[🇺🇸] USA Election 2024

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The sentiment behind the words Americans used to describe what they’d heard about Harris remained more positive than the words they used to describe the news about Trump. This doesn’t mean that they expressed warmer feelings about her personally but that what they said about her tended to be framed in relatively positive terms and tone.

However, the gap in sentiments about the two candidates was significantly smaller than it was last week in the wake of the debate. The tone of responses relating to Harris were slightly more negative than positive, bringing her sentiment number roughly in line with where it was prior to the debate, while Trump’s remained in negative territory.

 

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October surprises are piling up, but a toss-up race seems impervious to shocks​

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
October 3, 2024


October surprises are coming at a dizzying pace. But the question is whether grave crises at home and abroad can break a dead heat between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in an election that’s already been marked by huge turmoil.

The White House is grappling with three challenges that could threaten the vice president’s hopes and offer an opening to the Republican nominee’s narrative of Biden-era negligence. A month before Election Day, the US faces the grave possibility of being dragged into a Middle East conflagration; a port workers’ strike could harm inflation-weary consumers; and political pressure is rising in the fallout of Hurricane Helene.

Trump, meanwhile, was hit on Wednesday by the unsealing of a 165-page document in which special counsel Jack Smith gives the fullest picture of his case in the federal 2020 election interference case. The ex-president has pleaded not guilty, but the filing re-injected his attempt to steal the last election into the frantic endgame of a campaign partially shaped by Democrats’ claims he poses an existential threat to American democracy.

Each situation highlights potential vulnerabilities for both candidates as voters make up their minds. The trio of tests facing Harris comes with potential economic, political and humanitarian consequences if the administration errs. And the new scrutiny of Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election could cause some voters to again question his fitness for the Oval Office.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Dane Manufacturing in Waunakee, Wisconsin, October 1, 2024.
Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images

 

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Trump’s election meddling thrust back into 2024 race​

One of the most bewildering aspects of the 2024 election is that a former president accused of trying to overthrow the previous election has an even chance of winning this one.

The depth of Trump’s alleged election stealing plot was laid bare in Smith’s filing, which said that he “extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results.” Smith, trying to get around this summer’s Supreme Court ruling that granted presidents substantial immunity for official acts, added that Trump “operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.”

In one of the most damning parts of the filing, Smith said he had evidence that showed the then-president told family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

Trump has falsely claimed that all his legal exposure proves that the Biden administration has weaponized justice against him to meddle in this election. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung claimed that “President Trump is dominating, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are freaking out.”

Trump has also forced fellow Republicans to adopt his false claims of fraud in 2020. In the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, his running mate JD Vance couldn’t bring himself to publicly say his boss lost the last election.

While Republican voters seem willing to buy into Trump’s false narrative, it remains unclear how deeply events four years ago still weigh on the minds of swing-state voters and how much, if at all, Smith’s unsealed document will shape the race.

Vice President Kamala Harris walks with Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson as they survey the damage from Hurricane Helene, in the Meadowbrook neighborhood of Augusta, Georgia, on October 2, 2024.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Events threaten to conspire against Harris​

The greatest vulnerability for Harris may lie in a sense the post-pandemic normality that Joe Biden pledged to restore in 2020 is still unrealized, while Republicans make a case that Democratic leadership is outmatched by cascading events at home and abroad.

A long-dreaded war between Iran and Israel could force the United States into fighting with Tehran after more than four decades of proxy antagonism and put Americans in harm’s way. Any consequent energy crisis could send gas prices soaring and shatter Harris’ economic credentials. The port stoppage is pulling the administration between its support for unionized labor and an imperative to prevent supermarket shortages and hiked prices. Meanwhile, Helene is the second deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland in the past 50 years, following Katrina in 2005, which became a symbol of how mismanaged natural disasters can create political cataclysms.

“Look at the World today — Look at the missiles flying right now in the Middle East, look at what’s happening with Russia/Ukraine, look at Inflation destroying the World. NONE OF THIS HAPPENED WHILE I WAS PRESIDENT!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. His argument ignores the daily chaos that raged when he was in office. But unlike in 2020, amid his botched handling of the Covid-19 crisis, Trump is not an incumbent and his post could be a crisp election argument against the current administration. Proliferating crises also allow Trump to revive one of the key themes of his campaign – that he offers strength and Harris and Biden are weak.

Each of the problems looming over the White House race might qualify for the cliche October surprise. Yet their impact is hard to assess since this campaign’s many twists have yet to have a decisive impact. Trump has, for example, been convicted of a crime and escaped two assassination attempts. An incumbent president running for reelection abandoned his campaign a few months before Election Day.

Still, after the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, there are now no scheduled set-piece occasions that offer the prospect of a major twist in the campaign. That means effectively navigating the crises that do arise could become even more vital.

Any development could in theory take on outsize significance among the perhaps several hundred thousand voters in a handful of swing states that will decide this election. Harris has a narrow lead in some national polls, but most swing state surveys show no clear leader and margins within sampling errors.

 

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US election 2024: A really simple guide to the presidential vote​

BBC

Americans will head to the polls in November to elect the next US president. The vote will be closely watched around the world.

They will also be voting for members of Congress, who play a key part in passing laws that can have a profound effect on American life.

When is the US presidential election?​

The 2024 election is on Tuesday, 5 November 2024. The winner will serve a term of four years in the White House, starting in January 2025.

The president has the power to pass some laws on their own but mostly he or she must work with Congress to pass legislation.

On the world stage, the US leader has considerable freedom to represent the country abroad and to conduct foreign policy.

Who are the candidates and how are they nominated?​

The two main parties nominate a presidential candidate by holding a series of votes called state primaries and caucuses, where people choose who they want to lead the party in a general election.

In the Republican Party, former president Donald Trump won his party's support with a massive lead over his rivals. He became the official Republican nominee at a party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump chose Ohio senator JD Vance to be his vice-presidential running mate.

For the Democrats, Vice-President Kamala Harris joined the race after President Joe Biden dropped out and no other Democrats stood against her. Her running mate is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

There are also some independent candidates running for president.

One of the most prominent was Robert F Kennedy Jr, nephew to former president John F Kennedy, but he suspended his campaign in late August and has endorsed Trump.

What do Democrats and Republicans stand for?​

The Democrats are the liberal political party, with an agenda defined largely by its push for civil rights, a broad social safety net and measures to address climate change.

The Republicans are the conservative political party in the US. Also known as the GOP, or the Grand Old Party, it has stood for lower taxes, shrinking the size of the government, gun rights and tighter restrictions on immigration and abortion.

 

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How does the US presidential election work?​

The winner is not the person who gets the most votes across the country. Instead, both candidates compete to win contests held across the 50 states.

Each state has a certain number of so-called electoral college votes partly based on population. There are a total of 538 up for grabs, and the winner is the candidate that wins 270 or more.

All but two states have a winner-takes-all rule, so whichever candidate wins the highest number of votes is awarded all of the state's electoral college votes.

Most states lean heavily towards one party or the other, so the focus is usually on a dozen or so states where either of them could win. These are known as the battleground or swing states.

It is possible for a candidate to win the most votes nationally - like Hillary Clinton did in 2016 - but still be defeated by the electoral college.

Who can vote in the US presidential election?​

Most US citizens who are aged 18 or over are eligible to vote in the presidential election.

Every state except North Dakota requires people to register before they can vote.

Each state has its own voter registration process and deadline.

US citizens who live abroad can register to vote and request an absentee postal ballot by completing the Federal Post Card Application (FCPA).

Who else is being elected in November?​

All of the attention will be on who wins the presidency, but voters will also be choosing new members of Congress - where laws are passed - when they fill in their ballots.

Congress consists of the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are up for election, and the Senate, where 34 seats are being contested.

Republicans currently control the House, which initiates spending plans. Democrats are in charge of the Senate, which votes on key appointments in government.

These two chambers pass laws and can act as a check on White House plans if the controlling party in either chamber disagrees with the president.

When will we know who has won the election?​

Usually the winner is declared on the night of the election, but in 2020 it took a few days to count all the votes.

The period after the election is know as the transition, if there is a change of president.

This gives the new administration time to appoint cabinet ministers and make plans for the new term.

The president is officially sworn into office in January in a ceremony known as the inauguration, held on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC.

 

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Jan. 6 thrust back into the spotlight in final election days​

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
October 4, 2024

Donald Trump’s attempt to unravel American democracy to stay in power four years ago is suddenly back at the epicenter of another election — weeks before the ex-president could pull off a stunning White House comeback.

Special counsel Jack Smith and former Rep. Liz Cheney have thrust the issue of the GOP nominee’s false 2020 fraud claims into the endgame of Trump’s neck-and-neck showdown with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, while reviving memories of a day that will stain American history.

Appearing with Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday, Cheney presented herself as part of a bipartisan movement to block Trump from the White House. But four years on, the mob assault by Trump supporters on the US Capitol, the ex-president’s attempt to subvert a free and fair vote, and his incessant efforts to fracture trust in the US democratic system may not impede his return to power.

This is a reality that reflects both the divided state of the nation and the GOP’s willingness to prioritize power. But most of all, it’s a testimony to the often-malevolent magnetism that has made Trump a historic and enduring political figure.

Cheney, a hardline conservative, appeared with the vice president in the critical battleground to urge independents and Trump-wary Republicans to vote for the Democrat despite their sharp differences on policy.

“The most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our Constitution,” Cheney said in Ripon, Wisconsin. “As we meet here today, our republic faces a threat unlike any we have faced before.” She added: “In this election, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration – it is our duty.”

“What January 6 shows us is that there is not an ounce, not an ounce of compassion in Donald Trump. He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel, and Donald Trump is not fit to lead this good and great nation.”

It was a remarkable scene, which was only made possible by the political earthquake unleashed by Trump’s conduct four years ago. A sign of how much things have changed in American politics: Cheney’s father, former vice president Dick Cheney — who was reviled by Democrats, especially over the Iraq War — has also endorsed Harris. His daughter declared: “I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

The former Wyoming congresswoman lost her leadership position in the House GOP and eventually her seat in a landslide to a primary challenger, after standing up to Trump’s attempt to defy the will of voters in 2020. And while she was still in the House, she helped lead a bipartisan special committee that recommended criminal charges for the twice-impeached ex-president over the January 6, 2021, riot. In Wisconsin, a state that could be decided by narrow margins next month, Cheney could have a big impact if she’s able to move even a few hundred votes.

 

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Next week, Cheney and former Trump White House aides Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews will make the case against Trump in a fireside chat in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, CNN has exclusively learned.

Harris on Thursday praised Cheney’s courage — and vowed, “Anyone who has called for, I quote, the termination of the Constitution of the United States, as Donald Trump has, must never again stand, never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”

The ex-president responded to Cheney’s appearance with a post on his Truth Social network that was filled with personal insults. But Trump’s comments also underscored the populist transformation of the Republican Party that he wrought after more than a decade of draining overseas wars that put a heavy burden on service personnel from many of the heartland states where he draws his strongest support. The Republican nominee blasted Cheney as a war hawk and slammed her father as the leader of “our ridiculous journey into the Middle East, where Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed - and for what? Nothing!”

How relatively small numbers of up-for-grabs swing state voters process the issues behind the comments by Cheney and Trump — and weigh them in relation to other top concerns like the economy and high grocery prices — could factor into the wider question of who wins the election

 

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Cheney’s appearance came after Smith was back in the spotlight Wednesday, with an unsealed court filing offering the most detailed view yet of his federal election interference case against Trump, who has thwarted attempts to bring him to trial before the election.

The special counsel alleged that Trump told family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” The filing represents an attempt by Smith to save a case that was seriously damaged by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which granted Trump and other ex-presidents wide immunity for acts in office.

 

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Uncertain political fallout from the new focus on January 6​

New focus on Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last election and the January 6 attack on the Capitol might seem like a political disaster for the ex-president. But it’s a mark of Trump’s success in rewriting history that this is not necessarily an election-defining issue.

When Trump left Washington in January 2021, without attending Joe Biden’s inauguration and with the city divided by iron security fences, it would have been absurd to think that he could have a strong chance of returning to power in a non-consecutive second term.

His prospects next month show that while he horrifies many Americans, his conduct after the last election is not seen as disqualifying by millions of others. Trump has countered claims by opponents that he represents a grave peril to the Constitution by arguing that Biden and Harris are the real threat and has blamed their rhetoric for two assassination attempts against him. “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” Trump said at his debate with Harris last month. “They talk about democracy. I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy.”

Trump’s hold on the Republican base has also allowed him to browbeat most party leaders into supporting him and joining his effort to whitewash his conduct after the last election. He’s also again raising doubts about the integrity of the election system as early voting begins this year to hedge against another possible defeat.

 

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Trump’s success in convincing Republicans that he was the victim of political persecution helped him sail through the Republican primary. And the prospect of another Democratic president is even papering over some of the deepest Republican scars remaining from 2020. On Friday, for instance, the ex-president is set to appear with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the swing state for a briefing on Hurricane Helene. Trump has spent years vilifying Kemp for failing to join his attempt to overturn Biden’s win there.

 

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New fears that Trump threatens democracy​

The possibility of a Trump return to power is especially ominous for many Americans because he has vowed to wage a second term of “retribution” and is threatening to jail his political opponents.

Yet Trump’s strongman instincts are exactly what makes him attractive to many Republican voters whom he has convinced the Biden administration has weaponized justice against him. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims, even if some of the prosecutors in several of his criminal and civil cases, notably in Georgia and New York, were political figures who previously criticized the former president. Still, all of Trump’s criminal charges emerged from grand juries or genuine legal processes. And he was judged by a jury of his peers, like any other citizen, when convicted in a Manhattan trial arising from a hush money payment to an adult film actress.

As well as the federal election case, the ex-president is facing a similar one in Georgia based on racketeering statutes. A Trump-appointed judge threw out another Smith prosecution — over Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Florida club — although the special counsel is appealing her decision.

 

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Smith details a devastating story – but Trump has so far forestalled a trial​

In his latest filing to district court in Washington, Smith accused the ex-president of trying to overturn legitimate election results in seven states that he lost. The former president, who has pleaded not guilty in this and all criminal cases against him, is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

 

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Legal expert says one quote from Jack Smith in filing sums up his case against Trump
02:19 - Source: CNN

In such a toxic political environment, the special counsel was bound to encounter claims he was motivated by partisanship since, despite his nominal independence, he operates under the auspices of Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland. But a failure to prosecute the ex-president, who escaped political accountability when Republican senators declined to convict him in his second impeachment trial, would have created a precedent that might convince a future president to try to ignore an election loss.

 

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While Smith must still convince a jury that Trump broke the law, the historic facts are not in dispute.

The former president refused to accept the result of the 2020 election that he lost. His cases alleging fraud — often lacking evidence — were thrown out by multiple judges and even by the Supreme Court. He called a crowd to Washington and incited his supporters, who smashed their way into the Capitol and beat up police officers. The former president has hailed those who tried to block the electoral certification as heroes and has pledged to pardon them if he returns to power. His actions did not just represent a threat to the sacred American principle of peaceful transfers of power between presidents. They shattered trust among millions of Americans in the legal and electoral system.