter the State Capitol in Salem with a firearm.Some of those protesting in Oregon and Washington said they were opposed to state lockdown rules that prevent the public from being present when government decisions are being made.James Harris, 22, who lives in eastern Washington State, said he went to the Capitol in Olympia on Monday to push for residents to be full participants in their state’s response to Covid-19. He said he was against being forced to wear masks and to social distance; the lockdowns are “hurting people,” he said.Mr. Harris is a truck driver, but he said the virus control measures had prevented him from being able to work since March.Georgia already has seen trouble in recent days. At the same time that protesters were swarming into the U.S. Capitol in Washington last week, armed Trump supporters appeared outside the statehouse in Georgia. Law enforcement officers escorted to safety the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who had refused President Trump’s attempts to depict the presidential election as fraudulent.Senator Jordan noted that many of the security measures being put in place, including the construction of a tall iron fence around the Capitol building, were actually decided on during last summer’s social justice demonstrations, when protesters surrounded many government buildings.Now, she said, the threat is coming from the other end of the political spectrum.“These people are clearly serious, they are armed, they are dangerous,” Ms. Jordan said, “and from what we saw last week, they really don’t care who they are trying to take out.”Contributing reporting were More

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      Trump's latest batch of election lawsuits fizzle as dozens of losses pile up

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      For a man obsessed with winning, Donald Trump is losing a lot.In the month since the election, the president and his legal team have come no closer in their frantic efforts to overturn the result, notching up dozens of losses in courts across the country, with more rolling in by the day.According to an Associated Press tally of roughly 50 cases brought by Trump’s campaign and his allies, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped, and about a dozen are awaiting action.The advocacy group Democracy Docket put Trump’s losses even higher, tweeting on Friday that Trump’s team had lost 46 post-election lawsuits following several fresh losses in several states on Friday.Trump has notched just one small victory, a case challenging a decision to move the deadline to provide missing proof of identification for certain absentee ballots and mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.Five more losses came on Friday. The Trump campaign lost its bid to overturn the results of the election in Nevada and a Michigan appeals court rejected a case from his campaign. The Minnesota supreme court dismissed a challenge brought by GOP lawmakers. And in Arizona, a judge threw out a bid to undo Biden’s victory there, concluding that the state’s Republican party chairwoman failed to prove fraud or misconduct and that the evidence presented at trial wouldn’t reverse Trump’s loss. The Wisconsin supreme court also declined to hear a lawsuit brought by a conservative group over Trump’s loss.Trump’s latest failings came as California certified Joe Biden as the official winner in the state, officially handing him the electoral college majority needed to win the White House. Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s formal approval of the state’s 55 pledged electors brought Biden’s tally so far to 279, according to a count by the Associated Press – just over the 270 threshold needed for victory.The Republican president and his allies continue to mount new cases, recycling the same baseless claims, even after Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, declared this week that the justice department had uncovered no widespread fraud.“This will continue to be a losing strategy, and in a way it’s even bad for him: he gets to re-lose the election numerous times,“ said Kent Greenfield, a professor at Boston College Law School. “The depths of his petulance and narcissism continue to surprise me.”Trump has refused to admit he lost and this week posted a 46-minute speech to Facebook filled with conspiracy theories, misstatements and vows to keep up his fight to subvert the election.Judges in battleground states have repeatedly swatted down legal challenges brought by the president and his allies. Trump’s legal team has vowed to take one Pennsylvania case to the US supreme court even though it was rejected in a scathing ruling by a federal judge, as well as an appeals court.After recently being kicked off Trump’s legal team, the conservative attorney Sidney Powell filed new lawsuits in Arizona and Wisconsin this week riddled with errors and wild conspiracy claims about election rigging. One of the plaintiffs named in the Wisconsin case said he never agreed to participate in the case and found out through social media that he had been included.In his video posted Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed there were facts and evidence of a mass conspiracy created by Democrats to steal the election, a similar argument made by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others before judges, which have been largely unsuccessful.Most of their claims are rooted in conspiracy theories about voting machines, as well as testimony from partisan poll watchers who claimed they didn’t get close enough to see ballots being tallied because of Covid safety precautions.“No, I didn’t hear any facts or evidence,“ tweeted the Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, after watching the video Wednesday night. “What I did hear was a sad Facebook rant from a man who lost an election.” More

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      US Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths rise amid Thanksgiving rush

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      The US reported 181,490 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, a third daily rise in a row, as hospitalisations hit a record for a 16th day in succession, at 89,959.
      There were 2,297 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, the largest single-day rise since May, bringing the pandemic toll to 262,065 out of nearly 12.8m cases. The death rate is still lower than in the spring.
      The alarming numbers were reported as millions of Americans defied official advice against travel and gatherings for Thanksgiving.
      In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Joe Biden appealed for resilience and sympathised with those contemplating a holiday without loved ones.
      “I know this time of year can be especially difficult,” said the president-elect, whose wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in December 1972. “Believe me, I know. I remember that first Thanksgiving. The empty chair, silence that takes your breath away. It’s really hard to care. It’s hard to give thanks … It’s so hard to hope, to understand.
      “I’ll be thinking and praying for each and every one of you this Thanksgiving.”
      Biden’s transition team were unable to coordinate with federal authorities for two weeks after the election was called, as Donald Trump refused to concede. The president still has not taken that step, but has allowed transition funds to be released.
      Biden heralded the approach of apparently effective vaccines. The US was “on track for the first immunisations to begin by late December, early January”, he said.
      “We’ll need to put in place a distribution plan to get the entire country immunised as soon as possible, which we will do. It’s going to take time. And hopefully the news of the vaccine will serve as incentive to every American to take simple steps to get control of the virus.”
      Biden listed such steps, including wearing a mask, social distancing and more, which the Trump administration has been loath to seek to enforce, even at its own events. Trump, members of his family, aides and senior Republicans have fallen sick.
      “There’s real hope,” Biden insisted. “Tangible hope.”
      Later, in Washington, the newly 6-3 conservative supreme court sided with religious communities who sued to block New York state Covid restrictions on attendance at houses of worship. Amy Coney Barrett, the devout Catholic justice who replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, sided with other conservatives on the ruling.
      Avi Schick, an attorney for Agudath Israel of America, told the Associated Press: “This is an historic victory. This landmark decision will ensure that religious practices and religious institutions will be protected from government edicts that do not treat religion with the respect demanded by the constitution.”
      On Wednesday, New York saw more than 6,000 daily Covid cases for the first time since late April. Pennsylvania recorded more than 7,000 cases, its second-highest total since the pandemic began. Massachusetts and Nevada saw record case numbers.
      In Wyoming, the Republican governor, Mark Gordon, has opposed a mask mandate. On Wednesday, it was announced that he had tested positive.
      US airports saw around 900,000 to 1 million people a day pass through checkpoints from Friday to Tuesday, down around 60% from last year but some of the biggest crowds seen since the pandemic took hold. Typically, more Americans drive for Thanksgiving than fly.
      Officials – among them New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo – have been forced to cancel their own Thanksgiving plans in order to set an example. One who did not, Denver’s mayor, Michael Hancock, issued an apology on Wednesday.
      Having asked city staff and residents to avoid holiday travel, Hancock flew to Mississippi to spend the holiday with his wife and youngest daughter.
      “I made my decision as a husband and father,” he said, “and for those who are angry and disappointed, I humbly ask you to forgive decisions that are born of my heart and not my head.” More

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      Trump's longshot election lawsuits: where do things stand?

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      Since election day, Donald Trump and other Republicans have filed a smattering of lawsuits in battleground states that have provided cover for Trump and other Republicans to say that the election still remains unresolved.
      Legal experts have noted these suits are meritless, and even if they were successful, would not be enough to overturn the election results. Indeed, judges in several of these lawsuits have already dismissed them, noting the Trump campaign has failed to offer evidence to substantiate allegations of fraud.
      Here’s where some of the key lawsuits stand:
      Pennsylvania
      One of the main rallying cries for Trump and his supporters has been that they were not allowed to observe vote counting in Philadelphia, the overwhelmingly Democratic city that helped Biden carry Pennsylvania.
      That’s not true. The Trump campaign did secure a court order to allow observers to get closer to the vote counting process, but there’s no evidence observers were excluded and Philadelphia had a 24/7 livestream of its counting. When the campaign went to federal court arguing that its observers didn’t have access to vote counting, a campaign lawyer was forced to admit there was a “non-zero” number of campaign observers watching the vote count.
      Pennsylvania Republicans and the Trump campaign are also still pushing the US supreme court to reject mail-in ballots that were postmarked by election day and arrived at election offices by 6 November. Pennsylvania law requires ballots to arrive by the close of polls on election night, but the Pennsylvania supreme court, where Democrats have a majority, pointed to mail delays and the pandemic to justify the extension. Several other states in the US allow ballots to be counted if they arrive after election day but are postmarked before.
      Republicans have been trying to get these ballots rejected since early September, when the Pennsylvania supreme court extended the receipt deadline by three days. The number of late-arriving ballots is thought to be relatively small, so even if the supreme court were to ultimately reject them, it would not be enough to overturn Biden’s lead of nearly 45,000 votes in the state.
      Trump and Republicans have also pursued a number of cases to try and get courts to reject mail-in ballots where voters made a mistake, but have been unsuccessful in all of their suits. Even if Republicans succeeded, it wouldn’t be enough to overturn the results of the race.
      On Monday evening, the Trump campaign filed another lawsuit in federal court offering a new legal theory – Pennsylvania’s election was illegitimate because it had different processes for voting by mail and voting in person. Many legal experts quickly noted the theory was bogus.
      The suit was “inexcusably late”, said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, who noted the differences between in-person and mail-in voting were known for months.
      “The core theory on which it rests – that there’s some kind of right to have all ballots counted through precisely the same procedures – would effectively invalidate mail-in voting not just in Pennsylvania, but nationwide,” he said. “Yet again, it offers no actual evidence of any impropriety or fraud in how Pennsylvania has counted these ballots. It’s just a transparent effort to throw out legal votes – or, at least, to muddy the waters long enough to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its slate of electors in time.”
      Arizona
      The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Arizona on Saturday that seemed to be based on a discredited conspiracy theory that voters who used Sharpie pens to fill out their ballots would not have them counted.
      The campaign’s suit didn’t specifically mention Sharpies, but contained allegations from voters who said they noticed ink had bled through their ballots, which could potentially cause their ballots not to count if the ballot scanners believed they had cast a vote for more than one candidate in a contest, something known as an overvote. The suit says that poll workers failed to avail voters of the opportunity to cast a new ballot when scanners notified them of the issue.
      The Trump campaign submitted affidavits from two voters who said they were not notified of the chance to fix their ballots. A poll watcher submitted an affidavit saying he observed around 80 instances in which voters were given vague or confusing information about the possibility their vote could be rejected. He said he observed about 40 instances in which the poll worker had pressed the button to submit the ballot on behalf of the voter. Biden leads Trump in Arizona by more than 17,000 votes. More

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      Diverse, union-powered Nevada county delivers again for Democrats

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      For a brief moment last Friday, it appeared that Nevada could carry Joe Biden over the electoral college finish line.
      America was three days into its long wait to learn who would be its next president and all eyes were on the officials counting outstanding ballots in Clark county. Major news outlets interviewed anxious voters waiting in line with their photo IDs to “cure” their ballots, a process which allows them to resolve issues with their voting papers.
      In the end, it was Pennsylvania that on Saturday gave Biden the 270 electoral votes he needed to defeat Donald Trump. Decision desks called Nevada for Biden’s column soon after, and the Silver state limped out of the limelight as quickly as it had entered. But Nevada is still counting its votes, and as it works to finalize the tally, a picture is emerging of how its residents viewed this election and the challenges ahead.
      According to 5 November figures, Nevadans cast 1.28m ballots this election, surpassing raw voter totals from 2016. Approximately 93% of those votes have been counted so far, with Biden leading Trump by 36,163 votes. Trump supporters, too, came out in strong numbers. Early voting, same-day registration and new vote-by-mail provisions led to improved voter participation in many rural counties. The president has already surpassed his 2016 support in the state.
      Nevada has been slower than other states to count its votes. County election departments have been processing an influx of more than 600,000 mail-in-ballots, a record number due to a state assembly bill that expanded vote-by-mail during the pandemic. Those ballots continue to arrive, because state law allows counties to receive them until 10 November as long as they are postmarked on or by election day. The same law gives state registrars until 12 November to count them all. Add in a strict ballot verification process, as well as multiple lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican party, and officials have had plenty of reasons to keep taking their time.
      “Our priority here is to make sure we are accurate in what we are doing. We are not interested in moving as fast as we can,” the Clark county registrar, Joe Gloria, said during a press conference on Friday.
      Just like in other states that are still counting, the Trump campaign has mounted legal challenges, without offering concrete evidence of its claims. For the past five days, Trump supporters have gathered outside the building where Clark county votes are being processed – some chanting, some praying, some armed – to “Stop the steal”. On Sunday afternoon, they were joined by Nevada’s former attorney general, Adam Laxalt, and Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union. In an afternoon press conference, Laxalt criticized the state’s newly implemented vote-by-mail system, stating it “simply did not have enough checks in it”.
      But there is no evidence of voter irregularities, and that Nevada would go for Biden was expected by many who study Nevada politics. Nevada has not gone red in a general election since George W Bush won in 2004. In 2016, the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by 2.4%. Based on his current trajectory, Biden will probably surpass that winning margin.
      For the past four presidential elections, the Democratic candidates’ success in Nevada has been rooted in the party’s ground game in the diverse, union-powered landscape of Clark county. This time around, the Biden campaign’s success was aided by one of the party’s most reliable allies, Culinary Union Local 226. Many of the union’s 60,000 members have been out of work since March. They organized anyway, but with pandemic precautions.
      The union, said Culinary 226’s communications director, Bethany Khan, in a press release, “was the first organization in Nevada to conduct safe door-to-door canvassing”. Culinary 226 organizers wore PPE, practiced social distancing, and conducted virtual meetings throughout their organizing efforts.
      “We found creative, deliberate, strategic ways to engage with voters,” said Yvanna Cancela, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign and Nevada state senator. “We knew it was going to look different than every other campaign, but the goal was always the same, which was to win.”
      In many ways, the state also represents the enormous challenges the country faces after the fanfare of election season passes. Nevada claims the second-highest state unemployment rate, at 12.6%. On Saturday, health officials recorded Clark county’s largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases since July. The state government is facing unprecedented budget deficits as a result of decreases in tourism-driven tax revenue. Without a second stimulus package that includes support for state and local governments, the state’s ability to provide relief for residents will continue to be strapped.
      The Trump campaign’s anti-lockdown message certainly spoke to many struggling Nevadans. Very few state economies have been as negatively affected by the pandemic, and the working class has borne the brunt of it. Still, Biden has maintained an edge. The majority of ballots that remain to be counted come from Clark county, the democratic stronghold that includes the city of Las Vegas, making it likely that Biden’s advantage will keep widening. More

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      US election live updates: Biden edges toward victory with leads over Trump in Nevada and Pennsylvania

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      Key events

      Show

      2.20pm EST14:20
      Biden is poised for victory with leads in Pennsylvania and Nevada

      Live feed

      Show

      4.43pm EST16:43

      Let’s check in with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former adviser who is now facing fraud charges over allegations he misused money that was meant to help build a wall along the US-Mexican border.
      Bannon has now lost his lawyer in the fraud case after suggesting Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.
      The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reports:

      Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.
      ‘Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci … no I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,’ Bannon said.
      ‘I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put their heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the programme or you’re gone.’
      Twitter banned Bannon’s War Room account permanently, saying it had suspended the podcast account for violating its policy on the glorification of violence.
      The same video was on Facebook for about 10 hours before it was also removed.
      Later on Friday, William Burck, an attorney for Bannon in a fraud case in New York City, told a federal judge he was withdrawing. Bannon is accused of misappropriating money from a group which raised $2m from thousands of donors to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and has pleaded not guilty. Burck did not give a reason for his withdrawal.

      4.26pm EST16:26

      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports from Philadelphia:
      The corner of 12th and Arch Street has become the epicenter of the political universe over the last few days as demonstrators have gathered to face off. The larger group has urged officials to “count every vote,” while a smaller pro-Trump group has cheered to “stop the steam.”
      At times, it’s felt a little tense as protesters have confronted one another and the anti-Trump crowd has drowned out pro-Trump surrogates like Pam Bondi and Corey Lewandowski.
      But on Friday the intersection had a notably different tone – the “count every vote” group essentially transformed into a large dance party. The celebration came as Joe Biden took a lead in the count for ballots in this key swing state.

      Sam Levine
      (@srl)
      More dancing pic.twitter.com/IQjaalnCEL

      November 6, 2020

      “It feels great to finally celebrate something,” said Ann Dixon, who said she hasn’t been following the incremental changes in vote totals because she wants “every vote to be counted and it’s not over til its over.” She said she was concerned, however, that Trump would try and drag out the vote count, which would divide the country more and more.
      Protesters young and old danced to a mix of music, which included Beyoncé, the Backstreet Boys, and Shakira.
      “I sort of debated whether or not I should come out and then I decided I should. It’s important to sort of celebrate despite having a bunch of work to still do moving forward,” said Rachel MacDonald. “I’m not really motivated by anger in the same way and so I decided I should come out and dance with everybody as well and not just yell,”
      She was there with her friend Hannah Chervitz, who was attending her first protest.
      “It’s nice to come out and channel all of this energy into something positive,” Chervitz said.

      4.09pm EST16:09

      MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki explained why his network, like the AP, has not yet called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden.

      MSNBC
      (@MSNBC)
      WATCH: @SteveKornacki details the outstanding ballots that remain to be counted in Pennsylvania.#TrackingKornacki #MSNBC2020 pic.twitter.com/epjmpGxRLh

      November 6, 2020

      Kornacki explained that there are about 200,000 ballots left to be counted in the state. About half of them are mail-in ballots, and half of them are provisional ballots.
      Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have been very favorable for Biden, as it appears most of Donald Trump’s supporters chose to vote in person. But some of those ballots may still be challenged.
      Historically, provisional ballots are also very favorable for Democrats, but so far, they have been a bit better for Trump. One explanation for this is that some of the president’s supporters received mail-in ballots but then chose to vote in person instead, so they received provisional ballots to allow election officials to confirm the vote was valid.
      But election analyst Nate Silver said he was skeptical of that analysis:

      Nate Silver
      (@NateSilver538)
      So, I am open-minded but not super persuaded by this. There are a handful of counties to have counted provisional ballots so far and those ballots indeed went for Trump, but they came from counties where the rest of the vote was *even stronger* for Trump.https://t.co/DXMdQJyfS5 https://t.co/h3gyCwCeNK

      November 6, 2020

      3.51pm EST15:51

      A Republican congressman is engaging in a Twitter battle with one of his new colleagues, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.
      It all started when congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Republican of Texas, sent a tweet this afternoon, saying, “If Trump loses, he loses. It was never an impossible outcome and we must accept the final results when it is over.
      “But the unfortunate reality is that there is very little trust in the process, where irregularities have been flagrant and transparency lacking.”

      Dan Crenshaw
      (@DanCrenshawTX)
      If Trump loses, he loses. It was never an impossible outcome and we must accept the final results when it is over. But the unfortunate reality is that there is very little trust in the process, where irregularities have been flagrant and transparency lacking.

      November 6, 2020

      That second sentence looks past the fact that Donald Trump has worked diligently to sow distrust in the election results, and the president’s advisers have been allowed to view the vote count in multiple battleground states.
      But we’ll set that aside for a second. After Crenshaw sent that tweet, Greene, who is now a congresswoman-elect after winning her congressional race on Tuesday, replied, “The time to STAND UP for @realDonaldTrump is RIGHT NOW! Republicans can’t back down. This loser mindset is how the Democrats win.”

      Dan Crenshaw
      (@DanCrenshawTX)
      Did you even read past the first sentence? Or are you just purposely lying so you can talk tough? No one said give up. I literally said investigate every irregularity and use the courts. You’re a member of Congress now, Marjorie. Start acting like one. https://t.co/47a7Gqq4lH

      November 6, 2020

      Crenshaw responded by chastising Greene and urging her to live up to the office she has been elected to. “I literally said investigate every irregularity and use the courts,” Crenshaw said. “You’re a member of Congress now, Marjorie. Start acting like one.”
      That dust-up could preview some of the contentious conversations to come in the House Republican caucus once Greene is seated in January.

      3.40pm EST15:40

      The Guardian’s Tom Phillips reports from Rio de Janeiro:
      It is a US-born slur that was inspired by Honduras and has haunted Latin America for decades – a deprecatory way to describe politically volatile and economically puny backwaters ruled by erratic and venal autocrats.
      But on Friday, after Donald Trump’s alarming press conference at the White House yesterday, voices across the region, from Mexico to Uruguay, delighted in lobbing the insult back at their neighbours to the north.
      “Who’s the banana republic now?” wondered the frontpage headline of Colombia’s Publimetro, one of many Latin American newspapers whose editors thought the term perfectly captured the electoral turmoil playing out in the US.

      Tom Phillips
      (@tomphillipsin)
      “Who’s the banana republic now?” wonders Colombia’s @PublimetroCol 😬 pic.twitter.com/GGUUB1oUsT

      November 6, 2020

      Over the border in Venezuela, a columnist from the El Nacional agreed calling Trump’s behaviour “intemperate and foolish” and telling readers the US election seemed to be taking place “in a country at war, or a república bananera”.
      Merval Pereira, one of Brazil’s most prominent political commentators, called his daily column “Bananas americanas” and wrote: “This is a singular event in US democratic history which puts the country in the list of banana republics, an expression created by the Americans themselves.”
      The Latin American Twittersphere went bananas too, with the Uruguayan human rights defender Javier Palummo asking followers: “How do you say banana republic in American English?”

      3.29pm EST15:29

      The Guardian’s Tom Phillips reports from Rio de Janeiro:
      One of Donald Trump’s most devoted international disciples, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, now seems to be decoupling from his political idol.
      Bolsonaro has been one of Trump’s loudest cheerleaders and revels in being portrayed as South America’s “tropical Trump”. Last year Brazil’s far-right leader was reported to have told his fellow populist: “I love you”.
      But on Friday morning, with a Trump defeat looking increasingly likely, Bolsonaro appeared to jump ship. “I’m not the most important person in Brazil just as Trump isn’t the most important person in the world, as he’s said himself,” he told an event in southern Brazil. “The most important person is God.”
      To hammer his point home Bolsonaro later posted a video of those comments to his Twitter feed, where he has 6.6 million followers. Despite Bolsonaro’s admiration for Trump, the US president is reportedly not one of them.

      3.16pm EST15:16

      Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, held another press conference as the margin in the race for his state’s 16 electoral votes remains razor-thin.
      “We will get it right, and we will defend the integrity of our elections,” Raffensperger said, promising an “open and transparent” vote-counting process.
      Raffensperger once again acknowledged that, with a margin this small, a recount was all but certain in the state.
      The Republican official defended the integrity of the vote-count, saying he was committed to ensuring trust in the process.
      As of now, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 1,603 votes in Georgia, out of nearly 5 million ballots cast in the state.

      3.07pm EST15:07

      The Guardian’s Sam Levin reports from Los Angeles:
      Jackie Lacey, the Los Angeles district attorney, was ousted by her progressive challenger, in one of the most closely watched criminal justice races in the US this year.
      George Gascón, the former police chief and district attorney of San Francisco, won the race to lead the Los Angeles prosecutors’ office with more than 53% of the vote. Black Lives Matter LA and other activist groups played a major role in the heated contest, having protested Lacey’s policies for years. More

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      in Elections

      US election live: Biden and Trump virtually tied in key state of Georgia

      by

      Key events

      Show

      9.39pm EST21:39
      Georgia is a virtual tie

      9.18pm EST21:18
      Trump lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania shrinks

      9.09pm EST21:09
      Biden’s lead in Arizona shrinks further as Maricopa county releases more results

      8.32pm EST20:32
      Steve Bannon suspended from Twitter, faces YouTube removal after urging violence against US officials

      8.20pm EST20:20
      Federal judge denies Trump motion to stop counting votes in Philadelphia

      8.01pm EST20:01
      When will we know the US election result?

      7.58pm EST19:58
      Welcome to the Guardian’s live election coverage

      Live feed

      Show

      9.59pm EST21:59

      On Fox News, the Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz have been spreading the president’s false narrative that the election is being stolen from him.
      Cruz, a Republican of Texas, baselessly alleged – as the president has done – that election officials are “finding” votes. In fact, they are counting votes. “Whenever they shut the doors and turn out the light they always find more Democratic votes,” Cruz said.
      Cruz and Fox News’ Sean Hannity wrongly claimed that Republican observers were not allowed to watch the counting. The Trump campaign’s own lawyer admitted in a federal court that Republican observers were given access, as my colleague Sam Levine pointed out earlier today:

      Sam Levine
      (@srl)
      The issue with observers in Philadelphia is over how close observers can get, not whether they are allowed into facility. Trump attorney just conceded in federal court the campaign has access. https://t.co/MaHCRybtRW

      November 5, 2020

      Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator of South Carolina, told Hannity, “I trust Arizona, I don’t trust Philadelphia.” While Trump is closing the gap in Arizona, he’s losing ground in Pennsylvania as officials in both states continue to count ballots.

      9.58pm EST21:58

      Sam Levin

      Update on Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who called for violence against US officials:
      A spokesperson for YouTube told the Guardian the video was removed for “violating our policy against inciting violence”, and that the account received a “strike”. (After three strikes, it would be terminated.)
      Bannon is also banned from uploading new content for at least a week. Alex Joseph, the YouTube spokesperson, added, “We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our policies in the post-election period.” Twitter permanently suspended his account.
      Read more on Bannon:

      Updated
      at 10.02pm EST

      9.57pm EST21:57

      Oliver Laughland reports from Florida:
      I was in Miami, at an impromptu rally organized by the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Florida when Donald Trump delivered his White House remarks.
      The rally was one of four “Stop the Biden Steel” events being held simultaneously in the state (a reference to baseless claims of voter fraud perpetuated by the president), and counted about 150 Trump supporters lined up in a car park by a roadside restaurant. Organizers placed a large speaker on the back of a truck, nestled by a yellow sign that read: “Stop Fraud”. Attendees listened, almost silently, as Trump espoused baseless claims in an attempt to undermine the outcome of the election.
      “Four more years!” They chanted after Trump finished.
      Shortly after the speech, Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys and state director of Latinos for Trump, addressed the crowd, pushing more baseless conspiracies about the election. The Proud Boys are a far right organization with links to white supremacy.
      “I want to ask you guys to stay in these streets,” he told the crowd after informing them he was traveling to Michigan on Friday, a state that has been a hotbed of militia activity in recent months. He then led the crowd in a chant of “Whose streets? Our streets!” – a common refrain of street protests around the world.
      In a short interview with the Guardian afterwards, he labelled this reporter “fake news” and continued to push baseless allegations of election fraud.

      9.49pm EST21:49

      There are about 250,000 ballots left to count in Pennsylvania.
      Biden is trailing by just under 49,000 votes. He’s been winning the mail-in ballot counts by huge margins, and could very well take the state.
      Pennsylvania backed Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but voted for the Democratic candidate in 2012, 2008, 2004 and 2000. Trump needs the state’s 20 electoral votes to win.

      Updated
      at 9.57pm EST

      9.39pm EST21:39

      Georgia is a virtual tie

      Trump is ahead by just 1,902 votes. The two candidates are tied at 49.4% each. More