Black voting power: the fight for change in Milwaukee, one of America’s most segregated cities

Guardian US reporter Kenya Evelyn travels home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of the most segregated cities in the country to find out what Joe Biden and the Democratic party can do to truly earn the votes of Black Americans.  

Democrats dealt Milwaukee another economic blow by moving their national convention online, crushing Black residents already feeling the brunt of a national crisis. They’re fed up, calling out racial inequality and a party some say ignores their issues until it’s time to vote. From generations of moderate elders leaving their legacy, to their young, progressive peers taking to the streets, Black Milwaukeeans are using the power of their voices and votes to demand change

Continue reading...

Just 50 days until a US election both sides see as an existential struggle

Joe Biden holds a steady lead in the polls but plenty of time remains for surprises and even the act of voting is controversial

The election to decide whether Donald Trump will serve a second term as president has already begun, with voters in North Carolina filling out absentee ballots, Minnesotans preparing to start early in-person voting on Friday and other states revving up their election machinery.

But for most Americans, today marks 50 days until election day, 3 November, when voters will take varying degrees of health risks – and face hurdles to voting of varying heights – to cast their ballots in person for Trump or his potential Democratic successor, Joe Biden.

Continue reading...

Has Trump spent his election war chest before the war really starts?

The president’s campaign has paid out $800m, but at a crucial phase he is making cuts while Joe Biden is outspending him

More than $180,000 per second. That is what Donald Trump’s two TV ads during the Super Bowl worked out at in February, offering vivid proof of the outsized role of money in American politics – and of his re-election campaign’s premature and profligate spending.

The 2020 presidential election has been described by both sides as the most important in living memory and is certainly proving the most expensive. Hundreds of millions of dollars have flooded both campaigns and, in the pandemic-enforced absence of shaking hands and kissing babies, may prove even more influential than usual.

Continue reading...

Go west: Trump and Biden take campaign to Arizona and Nevada

Donald Trump was headed for Nevada on Saturday, aiming to erode poll leads enjoyed by Joe Biden there and in Arizona, another key state, as the 3 November presidential election draws near.

Related: Trump in Fox News interview to accuse Biden of taking drugs

Continue reading...

As fires burn the west, top Democrats stay quiet on the climate crisis

Nancy Pelosi has been notably tepid on green legislation – so are the Democrats serious about fighting climate change?

With hundreds of thousands of Americans forced to evacuate their homes in the western US, Donald Trump hasn’t said a word about the wildfires blazing across multiple states in nearly three weeks.

Related: Oregon fires force hundreds of thousands to flee as deaths rise

Continue reading...

‘Rest in peace Jay’: sympathy for the far right foretells Trump’s election strategy

The president has shown a lifelong penchant for inflaming racist hatreds and fears – expect much more of this before November

Six months into the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump tweeted a rare statement of condolences, as the confirmed death toll in the US climbed past 183,000.

Related: Biden to accuse Trump of stoking violence in US after Portland clashes

Continue reading...

‘It’s a coin toss here’: will swing voters in this Wisconsin county stick by Trump?

In Forest county, Wisconsin – which backed Obama before Trump – voters voice doubts about both major candidates

Joe Biden has blown his chance to win over Kristen, to be found selling home-baked cakes and pies at a farmer’s market in Forest county, northern Wisconsin.

The 46-year-old was once a fan of Barack Obama, voting for him twice before switching her allegiance to Donald Trump four years ago. Kristen, who doesn’t want her last name used, was minded to back Trump again in November but was holding off to see who Biden chose as his vice-presidential running mate.

Continue reading...

‘Two visions of the US’: Trump and Biden offer contrasts on race, Covid and economy

The Democratic and Republican national conventions offered two radically different diagnoses of the problems confronting America

One version told of a president who is callous and cruel. “My dad was a healthy 65-year-old,” said Kristin Urquiza, whose father voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and died from Covid-19 in June. “His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump – and for that he paid with his life.”

The other spoke of a president blessed with compassion. Kayleigh McEnany recalled taking a phone call as she recovered from a preventative mastectomy. “It was President Trump, calling to check on me,” she said. “I was blown away. Here was the leader of the free world caring about me.”

Continue reading...

Michael Moore warns that Donald Trump is on course to repeat 2016 win

Film-maker says enthusiasm for president in swing states is ‘off the charts’ and urges everyone to commit to getting 100 people to vote

The documentary film-maker Michael Moore has warned that Donald Trump appears to have such momentum in some battleground states that liberals risk a repeat of 2016 when so many wrote off Trump only to see him grab the White House.

“Sorry to have to provide the reality check again,” he said.

Continue reading...

‘DemExit’: virtual convention aims to create US leftwing alternative

The Movement for a People’s Party believes Democrats and Republicans will always choose profits over people, and 12,000 have signed up to hear more

Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic national convention made one reference to “middle class” and one to “working families”. It never mentioned the word “poverty”.

Related: Biden feared 'ideological jihad' from Sanders after primary win

Continue reading...

Trump announces emergency authorization for coronavirus plasma treatment – as it happened

Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.

More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network.

The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden picks Seamus Heaney to add to his appeal

Presidential frontrunner quotes Irish wordsmith in his nomination acceptance speech

Joe Biden is not the first nor is he likely to be the last politician to summon political spirits with poetry, but choosing verse from The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney’s free translation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, for his Democratic party nomination acceptance speech on Thursday had scholars of the poet’s work and the political class eating out of his hand.

Biden pulled out Heaney’s lines close to the end of an address that also won over conservative pundits and Fox News anchors – “an enormously effective speech”, said Chris Wallace – and left Donald Trump, for once, without response on Twitter. Biden quoted Heaney saying: “History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme.”

Continue reading...

Joe Biden vows to ‘listen to scientists’ on coronavirus – US politics live

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will give voters a chance to correct missing signatures and other clerical errors so their absentee ballots can be counted in anticipation of a wave of mail-in voting for the November election.

Election officials are expecting an even bigger flood of mail-in votes in November than for the June primary, after which results were delayed for six weeks.

Cuomo said late Friday he’d sign yet temporarily tweak legislation that calls for notifying voters about such problems and provides for fixing them.

Under the version that passed the Legislature last month, the voter would have seven business days to file a form to fix the problem after a notice was mailed, in many situations.

The Associated Press has more from Portland, Oregon, where protesters against police brutality and structural racism clashed again with federal agents and law enforcement officers overnight. Such confrontations were the subject of a Trump tweet this morning, in which the president once again expressed his willingness to send in the national guard:

About 200 people marched to a police precinct station on yet another night of violence for Oregon’s largest city.

Demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks at officers and pointed lasers at them, damaging police cars and causing minor injuries for several officers, Portland police said.

Continue reading...

Trouble for Trump as Fox News praises ‘enormously effective’ Biden speech

Republican pundits accept success of Biden’s convention address as Trump’s bid to portray Democratic rival as radical leftist falls flat

Under pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden “hit a home run” with an “enormously effective” speech that blew “a big hole” in Donald Trump’s efforts to paint him as a mentally faltering captive of his party’s left wing.

And that was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.

Continue reading...

USPS chief Louis DeJoy says he won’t restore mail sorting machines ahead of election – live

Senator Tom Carper explained his cursing during the hearing with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, which was caught on a hot mic and widely shared on Twitter.

“Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service!” Carper said in a tweet.

Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service!#DontMessWithUSPS

2020 mood pic.twitter.com/lKnf23W0jV

Brief Kanye update: Kanye West has not qualified to appear on the ballot in the swing state of Ohio, according to Ohio secretary of state Frank LaRose.

Kanye does not make the ballot in Ohio, according to Secretary LaRose pic.twitter.com/HWp3ORKkJM

Continue reading...

DNC 2020: from emotional speeches backing Biden to fiery warnings on Trump – video highlights

A unique Democratic national convention gave countless memorable moments, from Kamala Harris's historic nomination as vice-president, to Michelle Obama's harsh words for Donald Trump. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama echoed her words by giving scathing reviews of the Trump administration. Others who showed their support for Harris and Joe Biden's nomination included healthcare activist Ady Barkan, former US congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabby Giffords, comedian Sarah Cooper, actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus and singer Billie Eilish

Continue reading...

Boy with stutter delivers moving DNC speech: ‘Joe Biden made me feel confident’ – video

Brayden Harrington, 13, spoke about how he met Joe Biden, who stuttered himself as a boy, and how the Democratic presidential nominee gave him confidence. 'He told me we were members of the same club: we stutter. It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president,' Brayden said.

In the final night of the Democratic national convention, Biden outlined his plans to bring relief and solace to a country battered by the coronavirus pandemic as he accepted the nomination to challenge Donald Trump in the November election

Continue reading...

Joe Biden’s speech wins praise from left and right – but not from Trump

Obama campaign veterans, Hillary Clinton, and Fox News personalities hail former vice-president’s convention appearance

Democrats have largely praised Joe Biden’s speech formally accepting the party nomination as a resounding success, while Republicans have begrudgingly conceded it went well.

Biden’s speech on Thursday capped off the Democratic national convention and was largely optimistic, laying out his vision for tackling several crises facing the country.

Continue reading...

Biden completes a comeback for the ages with career-defining speech

Analysis: The Democratic presidential nominee’s remarks resonated with decency, gravity and passion – if not many specifics

Joe Biden stood in a school gym in Iowa fumbling for a message, generating little electricity and looking his age. His rivals were drawing bigger crowds and beat him into fourth place in the caucuses. Political pundits declared him over the hill.

That was February. Now, in August, Biden resembles an ageing heavyweight boxer who got himself in shape, climbed back into the ring, and landed a knockout punch. His closing performance at the Democratic convention on Thursday night produced the finest speech of his career, a comeback for the ages more presidential than the current US president.

Continue reading...

‘Light is more powerful than dark’: Joe Biden accepts presidential nomination – video

Joe Biden has vowed to unite America and lead the country to overcome “this season of darkness”, as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday evening, a long-sought moment that comes more than 30 years after he first ran for president

Continue reading...