Category Archives: US elections 2024

Teamsters boss faces backlash over ‘unconscionable’ GOP convention speech

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Sean O’Brien accused of bolstering ‘most anti-union party and president’ by senior members of his own union

Teamsters International president Sean O’Brien has been accused by senior members of the union of disgracing it by agreeing to an unprecedented appearance at next week’s Republican national convention.

O’Brien’s decision was branded “unconscionable” by John Palmer, vice-president at large at Teamsters, who accused him of lending support to the “most anti-union party and President” in a generation.

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Democratic billboards stress Trump link to rightwing Project 2025 manifesto

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Billboards will go up in seven swing states as campaign seeks to publicize manifesto and tie it to ex-president

Democrats will put up billboards in swing states that show Donald Trump and tie him to Project 2025, a conservative manifesto that could become reality if he wins in November.

The Democratic National Committee’s paid media campaign escalates liberal efforts to publicize Project 2025 and tie it to the former president after he sought to distance himself from the plan. The blueprint for a second Trump administration is led by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation and counts support from more than 100 other conservative groups.

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How Georgia state election board’s proposed rules make it easier to challenge results

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A new rule would require Fulton county to hand count paper ballots and investigate discrepancies on the spot, possible delaying tabulation

Georgia’s state board of elections has proposed changes to election policy and monitoring requirements that put Fulton county elections officials in their crosshairs and could delay and allow for partisan actors to challenge election results. .

As part of the state board’s reprimand for Fulton county double-counting some ballots in a 2020 recount – an error that did not affect the outcome of the election – Fulton county is required to hire a team of election monitors for the 2024 presidential election. The board also began a process of rule-making this week that will require county elections workers to count the paper ballots cast at each polling place by hand before turning those ballots in to be tabulated after each day of voting, and to investigate discrepancies on the spot.

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Trump leads 2024 race in new poll as some Biden aides reportedly discuss how to convince him to end campaign – live

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Pew finds that Trump has a 4 percentage point lead over Biden among registered voters nationwide

Joe Biden continues to push back against those calling for him to step aside, albeit gently.

Politico reports that the president’s aides have reached out to delegates ahead of the Democratic national convention in August, and asked questions that seem geared towards making sure they remain loyal to the president ahead of his formal re-nomination.

Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.

After a round of introductory questions confirming each delegate was still planning on going to Chicago and asking if they had served as delegate before, the Biden aide making the calls got to the point, the Democratic activists recalled to me in separate interviews.

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Biden’s Nato press conference poses major test for his campaign as calls mount to step down

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US president’s press conference, which will include questions from reporters, is certain to be scrutinised for any signs of slip-up

Joe Biden was gearing up for one of the most pivotal press conferences of his long political career on Thursday in Washington as the growing number of Democratic party members calling on him to step down has turned the eyes of the world to his performance tonight.

The US president was scheduled to face journalists at a news conference marking the end of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit at 5.30pm, while across the city senators were preparing to meet key members of Biden’s staff at the White House to air their concerns about Biden’s electability following last month’s disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump.

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New York Times editorial board declares Trump ‘unfit to lead’

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Board calls Trump ‘a chilling choice against this national moment’ days before Republican national convention

The editorial board of the New York Times has declared that “Donald Trump is unfit to lead” in an urgently worded article published just ahead of the Republican convention, where Trump will once again be formally named the party’s choice for president.

Noting that the former president and convicted felon has now become the Republican nominee three times in eight years, the board said: “A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.”

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Peter Welch is first Democratic senator to publicly ask Joe Biden to withdraw

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Vermont senator of more than two decades implores president in an op-ed to step down for ‘good of the country’

Peter Welch, a long-serving member of Congress from Vermont, became the first Democratic senator to publicly call on Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.

“We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night,” Welch, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday. “For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.”

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Biden under renewed pressure to step aside as top Democrats make agonized appeals

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Senator Michael Bennet said Trump may win ‘by a landslide’ while two more senators echoed his concerns

Joe Biden came under renewed moral pressure on Wednesday to abandon his presidential candidacy amid agonised appeals by a succession of senior Democrats for him to consider the broader picture.

Those calls came as the US president dug in his heels to make it hard to supplant him as the nominee.

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US House to vote on bill that will require proof of citizenship for casting ballot

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Republicans to push Safeguard American Voter Eligibility bill in effort to quell unproved fraud of non-citizens voting

Congressional Republicans will vote this week on a bill to require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, a move that comes as they lay the groundwork for undermining election results in November.

The House will vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility bill, or Save bill, which would make states require, in person, documents that prove a person is a US citizen when registering to vote. This can include a Real ID, passport or other kinds of identification that show a person’s place of birth. It wouldn’t include a standard drivers license as a sole form of identification and calls for a secondary proof of place of birth alongside it, like a birth certificate.

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Trump airs list of false grievances at Florida rally: ‘We don’t eat bacon any more’

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Ex-president returns to campaign trail in Doral and makes baseless accusations but doesn’t name running mate

Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail in Florida on Tuesday night, hurling insults at Joe Biden and airing a litany of familiar grievances, but declining to name a running mate for November’s general election.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee was speaking to a crowd of several hundred supporters at his golf club in Doral, a western suburb of Miami, keeping them waiting in 90F heat for a freewheeling monologue that began more than an hour later than scheduled.

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Kamala Harris underscores support for Biden at Las Vegas rally: ‘He is a fighter’

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Vice-president warns Trump would turn US to dictatorship if re-elected at event focused on AANHPI communities

Kamala Harris doubled down on her support of Joe Biden on Tuesday, describing the embattled president as a “fighter” as she warned Donald Trump would turn the country from a democracy into a dictatorship if he is re-elected to the White House in November.

The vice-president, speaking at a campaign event in Nevada, alluded to Biden’s struggles since his calamitous debate performance last month. “We always knew this election would be tough, and the past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy,” Harris said.

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White House says time to ‘turn the page’ on Biden campaign questions as Democrats still appear split – live

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Party leaders have come out in support of president but rumbling continues as Tennessee Democrat says opinions are so vast they are ‘not even in the same book’

At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, Senator Josh Hawley endorsed the idea of Christian nationalism.

“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation – so I am,” said Hawley during remarks at the conference on Monday. “And some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism – so I do.”

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Democrats lean toward accepting Biden even as party members voice concerns

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Six House Democrats have so far called for president to step aside, evidence of a party in disarray after disastrous debate

Many House Democrats appeared ready to accept Joe Biden as their nominee, despite widespread concern about his electoral viability, as prominent Black, Hispanic and progressive lawmakers rally behind the president during a crucial day of meetings on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers emerged from a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning stone-faced, appearing uneasy about Biden’s path forward, even if most weren’t ready to publicly call on him to step aside as concerns deepen over the 81-year-old president’s age, mental acuity and ability to win the White House for a second term. Asked if the party was on the same page, Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee quipped: “We’re not even in the same book.”

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Leading House Democrat Adam Smith calls on Biden to end presidential bid

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Ranking Democrat on armed services committee says debate was ‘alarming’ and urges president to stand aside

Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.

Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.

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Biden tells critics ‘challenge me at the convention’ after warning Democrats that talk of replacing him helps Trump – as it happened

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Joe Biden is not alone in believing that all the talk of him dropping out is hurting the re-election efforts of Democrats nationwide.

Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from New York, said much of the same earlier today:

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Biden insists he can reunite US as high-profile Democrats reportedly want him to quit race

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President hits trail in Pennsylvania as virtual lawmaker meeting with Hakeem Jeffries shows growing party doubt

Joe Biden insisted he was the person to reunite America in a second term in the White House and was “up for the job” as he hit the trail in Pennsylvania on Sunday – but the number of high-profile Democrats doubting his position as the presumptive party nominee only grew amid a campaign in crisis.

Pressure on the US president increased even further following his poor debate performance against Donald Trump last month and an underwhelming ABC interview last week, as a group of Democratic representatives met online with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday.

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Lindsey Graham calls for physical and cognitive tests for Biden and Trump

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South Carolina senator says evaluations should be part of presidential nominee process to ensure they’re ‘capable’

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham added his voice on Sunday to a chorus calling for cognitive and physical evaluations for Joe Biden – but also called for the same for Donald Trump and others.

The Republican lawmaker recommended such tests for all future presidential nominees as well as those who may take over from a president or a nominee.

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More House Democrats reportedly want Biden to quit race as he pledges to ‘unite America’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the US election, you can read our full coverage here.

“God knew Biden needs some love,” said J Louis Felton, the church’s senior pastor, who noted that the president had been due to speak today at a National Education Association conference in Philadelphia.

When the NEA’s union announced a strike on Friday, the president cancelled his speech.

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What would a Harris candidacy mean for the elusive independent woman voter?

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Polling shows critical group unenthused about Biden and Trump – and moved by economy over abortion

The independent voter is the elusive prize in any election. This year, Democrats are hoping that widespread support for abortion rights will draw in women who might have previously shied away from the party.

But polling shows that independent female voters, a critical group for any candidate, are particularly unenthused about the prospect of choosing between the same two guys who ran for election last time. Now, with some Democrats publicly mulling replacing Joe Biden in the wake of his catastrophic debate performance and Kamala Harris emerging as a possible heir apparent, a key question is whether a Harris-topped ticket would provide them with some much-needed excitement.

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Biden defends his campaign as swing-state Democrat calls for him to exit race – as it happened

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Angie Craig of Minnesota asks Biden to ‘step aside’, as California governor stumps for president in Pennsylvania. This blog is now closed

Biden’s career worst debate performance against Trump last month has triggered acrimony, angst and panic among Democrats just four months from election day.

There are growing calls for oldest president in US history to step aside in favour of Vice-President Kamala Harris or another candidate. But Biden has so far dug in and vowed to fight on.

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