US elections 2024 Archivi - Page 26 of 324 - politic-news.space

More stories

175 Shares129 Views
in US Politics
‘I hope our voices are heard’: illustrated interviews with swing state voters in Pennsylvania
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 13:00
View image in fullscreen@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:160px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:240px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:620px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:100%}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{margin-left:0}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:620px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:860px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1100px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width));position:relative;left:50%;right:50%;margin-left:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width))!important;margin-right:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width))!important}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(-20px);width:calc(100% + 60px)}}@media (max-width: 71.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{margin-left:0;margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(0);width:auto}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1260px}}.content__main-column–interactive p{color:#121212;max-width:620px}.content__main-column–interactive ul{max-width:620px}.content__main-column–interactive:before{position:absolute;top:0;height:calc(100% + 15px);min-height:100px;content:””}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{border-left:1px solid #dcdcdc;z-index:-1;left:-10px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{border-left:1px solid #dcdcdc;left:-11px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-bottom:12px;padding-top:12px}.content__main-column–interactive p+.element-atom{padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;margin-top:12px;margin-bottom:12px}.content__main-column–interactive .element-inline{max-width:620px}@media (min-width: 61.25em){figure[data-spacefinder-role=inline].element{max-width:620px}}:root{–dateline: #606060}.element.element-atom{padding:0}#article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-of-type,#article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#feature-body .element-atom+p:first-of-type,#feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,#feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type{padding-top:14px}#article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,.content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,#feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter,[data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-of-type:first-letter{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:111px;line-height:92px;float:left;text-transform:uppercase;box-sizing:border-box;margin-right:8px;vertical-align:text-top;color:var(–series-title-text)}#maincontent .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#feature-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#standard-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption,#comment-article-container .element.element–showcase.element-showcase figcaption{position:static!important;width:100%;max-width:620px}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px))}@media (max-width: 71.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{max-width:978px}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:10px}}@media (max-width: 71.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:20px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em) and (max-width: 61.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{max-width:738px}}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{margin-left:-10px!important;margin-right:0!important;left:0}}@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.element.element–immersive.element-immersive{margin-left:-20px!important}.element.element–immersive.element-immersive figcaption{padding-inline:20px}}.furniture-wrapper{position:relative}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper{display:grid;grid-column-gap:20px;grid-row-gap:0px;grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end meta-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(5,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-start] auto [meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{border-top:1px solid #dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{position:relative;padding-top:2px;margin-right:0}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst .content__standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst .content__standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] .content__standfirst{margin-bottom:4px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p:first-of-type{border-top:1px solid #dcdcdc;padding-bottom:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em) and (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p:first-of-type,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p:first-of-type{border-top:unset}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper figure{margin:0 -10px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper{grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(2,1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(7,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{content:””;width:540px;position:absolute;top:0;background-color:#dcdcdc;height:1px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p{border-top:unset}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:before{content:””;width:1px;background-color:#dcdcdc;height:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:.5px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.furniture-wrapper{grid-template-columns:[title-start headline-start meta-start] repeat(3,1fr) [meta-end standfirst-start] repeat(5,1fr) [title-end headline-end standfirst-end portrait-start] repeat(8,1fr) [portrait-end];grid-template-rows:[title-start portrait-start] .25fr [title-end headline-start] 1fr [headline-end standfirst-start meta-start] .75fr [standfirst-end meta-end portrait-end]}.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{width:620px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:before{left:-.5px}}.furniture-wrapper .article-header .content__labels >div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] .content__labels >div{padding-top:2px}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{font-weight:600;max-width:620px;font-size:32px}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{max-width:540px;font-size:50px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{display:none}}.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4 svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines] svg{stroke:#dcdcdc}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper #meta,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{margin-right:0}}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__comment,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__comment{border-color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta .content__meta-container_dcr >div >gu-island,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .content__meta-container_dcr >div >gu-island{display:none}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{margin-left:-10px;padding-left:10px;position:relative}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{padding-top:2px}}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p{font-weight:400;font-size:20px;padding-bottom:14px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] a{color:var(–series-title-text)}.furniture-wrapper figure{position:relative;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px;grid-area:portrait}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper figure{margin-bottom:0}}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.furniture-wrapper figure{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));margin-left:-10px}}@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper figure{margin-left:-20px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption{position:absolute;bottom:0;padding:4px 10px 12px;background-color:#121212b8;color:#999;max-width:unset;width:100%;margin-bottom:0;min-height:46px}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span{color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span svg{fill:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(1){display:none}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(2){display:block;max-width:90%}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper figcaption{padding:4px 20px 12px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption.hidden{opacity:0}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{display:block;position:absolute;bottom:10px;right:8px;z-index:100;background-color:#121212b8;border:none;border-radius:50%;padding:6px 5px 5px}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button svg{transform:scale(.85)}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{right:20px}}.content__main-column–interactive:before{top:-12px;height:calc(100% + 24px)}.content__main-column–interactive h2{max-width:620px}body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter{color:var(–original-pillar-colour, #000)}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__header,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__header,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__header,body.android #feature-article-container .article__header,body.android #standard-article-container .article__header,body.android #comment-article-container .article__header{height:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper{padding:4px 10px 0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels{font-weight:700;font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;color:var(–byline-anchor, #c70000);text-transform:capitalize}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{font-size:32px;font-weight:700;padding-bottom:12px;color:#121212!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image{position:relative;margin:14px 0 0 -12px;width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image .figure__inner,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image img,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image a{background-color:transparent;width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst{padding-top:4px;padding-bottom:24px;margin-right:-10px}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner p{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst__inner a{color:var(–byline-anchor, #c70000)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta{margin:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .meta__byline span{color:var(–byline-anchor, #c70000)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc{padding:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg{stroke:var(–byline-anchor, #c70000)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .element–showcase #caption-button{display:flex;padding:5px;justify-content:center;align-items:center;width:28px;height:28px;right:14px}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body{padding:0 12px}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive),body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive){margin:0;width:calc(100vw – 24px – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));height:auto}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image:not(.element–thumbnail):not(.element–immersive) figcaption{padding:0}body.ios #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.ios #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.ios #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #feature-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #standard-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive,body.android #comment-article-container .article__body figure.element-image.element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px))}@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper{background-color:#1a1a1a}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels{color:var(–byline-anchor, #ff5943)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{background-color:unset;color:#dcdcdc!important}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p{color:#dcdcdc}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a{color:var(–byline-anchor, #ff5943)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg{stroke:var(–byline-anchor, #ff5943)}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption{color:#606060}body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body],body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body]{background-color:#1a1a1a!important}body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.ios #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #feature-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #standard-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #article-body >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container .content–interactive >div .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container #feature-body .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+.sign-in-gate+p:first-letter,body.android #comment-article-container [data-gu-name=body] .element-atom+#sign-in-gate+p:first-letter{color:var(–byline-anchor, #ffffff)}}.prose h2{font-size:24px}body.ios #feature-article-container #caption-button,body.ios #standard-article-container #caption-button,body.ios #comment-article-container #caption-button{padding:6px 5px 0}body.android #feature-article-container #caption-button,body.android #standard-article-container #caption-button,body.android #comment-article-container #caption-button{padding:2px 4px 0}.furniture-wrapper.has-guardian-org-logo #meta gu-island[name=Branding],.furniture-wrapper.has-guardian-org-logo [data-gu-name=meta] gu-island[name=Branding]{display:block!important}.furniture-wrapper.has-guardian-org-logo [name=Branding] a{color:var(–byline-anchor)}body.ios,body.android{background-color:#fff}body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline{font-weight:700}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst div p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst div p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] div p{color:#121212}
Last week, I made a short trip to Pennsylvania from New York to talk to people in this crucial swing state about the election.I addressed people at random and asked them what this year’s election means to them and how they think the future will look like if Donald Trump or Kamala Harris would win.The drawings were made there in ink on the spot, which allowed time to get to know the person a little. Some people I’d like to have drawn did not want to talk about the election and were reticent because they wanted to preserve their privacy or felt it is a too divisive subject.Above: Orlando, a volunteer with VoteRidersOrlando was part of an outreach team that went around Clark Park in Philadelphia that day. Vote Riders is a non-partisan national non-profit helping people to get voter ID “I’ve only been here [in the US] two years and being part of the election is a major thing, an experience. A lot of people don’t even know how to get voting, how to get started,” he said. “I got to realise how important it is, doing it and seeing the outcome.”Musa setting up his stall at Clark Park farmers’ market in PhiladelphiaView image in fullscreen“I don’t believe any of them are going to do anything for me – some of that stuff you’ve got to do for yourself,” he said. “I’m not going to vote for someone just because they’re going to give me an extra dollar here or there. I don’t think nobody should vote for you if you’re not a good person. But people will. That’s human nature.”Elaine, singing under the Charles Dickens statue in Clark ParkView image in fullscreenElaine, 16, was playing songs by his band Baby Killer Death Cult (the name is a reference to what pro-choice people have been called). “If I could vote I’d probably vote for Harris, or a third party if it could win. My thing is that at least Kamala is better than Trump. I changed my mom’s mind and now she’s voting for her. I only disagree with Kamala on Palestine.”Jerene and David, listening to music in Clark ParkView image in fullscreenA singer and a piano teacher, Jerene and David were listening to Elaine performing by the Charles Dickens statue. Jerene: “I have voted, I have done my part, I just wish it was January. My assumption is that she will win, if not I will hunker down and wait until he goes away.” David: “This election means a lot if you care about history and the benefits we enjoy, freedom and liberty. This could be a breaking point.”Ellen in Clark Park giving out yard signs, feeding her daughter a burritoView image in fullscreen“I’ve given out 50 signs over the past two weeks. I hope a Democratic Congress will pursue an agenda to protect reproductive rights, gun restrictions and Medicare on behalf of the majority of the people. Biden has done a fantastic job. I’m a union person and he expanded the right to organise.”Jim, a helper at Shenk’s Berry Farm stallView image in fullscreenAt Clark park farmer’s market nearing closing time, Jim said: “I worry Trump will rescind climate laws, I assume he will tear down climate initiatives. If Harris wins I will be dancing in the streets, if Trump, I don’t know, I’ll be so depressed. What he represents is a lack of integrity, empathy. I’m worried about violence.”Baltimore Ave and 52nd St, PhiladelphiaView image in fullscreenCardboard Harris posters are attached to posts all over this area.First-time voters at a free Rock the Vote concert at the Mann Center in PhiladelphiaView image in fullscreenSitting at the back of the lawn, Ella and Deonna were there to hear Benson Boone. Earlier, there were some surprise appearances on stage including, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro who came to make speeches about the importance of every vote in Pennsylvania. Ella: “I want us to have our say and keep our rights as women.” Deonna: “It’s important to vote and have our voice heard, I hope our voices are heard. So many people have fought for this right. Voting for the first time, I know that certain people want the best for me, it has been an encouragement and an inspiration.”View image in fullscreenPhiladelphia flea marketView image in fullscreenThe market takes place every Sunday near a highway north-east of PhiladelphiaLou at his stall at the Philadelphia flea marketView image in fullscreenLou, a former police officer, has a stall selling fishing tackle, ammunition, guns, knives and even grenades. Someone bought one of the guns as I was drawing. He asked me to guess how he planned to vote. “Let’s just say I’m conservative. With Trump, we’ll be more secure with the border, inflation will be under control and he’ll promote more energy use. With Harris, four more years of inflation and high energy prices. People don’t have extra money so they spend less here. Everything’s up. We’ll see …”Bob and Ruben, buddies who vote differentlyView image in fullscreenBob has had stalls for 40 years and Ruben often visits him at the flea market.
Bob: “Our friendship doesn’t change, we’re buddies. Religion and politics are not my expertise. I always try to vote for the best person for the job. I think Trump did a nice job, the ones in there now are a bunch of crooks. He’s going to bring the US back to being great again. Biden, he didn’t do anything.”Ruben: “He’s voting for Trump, I don’t agree with anything the guy stands for. I had a construction company before I retired and he used to cheat people in business and didn’t pay them. If jobs came along where Trump was involved I wouldn’t take them. He’s not to be trusted. The country’s not going to be good if he wins.”Neighbours in the borough of East PetersburgView image in fullscreenCities in central Pennsylvania have a voting mix, while the more rural areas are largely Republican, according to numbers at the last election.Animal feed farm in Lebanon countyView image in fullscreenAlan said: “A country needs its borders. Men need to play men’s sports, because children have enough issues. It’s hard enough being a kid today. When Trump was president it was a very peaceful time. I hope we can return to normality and have peace in the world. People want peace. My father was a Democrat. He would roll in his grave at the way people can’t talk to each other any more.”Tire service center in ManheimView image in fullscreenThe proprietor Dick said: “[Harris] doesn’t know anything and she shouldn’t be there. She’s saying she will help people go to work if they want to work, but that’s not even close to being the truth. If you don’t want to work, she’s the greatest thing on the planet ! You get paid for doing nothing. It’s sad to think that money lets politicians do what the hell they want: politicians are just licensed to steal. I work for my goddam money.”Billboard on Rising Sun AvenueView image in fullscreen More
188 Shares189 Views
in US Politics
History in the making: is the US finally about to elect its first female president?
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 13:00
“This is monumental,” said 19-year-old Kai Carter as she stood in line behind the White House where Kamala Harris was about to take the stage a week before the 5 November election.Carter was ecstatic at the prospect of Harris making history as the first Black female president of the United States. She attended the event with a group of fellow students from Howard University, the historically Black college in Washington DC, which is also the vice-president’s alma mater.Born in the United States of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris, the first female vice-president, is also potentially on the verge of becoming the first Asian American president, as well the country’s first female president. Yet she is not making a big deal about it.In her closing argument in Washington DC before one of the most consequential elections in the country’s history, Harris did not refer to her gender or her race or how she may be breaking a glass ceiling. It’s not something she brings up often on the campaign trail, choosing instead to focus on her middle-class upbringing and how she hopes to be a president for “all Americans”.Her central message that night was about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. “This election is more than a choice between two parties and two different candidates. It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American. Or one ruled by chaos and division.”Unlike Hillary Clinton, who made gender a central part of her 2016 run for office, at a time of historic polarization Harris chose to focus on issues over identity. That is also how she chose to run her unusually short campaign of 13 weeks after an ageing Biden finally passed her the mantle on 21 July.Laurie Pohutsky, a Democratic state representative in Michigan, decided to run in 2018 after witnessing Trump’s misogynistic campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Since then, she has introduced two key pieces of state legislation that lifted restrictions on abortion. In a phone interview from the swing state governed by the Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, she said: “You know, we weren’t elected because we were women. And I think that when we frame it that way, we do a disservice to ourselves.”She said she agreed with Harris’s choice not to focus on gender: “While it’s historic, it’s not what would make her a good president.”“We’re long overdue for a female president,” she added. “But that’s not why I think people are voting for her. They’re voting for her because of her record and the work that she’s done and the things that she believes, versus what we know Donald Trump believes.”Identity politicsIn the face of misogyny and racism, it is Harris’s detractors who have attempted to use her identity against her. Republicans regularly mispronounce her name or call her a “DEI hire”.At the beginning of her campaign, Trump sought to steer the conversation towards race in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, questioning whether Harris is indeed Black. Many recognize these personal attacks as Trump’s hallmark. Their purpose is to undermine debate, take his opponent off script, stoke division and ultimately attract media attention.Christina Reynolds, senior vice-president for communications for Emily’s List, a political action committee that backs pro-choice Democratic female candidates, including Harris, explains that women are often the butt of personal attacks whereas men are attacked for their policies. Reynolds has witnessed this first-hand after working on five presidential campaigns, including Hillary Clinton’s.This is just one example of the double standards women and particularly women of color face to get to the top. Another is the pressure on women to be both likable and competent, whereas a man can be one or the other. Research by UC Berkeley’s Hass School of Business also shows that women in positions of power lose likability. This is particularly true of successful middle-aged women.In 2016, Trump accused Clinton of being a “nasty woman” while male pundits told her to “smile” more. When Harris, a former prosecutor, successfully grilled Brett Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearing for the supreme court, Trump accused her too of being “nasty”.A champion of women’s rightsDespite Harris’s attempts to detract attention from her gender and race, she has campaigned heavily on the issue of women’s rights. “She may not frame things in terms of her gender, but the first president or vice-president to invite abortion providers to the White House and to visit an abortion provider – both of those firsts were Kamala Harris,” Reynolds said.The overturning of Roe v Wade by three Trump-appointed supreme court justices in 2022 placed women’s rights at the forefront of voters’ concerns. The right to abortion was a hard-fought battle that was won in 1973. A poll from May 2024 from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center suggested that 63% of Americans believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases.In perhaps one of the most moving moments of the Democratic national convention, three women told their harrowing personal stories of being denied medical care in states where abortions are restricted.At the closing rally in Washington DC, Harris suggested Trump could take things even further: “He would ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put IVF at risk and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris has also proposed policies to appeal to people – especially women – who need to care for parents and young children at the same time, known as the sandwich generation. She talks about how she had to care for her mother before she died of cancer in 2009, and she has talked about her plan to have Medicare pay for home healthcare.Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
When do polls close?
Trump v Harris on key issues
What’s at stake and what else to know
Signs of progressHarris is running for office in a divided country, with Trump threatening violence against his political opponents. “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list,” she said in DC last week to a crowd of more than 75,000 people.And while in her closing argument the Democratic nominee made clear that she pledged to be a “president for all Americans” and “to always put country above party and above self”, at the same time Reynolds noted that “she has taken the communities that she has been a part of” and ensured that they “have a voice” and “that they are included in conversations”.As Americans watched Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House and Harris as vice-president sitting behind Biden as he gave his first address to Congress in April 2021, they were reminded of how women are increasingly occupying positions of power. The numbers tell a similar story. According to data provided by the Center for American Women and Politics, in 2017 the US had 105 female members of Congress out of 535. Today the number has reached 150, including rising stars such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett.“We still have a long way to go,” said Reynolds. But people no longer hear the word “candidate” “with the assumption that a candidate is a man”.“And that’s progress,” she added.At Harris’s closing address in Washington DC, Elaine Callahan, a self-described independent voter, felt compelled to back Harris in 2024: “It is historic. Yes!”But as polls show Harris and Trump neck and neck in many swing states, she remembers what happened to Clinton back in 2016 and is prompted to “pray to God there will be a shift”. More
138 Shares189 Views
in US Politics
When do polls close on election day, Tuesday, 5 November 2024?
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 11:00
After a historic US election cycle that saw the incumbent president step down from his party’s ticket and two assassination attempts against the Republican presidential nominee, voters are (finally) casting their ballots.Tens of millions of Americans will have already voted by the time that polls close on 5 November, but tens of millions more will cast ballots in person on election day. In 2020, more than 200 million Americans voted in the presidential race, as turnout hit its highest level since 1992.This year, election experts expect voter turnout to be similarly robust, with Americans eager to make their voices heard in what will probably be a very close contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Voters will also have the opportunity to weigh in on thousands of other elections happening at the federal, state and local levels.As voters head to the polls, here’s a guide on how to navigate an election night that is guaranteed to be eventful:6pm ET: polls start to closeThe first polls will close in eastern Kentucky and much of Indiana at 6pm ET. Democrats’ expectations are low in the two Republican-leaning states: Trump is virtually guaranteed to win both, and Republicans are expected to easily hold most of the two states’ House seats as well.7pm ET: polls fully close in six states, including GeorgiaAmericans will get their first clues about the outcome of the presidential race at 7pm ET, when polls close in the battleground state of Georgia. Joe Biden won Georgia by just 0.2 points in 2020, after Trump carried the state by 5 points four years earlier. This year, Trump appears to have a slight advantage over Harris in the Peach state, but a strong night for Democrats could put Georgia in their win column again.As Georgia starts to count its ballots, polls will also close in Virginia, where both parties hope to flip a House seat. Republicans are looking to expand their narrow majority in the House, and the results in Virginia’s second and seventh congressional districts could give an early indication of the party’s success.7.30pm ET: polls close in North Carolina, Ohio and West VirginiaNorth Carolina represents one of the largest tests for Harris, who has run neck and neck with Trump in the state’s polling. Trump won North Carolina by 1 point in 2020 and 3 points in 2016, and a loss in this battleground state could doom the former president. Democrats also expect a victory in the North Carolina gubernatorial race, given the recent revelations about Republican Mark Robinson’s disturbing internet activity.Meanwhile, the results in Ohio and West Virginia could decide control of the Senate. Republicans are expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, where the independent senator Joe Manchin decided against seeking re-election; and the Democratic incumbent, Sherrod Brown, is facing a tough race in Ohio. If Republicans win both races, that would erase Democrats’ current 51-49 advantage in the Senate.8pm ET: polls fully close in 16 states, including PennsylvaniaThis will represent a pivotal moment in the presidential race. Whoever wins Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes is much more likely to win the White House, a fact that both nominees acknowledged as they held numerous campaign events in the state.“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at a rally in September. “It’s very simple.”Pennsylvania will also host some of the nation’s most competitive congressional races. If it is a good night for Republicans, they could flip the seat of the incumbent Democratic senator Bob Casey, who is facing off against the former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick.But if Democrats have an especially strong night, they may set their sights on Florida, where the final polls close at 8pm ET. In addition to Harris’s long-shot hopes of flipping a state that Trump won twice, the Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is looking to unseat the Republican senator Rick Scott, who has maintained a polling advantage in the race. An upset win for Mucarsel-Powell could allow Democrats to maintain their Senate majority.8.30pm ET: polls close in ArkansasThere won’t be much suspense in Arkansas, as Trump is expected to easily win the solidly Republican state. Arkansas does have the distinction of being the only state where polls will close at 8.30pm ET, but most Americans’ attention will be on the results trickling in from battleground states by this point in the night.9pm ET: polls fully close in 15 states, including Michigan and WisconsinThis will be the do-or-die moment for Harris. In 2016, Trump’s ability to eke out narrow victories in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin sent him to the White House, but Biden won all three battlegrounds four years later.Harris’s most likely path to 270 electoral votes runs through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this year, so Trump could secure a second term if he can pick off even one of those states.Michigan and Wisconsin will also play a potentially decisive role in the battle for Congress. Democrats currently hold two Senate seats in the states that are up for grabs this year, and Republican victories in either race could give them a majority. Michigan’s seventh congressional district, which became an open seat after Elissa Slotkin chose to run for the Senate rather than seek re-election, has been described as “the most competitive open seat in the country”.In New York, where polls also close at 9pm ET, Democrats have the opportunity to flip several House seats that Republicans won in 2022. If they are successful, it could give Democrats a House majority.10pm ET: polls fully close in Nevada, Montana and UtahHarris hopes to keep Nevada in her column, as Democratic presidential candidates have won the state in every race since 2008. Trump previously led Nevada polls, but Harris has closed that gap in the final weeks of the race.Another two Senate races will come to a close at this point in the night as well. In Nevada, the Democratic incumbent, Jacky Rosen, is favored to hold her seat, but her fellow Democratic senator Jon Tester’s prospects appear grim in Montana.If Republicans have not already clinched a Senate majority by the time Montana’s polls close, this may be the moment when they officially capture control of the upper chamber.11pm ET: polls fully close in four states, including CaliforniaWhile Harris is virtually guaranteed a victory in her home state of California, the state’s House races carry important implications for control of Congress. Five House Republicans face toss-up races in California, according to the Cook Political Report, so the state represents Democrats’ biggest opportunity to regain a majority in the chamber.12am ET: polls close in Hawaii and most of AlaskaBy the time polls close in Hawaii and most of Alaska, Americans should have a much better sense of who will be moving into the White House come January. But if 2020 is any indication, the nation may have to wait a bit longer to hear a final call on who won the presidential race.In 2020, the AP did not declare Biden as the winner of the presidential election until 7 November at 11.26am ET – four days after the first polls closed. And in 2016, it took until 2.29am ET the morning after election day to declare Trump as the winner.Given how close the race for the White House is expected to be, Americans might have to settle in for a long night – or even week – to learn who their next president is. More
163 Shares159 Views
in US Politics
What if Trump’s campaign is cover for a slow-motion coup? | Jan-Werner Müller
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 10:08
Whatever happens next, one day historians will have to explain why a candidate who earlier this year had been presented as disciplined started to veer off into unrestrained racist rhetoric and dancing for 40 minutes to his own playlist. Was it age, as plenty of commentators have speculated? Was it a brilliant attempt to balance dehumanizing attacks on minorities with an effort to make himself look human?A much more sinister explanation must be taken seriously. We still assume that we are witnessing two campaigns for the presidency. But what if we are witnessing one campaign and one slow-motion coup, whose organizers need to go through the motion of campaigning for the plan to work? Since winning at the ballot box does not matter, taking a break to listen to Pavarotti isn’t a problem; conversely, a festival of racism and conspiracy theories, as at Madison Square Garden, is not about convincing any undecided voter, but motivating committed Trumpists to go along with another coup attempt.To be sure, this can also sound like conspiracy theory. The point is not prediction, but to call for preparedness. After all, there is an overwhelming number of reasons why, should Trump lose, he will once more try to take power anyway. His followers have long been primed to assume that evil Democrats will steal the election. The unchecked racism fits into a logic of far-right populism more generally: far-right populists claim that they, and they alone, represent what they call “the silent majority” or “the real people” (the very expression Trump used on January 6 to address his supporters).If far-right populists do not win elections, the reason can only be that the majority of the electorate was silenced by someone (liberal elites, of course). Or, for that matter, people who are not “real people” – fake Americans – must have participated in the election to bring about an illegitimate outcome. This explains the Republican obsession with finding proof of “non-citizen” voting.Dozens of lawsuits have already been launched to put election results into doubt. As in 2020 and early 2021, Trump is likely to make sharing his lies a test of loyalty.Here analogies with other far-right populists are again illuminating: it is doubtful that all followers of the far-right Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland truly believe that relatively liberal prime minister Donald Tusk had colluded with Russians to have the country’s president, a member of PiS, killed in a plane crash in Smolensk in 2010. But professing the Smolensk conspiracy theory was not about making an empirical statement; it became a means to signal membership of a political tribe.In theory, Republicans could seize the chance at last to break with Trump, who, after all, has only delivered defeats to the party. He has stated that he will not run again (though it would of course be naive to take any of his promises at face value). Yet there were already plenty of incentives to get rid of Trump in early 2021, and still Republicans did not disown, let alone impeach, him.Most worryingly, Maga members have been primed to resort to violence. Trump and his allies – including the world’s richest man, who just happens to be a rightwing extremist – have framed the election as an apocalyptic battle. If Democrats win, Musk has claimed, there will not be any proper elections ever after; they will bring in more foreigners to secure a permanent majority. It is already half forgotten that Trump held his first major rally this election cycle in Waco, Texas.Who knows whether Trump can really mobilize large numbers of people on the streets; it might be enough to prolong a sense of chaos. Vance has claimed that the 2020 election was problematic, because so many citizens had doubts about its “integrity” and Democrats prevented a “debate” which the country needed to have (never mind that Republicans had created the doubts in the first place). How long a debate would Vance like, exactly? Incidents like the infamous Brooks Brothers riot, where rightwingers in fancy suits stopped a recount in Florida in 2000, might accompany this debate. After all, as Jack Smith has claimed, Trump campaign operatives in 2020 already issued the order: “Make them riot.”The hope may well be that, if decisions are kicked to the correct court, things could still go Republicans’ way. Trumpists know from the US supreme court’s decisions about ballot access and immunity earlier that some parts of the judiciary have given up on any conventional legal logic; they are likely simply to deliver whatever benefits Trump. The conservative justices’ decision this past week allowing the removal of voters from the rolls in Virginia so close to the election – a clear break with precedent – might well have been a preview of what a court captured by Trumpists is willing to do.To be sure, the system as a whole is less vulnerable than in 2020. What is officially known as the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 makes it harder to challenge results in Congress; the theory that legislatures could overturn the outcome – popular among Trumpists in 2020 – has not found much legal support. But since Trump has everything to lose (including his freedom, given the charges still pending), there’s every reason to think that he’ll try everything.
Jan-Werner Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and a Guardian US columnist More
163 Shares199 Views
in US Politics
The candidates’ closing campaign messages could not be more different | Margaret Sullivan
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 10:00
In recent days, the Republican nominee for president of the United States has driven around in circles in a garbage truck, pretended to work at McDonald’s and presided over a rally in which Puerto Rico was called a floating island of garbage.Outrageous, of course – but then it got worse. On Thursday, talking on stage with Tucker Carlson in Arizona, Donald Trump went after the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who opposes his re-election and has campaigned with Kamala Harris: “Let’s put her with a rifle with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it when the guns are trained on her face.”Cheney characterized this as “how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death.”Meanwhile, in the final days of her campaign, Harris continued to call for unity, progress and inclusion. In a sweeping speech at the Ellipse in Washington DC before a huge and appreciative crowd, she warned of Americans losing their fundamental freedoms if they submit to the will of the “petty tyrant” mentioned above.With only a few days left of this exhausting campaign, the candidates’ closing statements could not be more different. There’s violent, hateful rhetoric and threats of retribution from one side. There’s inclusion, sanity and promises of good will on the other. Autocracy on the one hand; the preservation of democracy on the other.And yet, according to the polls – if you choose to believe them – the presidential race is tied.The oft-cited Cook Political Report issued its final projection: “Too close to call. Harris heads into Election Day with 226 electoral votes in Likely or Solid Democrat, and Trump with 219 in Likely or Solid Republican. Seven states and their 93 electoral votes are too close to call, with neither candidate having a lead larger than one or two points in any state.”You’d think, then, that these final days would matter. That mysteriously undecided voters would finally figure things out, or that some last-minute political bomb would explode – like the Access Hollywood audio followed by the FBI’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton emails investigation in the last days of the 2016 campaign.But no one should have bothered to wait.At this point, nothing can make a bit of difference. For some observers, this is not a new realization.“That’s where I’ve been ever since 2015: feeling like language is pointless,” wrote David Roberts, formerly of Vox, who writes the Volts newsletter about clean energy and politics. “Like the reality I inhabit is so far from the reality Trump supporters inhabit that discourse between us is impossible or at least futile. The divide is unbridgeable.”And this is the background as voters make their way to their election sites, with many of them voting early to avoid chaos or danger on Tuesday. Each side is claiming the early voters as theirs.And right to the end, the most powerful of the mainstream press keeps trying to equalize the unequal.Both the New York Times and the Washington Post led their websites with Joe Biden’s verbal fumble in which he may, or may not, have referred to Trump supporters as garbage.And both placed that story above the fold on Thursday’s print front pages. The Post’s hefty two-column headline dominated the lead position: “Biden’s ‘garbage’ remark has Harris seeking distance.” The Times struck the same note: “Biden Misstep Delivers Grist to Harris Foes.”The headlines themselves demonstrate the flawed news judgment. “The news hook is literally that it provided ‘grist’ to Republicans,” and this in effect “outsources the judgment about the newsworthiness of the event to bad faith actors,” wrote Greg Sargent of the New Republic.Sure, Biden’s untimely gaffe is a legitimate story. But this important? Certainly not when you consider how the Times handled its own scoop – that the former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, believes Trump is a fascist and a danger to the nation. That one went to page A12.Meanwhile, Trump drives around in a garbage truck, issues death threats and says he’s planning to protect American women from their own healthcare decisions “whether the women like it or not”.No October surprise could have superseded the media’s reflexive false equivalence or the cult-like adoration of Trump’s followers.But, as my father used to urge, keep the faith.If there’s any justice or decency left – and I trust there is – Harris will leave the pollsters and the pundits scratching their heads after a November surprise. Her historic victory.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More
213 Shares139 Views
in US Politics
As I vote for president, I’ll be thinking of what Amanda Zurawski told me | Sophie Brickman
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 10:00
Shortly before America’s first presidential election since the fall of Roe v Wade, I want to tell you the story of Amanda Zurawski, a bright light in the center of a perfect, horrendous storm.A little over two years ago, Zurawski was 18 weeks pregnant with her first child, a child she and her husband had conceived after a year and a half of fertility treatments. When she started leaking fluid and sought medical help, her doctors told her there was no chance the fetus would survive. But Zurawski lives in Texas, a state with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country: in May of the previous year, the governor, Greg Abbott, had signed into law the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as SB8, which makes performing abortions after detection of embryonic or fetal cardiac activity, usually at six weeks, illegal. That was on top of several existing statutes. Then, in June 2022, Roe fell.And so Zurawski’s doctors told her that by the letter of the law – as far as they understood it; more on that later – in order to get the medical care she so desperately needed, either her daughter’s heart would have to stop, or her health would have to devolve into a “life-threatening situation”, something Zurawski has previous called “the most horrific version of a staring contest: whose life would end first? Mine, or my daughter’s?”Her doctors advised her not to leave a 15-minute radius of the hospital lest her situation spiral, nixing the already unfathomable idea of getting into a car or on to a plane to seek help from a less restrictive state, and risking going into septic shock in the middle of the Texas desert, or 30,000ft up in the air. So she went home to grieve her impending loss and brace for what might come – during which time, Texas’s total abortion trigger ban went into effect, which made performing an abortion punishable by life in prison. And there Zurawski sat, waiting.The next day, she developed sepsis – a condition her doctors felt was extreme enough to protect them from unintentionally violating the new law, allowing them to induce labor – and after three days in the ICU, she emerged from the experience having almost died, with her own future fertility compromised, and galvanized to make a change about the inhumane laws.“I admittedly didn’t realize the ways in which an abortion truly is just healthcare,” Zurawski told me this week when I reached her by phone during her early morning walk with her sheepadoodle, Millie, in Austin, where she lives with her husband, Josh. “I couldn’t imagine that I would ever need or want one, since I was desperately trying to have a baby.”The first moment abortion laws and her own fertility journey intersected was early on in the IVF process. The likelihood of a multiples pregnancy increases when using IVF, but as she is not able to carry multiples, her doctor had discussed the possibility of needing to perform selective reduction surgery if more than one embryo implanted, something that is currently illegal in Texas.“So I was aware that these laws could affect us, but not from the perspective that I would need it to save my life, and be denied healthcare,” she told me. When she found herself in the unimaginable situation of being turned away from the hospital by doctors who wanted to help her, but weren’t sure they could, her eyes opened, and she and Josh vowed to fight.Zurawski became the lead plaintiff in the landmark case, Zurawski v Texas, which sued the state of Texas to clarify the “medical emergency” exception in the law – a riveting and harrowing new documentary about the case follows Zurawski and two fellow plaintiffs through the legal fight – and soon found herself catapulted on to the national stage. Her natural charisma, straight talk, and tragic story calcified into a perfect trifecta with the power – so hopes Kamala Harris, who made her a campaign surrogate – of firing up the electorate.“Humanizing it is what’s really getting people to sit up and pay attention,” Zurawski told me. “When you see a face and a real human who’s been impacted by this, it’s impossible to say, ‘This is reasonable, this is exactly what we want for our country.’” She paused to take a breath. “That’s barbaric.”One of the most powerful scenes in the documentary shows Zurawski at home with her parents, her mother saying that she’s always voted Republican, but won’t after seeing her daughter almost die.“Will I say they’re converted Democrats? No!” Zurawski told me, laughing, as she huffed her way up a hill. “But I do think they are single-issue voters, at least in this election. It opened up their eyes a little bit to the legislature, and how laws are written, and how bans go into effect, and the real implications.”The real implications of, say, “medical exceptions” to a near-total abortion ban?“They don’t work! Categorically!” she scoffed, citing the multiple patient plaintiffs in her case, alongside other women who have died in our country awaiting care their doctors are prohibited, by law, from providing. “Every pregnancy is inherently unique. Where else in healthcare do we put a blanket rule over where you can and cannot receive treatment?”In her work over the years since she lost her pregnancy, she’s found that one key to changing minds lies in reframing the conversation from “pro-life” v “pro-choice” to one about healthcare access.“For 50 years, the right worked really hard to politicize and weaponize and stigmatize the word ‘abortion’,” she said. You say pro-choice or pro-life, and people are already on a side. But some of the time, she pointed out, people simply don’t understand what it means to be on one side or the other.“I’ll be at a rally, and someone will come up to me and say, ‘I didn’t realize that in 1985, when I had a D&C’” – a dilation-and-curettage surgical procedure that removes tissue from the uterus after miscarriage – “‘that’s an abortion.’ That’s the same as abortion care!”As Zurawski has crisscrossed the country, campaigning for the Harris-Walz ticket, another part of her family has also moved: her embryos. In February, the Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are “unborn children”. Zurawski, living in a state that has a similar political climate – one in which city councils have enacted abortion travel bans, in effect criminalizing the use of cities’ roads and highways to seek abortion care – panicked, and rushed to move them to a safer place.“The implications of the ruling are just staggering,” she said. But, by some estimates, she admits that moving the embryos is itself a stopgap measure. “If Trump is elected, it doesn’t matter where the embryos are, or where we are. He will unleash chaos.”She cited Project 2025, a rightwing policy manifesto for Trump’s second term that indicates plans not only to restrict birth control access and block access to abortion pills and medical equipment, but also potentially ban IVF and surrogacy in certain states.“Well, Josh and I have to use a surrogate now because of what my body went through. It’s like they’re saying, you’re out of luck!” She paused, catching her breath on the other end of the phone, perhaps reaching the top of a hill. “It could theoretically prevent us from having children.”So, what’s to be done? Watch the documentary. Share her story. Vote. Fight.
Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age and the novel Plays Well With Others More
150 Shares169 Views
in Elections
Fraud, lawsuits, chaos: how Trump is preparing to contest the 2024 election
by Eliana Willis 4 November 2024, 09:00
Donald Trump has left little doubt that he will contest the results of the 2024 election if he loses.Election lawyers and voting rights experts are bracing for an aggressive effort by the former president in the days after the election to challenge the results while votes are still being counted. But unlike 2020, when Trump’s effort after the election seemed a bit haphazard, experts say they’re seeing a much more organized effort that stretches from the courts to local groups organizing election deniers to work the polls.Here are a few key ways Trump is preparing to contest the 2024 vote:Seeding doubt about fraudFor months, Trump and allies have been spreading the false idea that there is fraud impacting the election.On the campaign trail, Trump has seized on a report that officials in Lancaster county are investigating a batch of 2,500 voter registration applications for possible fraud. The district attorney has said that investigators have discovered some fraudulent applications, but has not said how many or the nature of the fraud. Trump has distorted that limited information to claim that there are fraudulent votes. “They‘ve already started cheating, 2,600 votes, he said. Every vote was written by the same person. It must be a coincidence,” he said at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, last Tuesday.Nationally, a key pillar of Republicans’ claims has been the falsehood that non-citizens are voting and could sway the election. Elon Musk, the billionaire who is a key Trump ally in the campaign, has played a significant role in amplifying this claim. Several studies have shown that non-citizen voting is extremely rare.“If the fraud theme of 2020 was: ‘Covid is allowing ineligible people to vote or ballots to be manipulated,’ the 2024 theme seems to be ‘illegals are voting,’ and that fits in very much with the kind of nativist anti-immigrant language coming from the top of the Republican ticket,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an interview in October.Lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuitsOver the last few months, the Republican National Committee and other GOP-aligned groups have filed a number of lawsuits in swing states claiming that states are not properly monitoring their rolls for ineligible voters. They have made eye-popping claims, including that states have more registered voters than eligible citizens and that non-citizens are on the rolls.Many of these suits have already been dismissed. But even though Republicans are losing the cases, voting rights experts see an ulterior motive in filing them.“The underlying claims in the suits are based on totally unreliable data, shoddy methodology, and basically the claims are garbage,” Ben Berwick, a lawyer at the watchdog group Protect Democracy. “They are also, in this case, brought by election deniers, in an attempt to spread a false narrative to mislead the public and undermine confidence in elections.”
Don’t miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts
Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said that he sees the lawsuits as an effort to give an imprimatur of legal authority to false claims.“I do think you’re going to see after the election if people are upset about the outcome, pointing to: ‘We’ve been saying for the last eight months that they had bloated rolls and dead people on the rolls, non-citizens on the rolls, and the courts didn’t do anything about it,’” he said.Berwick and his colleagues have referred to the cases as “zombie lawsuits” that Trump and allies could try and point to again after the election. While experts are confident this won’t succeed because the claims will still be false, it could continue to seed doubt and provide a pretext for local officials to try and refuse to certify the vote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSowing chaos during a long vote countJust like in 2020, it is unlikely that the US will know the winner of the election on election night. State laws in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two swing states, still prohibit election officials from counting mail-in votes until election day, and election officials are already setting expectations that counting could last long past Tuesday.Trump plans to declare that the vote against him is rigged and point to the slow vote count as evidence, Rolling Stone magazine reported in October.Pressure on local election officials not to certify the voteIf Trump loses the election, there will likely be enormous pressure put on local election officials not to certify the results of the election.Long overlooked, certification is the bureaucratic process of making official the vote tallies at the local and state level. Those charged with certifying the vote are typically boards composed of elected or appointed officials. If a candidate wants to challenge the election results, states allow them to do so in separate legal processes outside of certification.Certification has long been considered a mandatory, non-discretionary responsibility. But in 2020, the Trump campaign and allies targeted Republicans at the local and state level and pressured them not to certify the results. None of those efforts worked in 2020, but Republicans have spent the last four years targeting positions that hold power over certification. At least 35 officials who have refused to certify elections since 2020 will have a role over certifying the vote this fall, according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), a watchdog group.Voting litigators are preparing to go to court to force local officials to certify, and they say that the law is unequivocally on their side. More
213 Shares189 Views
in US Politics
US election 2024 live: Harris and Trump converge on rust belt as final day of campaigning begins
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 November 2024, 08:16
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the 2024 US presidential election.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will begin a blitz of rallies and media appearances across the vital battleground states in the rust belt, as the final day of campaigning gets under way.Harris is set to appear in the Pennsylvania cities of Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, in a sign of how crucial the state will be to securing victory. Trump will start his day in North Carolina before making appearances in Pennsylvania and Michigan.Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race. More than 78m Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, approaching half the total 160 million votes cast in 2020, in which US voter turnout was the highest in more than a century.Here are some of the latest developments:
Kamala Harris pledged to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza” in her final rally in Michigan on Sunday, as she attempted to appeal to the state’s large Arab American and Muslim American population two days out from the election. Michigan is home to about 240,000 registered Muslim voters, a majority of whom voted for Joe Biden in 2020, helping him to a narrow victory over Donald Trump. But Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the state have expressed dissatisfaction over the vice-president’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Harris was making her fourth stop of the day in Michigan, having earlier spoken at a church in Detroit and stopped by a barber shop in Pontiac. Trump is holding his final rally of the campaign in Michigan on Monday night.
Donald Trump said he should never have left the White House after his defeat in 2020 and joked darkly he would be fine with reporters getting shot. “We had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left,” Trump said at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania. “I shouldn’t have left, I mean honestly, we did so well, we had such a great – ” he said before abruptly cutting himself off. In other comments, as he denigrated the media, he said: “To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don’t mind that much, because, I don’t mind. I don’t mind.”
Donald Trump again suggested he would give a role on health policy to Robert F Kennedy Jr at a rally in Macon, Georgia. “I told a great guy, RFK Jr., Bobby — I said, ‘Bobby, you work on women’s health, you work on health, you work on what we eat. You work on pesticides. You work on everything,” he said. Kennedy, a well known vaccine sceptic, on Saturday said that the former president would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected.
Harris dodged a question on whether she voted for California’s Proposition 36, which would make it easier for prosecutors to send repeat shoplifters and drug users to jail or prison, after submitting her ballot. The measure would roll back provisions of Proposition 47, which downgraded low-level thefts and drug possession to misdemeanors.
The Trump campaign claimed that recent polling by the New York Times and the Des Moines Register is designed to suppress Trump voter turnout by presenting a bleak picture of his re-election prospects. The memo claims that the Times’s polls have biased samples and overrepresent Democratic voters compared with actual voter registration and turnout trends.
Trump also disputed a shock Iowa poll that found Kamala Harris leading the former president in the typically red state 47% to 44%. “No President has done more for farmers, and the Great State of Iowa, than Donald J. Trump,” Trump said in a post on the Truth Social network on Sunday morning. “In fact, it’s not even close! All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, by a lot”.
In the 60th US presidential election, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs along with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate, which together will decide the membership of the 119th Congress.Republicans hold a majority in the House, while Democrats control the Senate, both by narrow margins. But the polls – if to be believed – suggest Democrats could win back the House and Republicans retake the Senate.The Republican House majority leader, Steve Scalise, has told Axios that multiple GOP members have been “angling” for senior posts in a potential administration led by Donald Trump.Scalise, a hardline conservative representing Louisiana, told the outlet:
I’ve heard from a number of members that have been having conversations whether they’re on a short list or a long-short list.
And we saw it in 2017 where a number of House colleagues got pulled into Cabinet secretary positions and other positions, and so I wouldn’t expect anything different this time.
Hopefully we have a large enough majority where that option is available to them, but that’s going to be up to President Trump.
Scalise said he is “very confident” House Republicans will hold or grow their majority, adding that a margin of 8-12 seats would be a good one for the party (Democrats need to flip only four seats to win back a House majority this year).“You know, with the way redistricting is, these aren’t the days we can get a 30-seat majority anymore. So whatever majority we have is going to be slim,” Scalise told Axios.Donald Trump said with two days until the presidential election that he should never have left the White House after his defeat in 2020 and joked darkly he would be fine with reporters getting shot, dredging up grievances that overshadowed his attack lines against Kamala Harris.The closing themes of the former president’s campaign at a rally in Lititz in the battleground state of Pennsylvania brought him full circle with his 2016 campaign that went after the news media and his 2020 campaign that was defined by his attempts to overturn the result.Trump stayed on message for the first part of his remarks but could not resist reverting to resentments he has held on to for years, describing Democrats as demonic and lamenting the 2020 election – an issue that polls badly and his aides privately said they thought he had been convinced to drop.“We had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left,” Trump said. “I shouldn’t have left, I mean honestly, we did so well, we had such a great – ” he said before abruptly cutting himself off.The remark reflected what Trump told aides and allies in the aftermath of his 2020 election defeat, a loss he has never conceded, and how he sat in at least one meeting at the end of his first term where he mused about refusing to leave the White House, a person familiar with the matter said.You can read the full story by my colleague, Hugo Lowell, here:As we mentioned in the opening summary, the US vice president and Democratic presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris, pledged to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza” in her final rally in Michigan on Sunday.Many Democratic voters, including Michigan’s large Arab American and Muslim American population, have expressed anger at the Biden administration over its support for Israel’s war on Gaza (and now Lebanon).The US continues to be the biggest arms supplier to Israel and is its most powerful diplomatic ally. Harris has not signalled a significant shift from Biden’s policy. Both have condemned the high civilian death toll (according to Gaza’s health ministry over 43,000 Palestinian people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since last October) but continue to insist on Israel’s right “to defend itself”.Harris said at the Michigan rally:
We are joined today by leaders of the Arab American community, which has deep and proud roots here in Michigan, and I want to say this year has been difficult, given the scale of death and destruction in Gaza and given the civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon.
It is devastating, and as president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, to bring home the hostages, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure Israel is secure and ensure the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, freedom, security and self-determination.
Election Day in the US is now often considered election week as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots that can delay the results. There is also the possibility of legal challenges to counts that could cause delays.In 2020, The Associated Press declared Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon — four days after polls closed. But even then, The AP called North Carolina for Donald Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later after hand recounts.Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The Associated Press declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m.The tightness of the race this year makes it hard to predict when a winner could be declared – but North Carolina and Georgia could give an early indication as results in these swing states come in relatively quickly.The Associated Press has pinpointed areas in swing states that could give us a clue on how the race will unfold:
In North Carolina, Harris’ margins in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, home to the state capital of Raleigh and the state’s largest city, Charlotte, respectively, will reveal how much Trump will need to squeeze out of the less-populated rural areas he has dominated.
In Pennsylvania, Harris needs heavy turnout in deep blue Philadelphia, but she’s also looking to boost the Democrats’ advantage in the arc of suburban counties to the north and west of the city.
She has campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s 2016 winning margins. The Philadelphia metro area, including the four collar counties, accounts for 43 percent of Pennsylvania’s vote.
Elsewhere in the Blue Wall, Trump needs to blunt Democratic growth in Michigan’s key suburban counties outside of Detroit, especially Oakland County. He faces the same challenge in Wisconsin’s Waukesha County outside of Milwaukee.
The Guardian US has been averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring. Nationally, Kamala Harris has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over Donald Trump, virtually identical to last week.The election will be decided in the seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In these states, the polls are too close to call.Harris has an 8% lead among those who have already voted, while Trump is ahead among those who say they are very likely to vote but have not yet done so. The poll, from the New York Times and Siena College, also found Harris was slightly ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, with Trump up in Arizona and the other three too close to call.Many Democrats are worried Trump is setting the stage for a series of legal challenges to poll results, in a sign the former president thinks Harris may win on election day tomorrow.Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the 2024 US presidential election.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will begin a blitz of rallies and media appearances across the vital battleground states in the rust belt, as the final day of campaigning gets under way.Harris is set to appear in the Pennsylvania cities of Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, in a sign of how crucial the state will be to securing victory. Trump will start his day in North Carolina before making appearances in Pennsylvania and Michigan.Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race. More than 78m Americans have already voted, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, approaching half the total 160 million votes cast in 2020, in which US voter turnout was the highest in more than a century.Here are some of the latest developments:
Kamala Harris pledged to “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza” in her final rally in Michigan on Sunday, as she attempted to appeal to the state’s large Arab American and Muslim American population two days out from the election. Michigan is home to about 240,000 registered Muslim voters, a majority of whom voted for Joe Biden in 2020, helping him to a narrow victory over Donald Trump. But Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in the state have expressed dissatisfaction over the vice-president’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza.
Harris was making her fourth stop of the day in Michigan, having earlier spoken at a church in Detroit and stopped by a barber shop in Pontiac. Trump is holding his final rally of the campaign in Michigan on Monday night.
Donald Trump said he should never have left the White House after his defeat in 2020 and joked darkly he would be fine with reporters getting shot. “We had the safest border in the history of our country the day that I left,” Trump said at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania. “I shouldn’t have left, I mean honestly, we did so well, we had such a great – ” he said before abruptly cutting himself off. In other comments, as he denigrated the media, he said: “To get to me, somebody would have to shoot through fake news, and I don’t mind that much, because, I don’t mind. I don’t mind.”
Donald Trump again suggested he would give a role on health policy to Robert F Kennedy Jr at a rally in Macon, Georgia. “I told a great guy, RFK Jr., Bobby — I said, ‘Bobby, you work on women’s health, you work on health, you work on what we eat. You work on pesticides. You work on everything,” he said. Kennedy, a well known vaccine sceptic, on Saturday said that the former president would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected.
Harris dodged a question on whether she voted for California’s Proposition 36, which would make it easier for prosecutors to send repeat shoplifters and drug users to jail or prison, after submitting her ballot. The measure would roll back provisions of Proposition 47, which downgraded low-level thefts and drug possession to misdemeanors.
The Trump campaign claimed that recent polling by the New York Times and the Des Moines Register is designed to suppress Trump voter turnout by presenting a bleak picture of his re-election prospects. The memo claims that the Times’s polls have biased samples and overrepresent Democratic voters compared with actual voter registration and turnout trends.
Trump also disputed a shock Iowa poll that found Kamala Harris leading the former president in the typically red state 47% to 44%. “No President has done more for farmers, and the Great State of Iowa, than Donald J. Trump,” Trump said in a post on the Truth Social network on Sunday morning. “In fact, it’s not even close! All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, by a lot”. More

US elections 2024

More stories

‘I hope our voices are heard’: illustrated interviews with swing state voters in Pennsylvania

History in the making: is the US finally about to elect its first female president?

When do polls close on election day, Tuesday, 5 November 2024?

What if Trump’s campaign is cover for a slow-motion coup? | Jan-Werner Müller

The candidates’ closing campaign messages could not be more different | Margaret Sullivan

As I vote for president, I’ll be thinking of what Amanda Zurawski told me | Sophie Brickman

Fraud, lawsuits, chaos: how Trump is preparing to contest the 2024 election

US election 2024 live: Harris and Trump converge on rust belt as final day of campaigning begins

ITALIAN LANGUAGE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE