‘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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Trump accepts RFK Jr endorsement and vows to release JFK assassination files

Ex-president takes stage with Kennedy in Arizona, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid

Hours after being endorsed by the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump said he would release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F Kennedy” if he were elected president in November, as part of a proposed new commission on presidential assassination attempts, including the one that targeted him.

Speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Trump also pledged that, if elected, he would “establish a panel of top experts” that would work with Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, to investigate childhood health problems. The 13 July assassination attempt on Trump is already being officially investigated, including by the Secret Service and the FBI.

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Man accused of threatening to kill Trump arrested in Arizona

Ronald Syvrud, 66, taken into custody over alleged social media threat as Trump pays visit to border state

An Arizona man who was wanted after threatening over social media to kill Donald Trump was arrested on Thursday, the Cochise county sheriff’s office said.

Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, was in Cochise county on Thursday when he visited the US border with Mexico as part of his campaign.

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Trump hails RFK Jr as ‘great person’ after 2024 endorsement – as it happened

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Merrick Garland announced this morning that the justice department has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the real estate software company RealPage.

The DoJ alleges that RealPage’s algorithm provided landlords with recommended prices for rentals that allowed them to align their rents.

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RFK Jr voters on ‘frustrating’ suspension of campaign: ‘He’s playing politics’

Kennedy supporters bitterly disappointed as independent props up two-party system by endorsing Donald Trump

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the arguable black sheep of one of America’s biggest families in politics, has suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump – and it has rocked some of his supporters.

On Facebook, where Kennedy groups have amassed thousands of members across the country, some expressed bitter disappointment. In their view, Kennedy was a way to buck, and even break, the two-party system in the US – and while the end of his campaign hurt, backing one of the major party candidates was seen as far worse.

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Harris’s convention speech sparks live rant from outraged Trump

Ex-president’s 48 posts during speech confirm his trouble in maintaining discipline on the campaign trail

Kamala Harris’s Democratic national convention speech provoked a torrent of outrage from Donald Trump as the former US president fired off a volley of ripostes, rebuttals and angry calls to TV stations.

Trump posted 48 times on his Truth Social network during Harris’s 37-minute presidential acceptance speech, which was nearly an hour shorter than his own effort at the Republican convention last month.

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Harris urges America to choose ‘freedom and fairness’ over Trump extremism – as it happened

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Now comes Pat Ryan, who represents a New York battleground district in the House of Representatives.

He hit out at Donald Trump for his reported insults towards military veterans, then obliquely referenced the newfound optimism Democrats are feeling since Joe Biden ended his bid for a second term:

These last few weeks have felt like a new day in America, when we are waking up, rising up, patriots, to demand a president who does not just treat our veterans with respect, but everyone with respect.

We do not retreat, we are the United States of America, we lead!

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Harris makes forceful speech – and skewers the menace from Mar-a-Lago

Her acceptance address was short on policy and poetry, but the Democratic nominee took the fight to Donald Trump

It was not a political address for the ages. It was not even the best of the convention (no one can compete with the Obamas). But Kamala Harris did enough in her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday to put an exclamation mark on one of the most dramatic turnarounds in modern political history.

And she made you reflect that you would not want to be Donald Trump facing her in next month’s televised debate. A speech that was short on policy and poetry was nevertheless devastating in skewering the menace from Mar-a-Lago. Trump can expect the same kind of interrogation when the two go head to head that would make most mortals tremble.

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Kamala Harris pledges to ‘chart a new way forward’ as she accepts nomination

Democratic nominee makes sweeping convention speech and promises to prosecute case against Donald Trump

Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday with a sweeping, pointed speech in which she vowed to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and carry the country to a brighter and fairer future.

In an address that balanced optimism with scathing criticism of her opponent, Harris acknowledged her “unlikely” path to the nomination and extended her hand to voters of all political ideologies who believe in America’s promise. Harris would make history if elected – as the first woman, first Black woman and first Asian American woman to serve as president – but she instead focused on the history that the country could change in November.

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Robert F Kennedy Jr to drop out of presidential race by end of week – report

Independent candidate’s campaign says he will make address to nation on Friday in Arizona

Robert F Kennedy Jr is set to drop his maverick campaign for president, it has been reported, amid speculation the independent and environmental lawyer will throw his support behind Donald Trump.

The ABC network, citing “sources familiar with the decision”, reported that Kennedy would formally leave the race on Friday. The report followed an announcement on his campaign website that he would make a statement that day “about the present historical moment and his path forward” in Phoenix that would be live-streamed on X and other social media.

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Bill Clinton says ‘Trump creates chaos’ and mocks crowd-size obsession in star-studded night at DNC – live

Former president addresses delegates amid reports Oprah Winfrey is expected to make an appearance

Kamala Harris’s campaign raised four times as much money last month than Donald Trump’s campaign, Reuters is reporting, citing federal disclosures filed late on Tuesday.

The Harris campaign told the Federal Election Commission it raised $204m in July, compared to $48m reported by Trump’s main fundraising group.

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Barack Obama calls on Americans to elect Kamala Harris – as it happened

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Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, has turned up at the Democratic national convention, for reasons unknown.

Cohen fell out with Trump years ago, and was a witness for the prosecution in the former president’s hush-money trial in New York, which ended with him being found guilty of 34 felonies related to falsifying business documents.

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Republicans line up to speak at Democratic convention: ‘Trump has no morals’

Stephanie Grisham, ex-press secretary who excoriated Trump on Tuesday, to be followed by lawmakers and voters

Stephanie Grisham, Donald Trump’s former press secretary, excoriated the Republican presidential nominee at the Democratic national convention on Tuesday, saying: “He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.”

Grisham, a Republican operative who also served as a spokesperson to Melania Trump, offered firsthand accounts of the former president’s behavior behind closed doors.

When are Michelle and Barack Obama speaking?

The lineup of notable Democratic speakers tonight

Obama to bring message of hope to convention speech

Here are the rising stars and politicians to watch this week

What to know about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

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Trump attacks Kamala Harris and ‘Marxist left’ in speech to police

Ex-president falsely claims US is in grip of violent crime wave, and vows to shield officers from legal accountability

Donald Trump has pledged to shield police officers from legal accountability if he is re-elected as president after falsely claiming the US is in the grip of a wave of violent crime that he blamed on the Black Lives Matter movement and migrants crossing the Mexican border.

Speaking to police officers in Michigan on Tuesday, the former president sought to pin responsibility for the imagined crisis on his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, who he characterised as among “Marxist district attorneys” with a record of being anti-police and pro-criminal during her term as the DA in San Francisco in the 2000s.

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Obama to deliver ‘forceful affirmation’ for Kamala Harris – as it happened

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Joe Biden described selecting Kamala Harris as his vice-president as “the best decision I made my whole career”, and he drew a sharp contrast between her and Donald Trump. Mocking Trump over his recent conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden said:

Violent crime has dropped to the lowest level of more than 50 years, and crime will keep coming down when we put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon.

When he talks about America being a failing nation, he says, we’re losing. He’s the loser. He’s dead wrong.

Guess who cast the tie-breaking vote? Vice-president, soon-to-be-president, Kamala Harris.

With a grateful heart, I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed. Democracy has delivered, and now democracy must be preserved.

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Biden at the Democratic convention was unrecognisable from his disastrous debate

Biden’s voice was strong and clear, and the crowd was far warmer to him as an outgoing president

Joe Biden took the stage and held his daughter, Ashley, in a long embrace, whispered some tender words and wiped tears from his eyes. She smiled and kissed the hand of her ageing dad. The pair seemed to be at the quiet centre of a storm.

Around them more than 20,000 stood, applauded, roared and chanted, “We love Joe.” They held tall narrow signs that said, “We ♥️ Joe”. The US president walked to the lectern, smiling, pointing, looked pensive, smiled again and dabbed his nose with a handkerchief.

What is the DNC?

Joe Biden speaks at DNC night one following surprise appearance by Kamala Harris

Pro-Palestinian protesters march before DNC

Here are the rising stars and politicians to watch this week

What to know about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

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Biden says he gave ‘heart and soul to our nation’ as he passes torch – as it happened

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Democrats aren’t shying away from discussing the Covid-19 pandemic, with Minnesota’s lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan taking the stage to talk about the tragedy the virus brought upon her family, and how Donald Trump was to blame.

“My brother Ron was the second person to die of Covid in the state of Tennessee. We couldn’t see him. We couldn’t have a memorial. And millions of American families went through the same thing. Our communities were suffering, our economy was struggling, and Donald Trump was playing games. Our country was brought to the brink by his failure to respond, but the Biden-Harris administration stepped in with quick and decisive action,” Flanagan said.

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Democratic convention live: Demonstrators begin filling Chicago’s Union Park; national guard ‘on standby’, says Illinois governor

JB Pritzker says 250 national guard members on standby; tens of thousands expected to protest in Chicago to demand US ends aid to Israel

The Harris-Walz campaign has launched a WhatsApp channel targeting Latino voters in what it described as a “first-of-its-kind in a presidential election”.

The channel aims to reach voters with “tailored, culturally competent content” to “create an organic avenue to reach Latino families from the abuelos to tías and tíos and primos”, it said in a statement on Monday.

While Donald Trump vilifies our community at every turn and uses us as a political punching bag, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know the power of our community and are fighting everyday on the issues that matter to Latino voters.

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Federal Reserve ‘poised to begin cutting rates as early as September’

Bank officials signal readiness to start interest rate-cutting cycle to ease pressure on households and businesses

Kamala Harris’s hopes of victory in the looming US presidential election have been given a boost by mounting expectations that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates from as early as September.

As Democrats gather for the party’s national convention in Chicago starting on Monday, economists on Wall Street said the world’s most powerful central bank was poised to begin a cycle of interest rate cuts before the end of the year.

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Lindsey Graham warns Trump ‘the provocateur’ in danger of losing election

Republican senator urges Trump to focus on policy issues instead of making personal attacks against Harris

The Republican senator and Donald Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham has warned that Trump is in danger of losing the US presidential election if he continues to talk about Kamala Harris’s race and make other personal attacks instead of focusing on policy issues.

Graham’s comments came on Meet The Press when asked whether he agreed with Nikki Haley’s recent admonition that Trump and Republicans should “quit whining” and stop “talking about what race Kamala Harris is”.

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