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      In Election’s Final Days, Dark Money and ‘Gray Money’ Fund Hidden Agendas

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      Big-money operatives are taking advantage of lax rules at the end of the campaign to hide the true source of their money until after the election is called — or for forever.The campaign literature that landed in Republican mailboxes in North Carolina this week was jarring. On one side was a sonogram image of a human fetus, with this message: “Her heart is beating. We all know it. Only the courageous few will protect her.” On the other side was a call to action: “You have the courage and the conviction to vote for Randall Terry.”But the mailer did not come from supporters of Mr. Terry, a third-party presidential candidate and longtime leader in the anti-abortion movement.Rather, the fine print showed it was the work of a nascent super PAC with the anodyne name of Civic Truth Action that was funded by millions of dollars in difficult-to-trace money linked to Democrats trying to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the next president.The final days of a high-stakes election are often a time of political mischief. The message pushed by Civic Truth Action — purportedly to help Mr. Terry but aimed at siphoning votes from former President Donald J. Trump — may be among the most cynical. But it is far from unique. Across the country, supporters of Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are taking advantage of a patchwork of lax laws that allow partisans to funnel millions of dollars through daisy chains of opaque entities into hard-hitting campaign tactics, all to try to sway the tiny slice of swing-state voters who could make the difference.Campaign operatives and donors have long deployed creative accounting to mask the flow of money into politics. But in the decade and a half since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for unlimited spending on political advertising, it has become particularly difficult to follow the big-money flow in the weeks before Election Day, despite the majority opinion’s assertions that “prompt disclosure” of political spending would enable voters “to make informed decisions.”“Now it’s sort of undeniable that the court was wrong with those predictions,” said Ian Vandewalker, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of big money in politics. Mr. Vandewalker published an analysis this week of the increase in difficult-to-trace funding to super PACs. “The ability to hide funding for those types of things is attractive for people who want to engage in dirty tricks,” he said in an interview.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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      Trump and His Allies Link Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment to 2016 ‘Deplorables’ Remark

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      Donald J. Trump and his allies are trying to recreate a moment that resonated deeply with his supporters in the 2016 campaign: when Hillary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”On Tuesday, it was President Biden who provided the ammunition, appearing to call Trump supporters “garbage” while talking to Latino allies by video.“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, adding, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” The White House insisted that what Mr. Biden had said was “his supporter’s demonization,” referring only to the comic who initially insulted Puerto Ricans with an offensive joke at Mr. Trump’s New York rally on Sunday.Mr. Trump’s allies insisted the meaning was clear.Within minutes of the clip of Mr. Biden’s remarks going viral on social media on Tuesday night, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida addressed Mr. Trump’s rally in Allentown, Pa., and informed the crowd of Mr. Biden’s statement.“I have breaking news for you, Mr. President — you may not have heard this,” Mr. Rubio told the audience after Mr. Trump had called him up to the stage and stood next to him. “Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage — are garbage.”Mr. Rubio added, as the crowd booed and Mr. Trump shook his head: “He’s talking about the Border Patrol. He’s talking about nurses. He’s talking about teachers. He’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President.”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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      Biden Appears to Insult Trump Supporters as ‘Garbage,’ but Quickly Tries to Clarify

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      President Biden on Tuesday denounced racist language at former President Donald J. Trump’s recent rally but appeared to insult Trump supporters as “garbage,” prompting waves of criticism from Republicans.The White House quickly objected to that interpretation of the president’s remarks, arguing that he was instead describing the racist language as “garbage,” not Trump supporters.The comments came as Mr. Biden was addressing Latino supporters by video. “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, referring to a riff by Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and Trump supporter who spoke at the rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.Mr. Biden said Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people.” Then he went on: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”The White House released a transcript that showed Mr. Biden was saying “his supporter’s” demonization, meaning that Mr. Hinchcliffe’s demonization was garbage.But Republicans seized on the seeming gaffe, comparing it to a comment by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she referred to Trump supporters as “deplorables.”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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      Michelle Obama, Rallying Young Voters Near Atlanta, Warns of ‘Apathy’

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      Michelle Obama, the former first lady and among the Democrats’ most popular surrogates, offered a bracing tutorial in the realities of political power on Tuesday night, beseeching thousands of people near Atlanta to vote and to “stop the spiral of disillusionment and apathy.”“It’s natural to wonder if anyone hears you, if anyone sees you,” Mrs. Obama told her audience, many of them students from Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities, at an arena just south of downtown. “It is healthy to push your leaders to be better, even to question the whole system.”But, she added, “It’s our job to show folks that two things can be true at once: that it is possible to be outraged by the slow pace of progress and be committed to your own pursuit of that progress.”Mrs. Obama’s pleas and warnings came as Georgia entered the final days of its early voting period, a stretch in which one participation record after another has fallen. Already, more than 3 million people in the state have cast ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.With the state among the most contested this election year — Joseph R. Biden Jr. beat Donald J. Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes in 2020 — Georgia voters have faced an onslaught of pressure to pick one side or another.Mrs. Obama, addressing a rally that was formally nonpartisan and unaligned with any campaign, made a different ask: Vote.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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      As Trump Sows Doubt on Pennsylvania Voting, Officials Say the System Is Working

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      With about a week to go before Election Day, officials from two Pennsylvania counties announced that they had found large batches of suspicious voter registration forms. While at least some of the documents appeared to be fraudulent, there is no indication that any of them are ballots, though officials clarified that they were continuing to investigate.To hear former President Donald J. Trump’s telling, Pennsylvania’s election system was already melting down.“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster,” he said at a rally on Tuesday night in Allentown, Pa. “Every vote was written by the same person.” He made similar allegations about York County, building on claims that he made on social media earlier in the day about “Really bad ‘stuff,’” in the two counties. “Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!!”, he insisted.But contrary to Mr. Trump’s incendiary claim that fake ballots had been cast, there were no reports of actual ballots being among the two batches of documents. And on the ground, away from the high-strung channels of social media, law enforcement was already doing its job.Neither a representative for the Trump campaign nor the state G.O.P. immediately responded to requests for comment.Thousands of voter registration forms, as well as some mail-in ballot applications, were submitted in large batches by out-of-state canvassing groups. Some of the paperwork raised suspicions among county election workers, and officials from both counties said any forms that appeared to be fraudulent would be turned over to local prosecutors.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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      ‘Hatred and Vitriol’ at the Trump Rally in New York

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      More from our inbox:What My Gut SaysThe Benefits of Electric CarsDonald Trump at Madison Square Garden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “At the Garden, a Vivid Display of MAGA Fury” (front page, Oct. 29) and “The Pain of a Son’s Death, Worsened by Politics” (front page, Oct. 29):As I read these two articles, I wondered again where Trumpism has put its compassion. The first was about Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, which included unbelievable amounts of hatred and vitriol. The second told the story of the Springfield, Ohio, family who lost a son in a school bus accident involving a Haitian driver and has since faced heckling and threats for objecting to the politicization of the accident.I cannot vote for a party that voices that much hatred and talk of violence. Where is the compassion? Where is the love, mercy, justice, humility?Kent OlsonSioux Falls, S.D.To the Editor:Even eight years ago I would have been astonished if anybody at a Trump rally were to dispense the kind of raw racist hatred that was heard at Madison Square Garden, but I was not astonished this time. Donald Trump and his minions have put down the dog whistle and have picked up an industrial-strength bullhorn. Why? Because they know that it will resonate with a large section of the American population.We have to stop living in denial: The majority of Americans are not racist, but racism is not a fringe movement; it infects many millions. Mr. Trump would not be beating the drum so hard if this were not true.The disheartening hard truth is that whoever is in the White House, racism remains a national cancer. How can we battle it? I wish I had an answer, but I know this much: As a starting point, it is imperative that we acknowledge that the malignancy exists.David EnglishActon, Mass.To the Editor:What a coincidence. Sunday was also the 50th anniversary of the national day of solidarity with Puerto Rican independence, also held at Madison Square Garden, which drew nearly 20,000 people.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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      Could the Vote Be Contested Again? 5 Threats to a Smooth Election

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      Litigation, disinformation and battles over certifying the vote all have the potential to complicate the process.For the past four years, Donald J. Trump has been proclaiming the American electoral process “rigged,” decrying events that displease him as “election interference” and laying the groundwork to contest another loss at the polls.It follows the playbook from his loss in 2020, when the former president weaponized disinformation and exploited perceived weak points or vagueness in election law in an attempt to overturn results.At the same time, lawmakers and election officials have been trying to shore up the electoral system against another potential attempt to subvert a presidential election. Federal laws regarding the Electoral College were changed. There is stronger case law to knock down specious legal claims, and Mr. Trump is no longer sitting in the Oval Office with the levers of government in his grasp.But even with a national effort to reinforce the country’s democratic institutions, a smooth path to picking the next president still requires the good faith buy-in of its citizens, candidates and political parties. Absent that, there are a number of ways that the next few weeks — both before and after the polls close — could be rocky.Here is a look at some possibilities:Elizabeth Young, an assistant state attorney general representing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argued an election-related case before members of Georgia’s Supreme Court last month.Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressA flood of litigationAlready, more than 187 election-related lawsuits have been filed, including at least 116 seeking some restrictions to voting and 68 filed by those seeking to expand or protect voting, according to data from Democracy Docket, a Democratic-aligned group that tracks election cases. The cases represent an extraordinary inundation of litigation before the election.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