Harris-Trump debate watched by 15m more than Biden clash – as it happened

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Russia has accused both presidential candidates of using Vladimir Putin’s name as part of a domestic political fights, saying: “we really, really don’t like it”.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that the US was hostile and negative towards Russia, Reuters reports, and the Kremlin hoped that candidates would drop such references to Putin.

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Harris targets Trump for falsehoods on abortion and immigration in fiery debate

Presidential candidates meet for first time in contentious face-off as moderators fact-check Trump’s statements

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sparred on Tuesday in a contentious presidential debate that repeatedly went off the rails, as Trump pursued bizarre and often falsehood-ridden tangents about crowd sizes, immigration policy and abortion access.

The Philadelphia debate marked arguably the most significant opportunity for both Harris and Trump since Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race in July, and the event began cordially enough. Harris crossed over to Trump’s podium to shake his hand and introduce herself, an acknowledgement that the two presidential nominees had never met face to face before Tuesday night.

Fact-checking the presidential debate

Harris slams Trump for falsehoods in fiery debate

Taylor Swift endorses Harris in post signed ‘childless cat lady’

‘Maga mad libs’: How the debate played out on social media

Presidential poll tracker

Rally sizes, abortion and eating cats: the Trump and Harris debate – podcast

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2024 US presidential polls tracker: Trump v Harris latest national averages

Find out who’s up and who’s down in the latest US presidential election opinion polls

On 21 July, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris. This historic move changed the landscape of the election and how many felt about the race. As the election enters its final weeks, Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring. We will update our averages once a week, or more if there is major news.

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Advisers worry whether ‘happy Trump’ or ‘angry Trump’ will show up to debate

Sources say campaign is concerned that Trump may engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in 2020

Donald Trump’s campaign is most concerned going into the debate against Kamala Harris with the former president’s mood, afraid that the mercurial Trump could engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the situation.

The campaign’s internal refrain is whether they get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump”, the people said, as they count down the days to perhaps the final presidential debate this cycle.

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Democrats unite to center reproductive rights as Republicans flail on abortion

Harris campaign seeks to press advantage on powerful motivator, especially in states with abortion on the ballot

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.

At the party’s convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “reproductive freedom” bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump’s “back yard”, miles from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida.

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Ro Khanna says he’s not a fan of fellow Democrats calling Republicans ‘weird’

California congressman says focus of Harris campaign should be on unity and reaching out to skeptical voters

Congressman and Kamala Harris campaign surrogate Ro Khanna said he doesn’t support the trend among his fellow Democrats of calling Republicans “weird” on the election trail.

“I’m not, in candor, a fan of calling each other ‘weird’ or names, I don’t think that advanced American democracy,” the California US House representative said during a live event with the Guardian at the Texas Tribune festival Saturday in Austin. “I think we have to – in this country, and as a party – not just win, but deserve victory. And to deserve victory means to offer a vision that is going to bring this country together with a common purpose.”

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Harris campaign raised $361m in August, triple the amount of Trump campaign

The Trump team raised $130m in same month, with $285m cash in hand compared with Harris’s $404m

Kamala Harris raised triple the amount of her opponent in this election, Donald Trump, last month, in what her campaign claimed was the best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history.

With less than 60 days until the 2024 presidential election, the campaign team for Harris, the Democratic party’s nominee for president, following the departure of US president Joe Biden from his re-election race in July, announced on Friday that it raised $361m in the month of August.

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Hunter Biden offers unusual guilty plea in tax case in surprise back-and-forth

US president’s son, who previously pleaded not guilty, seeks new plea deal wherein he would not admit to allegations

Hunter Biden offered to plead guilty to federal tax charges but avoid admitting any wrongdoing, in an unusual, last-minute legal maneuver that federal prosecutors quickly opposed.

The surprise back-and-forth unfolded on Thursday morning as the president’s only surviving son entered a Los Angeles courthouse for the start of his tax-avoidance trial.

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Trump-backed Senate candidate caught on tape disparaging Native Americans

Tim Sheehy, locked in tight race with incumbent Democrat John Tester, repeatedly referred to Crow tribe at fundraisers

A Republican candidate in a race that could decide control of the US Senate made disparaging comments about Native Americans at campaign fundraising events, according to recordings disclosed in local media.

Tim Sheehy, a wealthy cattle rancher who has been endorsed by Donald Trump in his bid to become senator for Montana, made the remarks repeatedly at a series of gatherings where he boasted of cultivating ties and bonding with members of the Crow Reservation, the official home of the Indigenous Crow tribe.

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Trump claims ‘no conflict’ during Arlington national cemetery visit – as it happened

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Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.

With days until her first debate with Donald Trump, Harris is aiming to draw a contrast with her Republican opponent’s calls for a lower corporate tax rate, the Washington Post reported, citing sources.

This is a stark choice in front of us, and I’m confident that as voters start to get more engaged in this upcoming election, that they’ll see Kamala Harris’s agenda is about making their lives better, and Donald Trump’s about making Donald Trump’s life better.

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John McCain’s son says he will vote Democrat as he slams Trump Arlington visit

Jimmy McCain, a national guard lieutenant, says he can’t ‘overlook’ Trump’s criticism of his late father

The son of the late Republican senator John McCain – whose war record was disparaged by Donald Trump – has added his voice to criticism of the former president’s controversial Arlington cemetery visit, accusing him of violating a sacred burial site for political purposes.

First Lieutenant Jimmy McCain, an intelligence officer in the 158th infantry regiment of the national guard, said Trump’s behaviour at the cemetery – America’s most revered burial ground for fallen military personnel and military heroes – was in line with previous acts of disrespect.

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Harris and Biden pitch for steel votes in Pittsburgh in first joint appearance on campaign trail

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden join forces in Labor Day outing, their first joint event since Harris accepted Democratic nomination for presidency

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Monday made their first post-convention joint appearance on the presidential campaign trail, celebrating Labor Day with a tribute to union workers in Pittsburgh.

“We are so proud to be the most pro-union administration in American history,” Harris said. “I love Labor Day. I love celebrating Labor Day, and Pittsburgh is the cradle of the American labor movement.”

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Democrats seize on Trump cemetery photo op ‘disgrace’ as election issue

Politicians and veterans say episode was on par with ex-president’s history of disrespecting service in armed forces

Democrats are trying to turn Donald Trump’s clash with staff at Arlington National Cemetery, the hallowed final resting place of America’s war dead, into a broader election issue by highlighting it as an example of his history of disrespecting military veterans.

Congressional Democrats with military records and liberal-leaning veterans groups say the episode is consistent with past instances of the Republican presidential nominee flagrantly denigrating service in the armed forces.

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2024 US presidential polls: Harris taps into near-record levels of enthusiasm

Find out who’s up and who’s down in the latest US presidential election opinion polls

Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race has given a shot in the arm to Democratic voters, who are now expressing near-record enthusiasm levels, fresh polling data shows.

While the figures from Gallup indicate rising enthusiasm among all voters – including Republicans – over the past five months, comparative figures show a much steeper increase among Democrats – indicating that Harris’s replacement of Joe Biden as presidential candidate is the likely driving factor.

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Swifties for Kamala rally raises nearly $140,000 for Harris

Fan group holds Zoom call featuring Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and ‘original cat lady’ Carole King

Taylor Swift has yet to publicly endorse a candidate, but some of her fanbase are already mobilizing for Kamala Harris. The Swifties for Kamala Coalition officially launched on Tuesday, raising more than $138,000 for the Democratic candidate in a virtual rally featuring Carole King and the senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Swift, who has no affiliation with the group, was not present on the Zoom call nor involved in the event. The group has amassed about 250 million followers on social media platforms since Joe Biden dropped out of the race in late July and endorsed the vice-president.

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Ex-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard endorses Donald Trump in 2024 presidential race

Former 2020 Democratic candidate backs the Republican nominee and accuses Harris of ‘abuse of power’

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, has endorsed the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in the US presidential election.

Gabbard, who served in the military in Iraq, ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020. She quit the party two years later and has become a fixture at conservative conferences and in rightwing media.

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Democrats sue Georgia officials over election rules that could ‘invite chaos’

Lawsuit alleges new rules that could let local state boards delay certification of presidential election are illegal

Democrats sued Georgia state election officials on Monday, alleging new rules that could allow local officials to delay certification of November’s presidential results were illegal.

The lawsuit was filed in the superior court of Fulton county by local Georgia Democratic politicians, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic party of Georgia. It says the rules approved by the Republican-controlled Georgia state election board this month were intended to give individual county election officials the ability to delay or cancel the certification of votes.

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Special counsel appeals dismissal of Trump classified documents case; Harris endorsed by former Republican staffers – as it happened

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Donald Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery in Virginia today comes after comments earlier this month that the Presidential Medal of Freedom – a civilian award – was “better than the Medal of Honor given to service members.

Trump was talking about giving Miriam Adelson, a wealthy Republican donor, the Medal of Freedom, which he said was “actually much better” than the Medal of Honor “because everyone (who) gets the congressional medal of honor, that’s soldiers,” adding:

They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.

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‘Georgia’s ours to lose’: Trump and Harris camps zero in on swing states

Amid close race, Harris to go on tour in Georgia as Trump surrogate insists state’s governor will back ex-president

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump brace themselves for what promises to be an ugly and bruising sprint to the finishing line in November, both presidential candidates’ campaigns are turning their sights back on the handful of desperately close swing states where the battle is likely to be decided.

Georgia is coming into view as a critical battleground for both leaders as they struggle to gain voters’ attention in an epochal election. On Wednesday, the vice-president will travel from the White House to southern Georgia to hold her first campaign event in the state with her recently anointed running mate and former high school football coach, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

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Tactical ad breaks and lies: rightwing coverage of DNC is exactly as expected

Hard-right hosts resurrect racist Obama birther conspiracy theory and lament Democrats’ treatment of Joe Biden

As the Democratic party enjoys the afterglow of an exuberant national convention, the rightwing media has settled on consistent counter-programming: complaining about “joy”, hyping up pro-Palestinian protests and expressing a newfound concern for the treatment of Joe Biden.

The coverage, which has at times avoided the more pointed Democratic criticisms of Trump by cutting to ad breaks, has also including the criticism of women both for smiling too much and not smiling enough, and the coining of a new name for Barack Obama: “Barack-Stabber”.

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