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      Incarcerated Californians can’t vote. A prison held an election anyway

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      An estimated 4 million US citizens are barred from voting because they have a felony conviction. That includes most Americans serving prison sentences.But last week at San Quentin, the 172-year-old prison in the San Francisco Bay Area, residents had a rare opportunity to weigh in on a US election where so much is on the line.As incarcerated residents jogged on the yard and played pickleball, dozens stopped by the prison’s education department and slid paper ballots into a locked metal box with an American flag and the word “vote” painted on it.The voters were participating in a mock election, organized by Juan Moreno Haines, a journalist incarcerated at San Quentin, and Mount Tamalpais College (MTC), a liberal arts institution based at the prison.“It’s important for me to have a voice, especially if it’s being heard on the outside,” said Michael Scott, 45, who is due to be released next year after having been incarcerated for more than two decades, before casting his vote.California, like most US states, prohibits incarcerated people with felonies from voting, affecting more than 90,000 people in state prisons. The US is a global leader in its incarceration rate and an outlier in its sweeping disenfranchisement; a recent report identified more than 70 countries with no or very few restrictions on voting based on criminal records. Roughly 1.7% of the US voting-age population can’t vote, with Black Americans disproportionately excluded and restrictions potentially affecting election results.For San Quentin’s election, MTC, which recently became the first US accredited college exclusively operating behind bars, directed incarcerated students in its American government class to design ballots, choosing which races and initiatives to poll.MTC sent all 3,247 residents a ballot. After a week of voting, 341 ballots had been returned, representing 10.5% of the population. Fifteen volunteers from MTC and the League of Women Voters tallied the results: Kamala Harris won 57.2% of votes, and Donald Trump won 28.2%. Claudia De la Cruz of the Peace and Freedom party, a socialist ticket, won 3.5% of votes; the Green party’s Jill Stein won 2.6%; Robert F Kennedy Jr won 2.1%; and Chase Oliver, a libertarian, won 0.3%.View image in fullscreenIn the California senate race, Adam Schiff, the Democratic candidate, defeated Republican Steve Garvey with 33.7% of votes, though nearly half of respondents left this question blank. Nearly 60% favored Prop 5, which would boost affordable housing funding; 78% favored Prop 32, which would increase the minimum wage; and 57.2% rejected Prop 36, which would increase penalties for certain drug and theft crimes.Prop 6 would change the state constitution to abolish forced prison labor, making it a high-stakes measure for incarcerated people. Just more than 77% of respondents backed it.The state of California, like most others in the US, allows for incarcerated people to be forced to work against their will. California profits from this form of involuntary servitude, with residents providing vital services for negligible wages. Most people in prison currently make less than $0.75 (£0.58) an hour for their jobs.Prop 6 is meant to allow incarcerated people to choose their jobs and prohibit prisons from punishing those who refuse an assignment. Dante Jones, 41, said he wished he could vote for Prop 6 on 5 November: “We’ve got legalized plantations … They say they want us to be citizens, they want to rehabilitate us, but then they don’t do anything that allows that to happen. Technically, by the constitution, we’re slaves and they can whip our backs.”Jones said he hopes if Prop 6 passes, incarcerated people can earn better wages to afford commissary, including food.Jones’ assessment of the presidential race was grim: “I think we’re losing either way.” He reluctantly supported Harris despite her prosecutorial record and reputation for harshly punishing Black defendants: “She ain’t for her people. Do you know how many Black and brown people she put in prison? … She’s gonna be like a Bill Clinton, a conservative Democrat who is tough on crime.” Despite those misgivings, he couldn’t stomach supporting Trump: “Since he’s been in politics, he’s been courting racist white people who think that people who aren’t white are taking their country.”Jaime Joseph Jaramillo, 53, said he supported Trump, appreciating his promise of mass deportations to “get rid of the drug cartels” and favoring him on foreign policy: “I want him to bomb Iran and drill, drill, drill.” He expressed sympathy for Palestinians, but said: “I want him to take out Hamas.”Nate Venegas, 47, said he, too, favored Trump because “our system needs somebody who’s not a politician”. He thinks Trump could be more swayed on prison reform, citing the former president’s decision to pardon a woman’s drug offense after lobbying by Kim Kardashian while he was in office. But he also called Trump a “clown” and said he disliked his vigorous support of capital punishment: “I don’t believe there should be a death penalty. I don’t believe a man should kill another man.”Scott voted for Harris “because she gives me something to look forward to. Trump hasn’t given me anything that he plans to do, except lock down the borders. We have problems with homelessness, jobs and climate change.”Gabriel Moctezuma, 32, said he considered Harris “the lesser of two evils” and supported her on reproductive rights and immigration: “I think there would be a lot of progressive changes. There have been a lot of human rights taken away from people and she’ll bring some of those policies back.” But he worries about divisions in the country: “No matter who wins, this country is going to be split and I’m really hoping that there’s not the same amount of violence as January 6.”View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenOn their ballots, some offered handwritten notes about why they voted:“We have not always had the right to vote. So I would like to cast my vote for each of my [African American] ancestors that was denied access.”“I only ever voted once in my life and I want to do so again.”“Democracy is at stake.”“I want to feel like I am a part of history.”“[I’ve] been in prison for 29 years and never had an opportunity to vote.”Vermont, Maine and Washington DC are the only places in the US where all incarcerated people can vote.Amy Jamgochian, the chief academic officer at MTC, said the disenfranchisement of incarcerated people was a reminder that the US is “very confused as a society about what incarceration is for”.“Is it for depriving people of humanity and rights? Will that help them? Are we trying to help them? Or are we just trying to warehouse them? If [the goal] is rehabilitation, then I don’t think we want to dehumanize them. We want to actually deeply respect their humanity, including giving them the right to vote.”Venegas, who has been incarcerated for 25 years and is part of a civic engagement group at San Quentin, said he did feel society’s views on the purpose of the criminal justice system are shifting. He noted how, 20 years ago, the system was primarily focused on punishment, with little interest in getting people ready to come home.Last year, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, renamed San Quentin a “rehabilitation center”, pledging to turn the prison into a complex resembling a college campus focused on programming and re-entry.It’s just another reason why efforts like the mock election matter, Venegas argued. “People are starting to listen to us and care about having us as neighbors when we get out,” he said. “So our voices really matter … and I’d give anything to be able to vote and have a say.”

      Juan Moreno Haines is an incarcerated journalist at San Quentin and editor-in-chief of Solitary Watch. Sam Levin is a staff reporter at Guardian US More

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      Gender is going to be a huge factor in this election. Here’s what the data shows | Celinda Lake and Cate Gormley

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      The election for president ends in under a month, and voters in states across the country have begun casting early ballots. As we face what is shaping up to be the third presidential election that will come down to just tens of thousands of votes across a handful of key states, female voters, their concerns, and their judgments of the candidates will be decisive in the election.Polling shows that the gender gap, which we have seen in every presidential election since 1980, is at a record high. The gender gap, defined as the difference between the vote margin among women and the vote margin among men between Democrats and Republicans, is the key to success for Kamala Harris and other Democrats – they need to win women by more than they lose men.Recent polling varies, but these polls all demonstrate a significant gender gap. A Quinnipiac University poll from September shows a 26-point gender gap: women favor Harris 53% to 41% for Donald Trump, a 12-point advantage, while men favor Trump 54% to 40% for a 14-point advantage. A Suffolk University poll from August of likely voters shows a 34-point gender gap, with women supporting Harris 57% to 36% for Trump for a 21-point margin and men supporting Trump 51% to 38% for Harris for a 13-point margin. And an Echelon Insights poll in September also found a 10-point gender gap, with women favoring Harris 54% to 43% for Trump for an 11-point advantage and men 49% for Harris and 48% for Trump.Women and men are making different calculations as they plan to vote, and what drives these intentions are their most important issues and their perceptions of the candidates. Since the US supreme court ruled that states can ban abortion, abortion has been a top voting issue for female voters, especially younger women. In swing state polling conducted by the New York Times/Siena College in August, the economy and inflation are men’s most important issue in deciding their vote. For women, abortion and the economy and inflation are tied as the most important issues, and for women under age 45, abortion is the single most important voting issue.In a poll we conducted this spring on behalf of Intersections of Our Lives, a reproductive justice collaborative, we found that Black, Latina/x, and Asian American and Pacific Islander female voters think it is important for Congress to address every reproductive health and abortion issue we tested. Women of color have an expansive reproductive health agenda that includes addressing high rates of maternal mortality among women of color; ensuring access to birth control; ensuring that abortion is legal, affordable and accessible; ensuring that medication abortion is available to all women no matter where they live; and protecting IVF and other fertility treatments.In a survey of unmarried women under age 55 that we conducted for PSG Consulting and Innovating for the Public Good, we found that younger unmarried women are worried about losing basic rights and freedoms like access to reproductive health care, and they believe that this issue is more likely to be addressed if Democrats control Congress and the White House.Abortion is a major issue this election, and abortion and a female candidate on the ticket can mobilize women. According to an analysis by TargetSmart, we already see this mobilization. Since 21 July, when Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, 38 states have updated voter files; voter registration has almost tripled among Black women ages 18-29 and almost doubled among all Black women, and increased 150% among Latina women ages 18-29, relative to the same period in 2020. Democratic registration has increased over 50% compared to 7% for Republicans.It is not just their concerns – female voters see Harris and Trump differently. Earlier this year, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 31% of women thought that Trump respects women “a lot” or “some”. In another recent Quinnipiac University poll, in August, women’s impressions of Harris and Trump diverged significantly. While 58% of women say that Harris is ethical, 64% say Trump is not ethical. Six in 10 (60%) women say Harris cares about the needs and problems of people like them, and 60% say that Trump does not care. A solid majority (57%) say Harris has good leadership skills and 54% say Trump does not. Finally, and maybe most importantly, 69% of women say Harris has the mental fitness to serve a presidential term, and 57% say Trump does not.As Eleanor Roosevelt said long ago: it’s up to the women.

      Celinda Lake is the president of Lake Research Partners

      Cate Gormley is the vice-president of Lake Research Partners More

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      Biden’s economic legacy could decide the presidential race in Scranton

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      From the north, motorists pull into Scranton via the Joseph R Biden Jr Expressway. Cutting through the scenic Pocono Mountains, now at the start of autumn color season, they are greeted with a towering, electric billboard, blaring an encapsulating – if divisive – message to this working-class town: “Democrats for Trump,” it reads. “Economy,” it continues, with a green checked box next to the word.The sign in Biden’s hometown is the perfect fall 2024 welcome mat in this crucial swing state filled with voters whose economic anxiety or satisfaction will decide next month’s election.The US has staged a remarkable recovery since the pandemic and Biden has successfully pursued an economic agenda, Bidenomics, that should benefit Scranton and the state – $13bn has been earmarked from his infrastructure bill for repairing highways and bridges alone. But poll after poll shows deep-seated worries about the economy – worries that could sink Democrats’ chances of keeping the White House come November.Like many mid-sized upper midwest cities that have faced post-industrial decline, Scranton, a longtime Democratic stronghold, has grown more conservative in recent elections. With the city’s native son leaving office, and pocketbook issues top of mind, some believe Trump could finally take Scranton – a more-than-symbolic win.But with Kamala Harris, Biden’s successor, and Donald Trump tied in the polls, guessing who will take Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the White House is a fool’s errand. And this politically split town shows why the race is so close. On the street, one person’s economic reality may be entirely different to the next.The complicated political mix of fears about the local economy, faith and mistrust in both Harris and Trump and shifting political allegiance was evident at the Marketplace at Steamtown, a downtown mall filled with local mom-and-pop shops.Pete, 78, a swing voter who declined to provide his last name, said inflation had been a problem over the last four years, but added prices were coming down, the stock market was high, and said he didn’t blame Biden for the economic challenges.“Every president is stuck with what happened before, and the pandemic happened, so Biden was in a hole to begin with,” Pete said. But the veteran added the main issue driving him to Harris was Trump disrespecting veterans: “He called us suckers and losers.”The argument for Trump’s economics is ironclad, said Lori Higgins with a scoff: “Look at the last four years – everyone is paying more for everything. What more do you need to know to make a decision?” Now 52, she voted for Democrats until Trump convinced her to switch sides in 2016.Even on the most basic details, there is disagreement: Pete said he had just paid $2.99 for gas, citing it as evidence that inflation was coming under control. Two Trump supporters said they paid as much as $3.50 for gas, evidence, they said, that inflation is still squeezing Scranton.Trump and Harris have made close to 50 visits to Pennsylvania so far this election cycle and poured nearly $1bn into ads – a record spend that reflects how crucial its 19 electoral votes, the biggest prize of any battleground, make the keystone state. Trump made his second visit to Scranton in as many months last week. “Go get everyone you know and vote immediately,” he urged rallygoers.But persuading any part of the deeply divided electorate to swap their vote looks difficult.View image in fullscreenHarris may yet hold Scranton, said Berwood Yost, a Pennsylvania pollster, but that is “surprising” given the level of economic discontent in the city and the county. “The dissatisfaction with Biden is really high and views on personal finances are very negative, so Trump should be clearly ahead,” Yost said. And yet polling averages show Harris ahead by a point in Pennsylvania, (firmly within the margin of error) which “speaks in part to some voters’ concerns about Trump and his personal character”.Since 2000, Democrats have won the county with as much as 63% support, but Hillary Clinton narrowly won with less than 50% of the 2016 vote. Biden’s home-field advantage may have buoyed Dems in 2020 – he was born and raised in Scranton until the age of 10, when his family moved to Delaware, and he has name-checked the city throughout his long career and is still nicknamed “Pennsylvania’s third senator”. Biden beat Trump in the county by 53.7% to 45.3%.Still, Scranton has become “ground zero for demonstrating the appeal of Trump and the Maga movement, and places that traditionally voted Democrat and ended up changing their stripes in a significant way”, Yost said.‘Way more optimistic’Once a powerhouse city in the nation’s coal capital, Scranton’s economy is now driven by small business, retail, healthcare, education and the service sector, said Satyajit Ghosh, a University of Scranton economist. Though there is no shortage of empty storefronts downtown, it is noticeably livelier than many similar Rust belt urban cores.University of Scranton’s surveys of downtown businesses found owners in April had concerns about the current economic climate but were decidedly more optimistic about the next six months: “Way more optimistic than they were a year ago,” Ghosh said.View image in fullscreenYost’s most recent polling put Harris up three points statewide and found the economy to be the top issue for 34% of residents. Other recent polling found 60% of Pennsylvanians said their economic situation was worse compared with 40% who say it was better or no different.James Simrell is part of the latter group. As he closed up his boxing gym in Steamtown, the lifelong Democrat was upbeat about Scranton’s economy. His gym is just one of his three businesses, and all stay busy – he also designs jewelry and runs a small farm that produces butternut squash and pumpkins. He sells pumpkins to Blackwatch Cafe, and squash to Abe’s Delicatessen, which uses it in their soup. “Everyone is doing well,” Simrell said.In contrast, the Trump economy was “falling apart” as the former president left office amid a poorly managed pandemic, Simrell said. He has other reasons for not voting for Trump. His two adopted children are Black and Trump is “a little bit prejudiced – it drives my wife crazy”.Echoing longtime Democratic voters’ sentiment, he added: “My mom and dad were Democrats and I follow what they believe, and Kamala’s the best person to be president – she’s not crazy.”But lingering inflation is still a drag for Eric Flesher, who runs a collectibles and vintage store, Rock-N-Models. He likened the economy to a “tightening sphincter”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe declined to talk about politics, but said everything remained expensive: “I’m in a business that sells stuff that nobody needs unless they have disposable income, so it gets much more difficult” when there is inflation, Flesher said.Flesher added that he disagreed with the “mindset here that I should vote for someone because that’s how my mom and dad voted – then you’re just voting for a party and not a person”, he added.‘She’s not the kind you can trust’The economic indicators in Scranton track those of the wider US. Inflation, which peaked at an annual rate of 9.1% in mid-2022, has eased to 2.4%. Prices are similarly down in Scranton, the economist Ghosh said. Unemployment in the region was 4.8% in August, above the 4.1% national average but down from 9.2% when Biden took office in January 2021.“In this area, which I’ve covered for many years, I really haven’t ever seen this strong of a performance in terms of employment,” said Ghosh. Still, there’s an after-effect of inflation that consumers feel, Ghosh added, and some high prices, like those for rent or food, are still hurting.Outside a Walmart in Dickson City, a retail hub just north of Scranton, husband and wife John and Carol Gardner still feel the pinch. The Mount Cobb residents used to pay $150-$200 a month on groceries, and now they pay twice that. Carol is out of a job on disability, while John assembles buffet trays for $12 an hour to make ends meet, even though he said he should be retired.View image in fullscreen“Trump at least made sure we could go shopping, and Biden is making sure we can’t,” Carol said. “I hope the lady doesn’t get in because we’re going to go straight downhill – she’s not the kind you can trust.”The view is different at Bethel AME, a 153-year old Black church on downtown’s west side. Pastor Mark Alexander sees an improving economy, and blames inflation on Trump.“Inflation was more so because of Covid, and how the former president handled that situation, because when you have supply chain interruptions and poor leadership guiding the nation, it exacerbates things,” he said.The Federal Reserve, not the president, decides rates, Alexander noted, and he pointed to low unemployment, the Chips Act – which is pouring billions into domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors – and Biden’s infrastructure bill as evidence of the president’s economic success.Moreover, at Bethel AME, there is “excitement for someone who looks like us and has experienced some of things we have gone through and comes from a middle-class upbringing”, Alexander added. “As opposed to a billionaire who has no clue what it is like day to day for middle-class people,” he said. That’s especially true with younger people because Harris “speaks their language”, Alexander added.For others, neither candidate is appealing. Mike Gilson owns a flooring business, a maintenance company, and manages artists and chefs. He said the economy was strong locally because its economic backbone was made up of longtime small businesses, and it fared better during the last session than most other areas because of that composition.View image in fullscreenBut the city’s relatively strong economic standing is not persuading Gilson to vote for Harris. He said the president was a “ceremonial position” and big corporations run the nation. “If the president actually wielded the power that people think they do then voting would make a lot more sense to me,” Gilson said.History will decide which of Scranton’s many voices will decide this election. Right now it is unclear whether the legacy of the city’s most famous son will be enough to carry Harris over the line or finally hand Scranton and the state to Trump.With the race essentially a toss-up at this point, the key for either party is going to be turnout, Yost said. But in that battle, Trump may have an advantage – people who are less likely to vote have in recent elections voted for Trump.“Democrats have to counter that by getting their voters to the polls,” Yost said. “Think about the election as a mosaic – there are many pieces and some are bigger than others, but they’re all going to matter.” More

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      Elon Musk promises to award $1m every day to voters as he steps up campaigning for Trump

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      Elon Musk said his Trump-supporting political action committee – America Pac – will give $1m every day until election day to someone who signs his petition that effectively encourages Republicans in the key battleground states to register to vote.The commitment, which started on Saturday as Musk handed a lottery-style check to the first winner of his contest at a town hall event, could mean Musk is on the hook for $17m if he remains the sole donor to his own Pac.The America Pac petition is for any registered voter in Pennsylvania to pledge their support for the first and second amendments. The petition effectively encourages Trump voters to register to vote so they can be in the $1m draw. Attendees of Saturday’s town hall event had to sign the petition, which allows America Pac to garner contact details for more potential voters that it can work to get to the polls for Trump.The petition does not require signers to be a Republican; any Democrat registered to vote in Pennsylvania could sign it too.Musk’s event in Harrisburg on Saturday was the third in as many days in Pennsylvania, where Musk is painting November’s election in stark terms and encouraging supporters to vote early and get others to do the same.Musk has so far donated $75m to America Pac, which is doing the bulk of Donald Trump’s ground game operation in the battleground states, according to FEC disclosures filed this week.But the ground game operation appears to have issues. Earlier on Saturday, the Guardian reported that roughly 25% of the door-knocks done by America Pac in Arizona and Nevada were flagged internally as potentially fraudulent – when canvassers falsely claim to have visited a home.The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, which is betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.But leaked America Pac data obtained by the Guardian shows that roughly 24% of the door-knocks in Arizona and 25% of the door-knocks in Nevada this week were flagged under “unusual survey logs” by the Campaign Sidekick canvassing app.America Pac declined to comment. A person familiar with the Pac’s field operation denied there was actual door fraud to that extent in Arizona and Nevada and said they were doing their own auditing.But the extent of the flagged doors in America Pac’s operation underscores the risk of outsourcing a ground-game program, where paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate’s victory compared with volunteers or campaign staff. More

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      US presidential election updates: Stars turn out for Harris while Trump tells story about Arnold Palmer’s ‘anatomy’

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      On the first day of early voting in Detroit, Michigan, rapper Lizzo campaigned for Kamala Harris, saying she rejected the argument that America was not ready for a female president, adding, “It’s about damn time”. In Atlanta, Georgia, Harris was joined by singer Usher, with the Democratic candidate describing Donald Trump’s speeches as “nonsense”.With Harris and Trump essentially tied in the most competitive states, both campaigns are focused on early by mail or in person voting, with just 17 days until the 5 November election.In the battleground of Pennsylvania, Trump escalated his personal attacks on Harris, calling her a “shit vice-president”. The Republican candidate had billed the event as the start of his final argument to voters but quickly went off script with a long story about Arnold Palmer that included remarks about the genitalia of the late golfing legend.Here’s what else happened on Saturday:Kamala Harris election news and updates

      In both Detroit and Atlanta, Harris urged her supporters to put in an all-out effort to win. “On election day, we don’t want to have any regrets about what we could have done these next 17 days,” she said. Harris hammered Trump for a second straight day for cancelling events and for avoiding another presidential debate because of what she called “exhaustion”. Her campaign called Trump’s Pennsylvania rally “junk”, saying he had focused on the issue “most important to voters in this election: a deceased golfer’s ‘anatomy’.”

      In Atlanta, Harris said Trump was “cruel” for how he talked about the grieving family of a Georgia mother who died after complications from an abortion pill. Harris blamed Amber Thurman’s death on Georgia’s abortion restrictions and referenced a clip of Trump at a Fox News town hall. When asked about the Thurman family joining a separate media call, Trump reportedly said “we’ll get better ratings, I promise.” “Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability, to take any accountability, for the pain and the suffering he has caused,” Harris said.

      Harris repeated her call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and said it was important to seize the opportunity provided by the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Harris dodged a question on whether Arab American and Muslim anger over US support for Israel could cost her the election in the battleground state of Michigan, but said she would continue speaking out about the tragic loss of innocent lives. “I speak publicly all the time about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from Gaza,” Harris said.
      Donald Trump election news and updates

      In Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump said Harris is further to the left than Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, adding “You have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it any more.” Trump underscored the importance of the eastern state’s electoral college delegates to the overall election: “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing.”

      Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter. The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Elon Musk, betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.
      Elsewhere on the campaign trail

      Early voting also began on Saturday in Nevada, where Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Las Vegas. The former president poked fun at Trump, telling the audience “we don’t need to see what an older, loonier Donald trump with no guard rails looks like.”

      Billionaire Mark Cuban – who has emerged as an energetic campaign surrogate for Harris – has told the Guardian that Trump’s planned tariffs could put “small retailers and manufacturers out of business.” “Small businesses don’t have the pricing elasticity of larger companies. They can’t pass on the incremental and administrative costs associated with tariffs.”

      Elsewhere another billionaire – Elon Musk – campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania. Speaking in Harrisburg, he announced he would start randomly distribute cash awards – $1m each day until the election – to a registered voter in the state who signed his organisation’s petition. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has taken an increasingly visible role in Trump’s campaign and has donated almost $75m to his political organisation America PAC.
      Read more about the 2024 US election:

      Presidential poll tracker

      Harris and Trump policies

      What to know about early voting More

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      Harris stresses abortion rights and early voting in packed Atlanta rally

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      Kamala Harris highlighted the threat to women’s reproductive rights and Donald Trump’s apparent exhaustion at a rally Saturday in south Atlanta, continuing a full-court press for votes in Georgia as early voting breaks records here.The race continues to appear close in Georgia, with polls suggesting the Republican nominee holds a one-point lead in the state. Trump has made multiple appearances in Georgia and has a rally with Turning Point Action planned in Gwinnett county, outside Atlanta, next week.However, the National Rifle Association canceled a planned Saturday rally with Trump in Savannah, citing a “scheduling conflict”. Trump has also canceled several news interviews over the last week.The Trump campaign has angrily pushed back against a suggestion raised by a staffer that Trump had been exhausted by the appearances. But Harris has seized the idea as a rallying cry.“And now, he’s ducking debates, and canceling interviews because of exhaustion,” Harris said. “And when he does answer a question or speak at a rally, have you noticed that he tends to go off script and ramble, and generally for the life of him can’t finish a thought? … Folks are exhausted with someone trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other. We’re exhausted. That’s why I say it’s time to turn the page on that.”View image in fullscreenHarris returned to familiar themes on a day of perfect Atlanta weather, describing the “opportunity economy” as one that brings down the cost of living for prescription medication, groceries and housing through anti-price-gouging initiatives, while providing financial support for new parents and entrepreneurs.Extending Medicare coverage for home healthcare services would prevent working adults from having to quit a productive job or spend down savings to take care of aging parents. “It’s about dignity,” she said in the city’s Lakewood Amphitheater.Harris will attend services Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a majority-Black megachurch in the heart of Atlanta’s Black suburbs in south DeKalb county. New Birth and other large Black churches in Georgia traditionally organize a “souls to the polls” push on Sunday early voting days.As of 5pm Saturday, about 1.3 million Georgians had cast ballots early in person, more than double the 2020 pace on the fifth day of early voting in Georgia. In 2020, about 2.7 million out of 5 million voters cast ballots early in person, with more than two-thirds of votes cast before election day. Absentee ballots are down sharply, however, a reflection of the end of the pandemic and changes to absentee ballot rules.Early voting provides real-time feedback for campaign strategists hoping to target voters who have not yet cast a ballot. Democrats pressed their supporters in Georgia to vote early in 2020 and 2022, a strategy that helped lead the party to victory in the 2020 presidential race and Georgia’s two vital wins in the US Senate.“Georgia, out of nowhere, we made a way,” said the US Senator Jon Ossoff. “This is an election that will determine the character of our republic. This is much deeper than Democrats versus Republicans. Former president Trump is unfit for the presidency.”But so far this year, early voting in rural and ex-urban areas of Georgia, rich in Republican votes, have outpaced core Atlanta turnout rates. Donald Trump has pointedly encouraged his supporters to vote early this year, a tacit acknowledgement of the strategic error of 2020.Early voting also began on Saturday in Nevada, where Barack Obama campaigned for Harris in Las Vegas. The former president also poked fun at Trump, telling the audience “we don’t need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump with no guard rails looks like.”In Georgia, early voters among Democrats have been vocal about abortion policy driving their votes. The deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two Georgia women who couldn’t access timely maternal health service or legal abortions, have resonated in the rhetoric of the election.“Let us agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: the government should not be telling her what to do,” Harris said. The rally rolled clips of Thurman’s family describing their grief, and then of Trump mocking their loss in a town hall interview hosted by Fox News.“He belittles their sorrow, making it about himself and his television ratings,” Harris said. “It’s cruel.”But the Lakewood rally was plainly about driving turnout and enthusiasm among Black voters. Usher, an iconic Atlanta-based R&B musician and dancer, spoke early to the crowd, calling on people to vote early for Harris, and to reach out to friends and family.“How we vote – I mean, everything that we do in the next 17 days – will affect our children, our grandchildren, of the people we love the most,” Usher said.Ryan Wilson, the co-founder of private networking hub the Gathering Spot and a notable Atlanta entrepreneur, discussed the Harris proposal to offer up to $50,000 in grants to Black entrepreneurs. “That would have been a game changer for me,” he said. “Vice-President Harris’s opportunity agenda for Black men who provide folks like me the tools to achieve generational wealth, lower costs and protect their rights. And what would Donald Trump do? I think it’s fair to say: nothing.” More

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      Kamala Harris joined by Lizzo at campaign event; Donald Trump rallies in Pennsylvania – live

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      Senator Bob Casey showed support for some Trump-era policies in his new ad, which aired on Friday in parts of the state,The ad features a Republican-Democrat couple from Old Forge praising Casey as an independent leader. They say he opposed Biden on fracking and backed Trump on trade issues like ending NAFTA and imposing tariffs on China.Barack Obama will hold an event on Saturday to rally voters for Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting in Nevada.The Harris campaign said the former president will encourage voters to turn out and vote for Harris, Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Democrats up and down the ballot.Former NFL star Antonio Brown is in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, for Donald Trump’s latest rally. Brown has continued to show his support for the former president before next month’s US presidential election.The ex-Steelers star addressed the crowd of Trump supporters after teasing his appearance on social media earlier this week.In Detroit, Kamala Harris was asked whether the war in Gaza could cost her the election. She didn’t directly answer the question, but she pointed to the Biden administration’s calls for peace days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.“This creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing hostages home,” Harris told reporters in Michigan.Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the Democratic vice-presidential pick, paid a visit to the city of Chicago before heading to a rally in Omaha, Nebraska.He spoke at a hotel ballroom in the city’s downtown area and was introduced by Senator Dick Durbin.“It’s pretty clear the tired, divisive and old rhetoric of Donald Trump matches the tired, divisive and old Donald Trump,” Walz said.Americans are paying attention to Kamala Harris’s media blitz and Donald Trump’s campaign rallies, according to a CNN poll.A CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential nominees throughout the race revealed that the word most commonly used in describing the news about Harris was “interview”.Survey respondents referenced appearances on CBS’s 60 Minutes and the podcast Call Her Daddy, as well as interviews with Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert.When Americans were asked to describe the news about Trump, “rally” was the second-most commonly used word in response.Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters she’s seeing “record turnouts” of early voting in North Carolina and Georgia.“In Michigan, I will challenge the folks here to do the same,” Harris said during a campaign stop in Detroit.Kamala Harris told reporters that she’s dedicated more time on the campaign trail and called former president Donald Trump “increasingly unstable and unhinged” as she rallied in Detroit, Michigan.The vice-president was asked about her rapid response toward her rival, which seems like a more aggressive shift than the way she was handling his attacks before.“It requires that response,” she said. “The American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.”On Friday, the Democratic vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, joined sportscaster Rich Eisen to discuss his football coaching past, which included a high school state championship. He also talked about his love for sports in general.“Look, people come here to get away from it like I do, I don’t watch political programs on TV. I watch ESPN, I watch sports,” Walz said. “It gives us that commonality. And I think there’s people that are hungry for that, and I’ve seen that at sporting events.”Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat woundA former Montana park ranger has now publicly accused Tim Sheehy – a Republican running for a US Senate seat in the state – of lying about getting shot while at war in Afghanistan.In an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday, 67-year-old Kim Peach went on the record about how Sheehy – a former US navy seal – actually shot himself on a family trip in 2015 at Glacier national park. Peach’s account explicitly contradicts Sheehy’s claim that he was shot in the arm during military combat, a story that the Republican candidate has shared throughout his US Senate campaign.Peach said that Sheehy’s allegedly self-inflicted wound left him with a bullet lodged in his right arm at Glacier national park in Montana’s Rocky Mountains. He told the Post that he first met Sheehy at a hospital in the area of the park during the aftermath of the 2015 episode.Read the full story here:The Vice President delivered remarks at Western International High School in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday. Her comments come a day after Harris traveled across the state with presidential campaign rallies in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County.“We’re not falling for the other guy trying to get rid of the Department of Education, because we know what we stand for,” Harris said, referring to her rival Donald Trump.Donald Trump has previously said he wants to shut down the US Department of Education, saying that it should be disbanded to “move everything back to the states where it belongs”.Lizzo, who’s real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, showed her pride in being a Detroit native during the rally.“They say, if Kamala wins, then this whole country will be like Detroit. Well, I say proud, like Detroit. I say resilient, like Detroit,” said the singer. “This is the same Detroit that innovated the auto industry and the music industry. So put some respect on Detroit’s name.”Lizzo said she voted early, and encouraged the audience to do the same, calling an early vote “a power move.”“This is the swing state of all swing states. So every single last vote here counts,” she said.Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said Elon Musk as a surrogate in the Trump campaign “could resonate with a demographic in Pennsylvania.”In an interview with Politico, the Democratic lawmaker recognized Donald Trump’s campaign is perfoming well in Pennsylvania.“He’s undeniably popular, and it’s going to be very close,” Fetterman said.He said that Musk, who’s been recently campaigning for the former President, is a “meaningful surrogate in a business where most surrogates really are not that critical.”Donald Trump’s campaign announced it will host a “Black Men’s Barbershop Talk Roundtable Event” on Sunday in Philadelphia.“This event will focus on the challenges facing Black men today, including economic struggles, community safety, and the negative impact of Kamala Harris’ policies on the Black community,” reads the campaign email.Florida Representative Byron Donalds and local community leaders are scheduled to host the roundtable at 4 pm ET.Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, shared a photo from her mother Ethel Kennedy’s memorial, showing her brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alongside President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders.The image includes Kennedy family members gathered around a portrait of Ethel Kennedy, with Biden at the center next to Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines, seen at the edge, were notably unsmiling. Many family members, including Kerry, criticized Robert’s challenge to Biden, and he now campaigns for Donald Trump after suspending his bid in August.As the US presidential election looms, the billionaire Mark Cuban has emerged as an energetic campaign surrogate for Kamala Harris. Making the case for business leaders to support the Democrat over Donald Trump, Cuban has drawn on his experience (in tech, investments, healthcare and now sports, as minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team), celebrity (as a lead “shark” for 15 seasons of ABC’s Shark Tank) and willingness to confront Trump-supporting billionaires, Elon Musk prominent among them.The road has not been smooth. Last week, Cuban clashed with congressional progressives after criticizing Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, over her tech-sector antitrust work. That issue and others, including Cuban’s thoughts on Trump’s championing of tariffs and the perennial question of whether Cuban harbors presidential ambitions of his own, are addressed below, in emailed answers to 10 questions posed by Guardian writers and editors.Read the full interview here: More

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      How can the candidate with most votes lose? The US electoral college explained

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      Even though the United States touts its status as one of the world’s leading democracies, its citizens do not get to directly choose the president. That task is reserved for the electoral college – the convoluted way in which Americans have selected their president since the 18th century.Contrary to its name, the electoral college is more a process than a body. Every four years, in the December following an election, its members – politicians and largely unknown party loyalists – meet in all 50 states on the same day and cast their votes for president. Then they essentially disappear.In recent years there has been growing criticism of the electoral college, accelerated by the fact that two Republican presidents – George W Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016 – have been elected president while losing the popular vote. But there’s no sign that US elections will change any time soon.Here’s everything you need to knowWhat exactly is the electoral college?Article II of the US constitution lays out the process by which a president is elected.Each state has a number of electors that’s equal to the total number of representatives and senators it has in Congress. Washington DC gets three electoral votes. In total, there are 538 electors. A candidate needs the votes of 270 of them, a simple majority, to win.The constitution says that state legislatures can choose how they want to award their electors. All but two states have long chosen to use a winner-take-all system – the winner of the popular vote in their state gets all of the electoral votes.To complicate matters further, two states, Maine and Nebraska, award their electors differently. In both states, two electoral college votes are allocated to the statewide winner. Each state then awards its remaining electors – two in Maine and three in Nebraska – to the winner in each of the state’s congressional districts.Why does the US have an electoral college?When the founding fathers gathered in Philadelphia to draft the US constitution in 1787, they had a lot of trouble figuring out a system for choosing a chief executive. Initially, they proposed a plan that would have Congress choose the president. But that led to concerns that the executive branch, designed to be independent from Congress, would be subject to it.A contingent of the delegates also favored electing the president through a direct popular vote. But the idea never got broad support and was shut down repeatedly during the convention, the historian Alexander Keyssar wrote in his book Why do we still have the electoral college.There were a number of reasons the idea was not widely popular. First, the convention had adopted the racist three-fifths compromise in which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for population purposes. This was a win for the southern states, in which slaves made up a sizable chunk of the population. A popular vote system would have disadvantaged the southern states because they had fewer people who could vote.There were also concerns about giving too much power to larger states and that voters would be unable to learn about the candidates from different states, according to Keyssar. It was a debate driven more about pragmatics than about political rights, he writes.Towards the end of the convention, a committee of 11 delegates was appointed to deal with unresolved matters and one of them was how to select the president. They proposed a version of what we have now come to understand as the electoral college.“This brief nativity story makes clear that the presidential election system enshrined in the Constitution embodied a web of compromises, spawned by months of debate among men who disagreed with one another and were uncertain about the best way to proceed,” Keyssar wrote. “It was, in effect, a consensus second choice, made acceptable, in part, by the remarkably complex details of the electoral process, details that themselves constituted compromises among, or gestures toward, particular constituencies and convictions.”What is a swing state?States that either presidential candidate has a good shot at winning are often called “swing states”.In the 2024 election, there are seven swing states: Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), Michigan (15 electoral votes), Georgia (16 electoral votes), North Carolina (16 electoral votes), Arizona (11 electoral votes), and Nevada (six electoral votes). Whichever candidate wins the election must carry some combination of those states, which is why the candidates will spend the majority of their time and resources there. Joe Biden carried all of those states bar North Carolina in the 2020 election.The idea of a swing state can also change over time because of changing demographics. Until recently, for example, Ohio and Florida were considered swing states, but they are now considered pretty solidly Republican. Michigan was considered a pretty solid Democratic stronghold until Donald Trump won it in 2016.Does the electoral college allow for minority rule?There have been five elections in US history – in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 – in which the candidate who became the president did not win the popular vote. This has led to wider recognition of imbalances in the system and a push from some to abolish the electoral college altogether.The loudest criticism is that it’s a system that dilutes the influence of a presidential vote depending on where one lives. A single elector in California represents more than 726,000 people. In Wyoming, an elector represents a little more than 194,000 people.Another critique is that the system allows a tiny number of Americans to determine the outcome of the presidential election. In 2020, about 44,000 votes between Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona allowed Biden to win the electoral college. Such a slim margin is extraordinary in an election that 154.6 million people voted in.In 2016, about 80,000 combined votes gave Trump his winning margins in key swing states.Do electors have to vote for a specific candidate?State political parties choose people to serve as electors who they believe are party stalwarts and will not go rogue and cast a vote for anyone other than the party’s nominee. Still, electors have occasionally cast their votes for someone else. In 2016, for example, there were seven electors who voted for candidates other than the ones they were pledged to. That was the first time there was a faithless elector since 1972, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Many states have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate they are pledged to. In 1952, the US supreme court said that states could compel electors to vote for the party’s nominee. And in 2020, the court said that states could penalize electors who don’t vote for the candidate they’re pledged to.How has the electoral college remained in place for so long?Since almost immediately after the electoral college was enacted, there have been efforts to change it. “There were constitutional amendments that were being promoted within a little more than a decade after the constitution was ratified,” Keyssar said. “There have been probably 1,000 or more constitutional amendments to change it or get rid of it filed since 1800. Some of them have some close.” (There were more than 700 efforts as recently as 2019, according to the Congressional Research Service.)When the idea of a national popular vote was proposed in 1816, Keyssar said, southern states objected. Slaves continued to give them power in the electoral college, but could not vote. “They would lose that extra bonus they got on behalf of their slaves,” he said.After the civil war, African Americans were legally entitled to vote, but southern states continued to suppress them from casting ballots. A national popular vote would have diminished their influence on the overall outcome, so they continued to support the electoral college system.The country did get close to abolishing the electoral college once, in the late 1960s. In 1968, George Wallace, the southern segregationist governor, almost threw the system into chaos by nearly getting enough votes to deny any candidate a majority in the electoral college. The US House passed the proposed amendment 339 to 70. But the measure stalled in the Senate, where senators representing southern states filibustered.That led to continued objections to a national popular vote so that southern white people could continue to wield power, according to the Washington Post. President Jimmy Carter eventually endorsed the proposal, but it failed to get enough votes in the Senate in 1979 (Joe Biden was one of the senators who voted against it).“It’s not like we are suddenly discovering this system really doesn’t work,” Keyssar said.Is there any chance of getting rid of the electoral college now?The most prominent effort to get rid of the electoral college today is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The idea is to get states to agree to award their electors to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome in their specific state. The compact would take effect when states having a total of 270 electoral votes – enough to determine the winner of the election – join.So far 16 states and Washington DC – a total of 205 electoral votes – have joined the effort.But the path ahead for the project is uncertain. Nearly all of the states that haven’t joined have either a Republican governor or legislature. And legal observers have questioned whether such an arrangement is constitutional – something that would probably be quickly put to the US supreme court. More