Category Archives: US elections 2020

US election 2020: Trump again defends supporters who harassed Biden campaign bus – live

Posted on by

Donald Trump’s speech in North Carolina has focused on gripes about his polling numbers, the press and social media.

The president complained that Twitter’s trending topics are always “boring” and focused on him, instead of exciting things like “scandals” and “affairs.”

Joe Biden is closing his presidential campaign in much the same manner that he started it: by arguing this election represents a “battle for the soul of the nation.”

“The character of America is literally on the ballot,” the Democratic nominee said at his drive-in rally in Cleveland. “It’s time to take back our democracy.”

Continue reading...

US election 2020: Trump and the rise of white supremacist extremism

Posted on by

White supremacist extremism is the most lethal terrorism threat to the United States. It’s a hateful ideology that the Guardian’s Lois Beckett says has infected many parts of American society

In May 2017, Demetria Hester was on her way home from work on a train in Portland, Oregon, when Jeremy Christian, an avowed white supremacist, boarded and began shouting racist abuse. She says she told him to shut up. When they had got off the train, he threw a bottle that struck her in the face. The next day he killed two men and grievously injured a third. Demetria describes to Anushka Asthana how she felt the police responded to the incident that night and how she watched her attacker walk away without being questioned.

Continue reading...

Which swing states could decide the US election? – video explainer

Posted on by

Joe Biden is leading ​Donald Trump in the national polls for the presidential election, but that doesn’t guarantee ​the Democratic candidate victory. Hillary Clinton also had a clear lead over Trump in the polls for almost the entire 2016 campaign and ended up losing in the electoral college.

​Because the presidential ​voting system assigns each state a number of electoral college votes, which​ go to the state’s victor regardless of the​ margin of victory (with the exception of Nebraska and Maine), a handful of swing states will ​probably decide the election and be targeted heavily by campaigners.

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino examines how the race is developing in the areas that could decide the election

Continue reading...

Trump thanks supporters chanting ‘fire Fauci’ at Florida rally – video

Posted on by

Donald Trump has threatened to fire America’s top infectious disease expert during a rally in Florida, just 24 hours before the US presidential election.

Anthony Fauci has served for more than three decades as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and has been critical of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. During the midnight rally in Florida, crowds chanted: ‘Fire Fauci!’, which the president allowed to continue for several seconds before responding: ‘Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election.’

Continue reading...

Positively shocking: Trump’s boasts of help from Sean Connery fall apart

Posted on by

President claimed Bond actor helped him get planning permission for Scottish resort

It was less licence to kill and more dramatic licence. Donald Trump’s claim that the late Sean Connery assisted him in getting planning applications passed in Scotland fell apart quickly on Sunday when the chair of the planning committee said the James Bond star was not involved.

In a series of tweets, two days prior to the US election, Trump paid tribute to Connery, saying he was “highly regarded and respected in Scotland and beyond”. It was announced on Saturday the James Bond actor had died aged 90.

Continue reading...

North Carolina police pepper spray protesters at get-out-the-vote march

Posted on by
  • ‘We are fed up with this kind of treatment in Alamance county’
  • Police claim protesters blocked roadway without authorization

North Carolina police pepper sprayed and arrested attendees at a get-out-the vote rally because participants blocked the roadway without authorization, authorities said on Saturday.

The “I Am Change” march to the polls was organized by the Reverend Greg Drumwright and began as a march from a local church to the courthouse. Drumwright said the group was permitted to stand in the square outside the Alamance county courthouse and was escorted through the streets by the police. He also said that the group had “no intention” of having the rally in the street.

Continue reading...

US election 2020: Trump campaigning in five states as Biden heads to Philadelphia – live updates

Posted on by

Jim VandeHei brings us his zen-like plans for having a calm and relaxing election night on Axios. His key points include:

One notable feature of the campaign has been several publications breaking with tradition to either back a Democratic nominee when you usually expect them to lean to the Republican ticket – or to indeed make presidential endorsements when they usually don’t. But the Trump campaign are making a lot of noise this morning about the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette opting for a Republican for the first time since 1972.

This newspaper has not supported a Republican for president since 1972. But we believe President Trump, for all his faults, is the better choice this year.

Via @pgopinions https://t.co/dZYEQp3pGY

We share the embarrassment of millions of Americans who are disturbed by the president’s unpresidential manners and character — his rudeness and put-downs and bragging and bending of the truth.

None of this can be justified. The president’s behavior often has diminished his presidency, and the presidency. Most Americans want a president who makes them proud.

The Biden-Harris ticket offers us higher taxes and a nanny state that will bow to the bullies and the woke who would tear down history rather than learning from history and building up the country.

It offers an end to fracking and other Cuckoo California dreams that will cost the economy and the people who most need work right now. “Good-paying green jobs” are probably not jobs for Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, or Toledo, or Youngstown.

Continue reading...

FBI confirms it is investigating Biden bus incident – live updates

Posted on by

Trump again defending his supporters who surrounded the moving Biden campaign bus: "They escorted the bus. And the radical left said 'oh what a horrible thing that is, to escort the bus.'" He says they're just people with an American flag and a Trump flag.

As trump criticised the US top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci, the crowd began to chant, “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”.

Trump responded: “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait ‘til a little bit after the election, please. I appreciate the advice.”

Continue reading...

‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci angers Trump White House with dark Covid outlook

Posted on by

The US is “in for a whole lot of hurt” under the coronavirus pandemic, senior public health expert Anthony Fauci said, predicting a winter of 100,000 or more cases a day and a rising death toll.

Related: Wisconsin battles rapid rise in Covid cases amid partisan disputes over safety

Continue reading...

Trump finds unlikely backers in prominent pro-democracy Asian figures

Posted on by

Hong Kong tycoon and dissidents praise US president’s hardline approach towards China but others dispute its authenticity

Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong media tycoon and one of the most prominent pro-democracy figures in the city, waded into the US election in its final days, with an enthusiastic endorsement of the incumbent in his Apple Daily newspaper.

“I find a stronger sense of security in [Donald] Trump,” he wrote in an editorial that praised the US president for his “hardline” approach to Beijing.

Continue reading...

‘The numbers floored me’: hunger in Pennsylvania hits highest level since pandemic’s start

Posted on by

Demand for food aid surges in state and across country, with 54m potentially facing hunger by year’s end

Charles Bennicoff hasn’t worked since last winter. He’s an experienced landscape gardener but the mom-and-pop business he worked for in Allentown, Pennsylvania, cut its staff after losing most of their contracts during the pandemic.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden: from a campaign that almost collapsed to fighting Trump for the presidency

Posted on by

The former vice-president lost the first three primaries but victory in South Carolina set him up as the alternative – and antithesis – to Trump

Just days before one of the most extraordinary presidential elections in US history, the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, finds himself flush with cash, polling ahead of Donald Trump in state and national polls, and on a bold last-minute campaign offensive in parts of the country his Republican opponent won in 2016, and would usually be able to depend on for support.

Continue reading...

Biden campaign says Trump supporters tried to force bus off highway

Posted on by
  • President appears to praise threats from his own supporters
  • Biden campaign says bus was nearly forced off road

Trucks with Trump signs and flags surrounded a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway on Friday and attempted to slow the vehicle down and run it off the road, the Biden campaign said on Saturday.

Several video clips posted on social media by both Biden and Trump supporters showed the trucks surrounding the bus. The trucks then tried to slow the bus down and run it off the road before staff called 911, according to the Biden campaign.

Continue reading...

Obama lends a hand as Biden and Trump launch final campaign blitz

Posted on by
  • Obama says Biden presidency ‘won’t be so exhausting’
  • Trump on frenzied schedule of 14 rallies in three days

America was on edge on Saturday as Donald Trump and Joe Biden launched a final campaign blitz amid a surging pandemic, record early voting and gnawing uncertainty over when the outcome of the presidential election will be known.

Continue reading...

‘I hope it makes a difference’: voters on remote Maine island cast their ballot

Posted on by

There are 70 active voters on Matinicus Island, 20 miles off the Maine coast. How are they feeling about the big day?

Located over 20 miles off the coast of Maine, Matinicus Island is often among the first communities in the state to report their official vote counts. It doesn’t take long, explains clerk and registrar of voters Eva Murray, because they have so few registered voters. “Out of the 70 active voters, I’ve already handed out 26 ballots,” she says.

In addition to running the election, Murray also runs the solid waste program, operates a bakery out of her house, works as a freelance writer and is a certified pilot and EMT. She knows most everyone on Matinicus, and most everyone knows her. There seems to be little confusion about how, logistically, to submit a ballot on the island. She predicts a “good turnout” this year.

Continue reading...

‘He just says it as it is’: why many Nigerians support Donald Trump

Posted on by

His books were a hit long before he took office, and some Christians see his presidency as a blessing

The pursed, stony expression is familiar in Peter Odoakang’s striking oil painting of Donald Trump, but not the outfit. The US president is portrayed wearing a wine- and peach-coloured agbada and cap, traditional Yoruba attire, fitting him into the mould of a south-western Nigerian leader or “big man”, as Odoakang says.

“People see him in agbada and say wow, it fits him. People really laugh about it and react to it,” says Odoakang, 23, of the portrait commissioned by a company in Lagos, which he says brings Trump’s “personality into our setting”.

Continue reading...

Trump falsely claims at Michigan rally ‘our doctors get more money if someone dies of Covid’ – live

Posted on by

In several of his rallies this week, Donald Trump has accused the media of focusing on the coronavirus crisis only for political purposes, in order to damage him.

Barack Obama has trolled him for it in rallies in Florida, where the former president warned that America could not afford four more years of Trump and needed to put Joe Biden into the White House next week.

A federal judge this afternoon ordered the US Postal Service (USPS) to adopt “extraordinary measures” at some processing locations to ensure the timely delivery of millions of ballots before Tuesday’s presidential election.

US district judge Emmet Sullivan said he was ordering the measures in places where election mail processing scores for completed ballots returned by voters were below 90% for at least two days from October 26-28.

Continue reading...

The US election that doesn’t count: Guam goes to the polls but votes won’t matter

Posted on by

‘Now that I live in Guam, I cannot vote’. The first Americans to ‘vote’ on polling day have no say in who will be president

Politics is a favourite sport on the streets of Hagatna, where voters are preparing for the US elections.

Billboards adorn every street corner and conversations are dominated by candidates and their policies. But when Guamanians go to the polls on 3 November and mark down their preference for president, their “votes” won’t count.

Continue reading...

US election roundup: Trump and Biden swing through battleground states

Posted on by

Both candidates to campaign in Minnesota and Wisconsin while president rails against supreme court over North Carolina ruling

The two US presidential candidates swung through northern battleground states on Friday amid signs that the coronavirus pandemic was once more threatening to overcome hospital capacity in several US regions.

Donald Trump was due to hold a succession of airport rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, while Joe Biden was scheduled to have drive-in rallies in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Continue reading...