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      ‘A lot of fun’: will Trump’s rambling Joe Rogan interview rally young men?

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      In an interview in which Donald Trump said that he wants to be “a whale psychologist”, made the case for replacing income tax with tariffs and praised Confederate general Robert E Lee as a “genius”, the most striking thing about the former president’s encounter with podcaster Joe Rogan wasn’t the content as much as the length.Over three hours, perhaps the longest ever campaign interview with a presidential candidate, Trump said very little that was factual but revealed a surprising amount about his disposition and his thinking should he return to office.The Republican nominee’s appearance on Rogan makes smart political sense. Rogan, a commentator on Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcasts and comedian, began podcasting in 2009 and is now the most successful host in history. The Joe Rogan Experience is continually atop the global charts on both Apple and Spotify, earning almost half a billion dollars from deals with the latter.For months now, the Democrats and their nominee, Kamala Harris, have been polling surprisingly poorly with young men compared with previous election cycles, creating consternation among party insiders. Rogan reaches the kind of politically skeptical young men with low trust in Washington DC – and in the news media that both parties believe could help them reach the White House.That’s why at the start of the week, with polls tightening and Democrats concerned they may be “blowing” the election, the rumours were that it would be Harris who would appear on the podcast. It could have been one of the few media appearances that actually shifts the conversation and could have won over some undecideds. But her team eventually backed out of an appearance, perhaps concerned about the long freewheeling format. So it was announced that it would be Trump who would appear on the show.Rogan’s initial questioning of Trump was inquisitive and unexpected. He asked about what it felt like entering the White House with no political experience. Trump responded honestly, saying it was more surreal than later being shot in the tip of one of his ears. He said that he “had made his money largely on luxury” and that he was amazed by how beautiful it was inside. He talked about the difficulties of transition for a non-politician who had “no experience and no idea who to appoint”. He sympathised with Mary Todd Lincoln’s “melancholia”. It seemed like Rogan’s inquisitive style might get something new from the former president.But very quickly the interview descended into a long, rambling and often boring venture through Trump’s greatest hits. He demonised migrants, spoke warmly about Vladimir Putin and falsely claimed the 2020 election had been stolen from him. Rogan tried to push him on nuclear power and the environment. But Trump only wanted to discuss how ugly he finds windfarms – and how their vibrations upset the whales – and the ways in which environmental regulations would stop him getting permits for his buildings in New York.In May, pollsters for the New York Times/Siena College analysed their data to see what were the key predictors for why a voter who supported Joe Biden when he defeated Trump in 2020 might defect to the Republican against Harris.They found that the No 1 predictor was whether the voter was born in the Middle East, a reflection of the Democrats’ position on the war in Gaza. The No 2 predictor was whether they had a favorable view of Rogan. For some young male voters, he’s their main source of political information.Rogan himself is a political riddle. He’s a conspiracy theorist and an anti-vaxxer and so is often painted as rightwing or Trump-supporting – but he’s actually got a complex and often conflicting set of beliefs. He fiercely defends abortion rights, gay marriage and gun rights. He’s gravitated toward outsider candidates like Bernie Sanders and RFK Jr – he voted for the Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen in the previous election. In 2022, Rogan described Trump as an “existential threat to democracy”.Harris, who has been struggling to define herself with voters, may have found the relaxed atmosphere helpful – especially as Rogan tends to always agree with what his guests say.He allowed to Trump brazenly lie – about election fraud, the deficit, his tax policy and many other issues – without ever challenging him. He also appeared to agree with him on many positions that he’s previously taken the opposite stance and painted election deniers as an oppressed group, saying: “You get labelled, it’s like being labelled an anti-vaxxer.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe pair discussed Rogan’s previous support for RFK Jr, who Trump promised could do “whatever” when it came to health policy in his administration, which placated the podcast host but may concern the mainstream scientific and medical community against whom Kennedy has railed.Rogan had one good moment as an interviewer, asking Trump if he was ever going to “present” his supposed evidence of election tampering. But he let Trump ramble on to a different topic: Hunter Biden’s laptop.Because of this easy ride, Trump came off sounding old, doddering and unintelligent – but politically unscathed. He was allowed to blame all of America’s ills on Democrats and paint himself as a great leader. He attacked Harris, calling her “low IQ” and that she “couldn’t put two sentences together”. She was one of a number of women whom Trump and Rogan dismissed as “stupid”, perhaps with a nod to the young misogynist voters who could be persuaded to vote for the former president.For the most part, Rogan – not the smartest cookie himself – simply nodded along. He finished by saying having Trump on was “a lot of fun”.For anyone else who made it through all three hours, that might have been the biggest lie of all. More

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      Elon Musk worked in US illegally in 1995 after quitting school – report

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      Elon Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report that contrasted the episode with the South African multibillionaire’s anti-immigration views.The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who has in recent weeks supported Donald Trump’s campaign for a second presidency while promoting the Republican White House nominee’s opposition to “open borders” on his X social media site, has previously maintained that his transition from student to entrepreneur was a “legal grey area”.But the Washington Post reported Saturday that the world’s wealthiest individual was almost certainly working in the US without correct authorization for a period in 1995 after he dropped out of Stanford University to work on his debut company, Zip2, which sold for about $300m four years later.Legal experts said foreign students cannot drop out of school to build a company even if they are not getting paid. The Post also noted that – prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks agains the US in 2001 – regulation for student visas was more lax.“If you do anything that helps to facilitate revenue creation, such as design code or try to make sales in furtherance of revenue creation, then you’re in trouble,” Leon Fresco, a former US justice department immigration litigator, told the outlet.But the Post also acknowledged: “While overstaying a student visa is somewhat common and officials have at times turned a blind eye to it, it remains illegal.”Musk has previously said: “I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”Musk employs 121,000 people at Tesla, about 13,000 at SpaceX and nearly 3,000 at X. The scrutiny of his immigration status after dropping out of Stanford comes after Trump has touted his desire for Musk to play a high-profile role focused on government efficiency in a second Trump administration if voters return him to office at the expense of Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.Musk in turn has accused the vice-president and her fellow Democrats of “importing voters” through illegal and temporary protected status immigration. During a recent Trump campaign appearance, he compared the US-Mexico border to a “zombie apocalypse” – even as he had also previously described himself as “extremely pro immigrant, being one myself”.Bloomberg News recently published an analysis of more than 53,000 posts sent from Musk’s X account, finding that the entrepreneur’s output turned increasingly political this election year.“In 2024, immigration and voter fraud has become Musk’s most frequently posted and engaged with policy topic, garnering about 10bn views,” the outlet said. “Musk posted more than 1,300 times about the topic overall, with more than 330 posts in the past 2 months alone.”Bloomberg described Musk – who paid $44bn for X, then Twitter, in 2022 – as the platform’s single most important influencer and has reportedly ordered site engineers to push his posts into users’ feeds. That makes Musk “the most widely read person on the site today”, Bloomberg said. More

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      Americans who believe in democracy have no choice but to vote for Harris | Observer editorial

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      ‘It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings” – that well-known if dated American sporting adage – may afford Kamala Harris a little comfort in the final, testing days leading up to the US presidential election on 5 November. The contest is too close to call. That has been the case for weeks, if not months. The latest national poll averages, putting Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, on roughly 48 points each, confirm it. The deadlock extends to the seven most closely fought battleground or swing states.And yet, in recent days, the impression, the feeling, the fear – call it what you will – has been growing that Trump may have the edge. Maybe the Democrats are scaring themselves unnecessarily. Maybe it’s media hype. Maybe it’s true. What is certain is that this nail-biter is going down to the wire. We hope, when it’s over, that there will be plenty to sing about – and that Harris will become the first woman and woman of colour to be elected president of the United States.If Harris pulls it off, it will be a remarkable achievement, a success against the odds. Due to the unexpected implosion of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in July, triggered by concerns about his age and mental fitness, her campaign has been unusually short-lived. As vice-president, Harris was best placed to take on the Democratic party’s nomination, and she did so with aplomb. Her national profile rose spectacularly overnight.Yet she was handicapped from the start by the unpopular Biden’s legacy and her inability, or unwillingness, to distance herself from his record. Harris has also struggled with perceptions that she lacks political savvy, is a relative unknown who is vague and uncertain on the issues, and that she failed as vice-president, or so Republicans claim, to curb illegal cross-border migration.A happy knack of connectingThese doubts have not been entirely dispelled in the ensuing three months. Harris comes across as a likable, energetic, trustworthy and inclusive politician. Confounding criticism that she speaks in “word salads”, she bested Trump in their only live TV debate, to the extent he declined a return bout. Harris seems to have the happy knack of connecting on a personal level with people she meets. She radiates joy, humour and humility.Yet Harris is no big-picture stateswoman, no powerfully impressive, slightly off-putting figure like Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016. Nor is she charismatic like Barack Obama. Her national approval ratings are historically low. And that points, in part, to the largely hidden question of how her gender may affect the outcome. Polls show Trump doing better among men, especially white men. Women and minorities lean to Harris, though less so this year. So while it’s evident this election will be no slam dunk, to use another American sports metaphor, it’s equally plain that Harris, if elected, would make a decent, honest, possibly trail-blazing president, a strong ally for Britain, and an unexceptional but reliable leader of the democratic world.None of this may be said of Trump – and this, really, is all that matters at this moment. This is the crux around which the election turns. American voters may think they have a choice. But if they value their democracy, if they value their laws, institutions and constitution, if they value personal liberty, their country’s safety and international peace and security, indeed if they hope ever to vote again, then they really do not. The only choice is Harris.A retribution presidencyAn exaggeration? Not at all. Trump has a plan for a second term that could make his first spell in the Oval Office – when his former chief of staff, John Kelly, says he behaved like a fascist – look normal. Narcissistic Trump says it will be a retribution presidency. For him it’s all about getting even. Yet, if it happens, it will also be about abuse of power on a scale never before seen in America.Just look at what he’s promising: mass deportations of immigrants; the jailing of political opponents and anyone he dislikes; the use of the US military against civilians, loosely defined as “enemies within”; officially approved vigilantism; and the abandoning, again, of the Paris climate agreement.Trump’s stated agenda includes possible, devastating military action to destroy the cities of hostile countries such as Iran; the deserting of US allies such as Britain and Ukraine and the appeasing of Vladimir Putin’s Russia; a likely global trade war involving punitive import tariffs, principally aimed at China; and, overall, utter disregard for America’s treaty obligations, global responsibilities, international law and the UN system.Even if Trump does not do half of what he threatens, victory for him would be a disaster for America and the world – and this time, there will be few if any “adults in the room” to restrain him. His first victim could be US democracy, targeted on 6 January 2021 by his Maga mobsters, and now once again in his sights. Basically, Trump wants to change federal, state and local rules to ensure future elections produce the “right” results.Trump appears only too happy to further subvert the supreme court and the justice department in pursuit of this objective. Abortion rights, a key issue for Harris, will be further eroded if Trump wins, cheered on by conservative Christian evangelicals and Republican-led state legislatures. And human rights in general will suffer, whether they be those of migrants and their families, black men and other minorities, or gay and trans people. Free speech and independent journalism will also be at risk. Trump cannot abide contradiction. He demands sycophancy or silence.The prospect of Trump #2 should make America’s allies tremble. This is the man who kowtowed to Russian, North Korean and Saudi dictators, tore up the landmark Iran nuclear deal, threatened to quit Nato and rowed constantly with Europe’s leaders. Trump encouraged Israel’s hard-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to ignore the Palestinians, cut money-making deals with Gulf Arabs and call it peace.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s past stupidity and cupidity played a big role in stoking the Middle East crisis, which has escalated with Israel’s latest bombing of Iran. On China, America’s most important global relationship, Trump promises only greater confrontation, especially after last week’s revelations that Chinese hackers targeted him and his weird running mate, JD Vance. On Ukraine, his policy is betrayal and surrender.All this can and must be avoided, yet America’s friends and allies, looking on powerlessly (despite the well-intentioned interventions of some Labour party activists), have no say in heading off disaster. Nor, in effect, do most Americans, because of the anachronistic, scandalously unreformed electoral college system. The Harris-Trump result in at least 40 of the 50 states is a foregone conclusion.Brutal, desperate personal attacksThis election may pivot on choices made by a few thousand people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. It could be that, as happened to Clinton in 2016, Harris wins the national popular vote but loses the electoral college. Or this wacky system could produce the opposite result. It’s estimated that about 15% of voters remain undecided. That’s more than enough to settle the outcome. It’s still all up for grabs.It’s going to get frantic. It could be terrifying. Expect bread and butter economic issues – food prices, jobs and housing – along with abortion and migration to dominate the final days, not weighty questions of governance, ethics and foreign policy. And expect ever more brutal, desperate personal attacks as each candidate demonises the other.This behaviour comes naturally to Trump. Not so Harris, though that will not stop her doubling down on her justified belief that this unhinged convicted felon, ageing roué, and most divisive, immoral and vindictive of politicians is indeed a fascist who cares only for himself and will sacrifice democracy, liberty and the constitution in an egotistic orgy of self-worship. Harris will doubtless remind voters, too, that Trump is again refusing to promise to accept the result if he loses. Endless, vexatious litigation and furious disputes are a certainty. Violence is a distinct possibility.It’s ironic – but those Americans who truly believe in democracy really have no choice at all on 5 November. The US remains a great country. It has many strengths. It also has many problems. Trump is not the answer. He will only make it worse. Vote Harris! More

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

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      Spare a thought for beleaguered Pennsylvanians. During the past few weeks, they have been pummeled with $280m worth of election ads blazing on their TV and computer screens, part of an eye-popping $2.1bn spent so far on the US presidential election.Pennsylvania is one of the seven battleground states that, when it comes to choosing presidents, can seem as revered as the seven wonders of the world. Forget Democratic California, ditch reliably Republican Texas – it is these seven states that, come 5 November, will decide the outcome of one of the most consequential elections in modern times.Their names are seared into the minds of politically aware Americans: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Under America’s arcane electoral system, the occupant of the Oval Office is elected not through the popular vote but by electoral college votes harvested state by state.Among them, the seven states control 93 electoral college votes (Pennsylvania has the largest number, 19, which is why its residents are so bombarded). In the final days, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and their running mates, JD Vance and Tim Walz, will be scrambling all over them in a bid to reach the magic number: 270 electoral college votes to win.The states are called battlegrounds for a reason – their loyalty cannot be taken for granted by either side. This year, though, their unpredictability has reached dizzying heights. The Guardian’s presidential poll tracker shows five of them essentially tied within a three-point margin of error, with only Arizona (where Trump is up four points) and Wisconsin (where Harris is up five) pulling away. Nate Cohn, the New York Times’ polling expert, has drily noted that the presidential polls are “starting to run out of room to get any closer”.Guardian reporters are on the ground in each of the seven battlegrounds to test these confounding waters.– Ed PilkingtonArizona‘Why isn’t Trump doing a little better here?’View image in fullscreenOn a stiflingly hot afternoon last month, Lynn and Roger Seeley relaxed into an air-conditioned co-working space in a suburb east of Phoenix. They had come to hear the Democratic candidate for US Senate, Ruben Gallego, make his pitch to a roomful of small-business owners. Lifelong Republicans, they might have felt out of place at a Democratic campaign event in the pre-Trump era. But not now.“The Arizona Republican party is not the same Republican party,” said Lynn Seeley, who plans to vote for Kamala Harris in November. “It just doesn’t represent me anymore.”The Seeleys are among a group of disaffected Arizonans known as “McCain Republicans” – moderates and independents who prefer the “maverick” brand of politics of the late Arizona Senator John McCain to Trump’s Maga movement.The Trumpification of the state GOP, as well as rapid population growth, a large number of young Latino voters and a suburban shift away from the Republican party have created an opening for Democrats in recent election cycles, turning once ruby-red Arizona into a desert battleground.View image in fullscreenPolling shows Donald Trump with a narrow edge over Harris in the presidential race. The Senate race, which is critical to the party’s slim hope of maintaining control of the chamber, appears to trend in Gallego’s favor. The state also features two of the most competitive House races in the country, both key to winning the speaker’s gavel. Arizonans are also voting on an initiative to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.Across the sprawling Phoenix region, one of the fastest-growing in America, Trump and Harris signs dot xeriscaped yards. But roughly a third of Arizonans are unaffiliated, and since Trump’s election in 2016 they have broken for Democrats in key statewide races.In 2020, Trump lost the state by fewer than 11,000 votes, the narrowest of any margin. It was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and before then, it was Harry Truman in 1948.“Arizona is not a blue state,” said Samara Klar, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona. “Arizona has had very high inflation rates, very high increases in the cost of living, and an increase in the cost of gas. It’s a border state during a border crisis. A Republican candidate should be cleaning up in Arizona. So the question is: why isn’t Trump doing a little better here?”Lauren Gambino | Chandler, ArizonaGeorgiaEarly voting hits records – but offers few cluesView image in fullscreenMary Holewinski lives in Carrollton, Georgia, which is home turf for the far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Holewinski is a Kamala Harris supporter and has a sign in her yard. It draws nasty looks, she said: “I’ve lost neighbor friends.”Those tensions are ratcheting up, because the presidential election is already well under way in Georgia. More than 2 million Georgians – a quarter of its electorate – have already gone to the polls, setting early voting records each day.Both Harris and Trump consider Georgia – no longer a stereotypical “deep south” state but one propelled by the economic and cultural clout of Atlanta – a crucial pickup. In 2020, the state went for Joe Biden by 11,780 votes– and Trump has since been charged in an election interference case after calling Georgia’s secretary of state and asking him to “find” those 11,780 votes. A Georgia victory would represent belated validation for the former president.The candidates may as well have leased apartments in Atlanta, for all the time they’re spending here. The difference between a Democrat winning 80% and 90% of their votes could be larger than the overall margin of victory.But Georgia is no longer a state defined by Black and white voters. Asian and Latino population growth has changed the political landscape in suburban Atlanta, which helped drive the Biden victory here in 2020. And the conflict between conventional conservative Republicans and the Maga insurgency may also be determinative: suburban moderates in the Atlanta region turned against Trump in 2020, and he has done little since to win them back.Still, while historically Democrats in Georgia have been more likely to vote early than Republicans, Trump has pointedly instructed his supporters to vote early in person in Georgia, and many appear to be doing just that.“I could care less about whether you like him or not. It’s not a popularity contest,” said Justin Thompson, a retired air force engineer from Macon. “It’s what you got done. And he did get things done before the pandemic hit. And the only reason why he didn’t get re-elected was because the pandemic hit.”George Chidi | Atlanta, GeorgiaMichiganTurnout is key in state where many are angry over GazaView image in fullscreenThe trade union official had much to say, but he wasn’t going to say it in public.The leader of a union branch at a Michigan factory, he was embarrassed to admit that most of its members support Donald Trump – even though he’s also disparaging about what he saw as the Democratic party elite’s failure to put the interests of working people ahead of powerful corporations.“I don’t want to disagree with the members in public because they have their reasons to do what they think is good for protecting their jobs,” he said. “I’ve tried to explain that they’re wrong but they don’t want to hear it.”Like many in Michigan, he found himself torn: despairing of Trump yet not greatly enthused by Harris. A Rust belt state that once prospered from making cars, steel and other industrial products, Michigan lost many jobs to Mexico after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) by Bill Clinton, an enduring source of resentment against the Democrats for some voters that helped Trump to power.That goes some way to explain why opinion polls continue to have the two candidates neck-and-neck in Michigan, even though the Harris campaign is heavily outspending Trump here and appears to have a better ground game with more volunteers.Turnout will be key: Trump won here by just 10,704 votes in 2016, then lost narrowly to Biden four years later. High on the list of demographic targets are Black voters in Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, whose low turnout in 2016 was a factor in Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the state. Harris is also targeting white suburban women, many of whom previously supported Trump but have cooled on him over abortion rights, his continued false claims of election fraud and his criminal convictions.For all of that, the election in Michigan may be decided by events far away.More than 100,000 Michigan Democrats, many of them from the state’s Arab American community around Detroit, abstained from supporting Biden in the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. So far, Harris has not significantly wavered from Biden on the issue. With polls this close, it could be decisive if Harris loses a fraction of these voters.Chris McGreal | Saginaw, MichiganNevadaIs Harris or Trump better for the working class?View image in fullscreenUrbin Gonzalez could have been working inside, in the air conditioning, at his regular job as a porter on the Las Vegas Strip. Instead, in the final days before the US election, he had chosen to go door-knocking in the 104F (40C) heat.“I don’t care because I’m fighting for my situation,” said Gonzalez, dabbing the sweat from his neck. “All Trump wants to do is cut taxes for his buddies, for his rich friends, not for us. Not for workers … This is personal.”While the US economy broadly bounced back from the pandemic, Nevada has lagged behind. Nearly a quarter of jobs here are in leisure or hospitality, and although the Las Vegas Strip, where Gonzalez works, is back to booming with tourists, unemployment in Nevada remains the highest of any US state, and housing costs have skyrocketed.Both Trump and Harris have promised to turn things around: both have promised to eliminate federal income taxes on workers’ tips, and both have vowed to expand tax credits for parents – though their plans widely differ when it comes to the finer points.Although Nevada has leaned Democratic in every presidential election since 2008, winning candidates have scraped by with slim margins. About 40% of voters don’t identify with either Democrats or Republicans, and although a growing number of Latino voters – who now make up 20% of the electorate – have traditionally backed Democrats, the party’s popularity is slipping.The state, which has just six electoral votes, is notoriously difficult to accurately poll – in large part because the big cities, Reno and Las Vegas, are home to a transient population, many of whom work unpredictable shifts in the state’s 24/7 entertainment and hospitality industries. But many voters remember the days early in the Trump administration when costs were lower. “I think the economy was just better when Trump was president,” said Magaly Rodas, 32, while shopping at her local Latin market. Her husband, an electrician, has struggled to find work since the pandemic, while rent and other expenses have continued to climb. “What have the Democrats done for us in four years?”Maanvi Singh | Las Vegas, NevadaNorth CarolinaA hurricane is a wild card that could depress turnoutView image in fullscreenKim Blevins, 55, knows what it’s like to survive a disaster. She was locked inside her home without power for eight days when Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina last month.So when she uses the experience as a frame through which to view the impending election, she is not being frivolous. “If Trump doesn’t get in, it’s going to be worse than the hurricane,” she said.“It’ll be world war three. Kamala Harris wants to make us a communist country and we can’t survive that. The illegals coming over the border, the inflation of food and gas prices, we can’t do that.”Hurricane Helene has raised a critical challenge for Donald Trump.It affected a rural mountainous region that is Trump’s natural base – some 23 out of the 25 stricken counties are majority-Maga. So any decline in turnout would most likely hurt him.Trump needs to win North Carolina if he is to have an easy shot at returning to the White House. The state veers Republican, only voting for a Democratic president twice in recent times (Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008). Trump took it in 2020 by just 75,000 votes.Yet Harris has succeeded since she took over the Democratic mantle from Joe Biden in making this race neck-and-neck.In the final stretch, Trump is focusing on getting his base of largely white rural voters to the polls, hurricane be damned. His campaign has been heartened by the first week of early voting, which has smashed all records, with Republicans almost matching Democrats in turnout. (In 2020 and 2016, Republicans lagged behind.)On her side, Harris is waging an intense ground game, with hundreds of staffers fanning out across the state to squeeze out every vote. The thinking is that if Trump can be blocked in North Carolina, he can be stopped from regaining power.For that to happen, Harris has to mobilize her broad tent of support, with special emphasis on women in the suburbs of Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham. She is also trying to shore up the male African American vote, which has shown some softness.Not least, she is trying to tie Trump to Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidate. Robinson has described himself as a “Black Nazi”, and has been revealed to have made extreme racist remarks.Ed Pilkington | Creston, North CarolinaPennsylvania‘If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing’View image in fullscreenPennsylvania provided one of the most enduring images of the fraught US election cycle: Donald Trump raising his fist to a crowd of supporters after a gunman attempted to end his life at a campaign rally in July. As Trump left the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with blood dripping from his ear, his supporters chanted: “Fight! Fight!”Days later, Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race, clearing the way for Kamala Harris to ascend to the Democratic nomination.Both Trump and Harris have returned to Pennsylvania dozens of times since, confirming that the Keystone state could play a definitive role in the presidential race. “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania last month. “It’s very simple.”As the fifth-most-populous US state, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes of any of the battlegrounds. Much of the population is clustered around Philadelphia and smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Scranton, where Biden showed strength in 2020, but the more rural regions could play an outsized role in the election. White, blue-collar voters in these rural areas have sharply shifted away from Democrats in recent elections.Some Democrats expected Harris to choose the popular governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate, given his impressive ability to secure consistent victories in such a closely-contested state. Harris instead chose Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, a decision that could come back to haunt her depending on the results in Pennsylvania.In her bid to sway undecided voters, Harris has walked back some of her most progressive proposals from her 2020 presidential campaign – such as a ban on fracking, a major industry in Pennsylvania, on which she has now reversed her stance.It could all come down to Pennsylvania. Tom Morrissey, a 67-year-old voter from Harleysville attending a Democratic campaign event last month, was optimistic . “We love the enthusiasm. It’s so important at this time,” Morrissey said. “We have to save democracy.”Joan E Greve | Ambler, PennsylvaniaWisconsin‘Let the anxiety wash over you and then refocus’View image in fullscreenWearing matching hats emblazoned with the words “Sauk County Democrats”, Deb and Rod Merritt, a retired couple from southern Wisconsin, joined the crowd to hear Barack Obama stump for Kamala Harris.“We’re so apprehensive that the polls say they’re close,” said Rod Merritt.Sauk county is one of a handful of Wisconsin counties that has flipped from Democrats to Republicans and back. It’s exactly the kind of place – a swing county in a swing state – that the campaigns are fighting over.A midwestern state in the Great Lakes region known for dairy production, manufacturing and healthcare, Wisconsin is considered to be part of the “blue wall” – the states Democrats consistently won in the 1990s and early 2000s.Trade unions historically helped drive voter turnout for Democrats, but a series of anti-labor laws passed under the Republican-controlled state government in 2011 dealt them a blow. Rural areas have increasingly turned to Republican candidates, leaving cities like Milwaukee – Wisconsin’s most racially diverse – and the liberal stronghold of Madison as Democratic bastions.With the economy the top issue, it all comes down to turnout, with Republicans focusing on rural voters and young men, who have increasingly looked to conservative politics.The Democrats, meanwhile, hope the closeness of the race – in which a half-million people have already voted – will mobilize volunteers. “In some ways, the most important thing is learning some breathing exercises so that you can let the anxiety wash through you – and then refocus on knocking on the next door,” said Ben Wikler, the chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin.Alice Herman | Madison, Wisconsin More

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      Trump’s final pitch to voters: retribution vows, vulgar rallies, fascist accusations

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      As the election nears, Donald Trump’s final message to voters is about revenge, with promises for retribution and rallies that are increasingly incoherent, vulgar and full of vitriol.And his last pitch is as dark and sinister as any he’s made while campaigning the last two years. The US is a “garbage can for the world”, he said at a Thursday rally in Arizona, where he railed against people coming into the country illegally and the Democrats, who Trump called incompetent and stupid.He followed up his hateful rhetoric with a preview of how he would run a second administration, leaving nothing open to interpretation.“Immediately upon taking the oath of office,” he wrote on Truth Social, “I will launch the largest deportation program in American history – I will rescue every town across America that has been invaded and conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!”Trump appeared especially angered this week when John Kelly, his longest-serving chief of staff, told voters that Trump is a fascist. Trump called Kelly “a total degenerate”.Retribution remains a key theme of the Trump re-election campaign. Trump has vowed to root out “the enemy from within” and said he would consider using the military to go after his political opponents. NPR recently tallied “more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents” from Trump in the last two years.On Truth Social on Friday, he issued a lengthy, informal “cease and desist” message to Democrats, whom he continues to insist engaged in “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery” in 2020, depriving him of a second term.“Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” he threatened.“We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”His campaign is also spending big on anti-trans ads, capitalizing on a culture war issue that elicits anger in many. His campaign is blitzing the airwaves, with $29m in anti-trans ads over the past five weeks, the Bulwark reported based on AdImpact data, compared with $5m on economy-focused TV ads during the same time period. “That makes the topic, by far, the biggest focal point when it comes to Trump’s ad spending – one of the best barometers of messaging priority there is,” the outlet’s Marc Caputo wrote.

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      In the final stretch of campaigning, Trump will reportedly try to rein in the rambles that have made some question his mental fitness. He has said it’s an intelligent speaking style, dubbing it “the weave”. The Washington Post, by comparison, called it “strikingly erratic, coarse and often confusing, even for a politician with a history of ad-libbing in three consecutive presidential runs”.Over the last year, the speaking style has revealed his preoccupations to voters. Some of his comments have suggested that thinks Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal, is a real person who has died. He is mad about bacon. He has fulminated against windmills, a frequent source of his disdain. He has conflated legal asylum, the process by which people from other countries seek protection when fleeing persecution, with insane asylums. He spread a false rightwing conspiracy on the presidential debate stage that migrants were eating household pets. He said Harvey Weinstein got “schlonged”. He complimented Arnold Palmer’s penis size. His speeches are often impossible to quote directly without significant editing and context-adding.Between rambles, he has honed the racist, threatening messages he believes are his best hope for getting his old job back. The media is “the enemy of the people”, Kamala Harris is a “shit vice-president”, Joe Biden is a “stupid fool” and Nancy Pelosi is “crazy as a bed bug”.As in 2016, he has cast himself as the only person who can fix all the problems his enemies created.“We stand on the verge of the four greatest years of the history of our country,” he told his supporters in Arizona. “We will redeem America’s promise. We will put America first, and we will take back the nation that we love. We’re going to take it back from these people that have no idea what they’re doing.”With just 10 days to go until election day, Trump’s campaign undoubtedly wants to keep him on message. But his track record – including a recent town hall that devolved into a 40-minute dance event – indicates he might not be capable. ,His last attempt to win over voters includes the message he’s reiterated for four years: that his reign was stolen from him, and he’s trying to get it back. His supporters need to turn out en masse to make his lead “too big to rig,” a line his fans now echo.He delivered that message during a staged appearance working a McDonald’s fryer, where he would not commit to accepting the results of the election. Leaning out of the drive-thru window, he told reporters he was up in the polls. Would he accept the results of the election? “If it’s a fair election,” he responded. More

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      In Michigan, these US veterans call Trump ‘the devil’ – and phone-bank for Harris

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      Like so many military veterans, the ageing group of men and women adorned with badges of fighting forces and theaters of war hesitated to talk about their past lives. But after one finally spoke up to denounce the man they called “the devil”, the floodgates opened to an anger and alarm that went far beyond normal political discourse.The veterans turned out on a warm evening to phone-bank for Kamala Harris in Saginaw, Michigan – a swing county in a key battleground state. But first they got to tell each other about where they served and the ways in which that shapes how they see next week’s presidential election.Most enlisted decades ago, some for only a few years. But that was long enough when fighting in Korea or Vietnam to have marked out the course of their lives and shaped their views of the world. From that vantage point, the veterans look upon Donald Trump with undisguised disgust.Some refused to even speak his name, including former air force electrician Josie Couch.“This man here, that Kamala is running against, he’s like the devil and, you know, he ain’t even trying to hide it,” she told her fellow veterans.A younger generation of Americans is fearful that another Trump presidency will further erode the rights they thought were set in stone, particularly in the wake of the supreme court striking down the constitutional right to abortion.The veterans bring a longer view shaped by early lives without many of the rights now under threat, not least greater racial and gender equality, and after having to fight for them in the first place. Couch, a Black woman, remembers her service and working life in the 1970s as a time of sexism, harassment and hostility that she and others struggled against.View image in fullscreenNow, she said, Trump wants “to take away everything that we done work hard for, our parents worked hard for”.“We all didn’t have a great service life because the men, they didn’t really want us to be there. I was called everything but Josie. I kind of forgot what my name was,” she said.“It’s going to be terrible if we take steps back because we don’t know how to go back.”Others in the hall shouted out: “We’re not going back.”Couch continued.“For them to take away women’s rights, come on now. How did we get here? If we didn’t stand up for our rights, we wouldn’t be here today,” she said.“Men can’t tell you what to do with your body. I haven’t heard yet what they’re gonna do with the men’s bodies, so why do they want to keep pushing us down?”Trump divides veterans in the same way he polarises other Americans. Some who served in the most senior positions in the military are now denouncing him openly.Trump’s ex-chief of staff, retired marine corps general John Kelly, has warned that his former boss meets the definition of a fascist and would rule like a dictator if he were to return to the White House.Other former generals and intelligence officials have joined in denouncing Trump, including the ex chair of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley, former CIA director John Brennan and Trump’s defence secretary Mark Esper.But for the veterans in Saginaw, their anger is more visceral. They speak with unusual passion as their contempt for Trump spills out about the former president’s repeated disparaging of those who have served in the military and his targeting of some of the most vulnerable in society.Dave Salogar stepped up to speak wearing a cap marking him as a veteran of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. He began by telling the story of his grandparents, who fled the collapsing Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 for Canada and then crossed the border illegally into the US.Salogar’s grandfather was killed in a mining accident in Michigan in 1924 and his grandmother raised her children as a single mother while working in a cannery.“So technically I’m the grandchild of illegal immigrants, and I hear the way immigrants are being beat up for all the ills when they’re the people that make America great. My grandmother, the illegal immigrant, eventually became a citizen at the age of 80. She sent two of her sons to fight in world war two. She sent a third son to Korea to fight and he was wounded,” said Salogar.View image in fullscreen“Myself and two of my cousins, this illegal immigrant’s grandchildren, went off to Vietnam.”Salogar joined a combat unit in 1968 at the age of 19 and served for nearly two years. He told the Guardian that the trauma of that war defined his life and cost him a series of jobs in the transportation industry after he sought refuge in alcohol for a decade. It’s one of the reasons he’s so contemptuous of Trump’s claim to have been unfit for military duty because of bone spurs.But Salogar reserves his real ire for how the former president talks about other veterans. Several of those in the room expressed disgust at Trump’s 2015 attack on Senator John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said.As president, Trump also derided American war dead as “suckers” and “losers” after refusing to visit a second world war US military cemetery in Normandy in 2020. In August, the US army publicly rebuked Trump campaign officials for turning a ceremony at Arlington national cemetery to mark the deaths of American soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate.Salogar does not hide his contempt.“He said we’re suckers and losers. The man could not go to Normandy on June 6 to go to the cemetery because it was raining and he was going to mess his hair. What kind of man is that?” he said.“I wasn’t old enough to vote when I was in Vietnam. Now I’m 76. This will probably be the last election I vote in, but it is the most important one.”Jerry and Dale Blunk met and married while serving on a now-defunct US military base in Iceland. He was in the navy for nearly 24 years and she was in the air force.Speaking to the Guardian, Jerry Blunk said he was supporting Harris because “it’s about time a woman became president of the United States”. Dale interrupted him.View image in fullscreen“Well, that’s not the only reason because both of us agree that Trump can’t be allowed into office again. He has no respect for anyone except himself. He has no respect for the constitution. He has no respect for veterans. He doesn’t have any respect for anyone. So he can’t go back to the White House,” she said.They, too, were infuriated by Trump’s disparaging of other veterans.“The minute he said McCain wasn’t a warrior, it was an insult to everyone who fought and died,” said Dale.But she is concerned about more than insults. Like others in the room, she questioned whether US democracy could survive another bout of Trump in the White House.“I don’t think the rule of law will prevail. The supreme court has already given him unlimited power. You give that to an egotist and a fascist, then we’ve lost our country. Literally, we’ll lose our country,” she said.Still, for all his anger at the former president’s failure to serve while disparaging those who did, Salogar pauses and reflects that Trump would have been a liability as a soldier.“When I was 19, I learned you’re white, Black, brown, you all bleed red,” he said.“I’m glad he wasn’t beside me, because I’ve witnessed unbelievable acts of courage, unbelievable acts of compassion and unbelievable acts of sacrifice by other 19- or 20-year-olds like myself.” More

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      Beyoncé brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight

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      Beyoncé on Friday lent her star power to Kamala Harris at a high-octane rally in her native Texas, declaring that the country was on the “brink of history” as the vice-president warned the state’s near-total abortion ban could become the law of the land if Donald Trump is elected.“For all the men and women in this room, and watching around the country, we need you,” Beyoncé told a crowd of 30,000 people at the open-air Shell Energy stadium in Houston.With the presidential race effectively deadlocked, Harris detoured from her frenetic race across the seven battleground states to appear in reliably Republican Texas, where she sought to highlight the state’s abortion restrictions for voters who have yet to make up their minds or cast a ballot.“Let us be clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris told the audience, her largest to date. Harris walked on to the stage, as she has ever since she became the presumptive nominee roughly 100 days ago, to Beyoncé’s hard-charging anthem, Freedom.Harris has centered her campaign on the theme of freedom. In the closing days of the campaign, she has painted Trump as posing a threat to hard-won progress, eroding access to reproductive care, seeking to walk back LGBTQ rights and targeting American democracy itself. Earlier this week, Harris agreed that Trump was a “fascist”.Harris spoke to an exuberant crowd, thousands of whom had waited hours in the sticky Houston heat to attend. Rally-goers were given flashing wristbands in all different colors. They danced and sang as a DJ spun pop ballads before the event began.But the message Harris came to deliver was sobering. She listed the sprawling impacts of abortion bans like the one in Texas, which she called “ground zero for the right for reproductive freedom.”“All that to say, elections matter,” Harris said.View image in fullscreenDespite the speculation, the megastar did not perform. “I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said. “We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,” Beyoncé told the roaring crowd.In the final days before the election, the Harris campaign is tapping the star power of the party’s most popular figures and celebrity supporters. On Friday night, Willie Nelson, the country music star and Texas resident, performed his best-known songs, including On the Road Again and actor Jessica Alba urged women to vote. Beyoncé was joined by her mother, Tina Knowles, and her former bandmate Kelly Rowland.“We are grabbing back the pen from those who are trying to write an American story that would deny the right for women to make our own decisions about our bodies,” Rowland said. “Today that means grabbing that pen and casting my vote for Kamala Harris.”The night before, Harris held her first campaign event with Barack Obama. They were joined onstage in Atlanta by rocker Bruce Springsteen, who played a three-song set and branded Trump an “American tyrant.” On Saturday, Harris will rally with Michelle Obama in Michigan.Harris does not expect to win Texas. But Democrats here are suddenly hopeful after polls suggest an unexpectedly close senate race between the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz, and the Democrat, Dallas-area congressman Colin Allred.Democrats face a daunting senate map this cycle. With a loss in West Virginia all but certain, and Montana slipping out of reach, their hopes of maintaining narrow-control of the Senate may rest on an upset in the Lone Star state.“Everything is bigger in Texas,” Allred said on Friday night. “But Ted Cruz is too small for Texas.”The emotional heart of the evening was the personal stories of Texas women who had nearly died from pregnancy-related complications because they did not receive proper care.Ondrea, a Texas woman who appeared in a new Harris campaign, became emotional as she shared her harrowing experience after a miscarriage at 16 weeks and needing an emergency abortion that she was denied under the state’s law. A video played before her remarks showed her with a wound and scars that stretched down her body, from her breast to her pelvis, after a six-hour surgery in which she said doctors had to cut open her torso in order to save her life.Texas residents Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who have become powerful surrogates for Harris on the campaign trail, also shared their story. At 18 weeks pregnant, Amanda Zurawski began to suffer complications and needed an abortion. There was no chance the foetus would survive, but doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy until she eventually developed sepsis, days later.“I was finally close enough to death to deserve healthcare in Texas,” Amanda Zurawski said.Todd Ivey, a reproductive health specialist in Houston, addressed the crowd surrounded by a team of doctors and medical professionals in white lab coats. He emphasized the challenges of administering care to patients when it could mean risking arrest. Since the Texas law took effect the state’s infant mortality has risen.“This is a healthcare crisis,” he said. This is unacceptable and it is cruel.”Among those in the crowd was Sara Gonzales, 32, of Splendora, Texas, who drove to the stadium straight from an early-morning shift at Starbucks. Gonzales said she considers herself an independent and in 2020, wrote in a candidate for president. But the political stakes changed, Gonzales said, the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, and Texas enacted its near-total ban on abortion.“Being a woman in Texas right now, it’s not OK,” she said. “I should have freedom over my own body.” More

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      Democrats are scrambling to keep the Senate. Could an old-school bipartisan help save it?

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      “Everybody’s got their comfy shoes?” Jacky Rosen scanned the room full of union workers who were preparing canvas for her in Reno, Nevada. The room erupted in response.“Those gym shoes are going to be worn out,” the Democratic senator told the crowd. “But that’s OK. Those holes in the bottom mean you’re doing the good work … helping return the Democratic majority in the United States.”Rosen has been wearing out her own shoes – crisscrossing the state and running one of the most aggressive and persistent re-election campaigns in the country as she fights to preserve her own career, and a precarious party advantage in the US Senate. Her campaign message has matched her practical footwear.Her platform has focused on a few big, national issues – including the cost of living and abortion – but also many small ones specific to her geographically vast, politically enigmatic state. She touts her record preserving a local postal hub in northern Nevada, bringing in money for a solar facility.“We’re trying to take care of what we have here, and we want our kids to have a good place to grow up,” she told members of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 – a powerful organisation representing tens of thousands of hospitality workers in the state. “That’s what everyone wants.”With early voting in Nevada already underway, Rosen holds an eight-point lead in polling averages. But she’s not letting up or taking any chances. Armies of volunteers from unions and a coalition of moderate and progressive political groups are knocking on doors on her behalf. And a barrage of advertisements, on the radio and television, in English and Spanish – are tearing down her opponent Sam Brown, a Donald Trump-backed Republican that Rosen has characterised as extreme.The race will be a test of whether candidates like her – a pragmatic, old-school bipartisan focused on local issues – can prevail in a politically polarised country. The outcome in Nevada will help determine which party controls the closely divided Senate, with the power to either impede of enable the agenda of Trump or Kamala Harris.In April, the non-partisan Cook Political Report had ranked the race a “toss-up” – in a swing state that appeared increasingly inscrutable to pollsters. In 2022, the Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto won her seat by fewer than 8,000 votes.And Rosen’s challenger, Sam Brown, a military veteran and Purple Heart recipient, had the makings of a model candidate – one who could help Republicans pick up a Senate seat and flip the chamber for the party. But by August, the polling agency had moved the race to “leaning Democrat” – citing growing enthusiasm for Democrats following Harris’s entry into the race, as well as Brown’s failure to drum up much enthusiasm.“Sam Brown just didn’t turn out to be the candidate that I think Republicans hoped he would be – in terms of energy, in terms of fundraising, in terms of just doing what’s needed,” said David Byler, chief of research at the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “And then you have a Democratic incumbent who doesn’t have any obvious flaws.”Paradoxically, Rosen’s unobtrusive temperament and heads-down approach to her first term could become her greatest asset. In Las Vegas and Reno, dozens of voters told the Guardian they weren’t particularly familiar with Rosen’s record – but she seemed to be doing just fine.“She does what she says she’s gonna do,” said Vivian Jackson, 69, of Las Vegas. “They try to attack her, but she’s not like that. She’s a real person.”“She’s occasionally said some stuff that’s given me pause,” said her neighbour Kenneth Logan, 65, a retired bartender and veteran who lives in west Las Vegas. On several issues, his politics are to the left of Rosen’s. “But I’m probably going to vote for her. She’s doing fine, and I can’t think of a candidate I’d vote for instead of her.”Rosen is a former computer programmer and synagogue president who was hand-picked to run for Congress, and then the Senate – seemingly out of nowhere – by Harry Reid, the former Democratic senate leader from Nevada who helped reshape the state’s politics over his long political career. In 2018 – after serving just two years in Congress – she unseated Republican senator Dean Heller with a five-point margin, largely relying on support from the state’s powerful labour unions and by emphasising her support for the Affordable Care Act and immigration reform. Heller had embraced Trump and voted to repeal the popular health care law.Six years later, Nevada – like the US at large – is much more politically polarised. Canvassers for the Libre Initiative, a conservative group affiliated with mega-donor Charles Koch’s political network, have been messaging to mostly Latino voters that Rosen is closely tied with the Biden administration. “She voted 94% of the time with Joe Biden,” said Eddie Diaz, a strategic director at Libre in Nevada. “And people are not better off than they were before.”But unlike many of her colleagues, Rosen has shied away from a national profile, forgoing the Democratic national convention in August in favour of staying in Nevada to campaign there.“I think she’s done a decent job so far, and that’s largely because she’s moderate, and bipartisan,” said Kim, 66, a mental health and wellness educator who said she didn’t want to share her full name because many of her family and clients are staunch Republicans.Her partner, Luis, 55, used to belong to the same synagogue as Rosen. “It’s a small world,” he said.Gladis Blanco, a political organiser with the Culinary Workers Union in Reno, said she credits Rosen for working with the administration to lower the cost of asthma medication. A single mother of five, Blanco said both she and several of her children have asthma – and new price caps on inhalers have transformed her family’s monthly budget. “When I tell voters about that they get so excited,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile Miguel Martinez, a Reno city council member who has been canvassing on behalf of Rosen and Harris, said he was especially impressed that Rosen successfully fought against the US postal service plan to move all mail processing from its Reno facility to California, which locals, especially in remote regions of rural northern Nevada, worried would result in delayed medication deliveries and mail ballot processing. “That was a really big win in our community,” he said.And much like her mentor Reid, who was famous for funnelling funds to the state, Rosen has managed to win allies by delivering federal aid to the state’s cities and rural communities.In recent weeks, several rural Republican officials have backed Rosen over Brown – noting, simply, that they’re happy with the incumbent’s record. “Jacky Rosen helped bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass the largest infrastructure investment in a generation,” said Nathan Robertson, the Republican mayor of the small eastern Nevada town of Ely. “That law is now leading to better and safer roads for our residents, including $24m in federal transportation funding to improve Ely’s streets and sidewalks and revitalise our downtown.”Ed Lawson – the Republican mayor of Sparks, a small city just outside Reno – similarly cited all the funding she has brought to his region. Just a day prior to his endorsement, Rosen and Cortez Masto announced that they had secured $275m in federal funding to enhance a major highway corridor east of Sparks.“I’m a lifelong Republican who has never voted for a Democrat, but this November I’ll be voting for Jacky Rosen,” he said.It has helped Rosen’s cause that Brown has floundered though the election cycle.With early voting underway, the Senate Leadership Fund – the Republican party’s main outside group supporting Senate races – announced it would spend an addition $6.2m on TV, radio and digital ads for Brown. But it’s unclear if the funds will come too late.Brown has often leaned on his personal story in appeals to voters. In 2008, when he was a US army officer in Afghanistan, his Humvee hit a roadside bomb. The explosion caused third-degree burns and Brown had to endure dozens of reconstructive surgeries. The experience was transformative, Brown has said. “God saved me for a purpose,” he wrote in a recent campaign email.But while he has made clear why he’s running for office, he has struggled to define how for voters he would govern.Trump endorsed Brown just days before the primary elections and since then Brown has clung tightly to the former president and his platform. Brown said he wouldn’t have supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Inflation Reduction Act – Biden administration programs that have brought unprecedented federal dollars into the state and help fund a range of projects. His past support for storing nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – a third rail of politics in the state – has also left the impression that he is out of touch with Nevada.Such missteps have opened the opportunity for an easy critique – that Brown is a newcomer, one who moved from Reno to Dallas in 2018, and simply doesn’t know enough about the state.His muddled stance on abortion has also played badly. In attack ads, Rosen has called Brown a “Maga extremist” who would take away abortion rights. And though Brown has responded by saying he supports Nevada’s current law, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks – he has repeatedly dodged questions on whether he’ll support the state’s abortion ballot initiative, which aims to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution.Nearly 70% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats said they opposed criminalising abortion, according to a recent poll by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland.Diane Gutierrez, a 65-year-old real estate agent based in Reno, said she is personally opposed to abortion, due to her faith, but believes it should remain protected. “I don’t believe that that should be taken away from any woman,” she said. “It’s just not OK to go backwards.”A registered non-partisan, Gutierrez said she’s voted for both Republican and Democratic candidates in the past. But in recent years, she has gotten more involved in volunteering with the Democratic party – and has largely steered clear of Republicans. “The party has had time, but they haven’t selected good candidates,” she said, adding they’ve failed to make a good case to voters. Initially, she thought Brown bucked the trend.“Being from a military family – my dad was a marine – I appreciate Sam Brown and thank him for his service because obviously he paid a huge price,” she said. “When you’re in the military, you have respect.”But his failure to define a platform of his own has been disappointing, she said. “I would like him to speak up more,” she said. “Where’s Sam Brown? Is he in Nevada? It’s like, ‘Sam – say something.’” More