North Carolina

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares162 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

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

    • 188 Shares136 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 125 Shares98 Views

      in Elections

      Republican Legal Challenges to Voting Rules Hit a Rough Patch

      by

      The legal wars over election rules are raging even as voters around the country cast ballots. And several recent efforts by groups aligned with former President Donald J. Trump to challenge voting rules have been coming up short in federal and state courts.Judges in a number of political battlegrounds and other states have rejected legal challenges this month to voter rolls and procedures by Republicans and their allies.The Nebraska State Supreme Court ruled that election officials cannot bar people with felony convictions from voting after their sentences are served.A Michigan state judge rejected a Republican attempt to prevent certain citizens living abroad, including military members, from being eligible to cast an absentee ballot in that swing state.And a federal judge in Arizona rejected a last-minute push by a conservative group to run citizenship checks on tens of thousands of voters.“They are hitting quite a losing streak,” said David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who advises both Democratic and Republican election officials on rules and procedures and has been tracking election-related litigation.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

    • 138 Shares197 Views

      in Elections

      G.O.P. Lawmaker Voices Support for Giving North Carolina’s Electors to Trump

      by

      Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, appeared to voice support for a plan for North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Legislature to award former President Donald J. Trump the swing state’s electoral votes, according to video of a conservative gathering on Thursday that was posted on social media.Mr. Harris, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, later walked back his comments in a statement on Friday, saying that the “theoretical conversation has been taken out of context” and that “every legal vote should be counted.”His comments, reported earlier on Friday by Politico, came in an exchange with Ivan Raiklin, a lawyer and a supporter of former President Donald J. Trump who promoted a plan in 2020 to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors from several disputed swing states.Mr. Harris appeared to use the hurricane-damaged region of western North Carolina as a rationale for the plan, falsely saying that the voters there had been “disenfranchised.” The North Carolina State Board of Elections approved several emergency measures this month to ensure that voters in the region who were reeling from the effects of Hurricane Helene could still cast ballots.Early in-person voting in the 13 most-affected counties has fared well so far, despite challenges presented by storm recovery efforts. Voters in those counties account for 8 percent of the state’s registered voters, and they have accounted for nearly the same percentage of accepted votes in the state so far. “It looks like things are improving,” said Christopher A. Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C.Representative Patrick McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, told reporters on Friday that “it makes no sense whatsoever to prejudge the election outcome,” according to Politico.“That is a misinformed view of what is happening on the ground in North Carolina,” Mr. McHenry said of Mr. Harris. “Bless his heart.” More

    • 213 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Harris and Cheney talk economy, women’s health and Trump in Michigan campaign event – US elections live

      by

      Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Donald Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene and the federal government’s response while campaigning in North Carolina today.The former president falsely suggested, once again, that federal money meant for hurricane relief was “spent … on illegal migrants”. There is no basis for the claim that disaster funding was reallocated to services related to immigration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the major US immigration agencies. But money allocated for a program to help migrants is separate and unrelated to disaster response funds.Trump also falsely implied that the Democrats were spending money on undocumented people so that they could “vote in the election”, reiterating his frequently cited baseless claim about election fraud.He also claimed Fema’s money is “all gone”. But this is false, CNN noted, as the federal agency told the network last week that its disaster relief fund had roughly $8.5bn remaining.More here:As Kamala Harris’s Michigan rally with Liz Cheney comes to a close, moderator Maria Shriver asks the vice president how she copes with the stress of the race and what her message is to voters who are struggling with anxiety over the election.Harris says, “I wake up in the middle of the night usually these days … but I work out every morning. I think that’s really important [for] mind, body and spirit … I try to eat well. I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband everyday … My family grounds me in every way.”The vice president adds:
      We cannot despair … Every individual has the power to make a decision about what this will be… so let’s not feel powerless. I get the overwhelming nature of this all makes us feel powerless … That’s not our character as American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment.”
      Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman now campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, outlines Trump’s threats on foreign policy:
      He heaps praise on the world’s most evil people, while he attacks with venom his political opponents here at home … If you look at where the Republican party is today, there’s been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants …
      Don’t think that Congress can stop him … all he has to do is what he’s doing and say, I won’t fulfill our Nato treaty obligations, and Nato begins to unravel.
      Liz Cheney, campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, criticizes commentators who assert that the vice-president isn’t ready to be president:
      She is supremely qualified to be president of the United States. There sometimes are some men who suggest that she’s not, but if you look at her qualifications, there’s no question that she’s somebody that I know I can count on, who will put the good of this country first.
      Cheney also emphasizes her conservative credentials while explaining her support for Harris: “The very first campaign I ever volunteered in was for President Gerald Ford … and ever since then, I have been voting for Republicans. I’ve never voted for a Democrat.”Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
      What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
      Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
      I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
      Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, has taken the stage at Kamala Harris’s campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Liz Cheney.Shriver starts off by making a pitch for bipartisanship, saying: “I served as a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration in California. So I get this bipartisan thing. I’ve seen it up close. And now I’m a proud independent … People of both parties used to get along really well.”Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
      I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
      Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. That’s not quite true – the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
      They’re great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didn’t only endorse me, saying I’m the greatest president there’s ever been … What about George Washington? No, you’re better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, you’re better, they said, I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
      The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is “cognitively impaired”.But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets land.He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. “I forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say he’s cognitively impaired because he put he’s cognitively impaired,” Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.“You know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,” he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
      I’ll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. I’d say about 92% couple of good ones. That’s a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.
      Trump is now onstage in Greenville, North Carolina, where he’s been whipping up the crowd with his usual attacks on Kamala Harris.Earlier in the day, he took note of Harris’s campaigning alongside Liz Cheney. On Truth Social, Trump implied that Arab voters – significant communities of which live in Michigan, a battleground state – are unlikely to look kindly on the vice-president associating with the daughter of Dick Cheney, who, as vice-president under George W Bush, was an architect of the US invasion of Iraq:Arab voters are indeed a source of concern for Democrats, though mostly over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Stephen Starr:Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”The former president then invited Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has helped relief efforts in the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene devastated the area just over three weeks ago, to speak.At the podium, Smith thanked Trump for coming to the area.“The biggest fear that western North Carolina is sitting on right now, at least in the communities we’ve talked to, is being forgotten,” Smith said.“To have you here and have an opportunity to have this conversation at a national level, will keep western North Carolina on the map, and not leave the communities holding the bag on the back end of this, so we’re very grateful that you’ve shown up,” Smith said to the former president.Trump continued his remarks by accusing the federal government of leaving North Carolinians “helpless and abandoned” after Hurricane Helene. “In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government, and yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government, unfortunately,” Trump said.“Citizens poured into western North Carolina from all over the country, bringing food, water, fuel, medical aid, even helicopters.”“Nothing is more inspiring than to see the American spirit triumph over adversity with the most selfless acts of generosity and love” he added.Donald Trump held a press conference in western North Carolina, where he surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and attacked the federal government’s recovery efforts.“Driving up here you see the kind of destruction, actually incredible” he said. “The power of nature, nothing you can do about it but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good.”“I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you and the American people are with you all the way” Trump said. “We are going to continue to be with you, we will see what happens with the election and on January 20th I think you are going to have a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.”Trump also addressed those who had lost family members and loved ones to the storm. “To everyone who has lost a loved one … we ask God to give you comfort and peace,” he said.“It’s been a terrible ordeal and this area was hit about as hard as anyone has ever seen….the communities were ravaged and destroyed, we are praying for you and we will not forget about you.”Trump’s repeated criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Helene comes as the director of Fema condemned the former president and his supporters for spreading misinformation about the hurricane and the response by the federal disaster agency, which, the director said, has hampered the government’s ability to get people the help they need.Donald Trump has long drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five, a group of men who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted for a crime and who earlier today sued him.After the jogger’s assault, he spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, Reuters reports.Trump in 2019 stood by his prior comments about the Central Park Five, and declined to apologize.The Guardian adds that at the debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump said of the men: “They pled guilty…They killed a person, ultimately.”The five then-boys, who were tried as adults, actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court.Yusef Salaam watched the debate in Philadelphia, afterwards telling the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are right now, full-circle moment, being able to be participants in this great democracy on the cusp of everything really powerfully supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m ready for it.”The five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park have sued Donald Trump for defamation over statements he made at last month’s US presidential debate, Reuters reported.Known widely as the Central Park Five, the defendants spent between five and 13 years in prison before they were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and the confession of another person.Trump falsely said at the September 10 debate with presidential rival Kamala Harris that the Central Park Five had killed a person and pleaded guilty.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called Trump’s statements “demonstrably false.”A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called the case “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s remarks “cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.” The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.Kamala Harris is on tour of the three Great Lakes swing states with Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who broke with her party over their support for Donald Trump. In their first event together in a Philadelphia suburb, Harris warned voters to take Trump seriously, while Cheney said she came around to backing the Democrats because she does not think the former president will stand up for American allies. They will appear together in metro Detroit and then Milwaukee before the day is through. Meanwhile, Tim Walz was on daytime talk staple “The View”, where he said that Trump’s comments about deploying the national guard against his political enemies was a sign that he planned to bend the country’s “constitutional guardrails”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The White House proposed an expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow women to access birth control without a prescription.

      Harris has scheduled an interview with NBC News from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday.

      A new poll found Trump may have lost his edge among voters when it comes to handling the economy, while Harris is viewed more favorably overall.
      Kamala Harris’s push for the support of Republican voters won her the support of the daughter of Gerald Ford, the late Republican former president who served from 1974 to 1977.Susan Ford Bales’s endorsement is perhaps most consequential in Michigan, the ex-president’s home and also a swing state coveted by both candidates. The Detroit News has Bales’s statement:As they wrapped up their joint event in Pennsylvania, Liz Cheney was asked to give something of a closing argument to her fellow Republicans for why they should support Kamala Harris.The former congresswoman said:
      I think that in this election, and especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny from Donald Trump and JD Vance. And we have the chance in this race to elect somebody who, you know is going to defend the rule of law.
      You know, vice-president Harris is going to defend our constitution. We have the chance to remind people that we are a good country. We are a good and honorable people. We are a great nation and in this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know vice-president Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be here.
      Thus concluded the first of three joint events the pair will do today. They now fly to Michigan for an event in the Detroit suburbs, followed by another in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.All three states are part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of swing states along the Great Lakes where voters traditionally back the party, but where polls show Harris is locked in a tight race against Donald Trump. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump uses North Carolina visit to reiterate hurricane relief conspiracies

      by

      Donald Trump on Monday used a trip to a hurricane-ravaged part of North Carolina to double down on false claims about the federal government’s recovery effort and promote baseless conspiracy theories about immigration.Trump claimed the Biden administration had not done enough work for recovery and aid in North Carolina, saying instead the federal government spent its resources on “illegal migrants”, three weeks after a hurricane devasted the state.Trump and some other Republicans have earned widespread condemnation for boosting false claims around the recovery effort in the state. They have ranged from claims that the US government can influence the weather to theories that crucial aid was being withheld, prompting some government officials to warn of threats to federal emergency workers.But Trump did not hold back in his attacks. After surveying damage in western North Carolina, Trump gave a press conference in the city of Asheville, saying that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) had been gutted by the Biden administration and was doing a “poor” job in helping residents of the state affected by the hurricane.“The power of nature, nothing you can do about it. But you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good,” the Republican presidential candidate said.Hurricane Helene, which struck the US eastern coast on 27 September has led to the deaths of 95 people in North Carolina and widespread damage. Nearly 5,000 roads remained closed as of Sunday, with more than 8,000 people approved to receive individual assistance from Fema.During his press conference, Trump encouraged voters in North Carolina to get out and vote, despite the destruction in the state.He also pointed to the Biden administration, saying the White House has limited Fema’s recovery efforts, deciding to instead spend money on “illegal migrants”, implying it may have been done to possibly influence the 2024 elections.“They were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election, because that’s a lot of people are saying that’s why they’re doing it – I don’t know, I hope that’s not why they’re doing it,” Trump said.Fema is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also oversees the major federal immigration agencies: Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.“They’ve spent it on illegal migrants,” Trump said, in reference to federal government money. “Many of them are murderers, many of them are drug dealers, many of them come out of mental institutions and insane asylums, and many of them are terrorists.”Immigration has been a major campaign issue for both political parties. As Republicans accuse Democrats of being “soft” on immigration enforcement policies, the Democratic party has shifted to the right, pushing for tougher immigration policies. This year, the Biden administration put in place significant changes to asylum policy, restricting access to asylum at the US ports of entry.

      Don’t miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts
      Trump, in similar fashion to his 2016 presidential campaign, has continued to demonize immigrants and asylum seekers, claiming they are bringing more crime to the USand placing Americans at risk and using racist language and imagery.Last month, the Trump-Vance campaign circulated false rumors that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. The campaign also promoted false and sensational rumors that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado.“They spent money to bring these people into our country, and they don’t have the money to take care of the people from North Carolina and other states,” Trump said on Monday about the Biden administration.Trump also said that, if he is elected, he would help reconstruction efforts in North Carolina by slashing “every bureaucratic barrier” and would recruit businesses to operate in the state “through the proper use of taxation incentives and tariffs – one of the most beautiful words that nobody understands, or very few people understand”. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      North Carolina grapples with holding election in hurricane disaster zone

      by

      In a normal life Jon Council would be holding his last campaign fundraiser of the 2024 cycle, exhorting local small business owners in Watauga county to back his bid to become a county commissioner over a plate of spaghetti and garlic bread.But in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, which left western North Carolina reeling from massive floods that swept away buildings, downed power lines, and left thousands of people stranded in their homes, life is anything but normal in this part of the Appalachians. Instead of wooing donors, the candidate is seeking winter feed for sheep.“We’re talking hay bales, so we really need a truck,” he pleads down the phone.With just over two weeks to go to election day, Council is wrestling with a problem that is common to anyone running for office in this rugged mountainous stretch of western North Carolina, from local candidates like him all the way up to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. How do you hold an election in a disaster zone?Can you meaningfully talk to people about their electoral choices at a time when they are fighting for daily survival? How do you reach them, let alone engage them, when the internet is down, there is scant cellphone coverage, the roads are broken, power is still out, and mail boxes swept away?“The voting landscape has totally changed,” Council said. “Polling places have been destroyed, people have been unable to leave their homes, absentee ballots and IDs are lost – given all that, talking to folk about why they should vote for me just feels wrong.”Council, who is unaffiliated with any political party, was gearing up his campaign for the final stretch when Helene struck on 26 September. The flooding and landslides killed at least 115 people in North Carolina, with almost 100 still missing.View image in fullscreenBefore Helene, Council and his team of volunteers were canvassing the 10,000 voters in his heavily rural – and largely Trump-supporting – district. They planned to step up advocacy for more affordable housing and, presciently, increased environmental protections to clean up local rivers and prevent flooding.“We were just ramping up the push to November when the storm happened,” he said.After Helene, campaigning was put on hold. The team immediately segued to disaster relief, helping rescue families trapped in their homes and hiking into remote areas to deliver food, water and critical medical supplies.And now, as winter sets in with early snows already falling, he is scouring for sources of fresh hay to donate to farmers in danger of losing their animals after bale supplies of vital winter feed were destroyed in the floods.“Since the storm, I really haven’t campaigned at all,” Council said. The result is visible in his office, which is now stacked with generators, canned vegetables and cat food where hand-made election placards and fliers were once stored.But the election will still happen on 5 November, so that agonising question – how to communicate with voters in the midst of a disaster – is becoming more pressing.“It’s a very difficult balance,” he said. “I’ve built a trust with people, including many Trump supporters who have told me I’ve got their support, and I don’t want to call that into question by being disingenuous.”So he remains painstakingly careful to avoid any impression that his relief work is tied to people’s votes, while at the same time gradually segueing back to campaigning. In the daytime he continues disaster efforts, then after dark he and his campaign manager turn to the election until midnight.View image in fullscreenThey are cranking their social media election posts back up, working out ways to encourage people to vote early or through absentee ballots, and debating whether to send out a mailer. They still feel odd about that.“It doesn’t feel appropriate to the way we’ve wanted to run this campaign, sending election mail to people when they still don’t have a driveway,” he said.The election board for Avery county, one of 25 North Carolina counties badly hit by Helene, sits inside the courthouse in Newland. Visitors to the building have to pass through a metal detector guarded by a uniformed officer who greets you with the refrain: “Are you for Trump? You better be, cause if he loses you’re gonna be speaking Chinese.”In her office, the director of the board of elections, Sheila Ollis, is doing all she can to mitigate the fallout of the hurricane. Of the 19 designated polling stations in the county, 14 were seriously damaged.Ollis is hoping that the 13,000 or so registered voters will not be discouraged from casting their ballots. She is proud of the county’s record of high voter turnout – in 2020, despite the pandemic, it was an impressive 76% – and wants to keep it that way.New emergency voting arrangements have been put in place by the state board of elections covering the 13 most devastated counties. The new rules balance access to the polls with the safety of poll workers and voters.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEarly voting days, which began on Thursdaywith all but four of the 80 sites open in the hurricane stricken area, have been boosted. In Avery county a second early polling station has been added in the heart of the worst impacted area.But voting hours have been shortened, ending at 4.30pm to avoid people driving in the dark.The state’s normally strict voter ID restrictions have been eased to allow those who have lost their identification documents in the storm to still cast a ballot, and they can do so in a precinct other than their own should they have been forced to move. Voters are also now allowed to come into the election board office to request or file an absentee ballot.View image in fullscreen“One man brought in an absentee ballot yesterday and it looked like it had been floating in the river,” Ollis said. “So we spoiled it and issued him another.”Election and disaster relief workers have had to deal with the swirl of misinformation, much of it targeted against the federal government and inspired by Trump and Elon Musk. Ollis has had to deal with a spate of calls from registered voters who have received printed notices telling them that they were not eligible to vote in Avery county – she has no idea where the fake declarations came from.“Any little seeds of doubt get folks worried they may not be registered,” she said.For the most part, she tries to block the noise out. Despite the extraordinary collision of arguably the most consequential presidential election in modern times and the worst natural disaster the area has ever seen, Ollis is determined to remain calm and do her job.“You just can’t think about it. The same rules apply for any election, whether town mayor or US president. We just eat the elephant one bite at a time, following the protocol.”With election day fast approaching, Jon Council can feel the energy around his county commissioner race building. “It’s warming back up,” he said.He imagines that within a week he will return to direct canvassing, though he will take each day as it comes. “The landscape shifts daily, so our focus has to shift daily.”Whatever happens on 5 November, he’s feeling philosophical about it. He’s hoping that the work he has done helping his community will speak for itself, without the need for political embellishment.“Honestly, I think it’s a stronger form of canvassing for someone to say, ‘Oh, that’s the guy that brought that generator, and we didn’t even realize he was running for county commissioner.’”But if they still don’t vote for him, that’s OK too.“If I were to lose this election because I’m doing disaster relief, helping people get the things they need, I would wear that like a badge,” he said. More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      En caso de crisis electoral, esto es lo que debes saber

      by

      En 2020, cuando Donald Trump cuestionó los resultados de las elecciones, los tribunales rechazaron decisivamente sus intentos una y otra vez. En 2024, el poder judicial podría ser incapaz de salvar nuestra democracia.Los renegados ya no son principiantes. Han pasado los últimos cuatro años haciéndose profesionales, diseñando meticulosamente una estrategia en múltiples frentes —legislaturas estatales, el Congreso, poderes ejecutivos y jueces electos— para anular cualquier elección reñida.Los nuevos desafíos tendrán lugar en foros que han purgado cada vez más a los funcionarios que anteponen el país al partido. Podrían ocurrir en un contexto de márgenes electorales muy estrechos en los estados clave de tendencia electoral incierta, lo que significa que cualquier impugnación exitosa podría cambiar potencialmente las elecciones.Disponemos de unas pocas semanas para comprender estos desafíos y así poder estar alerta contra ellos.En primer lugar, en los tribunales ya se han presentado docenas de demandas. En Pensilvania se ha iniciado un litigio sobre si están permitidas las papeletas de voto por correo sin fecha y si se pueden permitir las boletas provisionales. Stephen Miller, exasesor de Trump, presentó una demanda en Arizona alegando que los jueces deberían tener la capacidad de rechazar los resultados de las elecciones.Muchos estados han cambiado recientemente su forma de votar. Incluso una modificación menor podría dar lugar a impugnaciones legales, y algunas invitan afirmativamente al caos.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