Activist with far-right ties fronts Marco Rubio-linked anti-immigration effort

Nate Hochman recorded several videos for America 2100, a thinktank linked to the Republican Florida senator

The rightwing activist Nate Hochman, who was fired last year by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for employing neo-Nazi imagery in a campaign video, is now the face of a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank’s efforts to spread anti-immigrant panic from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

Videos featuring Hochman recorded in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, have been boosted on X by a range of rightwing figures including the platform’s owner, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Continue reading...

Harris ups lead over Trump, although presidential race still on knife-edge

After another shocking week, latest Guardian 10-day polling averages survey shows vice-president ahead by 2.6 points

The US presidential election remains on a knife-edge 45 days before voters go to the polls, despite Kamala Harris enjoying one of her most encouraging spells of opinion polling since becoming the Democrats’ nominee nearly two months ago.

During yet another momentous week that began with a suspected second assassination attempt against Donald Trump, the latest Guardian 10-day polling averages survey shows Harris increasing her lead to 2.6 points, 48.5% to 45.9%.

Continue reading...

Harris condemns ‘hypocrites’ who ban abortion while ignoring maternal health – US politics live

Report details litany of missed opportunities; House votes to investigate second apparent Trump assassination attempt

Kamala Harris will be in Georgia today and is expected to speak about Donald Trump’s role in the abortion bans that now blanket much of the United States, days after news broke that two Georgia mothers died after being unable to access legal abortions and adequate medical care.

The deaths of the Georgia mothers, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, were first reported earlier this week by ProPublica and occurred as a result of Georgia enacting a six-week abortion ban. Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee looked at both women’s cases and deemed their deaths “preventable”, according to ProPublica.

You’re looking at a mother that is broken, the worst pain ever that a mother, that a parent can ever feel.

Continue reading...

Trump-aligned Georgia election board votes 3-2 to require hand-count on election day

Republican majority approves requirement for poll managers to hand-count ballots before tabulating votes

Forty-six days before the election, Georgia’s state election board approved a new rule requiring a hand count of paper ballots cast on election day before tabulating votes.

The three Trump-aligned members that make up the majority on the board approved the rule that would require three people in every precinct to check machine-vote tallies by hand-counting the election results, despite a warning from the state attorney general that this rule and others in consideration “very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority”.

Continue reading...

Kamala Harris holds star-studded event with Oprah in battleground state of Michigan – as it happened

This blog is closed now, thanks for following along.

Joe Biden will address the Economic Club of Washington DC today, one day after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in four years, marking a significant turning point for the economy.

While the president is expected to hail a “new milestone” in America’s post-pandemic economic recovery, his top officials said he would acknowledge there remains more work to do.

Continue reading...

US House federal funding bill fails to pass as shutdown deadline nears

Contentious government funding package championed by Mike Johnson was voted down 202-220

A government funding package championed by Republican House speaker Mike Johnson failed to pass on Wednesday, with less than two weeks left to prevent a shutdown starting 1 October.

The final vote was 202 to 220, with 14 House Republicans and all but three House Democrats opposing the bill. Two Republican members voted “present”.

Continue reading...

Trump-allied Pac fires canvassing vendor in crucial states weeks before election

Elon Musk’s America Pac replaces voter turnout operations in Arizona and Nevada with less than 50 days until election

America Pac, one of the largest and the most ambitious of the groups supporting Donald Trump’s campaign, is replacing its voter turnout operations in the crucial battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The political action committee, backed by billionaire Elon Musk, has ended its contract with the September Group and will hire a new company to knock on doors with fewer than 50 days left until the election.

Continue reading...

Trump praises Secret Service in first event since thwarted assassination plot

Former president talks up tariffs in Flint, Michigan, and warns attendees of dangers of nuclear ‘obliteration’

Trump held his first campaign event on Tuesday since the thwarted assassination attempt over the weekend, telling a packed 6,000-seat arena in Flint, Michigan that the assassin “couldn’t even get a shot off” while describing the Secret Service’s “great” response to the threat.

During a town hall moderated by former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump took audience questions about manufacturing and the economy, among other issues. Like his first appearance after the attempt on his life in July – also a rally in Michigan – Trump appeared ready to return to business as usual on the campaign trail, and his supporters were eager to see him in action.

Continue reading...

JD Vance defends pet-eating remarks: ‘The media has a responsibility to fact-check’

Republican VP nominee claims at Wisconsin rally that constituents told him ‘they’d seen something in Springfield’

JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.

The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.

Continue reading...

Trump recounts apparent assassination attempt as new details emerge

Former president praises Secret Service as cellphone records show alleged gunman camped out near golf course for about 12 hours

Donald Trump has given his first detailed account of what he experienced on Sunday during what the FBI has said “appears to be an attempted assassination of the former president”, as authorities revealed new details about the incident at his West Palm Beach golf club.

Trump said he was playing golf with friends, including businessman Steve Witkoff, when he heard gunshots.

Continue reading...

Trump appears at town hall in Michigan – as it happened

This blog is closed now, thanks for following along. You can find the latest US elections coverage here.

As far as the election campaign is concerned, this week the Kamala Harris team has its focus on youth turnout to coincide with today’s National Voter Registration Day.

In a statement campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said: “The stakes this November couldn’t be higher, and vice-president Harris knows our democracy is stronger when we all vote. We are focused on meeting young Americans where they are to drive home the stakes of this election on the issues they care most about.”

Continue reading...

Democrats campaign carefully after apparent Trump assassination plot

The party has been quick to condemn political violence – and is focusing its criticism on Trump’s unpopular policies

In comments to Fox News Digital on Monday, Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the repeated attempts on his life. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said.

Also on Monday, the former president released a list of quotes that the campaign described as incendiary. At the top of that list was a quote from Kamala Harris saying: “Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.”

Continue reading...

RFK Jr’s name will remain on ballot in swing state Wisconsin, judge rules

Law states that candidates who submit nomination papers cannot be removed from ballot unless they die, says judge

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s name will remain on the ballot in the swing state of Wisconsin, a judge ruled on Monday.

Dane county circuit judge Stephen Ehlke ruled that Wisconsin law clearly states presidential candidates who have submitted nomination papers can’t be removed from the ballot unless they die. Kennedy’s campaign submitted nomination papers before the state’s 6 August deadline.

Continue reading...

Suspect charged as Trump accuses Biden and Harris of incitement

Ryan Wesley Routh charged with gun-related offenses after apparent assassination attempt against former president

The suspect in the second apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump in as many months was charged in federal court on Monday morning with two gun-related crimes, as urgent investigations began into how he was able to get so close to the former US president.

As the US continued to react in shock to the latest apparent attempt on Trump’s life, the Republican presidential nominee added to the already tense atmosphere around the US election campaign by making highly inflammatory remarks, explicitly blaming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for inciting the attack and calling them “the enemy within”.

Continue reading...

Violence and instability have become a feature, not a bug, of US political life

Another apparent Trump assassination attempt happened – as we brace for what has been dubbed ‘a tinderbox election’

It has happened again. Another serene and sunny weekend. Another lone suspect wielding a rifle. Another apparent bid to assassinate Donald Trump. And a nation hurtling into uncharted territory 50 days from a presidential election.

On Sunday, Secret Service agents opened fire after seeing a man with a rifle near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club in Florida while the Republican candidate was playing. The suspect fled in an SUV and was later apprehended by local law enforcement.

Continue reading...

‘It’s such a dramatic contrast’: Harris turns North Carolina into a toss-up

The state, usually a Republican stronghold, is in play in a nail-bitingly tight contest for the presidency

Landon Simonini found himself standing in the middle of a Charlotte highway lane at 2.30 in the afternoon, stuck in an artificial traffic jam while drivers waited for Kamala Harris’s plane to land and the motorcade to clear for the rally later that day.

He was out of his car, because why not? He wasn’t going anywhere soon. His red Make America great again cap stood out among others cursing the traffic gods.

Continue reading...

Trump repeats false claims about Ohio cities after Biden says ‘no place in America’ for attacks on Haitian immigrants – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Trump, read our full report:

Donald Trump is set to give a press conference for the first time since his debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

He’ll speak to reporters at his golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, a wealthy community near Los Angeles.

Continue reading...

Ohio city hall bomb threat explicitly hostile to Haitians, Springfield mayor says

Thursday’s bomb threat came after Trump repeated unfounded rumor that immigrants were ‘eating the pets’

The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, has said that the bomb threat made on Thursday that forced the evacuation of the city hall, two schools, and other buildings was explicitly anti-immigrant and hostile to the city’s Haitian community, following Donald Trump’s stoking of a rightwing conspiracy theory that some residents’ pets are being eaten.

Rob Rue, the mayor, accused national Republicans who are amplifying wild rumors from a far-right provocateur that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are hunting and eating other people’s pets of “hurting our city”.

Fears mount that election deniers could disrupt vote count in US swing states

Microsoft billionaire fights US election disinformation

Palestinian advocacy groups pressure Harris as election looms

Presidential poll tracker

Continue reading...

Trump says he won’t participate in future debates as Harris says ‘we owe it to the voters to have another’ – live

Trump says he won’t debate Harris but claims he won the matchup; Harris tells North Carolina crowd that Americans should see another one

In an interview with the Financial Times, Leonard Leo, the conservative activist who was involved in the effort to build the current rightwing supermajority on the supreme court, says he will spend $1b to fight liberal cultural influence in the United States.

“We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious, so we’ll direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment, where leftwing extremism is most evident,” Leo told the FT in a rare interview.

“Expect us to increase support for organisations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme leftwing ideology ahead of consumers.”

As the United States approaches a critical election, I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump – perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation – eyes a return to the White House. For that reason, though I’m a Republican, I’ve decided to support Kamala Harris for president.

Trump failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks that day. He failed to deploy executive branch personnel to save lives and property and preserve democracy. He just watched on television and chose not to do anything because that would have been contrary to his interests. Trump still describes that day as beautiful. And as for those subsequently convicted of committing crimes, he describes them as hostages.

Any discussion about fidelity to the rule of law has to include Trump’s 34 state felony convictions, his state civil financial judgment of libel based on sexual abuse, as well as the pending federal elections interference case, not to mention the recently dismissed federal documents case that Special Counsel Jack Smith is continuing to pursue. Standing alone, these charges, convictions and judgments show that Trump is someone who fails to act, time and time again, in accordance with the rule of law.

To be fair, I have spoken with Trump only once. I do not really know him. It is telling, however, that several senior officials who worked for him in the White House now refuse to support him, including his vice president, chief of staff, defense secretary and national security adviser. Their unwillingness to endorse their former boss is an indictment of his character at a level equal to his many, many criminal indictments.

Continue reading...

Kamala Harris holds North Carolina rally and calls for another debate with Trump

Democratic nominee criticizes Republican rival and says ‘we owe it to the voters’ to have second TV debate

Kamala Harris held a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday, calling for another round of debate with Donald Trump, two days after her strong showing in Philadelphia against the former president.

“I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate,” she said to applause, “because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to families across America, like bringing down the cost of living … but that’s not what we heard from Donald Trump.”

Continue reading...