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      ‘Georgia’s ours to lose’: Trump and Harris camps zero in on swing states

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      As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump brace themselves for what promises to be an ugly and bruising sprint to the finishing line in November, both presidential candidates’ campaigns are turning their sights back on the handful of desperately close swing states where the battle is likely to be decided.Georgia is coming into view as a critical battleground for both leaders as they struggle to gain voters’ attention in an epochal election. On Wednesday, the vice-president will travel from the White House to southern Georgia to hold her first campaign event in the state with her recently anointed running mate and former high school football coach, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.The duo will go on a bus tour of the region, attempting to reach out to diverse voting groups including rural areas where the former president is strong, as well as suburban and urban districts in Albany and Valdosta, where large Black communities are among their target demographics. On Thursday night, Harris is scheduled to cap the tour with a rally in Savannah, where she will talk to Georgians about the stakes of this election.The intense focus on Georgia by the Democratic campaign underlines that they are not resting on their laurels after what most commentators have agreed was a pitch-perfect convention in Chicago last week. Despite the pronounced bounce in popularity that Harris has enjoyed since she dramatically switched with Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket five weeks ago, the race remains essentially neck and neck.The latest poll tracker by 538 for Georgia puts Trump 0.6% ahead of Harris in Georgia, with Harris on 46.0% and Trump on 46.6%. That is bang in the middle of the margin of error – and suggests that the state is open territory for the two candidates.In Sunday’s political talkshows, Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is one of Trump’s closest surrogates, underlined the importance of Georgia to Trump’s re-election hopes. “If we don’t win Georgia, I don’t see how we get to 270,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the number of electoral college votes needed to win the presidency.Graham added that he would be accompanying Trump to what he called a “unity event” in Georgia soon. He predicted that if Trump played the right game in the state he would win.“I do believe Georgia’s ours to lose. It’s really hard for Harris to tell Georgians that we’re on the right track – they don’t believe it,” Graham said.The problem for Graham and other top Republican advisers is that Trump frequently blatantly ignores their guidance. In his most recent trip to Georgia, Trump ranted about the state’s Republican governor Brian Kemp, whom he still blames for failing to back him in his attempt to subvert the 2020 election – and whose support he now needs to prevail in November.Graham implicitly admitted to CNN the trouble that the attack on Kemp had caused but insisted: “We repaired the damage, I think, between Governor Kemp and President Trump.“He’s going to put his ground game behind President Trump and all other Republicans in Georgia.”Three days after the Democratic convention, which went off in a blaze of red, white and blue balloons and an ecstatic response from delegates, the Harris-Walz campaign is now laser-focused on that same ground game. The key is to turn the palpable surge in energy that exploded from the Chicago convention into hard work making calls and knocking on doors in Georgia and the other six battleground states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The chairperson of the campaign, Jen O’Malley Dillon, released new data on Sunday which she said demonstrated the positive impact of the convention throughout the battleground states. Chicago marked the biggest week so far in Harris’s nascent pitch for the White House, she said, with volunteers signing up for almost 200,000 shifts during the week.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMoney also continues to pour in, with the campaign raising $540m in five weeks – a record in US presidential campaign history. About $82m of that was received during convention week.O’Malley Dillon said that it was all a sign of Harris building on her momentum: “We are taking no voters for granted and communicating relentlessly with battleground voters every single day between now and election day – all the while Trump is focused on very little beyond online tantrums.”A leading Harris surrogate, the Colorado’s Democratic governor Jared Polis, appeared on Fox News Sunday to try to convince right-leaning voters and undecided independents that they could safely back Harris. “She’s come to the middle,” Polis said, when asked about some of the more progressive policies Harris previously espoused but has since dropped – including a ban on fracking and Medicare for all.Polis added: “She’s pragmatic. She’s a tough leader. She’s the leader for the future.“She’s going to be a president for all the American people.”As the euphoria of the convention fades, Harris has already begun to face tougher questions, notably when will she expose herself to tougher questions by facing an interviewer. The Democratic candidate has so far studiously avoided a sit-down with any major news outlet.Quizzed himself about Harris’s resistance to being questioned, Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, told CNN: “As this campaign goes on, she’ll be sitting for more interviews”.“She’ll be engaging in debates,” Booker said. “I think she wants to do more.”With the battleground states all still essentially anyone’s to win, there are growing fears that Trump might be tempted to unleash another conspiracy to overturn the result should he narrowly lose in November. There are numerous indications that Trump and his Make America Great Again (Maga) supporters may be laying down the foundations of a challenge.At a rally last week in Asheboro, North Carolina, Trump said: “Our primary focus is not to get out the vote – it’s to make sure they don’t cheat, because we have all the votes you need.”Trump’s running mate, the US senator from Ohio, JD Vance, was asked by NBC News’s Meet the Press whether he believed the election would be free and fair. “I do think it’s going to be free and fair,” he replied.Then he added: “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens. We’re going to pursue every pathway to make sure legal ballots get counted.” More

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      Meet the Rural Voters Who Could Swing North Carolina’s Election

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      The most rural of the battleground states this year is North Carolina. About 3.4 million people, or roughly a third of the state’s population, reside in a rural area, more than in any other state besides Texas. Democrats have seen their support slip in rural areas, ceding ground to Republicans. As such, rural voters in […] More

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      Convention Insider: The Unexpected Reappearance of John Edwards

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      Of all the curious characters spotted bouncing around inside the Democrats’ big tent this week — the influencers, the ex-Trump White House press secretary, Lil Jon — the most curious of all might have been John Edwards.He was hanging at a bar in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood early Wednesday evening, hours before Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota would accept his party’s nomination as vice president. “I wanted to see what was going on!” Mr. Edwards, 71, exclaimed. “Especially this year.” He’s been out of the loop, west or otherwise, for a long while now. He was once the Democratic Party’s golden boy — a baby-faced senator from North Carolina, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004 and then a presidential contender himself. It all started to fall apart in 2008. He withdrew from the Democratic primaries. An extramarital affair came to light. The other woman was a videographer paid by his campaign. There was a secret child. A terminally ill wife at home. A campaign finance scandal. Bunny Mellon, the widow of the banking heir Paul Mellon, was involved. It was messy. And then Mr. Edwards went away.When was the last time he was even at a Democratic convention?“Two thousand and uh…” his voice trailed off as he screwed up his face, pretending to think. “God, I wish you hadn’t asked me that, this is a memory test,” he laughed. “I think the last time I went was when I was the vice-presidential candidate. 2004.” (It was in Boston that year.)He said the Democratic National Committee sent him an invitation to attend this year — “which was really nice, very respectful” — and even offered to provide him with a car and driver. (Request for comment from the D.N.C. went unreturned.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Army Soldier Charged With Lying About Ties to Insurrectionist Group

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      The soldier, Kai Liam Nix, 20, who was stationed at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, is also accused of illegally selling firearms.An active duty U.S. Army soldier has been charged with lying to the military about his ties to a group dedicated to overthrowing the government and with illegally selling firearms, according to federal prosecutors in North Carolina.The soldier, Kai Liam Nix, 20, who was stationed at Fort Liberty in Fayetteville, N.C., was arrested on Aug. 15. A day earlier, a grand jury handed up an indictment accusing him of having lied on his security clearance application in 2022, when he stated he had not been involved in a group “dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States Government.”A redacted copy of the indictment did not name the group to which Mr. Nix was accused of having ties, and neither did a news release issued on Monday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He is also accused of stealing and illegally selling firearms at the end of 2023 and at the beginning of 2024.Mr. Nix, who prosecutors said also went by the name Kai Brazelton, is charged with one count each of making a false statement to the government and of dealing in firearms without a license, along with two counts of selling a stolen firearm. If convicted on all counts, he could face up to 30 years in prison.The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment further on the case.At Mr. Nix’s first court appearance on Monday, a judge ordered that he remain in custody until a hearing set for Thursday. He was also assigned a federal public defender, Robert J. Parrott, Jr, who said in an email to The New York Times that “we should avoid rushing to judgment.”“Mr. Nix looks forward to making his presentation in court,” he added.Although the authorities did not specify which group they claim Mr. Nix was affiliated with, his arrest came days before The New Yorker published an extensive article on Sunday about organizations outside of law enforcement that investigate far-right groups. The article mentioned Mr. Nix and his potential ties to Patriot Front, a far-right group that has engaged in white nationalist activism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Another North Carolina House Collapses Amid Hurricane Ernesto’s Waves

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      In Rodanthe, N.C., seven homes have been lost to the ocean in the last four years, as rising sea levels erode shorelines and put more buildings at risk. In the community of Rodanthe on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, residents witnessed on Friday an event that was not new and is unfortunately becoming more frequent: A house on the picturesque shoreline collapsed into the ocean.Weather experts said that crashing waves produced by Hurricane Ernesto hundreds of miles away, combined with especially high tides, appeared to be the cause, though local officials also said that the house was at risk of collapsing before the storm. For those on the Outer Banks, the destruction was one more stark reminder of the larger force at play — climate change, which is making storms more intense and sea levels higher, accelerating the erosion of beach fronts.Rodanthe, home to about 200 people, has lost seven homes to the ocean in the past four years. The house that was destroyed on Friday was unoccupied at the time of the collapse. There have been no reports of injuries from any of the seven collapses, according to the National Park Service. Officials warned that many more homes are at risk for damage or collapse in the coming days as Hurricane Ernesto pummels the East Coast from afar, even as it follows a path that is not expected to hit the mainland United States. Some other homes near Rodanthe have already appeared to sustain damage. Forecasters predict that the storm could bring dangerous rip currents and a high surf along the East Coast through the weekend. The risks could persist in the Outer Banks through early next week, they said. In North Carolina, climate change has caused the sea level to rise by about half a foot since 2000, and the level could rise by about another foot by 2050, said William Sweet, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inmate Captured in North Carolina After Escape

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      Law enforcement officers captured Ramone Alston, who had been serving a life sentence for murder, at a hotel. He was moved to a high-security prison unit and will face new charges.Authorities in North Carolina on Friday captured a man convicted of murder, whose escape from custody three days earlier had prompted an extensive search, according to the state’s Department of Adult Correction.The man, Ramone Alston, fled from a prison vehicle on Tuesday morning while being transported to a medical appointment at the U.N.C. Hospitals Hillsborough Campus.He was caught at a hotel in the city of Kannapolis just before 2 a.m. local time, in an operation that included local law enforcement officers and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Adult Correction said in a statement on Friday. Nobody was injured during the operation, it added.Mr. Alston, 30, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, will face charges of felony escape from prison, the statement said, and will be taken to a high-security unit in the state prison system to serve out that sentence while waiting to face the new charges in court. A woman, Jacobia Crisp, whom the release described as an acquaintance of Mr. Alston, was charged with felony aiding and abetting a fugitive.Authorities will investigate Mr. Alston’s movements while on the run, including whether he committed other crimes and if he had any other accomplices, the department said. Mr. Alston escaped early Tuesday when officers opened the door of the vehicle at the medical facility. Mr. Alston, who had managed to free himself from his leg restraints, ran out of the vehicle while wearing handcuffs and fled into the woods, state officials said.More than 300 law enforcement personnel from 19 agencies joined a search for him, scouring 1,335 acres.The police who had accompanied Mr. Alston were carrying weapons but did not fire at him because “it all happened so quickly,” a spokesman for the department said.Mr. Alston was convicted of first-degree murder in 2018 for his involvement in a shooting that led to the death of a 1-year-old girl on Christmas Day in 2015, according to court documents. Lawyers for Mr. Alston said he was not the person who had fired the shot that resulted in the girl’s death.Mr. Alston had been serving his sentence at Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, N.C., which is more than 100 miles east of the Hillsborough medical campus. More

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      Endangered Wild Stallion Is Euthanized After Being Struck by Vehicle

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      The horse, a 10-year-old stallion named Bullwinkle, was one of only 200 Banker horses, a breed on the Outer Banks in North Carolina that descended from horses brought over by Spanish explorers.A critically endangered wild horse was euthanized on Saturday after it was struck by an off-road vehicle on a beach on the Outer Banks in North Carolina and sustained traumatic injuries, officials said on Monday.The horse, a 10-year-old stallion named Bullwinkle, was a Banker horse, a breed that has lived on the Outer Banks, a long, skinny barrier island, since the 1500s.Only about 200 Banker horses remain in the wild, said Meg Puckett, the director of herd management at the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, a nonprofit organization that has managed and protected the herd and its habitat in Corolla, a village on the northern end of the Outer Banks, since 1989. Bullwinkle’s herd numbered about 100.“He was in the prime of his life, and went from being a symbol of what it means to be wild and free to a tragic example of how irresponsible, reckless human behavior can cause pain, suffering and irreparable damage to the herd in an instant,” the organization said on Facebook.The Currituck County Sheriff’s Office arrested Porter Williamson, 57, of Chesapeake, Va., who was released on a $10,000 bond, the agency said in a post on its Facebook page. Mr. Williamson was charged with resisting a public officer. He had originally fled the scene but later returned when deputies were towing the vehicle, which was registered to him, the agency said. Upon being noticed, Mr. Williamson took off again, but deputies chased him on foot and caught him.Rhonda Williamson was also charged with resisting a public officer and was released on a $5,000 bond, the agency said. Her relation to Mr. Williamson was not immediately clear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris’s VP list: Gretchen Whitmer and Roy Cooper say they’re not in running

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      Two lawmakers seen as strong contenders in the race to become Kamala Harris’s running mate have announced that they are not in the running. On Monday, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and North Carolina governor Roy Cooper both said that while they support the vice-president, they will be staying in their posts in their respective states.“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Cooper said in a statement posted to Twitter/X on Monday. “As I’ve said from the beginning, she has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”In an interview with CBS, Whitmer said that she has not been vetted by Harris’s office and expects Harris’s to announce her pick within the week, which would confirm the Democratic ticket at least two weeks before the Democratic national convention begins on 19 August in Chicago.“I have communicated with everyone, including the people of Michigan, that I’m going to stay as governor until the end of my term at the end of 2026,” Whitmer said.Others rumored to be potential running mates are all white men who govern in swing states that can decide the 2024 election. They include: Kentucky governor Andy Beshear; Minnesota governor Tim Walz; Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro; and Mark Kelly, a US Senator in Arizona.While all four have been asked about their willingness to serve as Harris’s running mate if tapped, all have signaled that they would step up if asked but none have hinted at their engagements with her campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is not about me. But I’ve always, always said when I’ve had the chance to serve, I think that’s very important to do,” Kelly told reporters on 25 July.“Being mentioned is certainly an honor … I trust Vice-President Harris’s judgement, she’ll make the best choice she’s going to,” Walz told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “But one way or another, she’s going to win in November and that’s gonna benefit everyone … Either way it’s gonna be a win.”During a campaign stop for Harris in Pittsburgh, Shapiro said: “It’s a decision she needs to make who she wants to govern with, who she wants to campaign with, and who can be there to serve alongside her.”And Beshear, who has also been stumping for Harris in red and purple jurisdictions, told the Des Moines Register newspaper: “I’m honored to be considered and, regardless of what happens, I’m going to work every day between now and Election Day to make sure that Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States.” More