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      Elon Musk gives $75m to pro-Trump group, putting him among the largest Republican donors

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      Elon Musk gave around $75m to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures show, underscoring how the billionaire has become crucial to the Republican candidate’s efforts to win the US presidential election.America PAC, which is focused on turning out voters in the closely contested states battleground states that could decide the election, spent around $72m of that in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.That is more than any other pro-Trump Super Pac focused on turning out voters. The Trump campaign is broadly reliant on outside groups for canvassing voters, meaning the Super Pac founded by Musk – the world’s richest man – plays an outsized role in the razor-thin election between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.Musk, the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, was the sole donor to the group in that period.On Wednesday, he said in a post on X that he will be “giving a series of talks” throughout Pennsylvania, less than two weeks after his appearance with Trump in the state. Musk said people needed to sign a petition on his America PAC website to attend his talks from “tomorrow night through Monday.”Pennsylvania is considered a crucial state for both Trump and Harris in the race for the White House.Musk, who has said he has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the past, has taken a sharp turn to the right this election. He endorsed Trump in July and appeared with him at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.Musk’s donations to America PAC propel him into the exclusive club of Republican mega donors, a list that also includes banking heir Timothy Mellon and casino billionaire Miriam Adelson.However, it was reported earlier this month that Musk has secretly funded a conservative political group for years, well before his public embrace of Trump.America PAC declined to comment on the Musk donations. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.America PAC is focused on encouraging Americans who like Trump but don’t always vote to cast ballots this cycle, a high-risk, labor-intensive strategy by the Trump campaign.The group, which started its work later in the election than other Pacs, has encountered some problems with hiring and its contractors. Since July, it has fired two major contractors it has hired to knock on doors.It has also struggled to hire door knockers in several battleground states in part because by the time the Pac became operational many other canvassing groups had already staffed up, a half-dozen sources briefed on the issues told Reuters.The group had about $4m left on hand by the end of September, the filings show.Separate filings earlier on Tuesday showed that Miriam Adelson, the casino magnate, donated $95m to another pro-Trump Super Pac, Preserve America PAC, in the same period. More

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      Musk’s millions in rightwing gifts began earlier than previously known – report

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      Elon Musk has given tens of millions of dollars to rightwing groups in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, revealing his backing for Republican groups began earlier than was previously known.Musk endorsed Trump earlier this year and has been a prolific booster of misinformation in support of the president’s re-election bid on X, the website he owns. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Musk had said he planned to donate $45m each month to a Super Pac backing Trump (Musk has denied the report).But the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Thursday revealed that Musk has already been spending tens of millions of dollars to back conservative causes. In 2022, he spent more than $50m to fund anti-immigrant and anti-transgender advertisements by a group called Citizens for Sanity. The group’s officers are employees of America First Legal, a non-profit led by Stephen Miller, a close former Trump aide.Musk also has donated millions to another rightwing group, Building America’s Future, Reuters reported on Thursday. The outlet reported the timeline and exact amount he has given were not clear.The group has focused on reducing Kamala Harris’s support among Black voters, according to NBC News. The group has also launched advertising criticizing Joe Biden and Harris for their support at the border.A Super Pac started by Musk, America Pac, has spent at least $71m on the presidential election, according to Bloomberg. The Trump campaign has largely outsourced its get-out-the-vote operation to the Pac.In 2023, Musk also gave $10m to support the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in his bid for president, the Wall Street Journal reported. Musk publicly said in 2022 he would support DeSantis for president.“My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far,” he said at the time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk’s donations to the groups were kept quiet, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported. He funneled money through social welfare groups that are not required to disclose their donors. People involved in his donations to Citizens for Sanity would use Signal, an encrypted messaging app, to discuss the transactions, the Wall Street Journal reported. More

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      Why Republicans are raising double the money in down-ballot races

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      Since Kamala Harris launched her presidential bid in July, Democrats have showered her campaign with cash. Last month alone, the vice-president raised $361m, tripling Donald Trump’s fundraising haul of $130m for the month. According to Harris’s campaign, she brought in $540m in the six weeks after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race.Democratic congressional candidates appear to be benefiting from this financial windfall as well, as Republicans sound the alarm about their fundraising deficit in key races that will determine control of the House and Senate in November.But in one crucial area, Republicans maintain a substantial cash advantage over Democrats: state legislative races. In recent years, Republicans have controlled more state legislative chambers than Democrats, giving them more power over those states’ budgets, election laws and abortion policies.The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which supports the party’s state legislative candidates, has raised $35m between the start of 2023 and the end of this June, the committee told the Guardian. In comparison, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) – which invests in an array of state-level campaigns, such as supreme court races, in addition to legislative campaigns – has raised $62m in the same time period.That resource gap is now rearing its head in key battleground states, the DLCC says. In Pennsylvania, a crucial state for the presidential and congressional maps, Republican state legislative candidates have spent $4.5m on paid advertisements, compared with $1.4m for Democratic candidates.“When we think about the context of what’s at stake, we think about more than 65 million people being covered by our target map this year,” said Heather Williams, president of the DLCC. “And that means that the rights of all those people will be determined by who’s in power the day after the election.”A race to fill the funding gapDemocratic party leaders seem aware of the high-stakes surrounding state legislative races. Earlier this month, the Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced a transfer of $25m in funds to help down-ballot candidates, including $2.5m for the DLCC. Williams said the transfer represented the party’s largest investment to date focused solely on winning state legislative chambers.“The underlying story here is that the Harris campaign, our federal officials [and] the party believe that we need to win up and down the ballot,” Williams said. “We know that our freedoms are on the line, that democracy is on the line in the states, and so investing in state legislatures is really an emerging cornerstone of Democrats’ strategy to protect against Maga [‘Make America great again’] extremism.”But the $2.5m investment, while significant, does not come close to closing with DLCC’s resource deficit against the RSLC. Democratic-aligned outside groups, such as the States Project and the Super Pac Forward Majority, are trying to help close that gap: Forward Majority is now on track to spend $45m this election cycle on promoting Democratic state legislative campaigns, the group announced on Wednesday. The States Project has also announced plans to spend $70m this cycle, after investing heavily in state legislative races two years ago.Forward Majority formed in 2017, after Republicans notched significant victories up and down the ballot in 2016. At the time, Democrats controlled 31 legislative chambers compared with Republicans’ 68. In the years since, Democrats have chipped away at that disadvantage, now controlling 39 chambers.“It was incredible in that decade or so to see people pay more attention to it, to recognize this level of the ballot is critically important,” said Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer at Forward Majority.Despite that progress, Martes warned against complacency, as Republican-aligned groups have shown a willingness to invest heavily in state legislative races as well. During the legislative races in Virginia last year, the conservative Pac Americans for Prosperity spent $2.2m, which represented the largest contribution of any outside group.“We can’t let the Republicans flood the zone with late money,” Martes said. “They have access to it, and we can never underestimate their ability to come in late.”Post-Roe momentumDemocrats had a good year in 2022 when it came to state legislative elections. They flipped the Minnesota senate and both chambers of the Michigan legislature, giving them governing trifectas in both states thanks to the Democratic governors there. Some of that momentum was attributed to Democratic voters’ increased focus on state legislatures after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf the 22 states that currently enforce an abortion ban of some kind, 19 of them are fully controlled by Republicans. (A judge struck down North Dakota’s abortion ban on Thursday, but the law had not yet been enjoined as of Friday afternoon.) Meanwhile, several states controlled by Democrats – including California, Minnesota and New Jersey – have expanded abortion rights since Roe was overturned. That contrast has enlightened many voters on the importance of state elections, Martes argued.“I think most people did not believe that Roe was going to fall,” she said. “And I think it’s been incredibly impactful for people to now know it’s up to the states … I think that’s really helped people focus in on state legislatures.”Williams hopes that greater awareness will translate into electoral success down ballot, as Democrats look to sustain the trifectas they won in 2022 and flip more legislative chambers.The DLCC’s to-do list for November is long. Democrats want to keep their control of the Michigan house and the Pennsylvania house, where they repeatedly defended their slim majority through several special elections since 2022. The party also hopes to break a Republican supermajority in North Carolina, where the state legislature was able to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a 12-week abortion ban. And in Arizona, Republicans have only one-seat majorities in both chambers, giving Democrats an opportunity for their first governing trifecta in the state since 1966.It is no coincidence that much of Democrats’ state legislative map overlaps with their presidential and congressional maps, Martes said.“The key to winning back Congress also runs through a path of picking up state legislative seats and protecting important incumbents,” Martes said.While leaders of both political parties are fond of saying that every vote matters, the truism is particularly relevant when it comes to state legislative races. Because the voting pool is smaller compared with a congressional or presidential race, a couple hundred votes often separate the winner from the loser in state legislative elections.In one stunning case that arose in 2018, a tied Virginia legislative election was decided by pulling a name out of a bowl, and the lucky Republican winner gave his party control of the house of delegates.While the narrow margins of such races may seem daunting, they can also be motivating, Williams argued.“It’s going to take one vote at a time and one legislative win over and over in all of these states,” Williams said. “I think we’re at such a moment where those efforts – seemingly small efforts – will make a huge difference. And we’ll be able to protect the rights of millions of people across the country.” More

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      Five things we learned from our reporting on the US’s pro-Israel lobby

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      The progressive US representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota easily overcame a primary challenge on Tuesday, delivering a major victory for progressives after a primary season marked by mixed success amid an onslaught of spending from pro-Israel lobby groups.The progressive “Squad” in the House were early to embrace calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticize Israel’s offensive for its toll on civilians, drawing the ire of groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Omar and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania were still able to easily cruise to victory in their primaries, but pro-Israel groups successfully picked off its two biggest Squad targets of this primary season: Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri.The Guardian followed key congressional races affected by Aipac and similar groups for the past few months. With the primaries coming to a close, here’s what we learned about the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts this year.1Aipac is spending more as public opinion on Israel shiftsThe $23m Aipac pumped into defeating just two members of Congress can be seen as evidence of the depth of the pro-Israel lobby’s concern that public opinion is shifting away from decades of largely unquestioning support for Israel as the US’s “greatest ally”, particularly among young Americans. These shifts in public opinion threaten the claims of a bipartisan consensus on support for Israel in Congress.Aipac’s creation of the United Democracy Project (UDP) political action committee in 2021 to directly intervene in election campaigns for the first time was in part a response to opinion polls showing that even before the present war in Gaza, half of Democrats wanted the US to give more support to Palestinians.The group pledged to spend $100m this election year; it has so far spent more than $90m. Bowman and Bush’s races were the two most expensive House primaries in history, according to the firm AdImpact.Bowman and Bush were elected to Congress on the back of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has focused on reframing the Palestinian cause as a civil rights issue of resistance to Israeli domination. The shift in narrative alarms Aipac, as has the impact of international court rulings against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and a growing consensus within international human rights organisations that Israel imposes a form of apartheid on Palestinians.The war in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, has only added to the challenges now facing the pro-Israel lobby, with a third of Democrats saying Biden has not been “tough enough”with Israel.2Pro-Israel groups spent big to pick off vulnerable incumbentsAipac’s UDP spent $14.6m in its campaign to unseat Bowman. The group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) spent another $1m to help George Latimer, the Westchester county executive, win the Democratic nomination.In Bush’s primary, UDP spent $8.6m to promote the campaign of Wesley Bell, a St Louis prosecutor, and DMFI contributed close to $500,000 to the effort.View image in fullscreenThe financial commitment paid off, as both Bowman and Bush went on to lose their primaries. But it’s worth noting that Bowman and Bush were already viewed as more vulnerable than some of their other Squad colleagues at the start of the primary season.Bowman had attracted negative headlines last year for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol during a crucial vote, an incident that prompted a misdemeanor charge and a formal House censure. Bowman also had to apologize in January for writing some now-deleted blogposts promoting conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks, and Latimer was helped by redistricting, which brought more of the suburban voters inclined to support him to the district. Meanwhile, the justice department is investigating Bush’s spending on security services, after she married her security guard and kept him on her campaign payroll. View image in fullscreenGroups like UDP and DMFI chose to focus their attention on lawmakers who already had some kind of baggage heading into their primaries.3Pro-Israel groups stayed out of races they deemed unwinnableMany election watchers expected Lee’s primary in Pennsylvania to be the first test of the pro-Israel lobby’s strength against the Squad, but UDP and DMFI chose to stay out of the race.The decision came as somewhat of a surprise, as UDP and DMFI collectively spent nearly $4.4m against Lee when she first ran for Congress in 2022. But the groups opted out of the race this year after Lee spent her first term in Congress building goodwill with her constituents and delivering more than $1.2bn in funding for her district.View image in fullscreenThe Super Pac Moderate Pac, backed by the Republican mega-donor Jeffrey Yass, did get involved in Lee’s race, but it was not enough to prevent her victory. Lee ultimately defeated her opponent, local council member Bhavini Patel, by 21 points.A similar pattern played out with Omar. She beat Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis city council member, by 13 points on Tuesday after pro-Israel groups chose to stay out of the race. The progressive representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of the House and one of the most vocal ceasefire supporters, did not even draw a primary challenger.In races where they did not think they could win, pro-Israel groups simply opted out altogether.4The pro-Israel lobby’s messaging didn’t focus on the war in GazaAlthough pro-Israel groups targeted pro-ceasefire members, their attack ads generally did not focus on the war in Gaza. That choice was strategic, as polls show that an overwhelming majority of Democrats support calls for a ceasefire.Instead, ads from UDP tried to paint members like Bowman and Bush as uncooperative Democrats sowing discord within the party and more focused on their national profiles than their districts. One UDP attack ad against Bowman specifically called out his votes against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the debt ceiling agreement, mirroring the group’s later attacks against Bush.View image in fullscreen“Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden,” the ad’s narrator says. “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda, and it’s hurting New York.”That strategy, powered by millions of dollars in ad spending, paid off.5Battle-tested progressives performed betterOmar knew to expect a significant primary challenge this year because she won her 2022 primary against Samuels by just 2 points. This time around, Omar was prepared. She raised roughly five times as much money as Samuels did, and she deployed ads early as a sort of prebuttal against potential attacks on her voting record.Lee similarly secured the narrowest possible victory in her 2022 primary, winning by less than 1 point. Two years later, her margin of victory in the primary had grown by 20 points.View image in fullscreenBowman and Bush were less tested, however. In 2022, Bowman won his primary by 29 points, although he tellingly secured only 54% of the total vote. Bush easily won her primary in 2022, beating her opponent by 43 points and securing 70% of the total vote.This year, it seems that progressives who experienced tougher primary fights in 2022 were better equipped to defend themselves when needed.But Aipac is not only taking aim at Israel’s most strident critics. The millions of dollars poured into defeating Bush and Bowman are a warning shot to other members of Congress and contenders that vocal criticism of Israel or support for Palestinians may come at a political price.Read more of our coverage:

      Pro-Israel money pours in to unseat progressives in congressional races

      Pro-Israel US groups plan $100m effort to unseat progressives over Gaza

      A progressive congresswoman made history in 2022. Can a billionaire stop
      her re-election?

      Pro-Israel groups target Republican House candidate they deem antisemitic

      Pro-Israel groups have set sights on unseating this progressive lawmaker. Will they succeed?

      Race to unseat New York progressive ‘most expensive House primary ever’

      Pro-Israel Pac pours millions into surprise candidate in Maryland primary

      Pro-Israel group pours millions into unseating New York progressive Jamaal Bowman More

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      in Elections

      Fake electors from 2020 giving thousands to Trump-Vance campaign

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      The people who served as fake electors in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election have continued to donate to Donald Trump, JD Vance and other Republicans since then, campaign finance records show, underscoring the role they continue to play in US politics.Some fake electors face criminal charges for their actions. Some continue to hold key government roles.Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican party, has given more than $1,800 to Trump and allied fundraising groups this campaign cycle, according to federal campaign finance records. Maddock is one of the 16 fake electors in Michigan who were criminally charged by Dana Nessel, the Democratic Michigan attorney general, last summer and has pleaded not guilty. Tyler Bowyer, who has also pleaded not guilty for his role as a fake elector in Arizona, donated $645 this year to Trump.“It is incredibly rare for politicians to accept campaign contributions from people under indictment,” said Michael Beckel, the research director at Issue One, an election watchdog group. “It’s generally not good optics for politicians to accept money from people accused of serious wrongdoing. Political candidates generally don’t want to be tied to convicted or accused felons. Yet in certain circles, association with the people who served as fake electors for Donald Trump in 2020 may be a badge of honor.”“Former President Trump likely has fewer qualms about accepting campaign cash from people under indictment for serving as fake electors in 2020 than the typical politician,” he added. David Hanna, a fake elector from Georgia who was not criminally charged, has given at least $25,000 to Trump this year.In 2021 and 2023, Hanna also donated more than $6,000 combined to JD Vance’s senate campaign. Daryl Moody, another fake elector in Georgia who was not charged, donated $2,900 in 2022 to Vance. Vance, Trump’s running mate, has been supportive of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and has said that if he had been vice-president in 2020, he would have used his power overseeing the joint session of Congress to recognize fake slates of electors.“It doesn’t take a lot of work to figure out that Donald Trump and JD Vance are keeping extremist election-deniers in the fold as reliable henchmen and women to challenge the results of the fall election,” said Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st Century, a Super Pac that supports Democrats and initially flagged the donations to the Guardian.“They’ve taken thousands of dollars in donations from fake electors and welcomed them with open arms to the Republican national convention last month. Trump and Vance are actively selling out our democracy in exchange for the power to enact their Project 2025 agenda the day they step into the White House.”The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.Several Republicans running for the US House have also received donations from fake electors. Eli Crane, a Republican representative from Arizona, in 2023 received $2,900 from Jim Lamon, a fake elector who faces criminal charges there. Yvette Herrell, a New Mexico representative, has accepted more than $3,000 from Rosie Tripp, who served as a fake elector in the state. In 2022, Herrell also received $2,900 from Deborah Maestas, a former New Mexico Republican party chair who served as a fake elector in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe campaigns of Crane and Herrell did not respond to requests for comment.In addition to continuing to donate to candidates, fake electors continue to play key roles in the Republican party. Michael McDonald, a fake elector criminally charged in Nevada, is the chair of that state’s Republican party (a Nevada judge threw out the case against the Nevada electors last month, and the attorney general is appealing). At least 18 fake electors also served as party delegates at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee last month, according to CNN, NPR and a local news report.In Wisconsin, Robert Spindell, a fake elector, continues to serve as one of three Republicans on the bipartisan Wisconsin elections commission, the body that oversees voting in the state. In Georgia, Burt Jones and Shawn Still, both of whom were fake electors, respectively serve as lieutenant governor and a state senator.Full slates of fake electors in Nevada, Michigan and Arizona face criminal charges for their activities. A handful of fake electors were charged in Georgia, while those in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin have not faced charges. In Wisconsin, the fake electors reached a civil settlement agreeing that they would not serve as electors again in 2024. More

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      in US Politics

      Report reveals secret US inquiry into alleged 2016 Egyptian $10m gift to Trump

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      A spokesperson for Donald Trump blamed “Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors” for a bombshell report on Friday about a secret criminal investigation into whether Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the authoritarian ruler of Egypt, sought to give the former president $10m during his victorious 2016 White House run.“The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed,” Steven Cheung told the Washington Post, which published the report on Friday.“None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact. The Washington Post is consistently played for suckers by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors peddling hoaxes and shams.”The deep state conspiracy theory holds that a permanent, shadow government of agents, operatives and bureaucrats exists to thwart Trump. One of the theory’s chief propagators, Steve Bannon, has said it is “for nut cases”. Nonetheless, it remains popular on the US right and among Trump’s aides.Bannon was Trump’s campaign chair in 2016. According to the Post, five days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, an organisation linked to Egyptian intelligence services withdrew $10m from a Cairo bank.“Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt,” the Post said, “employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags.”Four men “carried away the bags, which US officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of US currency”.According to the Post, US federal investigators learned of the withdrawal in 2019, by which time they had spent two years investigating CIA intelligence that indicated Sisi sought to give Trump $10m.Such a contribution would potentially have violated federal law regarding foreign donations.This year, in a New York state case concerning hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, Trump was convicted on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records.According to the Post, US investigators who discovered the $10m Cairo withdrawal “also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House to inject his campaign with $10m of his own money”.Eight years on, with Trump running for president again, the Post report landed in the aftermath of the bribery conviction of Robert Menendez, a Democratic senator from New Jersey who took gold bars and cash from Egyptian sources.Menendez faces a maximum sentence of 222 years.While in office, Trump repeatedly praised Sisi, over objections from US politicians concerned about the Egyptian’s authoritarian rule.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs described by the Post, the US investigation which uncovered the Cairo withdrawal was questioned by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general. Ultimately, a prosecutor appointed by Barr closed the inquiry without criminal charges being filed.Later, as the 2020 election approached, CNN reported that a mysterious DC courthouse hearing in 2018 – involving prosecutors working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election – concerned an Egyptian bank.A Trump spokesperson, Jason Miller, said then: “President Trump has never received a penny from Egypt.”On Friday, Cheung, Trump’s current spokesperson, called the Post report “textbook fake news”.The justice department, the US attorney in Washington DC and the FBI declined to answer questions, the Post said.The prosecutor who closed the case, Michael Sherwin, said he stood by his decision.An Egyptian government spokesperson declined to answer the Post’s questions.An anonymous government source told the Post: “Every American should be concerned about how this case ended. The justice department is supposed to follow evidence wherever it leads – it does so all the time to determine if a crime occurred or not.” More

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      Celebrity-studded ‘White Dudes for Harris’ call raises $4m for vice-president

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      A Zoom call meant to rally “white dudes” in support of Kamala Harris’s run for the White House raised more than $4m from about 190,000 participants, including several Hollywood stars, in the latest success for her nascent bid for president.The fundraiser added to a series of positives for the Harris campaign on Tuesday, including the release of a new ad, an endorsement from the Republican mayor of a large city in in Arizona, and an admission from the Republicans’ vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, that Harris posed more of a threat to the Trump campaign than Joe Biden did.Guests on the “White Dudes for Harris” call on Monday evening not only included contenders for Harris’s vice-presidential running mate – the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz; the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker; and the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg– but also the actors Jeff Bridges (famous for portraying the Dude in The Big Lebowski) and Mark Hamill, who secured a $50,000 donation during the call by delivering his renowned Star Wars line: “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”A news release from the organizers said the virtual gathering “shattered expectations”.“Over the course of the evening, speakers heard governors, senators, congressmen, actors and singers all speaking directly to white men around the need to organize and support Kamala Harris for president,” the press release said. “Speakers spoke truthfully and honestly about the path ahead, the importance for us to connect with one another and the important role we can play in getting other white men to turn their backs on the dangerous, dark path Donald Trump is trying to march us down.”Harris, a former California attorney general and US senator who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage, became the first woman to be elected vice-president when Joe Biden won the White House in 2020. She is now likely to become the first woman of color to lead a major-party presidential ticket after Biden halted his re-election run on 21 July and endorsed her.Democrats responded to Harris’s ascension with enthusiasm, illustrated by 170,000 people signing up to volunteer for her campaign as well as donating $200m for her political war chest in just the first week.But Trump – Biden’s presidential predecessor – and his Republican supporters, many of them white, have greeted her rise by disparaging her as a hire resulting from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.“Honestly, their dark vision for our future is just holding all of us back,” Brad Bauman, a Democratic party communications consultant who helped organize Monday’s call, told NBC News. “That’s why we decided to start White Dudes for Harris.”Other celebrities on Monday’s call were Mark Ruffalo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Paul Scheer, Josh Gad, Sean Astin, JJ Abrams and Bradley Whitford. The call lasted over three hours.The Zoom fundraising call came in the wake of similar, well-attended gatherings for Black women, Black men and white women supporting Harris.There is also a “cat ladies for Harris” Zoom call being planned in response to comments from Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, in which he insulted the vice-president as a “childless cat” lady. And there is a similar call in the works titled “Latino Men for Kamala”. The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, is hosting a Labor for Harris Zoom call with labor leaders and members around the US on 31 July.The white women for Harris call last Thursday raised nearly $8.5m for the vice-president and had more than 160,000 attenders.The Black women for Harris Zoom call attracted about 90,000 participants. And the Black men for Harris streaming event, moderated by the journalist Roland Martin, saw more than 53,000 people register.Those events also included appearances by numerous celebrities and Democratic officials.The calls come as Harris and Trump are polling closely to each other in crucial battleground states likely to determine the election. After Biden’s withdrawal from the race, the Republican-friendly Fox News poll conducted in three of the key states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – showed Trump and Harris were even.Trump had previously been enjoying relatively comfortable leads.The successful fundraising calls for Harris were anchored by news of an important endorsement in the battleground state of Arizona, as the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona’s third largest city, crossed party lines to endorse Harris.The Harris campaign also released its first video television advertisement, which describes the presumptive Democratic nominee as “fearless” and touts her bona fides as a prosecutor. The one-minute ad is the first of a $50m advertising campaign ahead of the Democratic national convention in Chicago on 19 August.Adding to her campaign’s sense of momentum since Biden declared last Sunday that he was stepping aside from the presidential race was an audio recording leaked to the Washington Post on Monday of Vance telling Republican donors that Harris taking over from Biden was a “sucker punch”.“All of us were hit with a little bit of a political sucker punch,” said Vance in the recording. “The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger. And Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did.” More

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      in US Politics

      Biggest US abortion rights groups back Kamala Harris as effective messenger

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      The biggest abortion rights groups in US politics are lining up behind Kamala Harris’s bid for president, a show of faith in a politician who has already become the face of the White House’s fight over abortion rights – which is not only one of the election’s biggest issues but one of the few where Democrats have the advantage.Within hours of Joe Biden’s stunning announcement on Sunday that he would drop out of the presidential race and endorse the vice-president, Emilys List, which champions Democratic women who support abortion rights, and Reproductive Freedom for All, which advocates for abortion access and was previously known as Naral Pro-Choice America, officially endorsed Harris. Emilys List plans to pour at least $20m into the race in support of Harris.Planned Parenthood Action Fund, whose endorsement must be ratified by local chapters, has not officially weighed in. However, its CEO and president, Alexis McGill Johnson, warmly commended Harris for keeping “the needs and experiences of patients and providers front and center”.Harris has spent much of this year on a tour of the country in support of abortion rights, where she has proven to be a far more effective messenger on the issue than Biden. The president was infamously reluctant to even say the word “abortion” and fumbled answers to questions about it in the June debate that ultimately cost him his candidacy.“Just right off the bat, she’s primed to run with the message around abortion rights,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “Her messaging around abortion and being out there forcefully on the issue is going to be a net positive for her.”Harris, the first sitting vice-president or president to visit an abortion clinic, has described the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade and the abortion bans that now blanket the US south as “a healthcare crisis” and frames abortion rights as an issue of personal freedom.“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” she told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, in February.Democrats hope that outrage over Roe’s downfall, which hobbled Republicans in the 2022 midterms and led GOP strongholds such as Ohio and Kansas to pass ballot measures protecting abortion rights, will boost turnout among their base – especially in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona. Both states are set to hold abortion–related ballot measures this year.Donald Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and other Republicans have attempted to neutralize the importance of abortion rights in the 2024 election by downplaying the issue as well as their party’s role in Roe’s demise. During last week’s Republican national convention, the issue was conspicuously missing onstage. Neither Trump, who appointed three of the supreme court justices who overturned Roe, nor Vance, who has previously supported a national abortion ban, mentioned abortion.“Trump and Vance can downplay the abortion message all they want, but the political reality speaks for itself,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.Deckman suspects that a Harris candidacy will invigorate young women, young women of color and suburban women.“We see in our polling that young women in particular are the most staunchly supportive of abortion rights,” Deckman said. “I think it’s gonna be an extremely close election. But I think the benefit for the Democrats is now they have a new narrative. There’s some enthusiasm happening, where there wasn’t with the Biden campaign.”Before Roe fell, anti-abortion Republicans were far more likely than pro-abortion rights Democrats to identify as single-issue abortion voters.That picture has changed somewhat. One in eight voters say abortion is the “most important issue” to their vote, while more than half say that it is “very important issue but not the most important”, according to polling from KFF conducted before Biden’s departure from the race. Two-thirds of the voters who describe abortion as their most important issue say it should be legal in all or most cases. The voters who think it should be legal in all cases tend to be Democratic, Black, female or between the ages of 18 and 29.But voters are also deeply concerned with the economy and immigration – issues where, polls indicate, Trump is seen as the stronger candidate. Although six in 10 Democrats think Harris would make a good president, only about three in 10 overall adults feel the same, according to polling released by the Associated Press on Friday.As vice-president, Harris has backed Biden’s promise to codify abortion rights into law.“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said in a May speech. “But we are not going to let that happen.”While abortion rights groups are backing Harris, anti-abortion activists are already mobilizing against her. SBA Pro-Life America, which plans to spend $92m across eight states this election cycle, has started calling Harris “the “abortion czar”. More