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Must-win Pennsylvania still bafflingly close as Harris and Trump fight for edge
Kamala Harris stood before a cheering crowd of hundreds of her supporters in Philadelphia and promised that she would deliver in Pennsylvania, a battleground state considered a must-win in the electoral college.“Nine days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, and we know this is going to be a tight race until the very end,” the vice-president told supporters in Philadelphia last weekend. “And make no mistake: we will win.”And yet, just a day earlier at a rally in State College, Donald Trump declared: “We’re going to pull this off. It’ll be the greatest victory in the history of our country for all of us – not for me, for all of us.”The contradictory comments reflect a neck-and-neck race in Pennsylvania that is hurtling toward the finish line with no clear frontrunner. The victor of Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, the most of any battleground state, will probably win the electoral college and determine the trajectory of the country for the next four years.View image in fullscreenJoe Biden won Pennsylvania by just 1.2 points in 2020, four years after Trump carried the state by 0.7 points. According to the Guardian’s polling tracker, Trump currently holds a lead of less than one point over Harris in the state.Conversations with voters in Pennsylvania underscore how close the election is, often to the bafflement of both Democrats and Republicans. And the outcome could perhaps shift with an unexpected turns of events, such as Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last weekend. It was there that a comedian took the stage before Trump and insulted Puerto Rico, calling it an “island of garbage”. As pundits were quick to note afterwards, Pennsylvania is home to more than 470,000 Puerto Ricans.For Democrats, the focus is on firing up voters in Pennsylvania cities such as Philadelphia and Scranton and their immediate suburbs, home to many women and college-educated voters they view as amenable to their message of protecting democracy and abortion. Republicans are more focused on winning white working-class voters and a growing number of young men of color, by attacking Harris over the president’s immigration policies and the high inflation of his early presidency.This dynamic is exemplified by Lackawanna county, which includes Scranton. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by 3.4 points, but she decisively lost most of its neighboring counties, as white working-class voters flocked to Trump.Four years later, Biden won Lackawanna county by 8.4 points, though Trump’s persistent strength with working-class voters in the neighboring counties helped him keep the race in Pennsylvania close.The outcome here will depend, as it always does, on turnout, and Democrats are counting on a robust ground game to help them deliver a win. The culinary union Unite Here, for instance endorsed Harris in August and has knocked on more than 1m doors in Pennsylvania this election cycle, with a goal of surpassing 1.25m by 5 November.Jaime Hunt, a 22-year-old organizer with Unite Here, walked through South Philadelphia on a recent sunny Saturday, asking voters whether they planned to vote by mail, and encouraging them to fill out their ballots on the spot if they had already received them.View image in fullscreenThe canvassing efforts of Unite Here and other pro-Harris groups could make a critical difference in Pennsylvania. In 2020, Biden narrowly defeated Trump in the state by roughly 80,000 votes, in part by maximizing his advantage in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs. This year, based on her many conversations with voters, Hunt is confident in Harris’s chances.“There is also a lot of – a good number – of Republicans who are voting for her. A lot of people are switching,” Hunt said. “I think it’s going to be her who wins.”Daniel Levin, a regional organizing director for the youth voting group NextGen America, has spent months on Philadelphia’s college campuses getting thousands of students registered to vote, and now helping them make a plan to vote for Harris and other Democrats.Despite concerns over whether young voters will support Harris, particularly because of widespread outrage over the Biden administration’s response to the war in Gaza, Levin predicted high youth turnout in Philadelphia. On a recent Friday, he convinced a young voter at Temple University to support Harris after explaining how her policies could benefit low-income residents of the city.“This is the place to be optimistic that we’re going to get a huge turnout,” Levin said. “And I think we will this year. I really think we will in Philadelphia, and we need to to carry [Pennsylvania].”In contrast to the broad network of pro-Harris groups working to turn out left-leaning voters, the Trump campaign’s comparatively meager ground operation in battleground states such as Pennsylvania has stoked concern among his allies. Trump and the Republican National Committee have instead directed more of their attention to combating alleged voter fraud, most recently highlighting concerns about potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster county.Despite Trump’s inattention to his turnout operation, he has managed to keep the race in Pennsylvania highly competitive, and his most ardent supporters seem as motivated as ever to cast their ballots for him.“I’ve never in my life seen a movement like this,” said John Spatig Jr, 46, who attended a rally by Trump in Allentown and lives in Northampton county, one of the biggest bellwethers in the state. He said the top issue for him was the government response for the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine mandates.“How is the government going to guarantee me that there will never be a lockdown?” he said.View image in fullscreenMarilynn Raymond, 77, a retired bookkeeper from Reading, said at Trump’s rally in Allentown on Tuesday that she didn’t believe the polls showing a close race.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“All the crowds that Trump has done through the whole election far outweigh Kamala,” she said. “I think he’s way ahead.”As this campaigning season nears its close, Pennsylvania voters seem to be approaching election day with a mix of fatigue, excitement and fear.The fatigue was on display as Hunt made her rounds through South Philadelphia, with one resident responding to her knock by yelling through the door: “No one is home!”Both parties have already poured hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads into Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia especially. The Philadelphia-based ABC affiliate WPVI completely sold out of ad inventory through election day by 24 October.Alex Pearlman, a comedian from the Philadelphia suburbs with a large following on TikTok, met with Tim Walz before a rally in Scranton, and he said he urged the Democratic vice-presidential nominee to keep voters energized for the final stretch.View image in fullscreen“Everybody’s tired,” Pearlman said. “Everyone’s been pretty set, the entire time. I think most people were holding their breath just to see who the candidates were going to be after the primaries. So now that we’re at this point, almost everyone has kind of made up their mind.”That dynamic has forced Harris and Trump to fight over an ever-diminishing number of undecided voters as they race toward election day. According to an Emerson College survey conducted in late October, only 3% of likely Pennsylvania voters were still undecided. And yet, that 3% could make all the difference, given that the state has been decided by roughly one point in the past two presidential elections.The narrow margins have triggered frustration and confusion among Democrats and Republicans in Pennsylvania. How, they ask, could the race for president still be this close?“[Harris] is going to win it, but I don’t believe the polls. I can’t believe that we’re 50-50 tied,” said Kathy Andrews, a 64-year-old voter from Philadelphia who attended Harris’s rally there. “I am giving a lot of credit to the American people, that everyone has a modicum of common sense.”Morgan Pastner Jaffe, a 32-year-old voter from West Chester, said the possibility of Trump’s victory makes her feel “very scared for the future – for women, for people of color and all different religions as well”.“She has to win or we’re screwed,” Jaffe said at Harris’s rally.With the race still a toss-up, the Trump campaign, wary of alienating a critical voting bloc, has tried to distance itself from the comedian who made the comment about Puerto Rico at Madison Square Garden.Rich Patti, 71, said at Trump’s Allentown rally that he didn’t think those remarks would hurt Trump’s chances with Latino voters.“They’re the backbone of our country and the backbones are hurting right now,” he said. “They work hard, they want the same thing. They want to be able to pay their bills, live well.”People of Puerto Rican descent in the state have suggested otherwise. “I was absolutely frustrated, I was angry – but I was not surprised,” Philadelphia councilmember Quetcy Lozada told the Guardian.The high stakes of the election are on display throughout Pennsylvania. Of the many signs adorning lawns and lamp-posts in Philadelphia, some eschew the traditional “Harris-Walz 2024” for slogans such as: “Defend Choice!” and “Defend Democracy!”“I don’t think you can walk around the city of Philadelphia and not know how important it is to people,” said Shane Ringressy, Pennsylvania organizing director for NextGen. “So I will say that Philadelphia itself, including all the young people in the city, definitely seem like they’re ready to fight and do their part.” More
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Elon Musk skips hearing as $1m election giveaway case moves to federal court
Elon Musk failed to show up to a required hearing in a Philadelphia case challenging his $1m-a-day sweepstakes. His absence would have risked contempt of court had the case continued in Pennsylvania court, but it was moved to federal court in response to a motion filed by Musk’s attorneys, who did attend the hearing. No hearings were immediately scheduled in the federal case.Judge Angelo Foglietta agreed that Musk, as a named defendant in the lawsuit filed by the district attorney, Larry Krasner, should have attended the hearing in person, but he declined to immediately sanction the tech mogul. Musk’s attorney said his client could not “materialize” in the courtroom with notice only given the night before.Krasner’s team challenged the notion that the founder of SpaceX could not make it to Philadelphia, prompting a quick retort from the judge.“Counsel, he’s not going to get in a rocket ship and land on the building,” Foglietta replied.On Wednesday, the judge had ordered all parties to attend the Thursday morning hearing, including Musk. Musk’s attorneys had filed a motion to shift the suit from Pennsylvania state court to federal court in a filing late that day, which was granted shortly after Musk did not appear.Lawyers for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office requested the case be returned to state court, calling the move to the higher court a “cowardly” delay tactic meant to “run the clock until election day”. The federal judge assigned to the case ordered Musk’s attorneys to respond by Friday morning. Musk’s counsel had argued that state court was not the proper venue and that the Philadelphia district attorney was engaging in thinly veiled electioneering.“Rather, although disguised as state law claims, the complaint’s focus is to prevent defendants’ purported ‘interference’ with the forthcoming federal presidential election by any means,” the Tesla CEO’s attorneys wrote.In the original suit, Krasner argued that Musk’s petition and associated contest were “indisputably violating” specific Pennsylvania laws against illegal lotteries. Musk’s attorneys said he was engaging in legally protected political speech and spending.John Summers, an attorney for the DA’s office, told the judge on Thursday that Musk’s Pac had “brazenly” continued the sweepstakes despite the lawsuit, awarding about 13 checks of $1m since the contest began, including one the day of the hearing.“They’re doing things in the dark. We don’t know the rules being followed. We don’t know how they’re supposedly picking people at random,” Summers said. “It’s an outrage.”The cash giveaways come from Musk’s political organization, which aims to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the vital swing state, which is seen as a key to victory by both Trump and his opponent, Kamala Harris.Krasner, a Democrat, filed suit on Monday to stop the America Pac sweepstakes, which is set to run through election day and is open to registered voters in swing states who sign a petition supporting the constitution. Musk has been tweeting photographs of the winners holding novelty checks.Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, saying he is tasked with protecting the public from both illegal lotteries and “interference with the integrity of elections”.Election law experts have raised questions about whether Musk’s drawing violates a federal law barring someone from paying others to vote. Musk has cast the money as both a prize as well as earnings for work as a spokesperson for the group. More
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Harris targets Trump for falsehoods on abortion and immigration in fiery debate
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sparred on Tuesday in a contentious presidential debate that repeatedly went off the rails, as Trump pursued bizarre and often falsehood-ridden tangents about crowd sizes, immigration policy and abortion access.The Philadelphia debate marked arguably the most significant opportunity for both Harris and Trump since Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race in July, and the event began cordially enough. Harris crossed over to Trump’s podium to shake his hand and introduce herself, an acknowledgement that the two presidential nominees had never met face to face before Tuesday night.But the cordiality did not last long. After delivering some boilerplate attack lines about the high inflation seen earlier in Biden’s presidency, Trump pivoted to mocking Harris as a “Marxist” and peddling baseless claims that Democrats want to “execute the baby” by allowing abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy.That false claim was corrected by both Harris and the ABC News anchor Linsey Davis, who joined her fellow moderator David Muir in fact-checking some of Trump’s statements throughout the evening. Harris then segued into a stinging rebuke of Trump’s record on abortion, criticizing him for nominating three of the supreme court justices who ruled to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said. “And I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it in to law.”Despite broad public support for Roe v Wade, Trump boasted about his role in reversing it and applauded the supreme court’s “great courage” in issuing its ruling, while he dodged repeated questions about whether he would veto a national abortion ban as president.Trump seemed to trip over himself even when moderators offered questions on his strongest issues, such as immigration. When asked about Biden’s handling of the US-Mexico border, Harris pivoted to discussing Trump’s campaign rallies.“I’m going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies because it’s a really interesting thing to watch,” Harris said. “You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about [how] windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you.”The tangent appeared to be a blatant attempt by Harris to bait Trump into squabbling over attendance at his rallies instead of discussing immigration policy – and it worked. Trump began attacking Harris with baseless accusations that her campaign was paying people to attend her rallies while celebrating his own events as “the most incredible rallies in the history of politics”.Then, rather than highlighting his immigration proposals, Trump chose to spread debunked claims that Haitian migrants in an Ohio city have started capturing and eating their neighbors’ pets.“They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” Trump said. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”The outburst instantly became a source of mockery on social media, as Democrats celebrated Trump for “doubling down on the crazy uncle vibe”, in the words of the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.Even as moments of the debate bordered on absurdity, other exchanges regarding foreign policy and the January 6 insurrection felt heavy with meaning. Pressed on his false claims regarding widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Trump again refused to acknowledge his defeat, prompting a stark warning from Harris.“Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so, let’s be clear about that. And, clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that,” Harris said. “But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election.”On foreign policy, Harris fielded difficult questions on the war in Gaza, as she expressed her support for Israel’s “right to defend itself” while calling for “security, self determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve” for Palestinians.Asked about his own stance on the war, Trump reiterated his bombastic claims that his presence in the White House would have prevented the wars in both Gaza and Ukraine.“If I were president, it would have never started,” Trump said. “If I were president, Russia would have never, ever. I know Putin very well. He would have never –and there was no threat of it either, by the way, for four years – have gone into Ukraine.”And yet, when asked directly whether he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia, Trump deflected.“I want the war to stop,” Trump said. “I think it’s the US’s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done, all right? Negotiate a deal because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.”The debate ended with Harris vowing to be “a president for all Americans” while Trump attacked her as “the worst vice-president in the history of our country”. It was a fitting end for two candidates who offered starkly different visions for the nation in what might be their only presidential debate.No other presidential debate has yet been officially scheduled, so the face-off on Tuesday may represent the last time that Harris and Trump meet before election day. The days ahead will determine whether the debate made a lasting impression on the undecided voters who will decide what appears to be a neck-and-neck race.Read more about the 2024 US election:
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Harris slams Trump for falsehoods in fiery debate
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‘Maga mad libs’: How the debate played out on social media
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Rally sizes, abortion and eating cats: the Trump and Harris debate – podcast More
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The coach v the couch: key takeaways from the first Harris-Walz rally
Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The event, which kicks off a week-long tour through the most politically competitive US states, marks a new chapter for the Harris campaign after securing enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.Here’s what you need to know:Harris sought to define Walz foremost as a teacher, veteran and football coachHarris called Walz the “kind of teacher and mentor that every child in America dreams of having”. She told a story about him agreeing to lead his school’s gay-straight alliance, knowing “the signal it would send to have a football coach get involved”.Harris also spoke of his skills as a marksman and his views on the second amendment. And finally, she talked at length about Walz’s time in the army national guard and his service to the country.Walz focused on a unifying, future-focused messageWalz, who like Harris is known for his smile, started his speech by saying: “Thank you for the trust you put in me, but more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.” He then spoke about growing up in the “heartland”, respecting neighbors, and his family of educators, attempting to differentiate the ticket from Donald Trump and JD Vance’s focus on mass deportation and crime.“If Donald Trump and JD Vance are irritated that Kamala Harris smiles and laughs, they’re really going to be irritated by Tim Walz,” Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of Minnesota’s house of representatives, told the Guardian.’Mind your own damn business’: Walz attacked the Trump-Vance ticket with a focus on reproductive rights and other freedomsWalz talked about his daughter Hope, who often appears in videos and photographs with her father, being born through IVF, and Republican attacks on contraception and abortion. Abortion opponents have been increasingly pushing for broader measures that would give rights and protections to embryos and fetuses, which could have big implications for fertility treatments.He also spoke about gun control, a tenet of the Harris campaign, saying he supported the second amendment but that children should have the freedom to go to school without the concern of school shootings.Walz made a direct hit at Project 2025, the conservative manifesto created by Trump allies and advisers. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb,” he said of the former president. “He knows exactly what Project 2025 will to do restrict our freedoms.”He encapsulated his idea in another sticky colloquialism to counter Republicans hoping to intervene in medical practices and schools: “Mind your own damn business.”Josh Shapiro, who had been a vice-presidential contender, still made his markThe Pennsylvania governor who was also in the final running to be Harris’s running mate, spoke before Harris and Walz. His pitch-perfect and fiery speech helped set the tone for the rally, and he threw his support behind the newly announced ticket.Shapiro and Walz’s speeches also made the distinction between the two politicians clear. Shapiro has been described as Obama-like in his polished and forceful delivery. Meanwhile, Walz, whose speech spanned dad jokes and pointed attacks on his opponents, seasoned his remarks with midwestern dialect, adding a “damn well” here and a “come on” there. “Say it with me! We are not going back,” he said, starting a chant from the audience. “We’ve got 91 days. My god, that’s easy,” he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”The couch joke was madeWalz said his GOP rival, Trump’s running mate JD Vance, and Trump “are creepy and yes, they’re weird as hell”. He added that he “can’t wait to debate the guy”, speaking of Vance. Then, to sustained cheers and laughter, he made a reference to the baseless, but much-shared claim, that Vance admitted to having sex with a couch in his memoir. “That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up”.Stumping earlier today in Pennsylvania, Vance said: “I absolutely want to debate Tim Walz,” but not until after the Democratic convention, he said, because of the sudden change in the Democratic ticket. More
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‘This country needs him’: Biden draws rapturous applause at a Philadelphia church
Less than 48 hours after declaring only “the Lord almighty” could persuade him to exit the US presidential race, Joe Biden described his reliance on faith “in good times and tough times” at a predominantly Black church in north-west Philadelphia.Times are certainly tough for the president right now. But in the Mount Airy church of God in Christ on Sunday morning, you could be forgiven for not noticing. Biden was greeted by rapturous applause, and departed to chants of “four more years”.Biden, 81 – facing questions about his age, acuity and ability – was not the oldest man in the room. Alongside him sat the church’s founder, Ernest Morris Sr, 91.“Since you are only an octogenarian, sitting next to a nonagenarian, don’t let anyone talk about your age,” declared Bishop Louis Felton, the church’s senior pastor. “You’re a young whippersnapper.”Before the whippersnapper even approached the microphone, as members of his own party cool on his ability to win re-election as the Democratic nominee, he received the warmest of welcomes.Outside church, a handful of signs highlighted the division stretching the Democratic coalition. “Thank U Joe but time to go,” read one. Another urged Biden to “pass the torch”.But inside, before an overwhelmingly supportive audience, he did not touch on the growing calls for him to stand aside. In a brief seven-minute address, Biden focused on hope, the need for unity, and his administration’s achievements for Black Americans.“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he acknowledged. “And I’ve honest to God never felt more optimistic about America’s future.”After the service, congregants were quick to praise him. Sure, a few conceded, last month’s TV debate, in which Biden had a dire performance against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, had sparked concerns about his viability as a candidate, but they stood behind Biden.Kim Speedwell, 57, was unbothered by Biden’s missteps. “I think his experience speaks for itself,” she said. “Even though he is in his ages … We need four more years of his experience.”While doubts appear to mount among donors and senior party figures around the prospects of Biden’s campaign, those in church this weekend were confident he would prevail in November. “This country needs him,” said Mike Johnson, 69. “Democracy needs him.”The president’s age is “a difficult issue”, granted Paul Johansen, a teacher from Massachusetts. But “he has a lifetime of service that I respect and appreciate,” said Johansen, 58. “That is not undone by a bad night.“Having said that, I appreciate the fact that the federal government is a big entity and he’ll have a lot of people helping him.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRoz, a 69-year-old retiree who preferred not to use her last name, praised Biden’s Christian faith.“I just love the fact he does love God,” she said.She added: “Not just selling Bibles, when he probably hasn’t read one” as a swipe against Trump, who has not only wielded a Bible at a highly-controversial 2020 photo op but also began selling them during this election campaign.“I don’t care how much he slips … I slip more than him,” she added. “Anyone who got good sense is gonna vote for Biden. Who wants a criminal, a liar, an adulterer, a racist man, as president?”Felton, the pastor, noted that Biden had not originally been scheduled to appear at church on Sunday. The event was only arranged when the National Education Association’s union announced a strike on Friday, forcing his campaign to cancel a scheduled speech at one of its conferences.“God knew Biden needs some love,” said Felton. He found it in the pews of a carefully-selected church in Philadelphia. What about the ranks of his own party? More
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Trump’s sledgehammer message to Philadelphia is light on facts, heavy on fear
Crooked Joe or Sleepy Joe? Donald Trump wanted to know which nickname his supporters prefer. “That’s the first time Sleepy Joe has ever beaten Crooked Joe!” he said with surprise, after asking the crowd to make noise for each contender.That, however, is not the branding exercise the former US president cares about most right now. On Saturday night he wanted his followers to go home with three words: Biden. Migrant. Crime.A month after his audacious campaign stop in the Bronx, New York, Trump held his first ever campaign rally in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy and another Democratic stronghold where Joe Biden won 81.4% of the vote in 2020.He had come with a sledgehammer message: Biden’s open borders have allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to pour into America, leading to a surge of violent crime in its major cities, hurting Black and Hispanic populations the most. And in the grand tradition of “law and order” Republicans, only Trump could fix it.“Few communities have suffered more under the Biden regime than Philadelphia,” he told thousands of supporters, many wearing “Make America great again” caps, at the event in a sports arena. “Under Crooked Joe, the City of Brotherly Love is being ravaged by bloodshed and crime.”The rally was staged at Temple University, in a historically Black area. Trump won just 5% of the vote in precincts within a half-mile radius of Temple’s main campus in the last election, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.But encouraged by opinion polls, his campaign has made wooing Black and Hispanic voters, who make up more than half of Philadelphia’s population, a priority this cycle. Even small gains could make all the difference in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.Several African American supporters were positioned behind Trump’s lectern in the Liacouras Center, against the backdrop of a gigantic Stars and Stripes. Attendees brandished signs with Trump’s police mug shot and the words “Never surrender”. An electronic sign flashed optimistically: “Philadelphia is Trump country.”View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenTrump painted a dystopian, often dishonest picture of “bedlam and death and terror”, a likely preview of his strategy for Thursday’s debate against Biden in Atlanta and the rest of his scorched earth campaign until November.“Murders in Philadelphia reached their highest level in six decades,” he said “Retail theft in Philly is up 135% since I left office. The convenience stores are closing down left and right. The pharmacies have to lock up the soap … You can’t buy toothpaste, you can’t buy a toothbrush, it takes you 45 minutes.” The crowd roared with laugher.In April the Pew Charitable Trusts’ annual “State of the City” report found that violent crime in Philadelphia is at its lowest level in a decade. The city’s homicide rate dropped six percentage points in 2023, in line with other cities of similar scale. But the number of property crimes did rise sharply over the same period.Crucial to Trump’s fear and fury election strategy is joining dots between crime and illegal immigration. It is a hot button issue after Republican governors in Texas and Florida chartered buses and planes to send thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities. Mayors have felt a strain on their resources and growing backlash from voters.Trump said: “Unbelievably Crooked Joe Biden is going around trying to claim that crime is down. Crime is so much up. First of all, we have a new form of crime. It’s called the Biden Migrant Crime, right? And all these millions of people that have come in, they’re just getting warmed up.”In fact last year violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than half a century. FBI statistics show steep drops in every category of violent crime in every region in the first three months of 2024 compared to a year earlier.But at Saturday’s rally Trump, himself a convicted criminal, sought to turn reality on its head.View image in fullscreen“The FBI crime statistics Biden is pushing are fake,” he said without evidence. “They’re fake just like everything else in this administration.”The former president went on to use lurid, apocalyptic language to describe the alleged threat posed by undocumented immigrants. Many studies have found that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than US-born citizens.“Day after day, week after week, Joe Biden is releasing illegal criminals into our communities to rape, pillage, plunder and to kill,” he said. “Just this week, a 12-year-old girl in Houston, Jocelyn Nungaray, was tied up, stripped, and strangled to death after walking to a 7-Eleven.”“… Charged with Jocelyn’s heinous murder are two illegal alien savages that Joe Biden recently set loose into our country. They came across our border claiming they feared for their lives in Venezuela.”At that a man in the crowd shouted: “Fuck Joe Biden!” – an ominous sign of how Trump’s rhetoric fires up his crowds. During his 85-minute speech, they shouted and shrieked and chanted “Build the wall!” and “USA! USA!”The Republican National Committee recently launched a website called “Biden Bloodbath” that highlights anecdotal incidents involving migrants in eight US states, including electoral battlegrounds such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.Trump went on to cite the case of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother from Maryland allegedly murdered by an undocumented immigrant, and thanked members of her family for attending the rally. Telling another grim crime story in unsparing detail, he commented: “Like a scene from a horror movie.”Trump deployed a similar tactic in 2016 and believes it could resonate again. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March found that only about three in 10 Americans approve of Biden’s handling of immigration. A similar share approved of his handling of border security.View image in fullscreenSix people interviewed by the Guardian inside the arena in Philadelphia – all of whom were attending a Trump rally for the first time – expressed support for his proposed crackdown on border security and illegal immigration.Jim Leedom, wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “We the people are pissed off”, said: “He’s definitely going to clean that up good. The atrocities that are going on down there, the little girls being raped, the women being raped, the drug cartel has control of the whole area – Biden doesn’t seem to give a shit.”“None of that shit went on when Trump was in..”Leedom, 55, who owns a small manufacturing shop, voiced support for Trump’s plan to carry out the biggest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in history.In recent weeks Biden has imposed significant restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum in the US while also offering potential citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people without legal status already living in the country. But the measures cut little ice here.Leedom, accompanied by his son Joseph, a 21-year-old engineering student voting in his first presidential election (he too will vote for Trump), commented: “He’s playing games. That doesn’t surprise me. He’s evil. There’s not enough water for a shower to wash the filth of Biden off.”Michael Krug, 53, was sporting a red T-shirt that said “Keep America great” and “Trump” but had attached a piece of blue sticky tape to hide the word “Pence”. He also wore a badge that said, “God, guns and Trump”.Krug, who works for a paint company, endorsed the “great replacement” theory that describes a supposed elite conspiracy to change the demographics of America, replacing and disempowering white people in favour of people of color, immigrants and Muslims.“Why is it that we don’t have a border any more and people can come just right in and they can get benefits and they can take money and they can take social services away from our poor people or our people that maybe need it?” he asked. “They’re doing it for the Great Replacement. They’re doing it for voters. They’re also doing it to change our culture.”Krug cited the false notion that undocumented immigrants are given voter registration cards, adding: “They’re prosecuting people for walking into the Capitol on January 6th, but they won’t prosecute people coming across the border, which is illegal. There’s a two tiered system of justice, which is not the American way it’s supposed to be. It’s got to change.”Jair Moly, 27, an African American man wearing a Maga cap, said: “You ain’t from here, don’t come here. You ain’t allowed here, don’t come here. Make America great again ‘24. Let’s go!”Asked why he intends to vote for Trump, Moly replied: “He’s real, he keeps it real. He’s not fake. There’s nothing fake about him. He keep it real and he pull no no punches and that’s what we need, America, punch you right in the face.”But Erwin Bieber, 71, a retired car salesman, suggested that a Trump defeat could lead to at least one case of reverse migration. “Initially I didn’t like the way he spoke years ago but I voted for him in 2016. I feel that the country is completely gone if we don’t put him into office. I think I’m going to leave America. If we get stuck with Biden, I’ll go to Mexico.”Democrats set up posters, billboards and kiosks in Philadelphia and on the Temple campus to promote Biden’s policies, including his efforts to forgive student debt, as well as to criticise Trump’s record with the Black community.State representative Malcolm Kenyatta said: “I represent the community in Philly where Trump is currently ranting and raving. I can authoritatively say, my neighbors aren’t in that arena listening to his lies. But a bunch did show up to protest him, so I guess there’s that.” More
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‘I need you’: Biden-Harris campaign launches initiative to court Black voters
Gearing up for the 2024 election, the Biden-Harris campaign launched its Black voters initiative on Wednesday at Philadelphia’s Girard College, a majority Black boarding school.Around 2pm in an auditorium filled with hundreds of Black Philly residents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris approached the podium to applause and an audience shouting “four more years”.As the president listed off his accomplishments that affected Black voters during his presidency, Biden repeated the refrain “a promise made and a promise kept”. He said that he’s relieved student debt for nearly 5 million Americans, banned police chokeholds, created databases for police misconduct, and appointed the first Black woman on the supreme court.Those accomplishments, Biden said, were made possible through the “enormous trust” that Black voters placed in him in 2020.Harris told the crowd that as a candidate, Biden gave his word of fighting some of the biggest issues facing the Black community, such as capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors, and removing medical debt as a factor on a credit score.View image in fullscreen“Thank you!” an audience member shouted. Turning to the election, Biden said: “We’re going to make Donald Trump a loser again. I’m still optimistic, but I need you.” His one question for Black voters: “Are you with me?” The crowd stood up as they shouted back “yes”.A few blocks outside of the event, a small group of protesters who wore keffiyehs served as a reminder of many younger voters’ disgruntlement with Biden’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza.But back in the auditorium, gospel singers dressed in black sang Oh Happy Day as they stood underneath a large blue poster that read “Black Voters for Biden-Harris”. Girard College students dressed in maroon shirts clapped from the bleachers. The audience skewed older, with some attendees holding signs that read “Historically Black”.Verna Hutchinson-Toler, a 75-year-old voter from Bucks county, Pennsylvania, said that she came out in support of Biden because she’s “passionate about voter registration as a social determinant of health”. She referenced research that showed that communities with a high amount of registered voters get the most attention to their environmental and healthcare needs.As a chaplain at the Children’s hospital of Philadelphia, Hutchinson-Toler has seen patients who are the victims of gun violence, which has fueled her advocacy for gun control. “Personally I feel his track record has been amazing,” she said about Biden’s crack down on ghost guns.Zelma Carroll, a 57-year-old certified nursing assistant from Philadelphia, was grateful that Biden wiped away some of her daughter’s student loans from Penn State University. Carroll had canvassed for the Biden-Harris campaign four years ago and plans to do so again soon. “I just hope that they get in our neighborhoods and let people know where we’re going, where we need to be and we can’t go back,” Carroll said. “We can’t let Trump in.”View image in fullscreenWinston Cameron, a registered independent, said that he came to the event to “hear from the horse’s mouth”. Cameron voted for Biden in 2020 and was uncertain if he would vote for him again. For Cameron, a 35-year-old student originally from Jamaica, immigration and the economy are the issues he’s most concerned about. “It could be better,” Cameron said about Biden’s accomplishments in those arenas. “I can see the positive changes that he’s trying to implement, but I think it’s still a weak stance.” Nevertheless, Cameron said, he was satisfied with Biden’s attention to Dreamers, immigrants who arrived to the US as children. Earlier this month, the Biden administration finalized a rule that would give healthcare coverage to Dreamers.Overall, the audience at Wednesday’s event was energized by the administration’s Black voters’ initiative. But perhaps most of all, they wanted to ensure that Trump didn’t win the election again. “My only issue that I’m concerned about is that other guy coming back,” said 77-year-old Philadelphia resident Rick Harper, a delegate for the Democratic national convention in August. “I’m very happy with President Biden and Vice-President Harris.” More
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Biden hits campaign trail riding train of positive State of the Union reviews
Reveling in warm reviews for a fiery State of the Union speech, Joe Biden was set to hit the campaign trail on Friday, heading for Philadelphia as his re-election rematch with Donald Trump finally began in earnest.Three days after the former president dominated the Super Tuesday primaries and saw off the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, his last rival for the Republican nomination, Biden was set to speak at a middle school in Wallingford, the sort of suburb that has trended Democratic as Republicans have marched to the right.Pennsylvania is also a battleground state, won by Biden in 2020 but targeted by Republicans not only as they seek to take back the White House but as a step towards regaining the Senate majority.Public opinion that Biden is too old for a second term persists but the 81-year-old president was on his way to Philadelphia with a spring in his step.Heralding a pugilistic speech in which Biden attacked Trump without uttering his name, championed Democratic policies and parried Republican catcalls, the president’s campaign said he had “laid out his unifying vision for the nation”.That vision, the campaign said, meant “building an economy that gives everyone a fair shot, protecting reproductive freedom, standing with our allies, and defending democracy.“It’s a vision that could not be more different than Donald Trump’s plans to enact revenge and retribution, strip Americans of their fundamental rights, and spread hate and division.”The campaign also said voters watching the speech “overwhelmingly approved of the ‘fiery’, ‘strong’ and ‘powerful’ vision from President Biden”.Republicans naturally disagreed.The far-right Virginia congressman Bob Good attempted to keep a spotlight on Biden’s age, calling his delivery on Thursday night less presidential and more “like an angry old man with a poor memory shouting at people to get off his lawn”.But such complaints were undermined by two factors. First, the 42-year-old senator chosen to reply to Biden, Katie Britt of Alabama, delivered a bizarre and poorly received speech of her own. Second, at 77, Trump is just three and a half years younger than Biden and frequently muddles words and mixes up names.In his own response, Trump – who left office with the economy cratered by Covid, Congress reeling from an insurrection linked to nine deaths and more than 1,200 arrests, and who faces 91 criminal charges and multimillion-dollar civil penalties – accused Biden of being “on the run from his record”.Biden, Trump said, was “lying like crazy to try and escape accountability for the horrific devastation he and his party have created, all the while they continue the very policies that are causing this horror show to go [on]. We cannot take it any longer as a country”.On Friday, though, that “horror show” administration welcomed 275,000 jobs added in February and unemployment at 3.9%.“Job gains remain solid,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, a payrolls firm. “Pay gains are trending lower but are still above inflation. The labor market is dynamic.”Even Stephen Moore, an economist Trump tried to appoint to the Federal Reserve board and who is now part of Project 2025, a plan for a rightwing takeover of the federal government, celebrated economic conditions.“One thing Biden said last night was true,” Moore told Fox Business. “It is true that the United States today has the strongest economy. There is no question about it.”Contacted for comment, Moore said: “No I don’t credit Biden for the economy. It IS true that we have the strongest economy but as I said, we are the least rotten apple in the cart. Most of the rest of the world is in recession.”Asked who he credited for the strong economy, if not the man who has presided over it for three years, Moore did not immediately reply.As Biden headed for Pennsylvania, his campaign parried criticisms that did arise from his State of the Union address.Asked about Biden’s use of the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented migrant, which angered progressives, Michael Tyler, the communications director, turned the question back on Trump.“I know it may have been difficult to hear over the incessant heckling of Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Tyler told reporters, referring to the extremist Georgia Republican who prompted Biden’s remark, “but we should be very clear about what the president was saying when it comes to fixing our broken [immigration] system and to rejecting the cruelty in the hateful extremism being pushed by” Trump and Republicans.Biden was working to pass bipartisan reform, Tyler said, while Trump used migrants as a “political punching bag” and “peddl[ed] Nazi rhetoric”.Asked if Biden’s remark might hurt outreach efforts with Latino voters, Tyler said the campaign would “demonstrate the clear contrast” with Trump.“We are running against a man who was promising to rip kids away from their mothers again, who’s promising to erect mass deportation camps, who is promising to end birthright citizenship and is using hate as one of its chief political currencies,” Tyler said.Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager and the granddaughter of the great labor leader Cesar Chavez, said: “Our community knows Joe. They know who is fighting for our community.”Sources outside the campaign praised Biden too. Justin Wolfers, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, saluted “a muscular speech”. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, hailed “a home run”.Rick Wilson, a Republican operative turned co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said Biden’s performance “should settle this crapulous conventional wisdom media trope of ‘he’s too old’ once and for damn all”.Democrats, Wilson said, now have “a perfect way to shut this garbage talking point down: ‘You saw that State of the Union speech. Joe Biden is sharper than Donald Trump and ready for the fight.’” More
