USA - 2024 General Election
As Donald Trump clinches a historic comeback win, early data from the US presidential election suggests the Republican may have benefited from political shifts based largely on class, race and age, undermining the broad Democratic coalition that drove him out of power four years ago. Only 44% of voters nationwide had a favourable view of Trump, according to an Election Day exit poll by Edison Research, compared to 46% who said so four years ago. 54% viewed him unfavourably, up from 52% in 2020. And yet Democrats proved unable to convert the broad mistrust of Trump into support for Vice President Kamala Harris, failing to reassemble the coalition of voters that unseated the Republican four years ago. About three-quarters of young voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction, and roughly one-third said they wanted complete and total upheaval to how the country is run.
Winning over moderate Republicans repelled by Trump was a key aim of Harris’s pitch to college-educated voters, which voted for the Democratic candidate in larger numbers than four years ago. But what gains Harris made there were more than offset by Democratic losses among voters without college degrees. Edison Research said Trump picked up 54% of voters without a higher-education degree, up 4% from 2020 and 10 points clear of Harris’s tally. The same survey noted that voters without a degree accounted for 57% of the overall electorate. Those voters were most likely to make their choice based on concerns about jobs and the economy – the paramount issue for about 4 in 10 voters, according to VoteCast.
The youth vote, often seen as a vote staple for left-leaning parties across the western world, was its worst for the Democrats in this election, with data showing Kamala Harris leading Trump 52-46 within this demographic. That six-point advantage compares to Biden's 25-point buffer over Trump in 2020, and Hillary Clinton's 18-point lead in 2016. The Democrat advantage was also the smallest in the three Trump elections among the 30-44 voter group — just four points compared to the 12-point held by Biden. It wasn't entirely good news for the Republicans in the age stakes though. Trump had his lowest advantage with retirees — just two points ahead of Harris, compared to his eight point advantage over Clinton eight years ago.
A pro-choice stance on reproductive health in the wake of the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade ruling was seen as an advantage for Harris coming into the election and the Democrats chased the women's vote hard. Harris herself drew on the support of major celebrity endorsements: Taylor Swift backed the Democrat ticket, directly referring to the party's stance on reproductive health. So did Beyoncé, Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B. The numbers show her advantage with women aged 18-44 was half of Biden's four years ago.
The fate of Presidential elections is usually determined in swing states, since solid blue and red states traditionally vote for Democrats and Republicans, respectively. Therefore, unfair political operators see major battleground states as their primary target. The margins are thinner there, making it possible to potentially throw in fraudulent ballots, while the victory of a Republican or Democratic candidate there is also equally plausible and doesn't raise any questions. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have been named as pivotal in the 2024 election. All of them, except North Carolina, were won by Joe Biden in 2020 by a razor-thin margins.
"Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee and quite likely the next President of the United States. Right wing trolls, anti-Semites and fascists are coming out of the woodwork everywhere in the country, threatening the very existence of America’s constitutional democracy. Immigrants will pour over the United States’ southern border creating societal destabilization that expands the crisis in American cities from existing immigration trends. The Democratic party is irreversibly split into a leftist faction and a shrinking moderate faction; their divisions over policy make them ineffective and will hand the election, the Presidency, the Senate, and the House to the fascists that have taken over the Republican Party. The economy is a shambles, with Americans falling into poverty and the middle class disappearing; the wealthy have taken over and are running the economy into the ground; a recession is coming. Global warming is spreading at a rate that surpasses anyone’s predictions and the consequences are terminal for human and other lives on the planet. Anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation is being passed all over the country. So what to do in 2024: “Find a place to hide.”???" asked Abby Ross, 04 January 2024.
Former President Donald Trump would beat current US leader Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 match-up, a new poll revealed. If the presidential election were held now, Trump would enjoy the support of 47% of Americans while Biden would be trusted by 41% of respondents, the results of a Harvard CAPS-Harris survey, conducted on March 23-24 and published by The Hill on 28 March 2022, show. Vice President Kamala Harris would apparently perform even worse against Trump than her boss: 38% of 1,990 respondents would vote for her against a whopping 49% for Trump.
These findings came as Biden’s ratings spiraled downwards. According to a recent poll by NBC News, the president's approval rating had fallen to just 40%, the lowest level of his presidency per NBC’s records, amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the largest inflation spike in 40 years.
Trump’s political role in Republican circles remains uncertain. A base of Trump voters remains loyal for sure, but some Washington lawmakers are skeptical of his staying power and some appear to be planning their own 2024 presidential campaigns. US Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and others are eyeing a run for the presidency. Haley has specifically said it is time for the party to move past the Trump era. Trump is the only president in US history to be twice impeached and twice acquitted and the first president in 90 years to lose political control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in a single term in office.
Less than six weeks after leaving office, former U.S. President Donald Trump on 01 March 2021 unleashed a torrent of attacks on his successor, contending President Joe Biden has had the “most disastrous first month in modern history” in the White House and strongly hinting he may try to reclaim the presidency in the 2024 election. “In one short month, we’ve gone from America first to America last,” Trump told a cheering crowd of hundreds of conservative supporters crammed into a hotel ballroom in Orlando, Florida. “I may even decide to run again,” Trump told the gathering at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Republican legislators across the country have introduced hundreds of bills in 2021 that critics say make it harder for many voters to cast ballots — especially minority voters and the elderly — and could adversely impact the Democrats’ prospects for retaining control of the House and Senate in 2022. Many of these provisions — designed to restrict voting by mail, early voting and other innovations that resulted in record turnouts during the coronavirus pandemic — were pushed by Republican lawmakers who echo Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through widespread fraud.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland warned 11 June 2021 that the Justice Department would vigorously oppose state efforts to impose new curbs on voting rights for many Americans, particularly Blacks and other minorities. “We’re scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb access, and where we see violations, we will not hesitate to act,” Garland said in a speech at the Justice Department in which he announced his agency would double its voting rights enforcement staff over the next 30 days. “We’re also scrutinizing current laws and practices in order to determine whether they discriminate against Black voters and other voters of color,” Garland said, adding that of particular concern is research showing that nonwhite voters wait “substantially longer” than their white counterparts to cast their ballots.
The prospect of Trump, 74, running for president again in 2024 complicates life for other Republican presidential hopefuls, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence. Many Republicans think Trump will flirt with another run to freeze the 2024 field but believe he will ultimately opt out of running. Trump himself has mused privately to advisers that he would like to run.
In his first interview after the 2020 vice presidential debate, Trump said of Kamala Harris: "I thought that wasn't even a contest last night. She was terrible. I don't think you could get worse. And totally unlikable. She's a Communist. She's left of (Senator) Bernie (Sanders). She's rated left of Bernie by everybody. She's a Communist," Trump told Fox News in an interview on 09 October 2020. "We're going to have a Communist. Look, I sit next to Joe and I looked at Joe. Joe's not lasting two months as president. That's my opinion. He's not going to be lasting two months... She is a Communist. She's not a Socialist. She's well beyond a socialist. Take a look at her views. She wants to open up the borders to allow killers and murderers and rapists to pour into our country," Trump said in his sharpest attack against Harris.
After the July 2021 protests in Cuba against the Communist regime, Donald Trump offered on 15 July 2021 a scathing critique of the Joe Biden administration’s response to the events in Cuba. Democrats, Trump lamented, “are so far left they can’t even take a stand against violent communism.... Many are communists themselves.”
President Joe Biden sought to make headway with Cuban-American voters in the battleground state of Florida. While White House press secretary Jen Psaki at first refused to single out opposition to communism as one of the driving forces behind the unrest, Biden later made stronger comments on the subject. “Communism is a failed system — a universally failed system. And I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute.” said the president. Biden was looking to improve on his performance in 2020. Biden lost Florida by 3.4 percentage points to Donald Trump.
At a MAGA rally in Arizona 25 July 2021, Trump repeated his claims about the presidential election being "stolen" from him. But the former president stopped short of announcing his plans for a political comeback in 2024. "Like it or not, we are becoming a communist country," Trump said. "We are beyond socialism.... When you have no press that you can talk to, that’s how a communist country begins," he went on.
Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by 11 points in Iowa in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, drawing 51 percent of support compared to Biden's 40 percent, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll showed on 13 November 2021. Another 4 percent answered that they would not vote for Trump or Biden, while 5 percent said they were unsure which candidate to support. In October 2021, Trump visited Iowa, a traditionally pro-Republican state, to meet his supporters. Although he has not yet made it official, Trump has repeatedly suggested he'll run for president again in 2024. An Iowa poll conducted to gauge public opinion about President Biden shows that his approval ratings are falling: 33 percent of Iowans said they were satisfied with his job while 62 percent said they disapproved of his policies.
Results for the August 3-September 7, 2021 survey are from a poll conducted for CNN asked whether people wanted Trump to be the nominee again, and about half of Republicans said they did. Fully 60 percent of those who didn’t want Trump just wanted someone else. Another 21 percent named DeSantis. And no other candidate got more than 1 percent.
The signs of continued tearing in American society have not stopped, and they are still spreading like a virus. Naturally, the US military cannot escape its "devil's claws." Retired American generals Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba and Steven Anderson saw the danger, so the three decided to stand up.
“As the first anniversary of the Congressional riots is approaching, all former senior U.S. military officers are increasingly worried about the possible consequences of the 2024 election and the potentially fatal chaos within the U.S. military, which will put all Americans in serious danger,” they said. "The thought that the next coup might be successful makes us very chilling." They noted "There are now signs of potential unrest within the U.S. military... More than one in ten people accused of participating in congressional riots have served in the U.S. military."
They mentioned that the "Flag Officers 4 America" organization (Flag Officers 4 America) issued a joint letter of 124 retired American generals in May this year, questioning the abilities of Biden and the Democratic Party, and criticizing the status quo of American elections. Subsequently, this letter, regarded as "protecting the Republican Party," was subsequently refuted by other forces in the US military-retired Admiral Mike Mullen stated that the letter was basically filled with "Republican right-wing conversations."
The three retired generals were not the only ones worrying. "Trump's next coup has already begun," The Atlantic analyzed earlier in December, stressing "January 6 was practice. Donald Trump's GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election."
An average of recent polls compiled by Real Clear Politics showed Trump leading Biden by 4.8 percentage points. About 46 percent of voters support the former president and just 41.2 percent back the current occupant of the White House. The polls included in the average were conducted between November 3 and December 19, 2021. The most recent survey included in the average (conducted from December 17 to 19 by InsiderAdvantage) showed Trump ahead by 8 points. The former president was backed by 49 percent of registered voters while Biden was supported by just 41.
In a poll first published by The Hill at the end of January 2022, Trump garnered 57% of the vote in a hypothetical 8-candidate 2024 Republican primary, the first place by a wide margin. In second place with 12% is Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Trump has also built up an impressive war chest. He raised $51 million in the second half of 2021 alone, bringing his total funds to $122 million, according to federal filings. Many of those dollars came from small-time donors.
On 19 February 2022 The Washington Post released its quarterly rankings of the 10 people most likely to be the next GOP presidential nominee.
- Donald Trump
- Ron DeSantis
- Nikki Haley
- Mike Pence
- Donald Trump Jr.
- Tim Scott
- Ted Cruz
- Glenn Youngkin
- Chris Sununu
- Mike Pompeo
Also mentioned were Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Many potential candidates have struggled to decide whether she’s angling to run in Trump’s GOP or a post-Trump GOP.
Indian-American tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy entered the GOP 2024 presidential race as a longshot, polling initially at "zero point zero percent.” A political novice and the youngest major Republican candidate ever, Vivek Ramaswamy first announced he would give the 2024 Republican nomination a shot in February on Tucker Carlson Tonight. In 2015, Vivek’s image was splashed across the cover of Forbes magazine after he was reported as raising over $350 million for a subsidiary of Roivant, Axovant Sciences. It was an attempt to prop up a failed medication for Alzheimer’s. The same drug again failed tests at Axovant in 2017.
Vivek Ramaswamy penned a book in 2021, titled “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” The publication did very well, reaching #2 on The New York Times Best Sellers list in the Hardcover Nonfiction section.
Trump — while campaigning in Iowa — said “We’re going to deny entry to all communists and Marxists,” he said, mangling the word “Marxist” into “markers.” He then added, “Now, the real problem is what do we do about all the ones we already have that happen to be politicians? Nancy Pelosi! Schumer! Shifty Schiff!”
Ted Cruz told Fox News viewers: “Joe Biden has handed the agenda over to the socialists — and not just the socialists: This is now the Marxists. This is now the Communists. Today's Democratic Party believes in violence. They believe in mob rule. They believe in intimidation -- just like Marxists and Communists, they’re willing to burn our institutions to the ground to get what they want.”
Ron DeSantis said he had to take over the New College in Sarasota: “You can see at a college campus students flying the hammer and sickle from the old Soviet Union flag,” he told a group of cheering Republicans.
Marjorie Taylor Greene warned about communist sleeper cells: “They have been running this plan for decades now because the same people running this country—Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi—oh, let's not forget Hillary and Bill Clinton, because they’re not out of the picture. Barack Obama. All of these people swore themselves to the communist agenda back when they were in college.”
A majority of American voters say they believe US President Joe Biden is too old to run for re-election in 2024, and have criticized his handling of the economy and foreign policy issues, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll. The survey, which questioned 1,500 registered voters in late August 2023, found that 60% do not believe the 80-year-old leader is mentally up to the job of president, and 73% believe he is too old for the position.
While 42% of respondents say they approve of how Biden is handling the job, 57% say they are not satisfied with his performance. Specifically, 52% disapprove of how he is handling the Ukraine conflict, and 55% are opposed to how he is dealing with China. Additionally, roughly two-thirds of respondents – between 58% and 63% – are also dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the economy, securing the border, curbing inflation and rising costs, and growing the middle class; 47% also say he is failing to improve infrastructure, create jobs, bring back manufacturing jobs to America, and handle social security and Medicare.
Nevertheless, when asked who they would vote for if the presidential election were held today, Biden is neck-and-neck with former US President Donald Trump, with both scoring 46% in a direct match-up.
The Quinnipiac University poll released 19 July 2023 found that 47 percent of respondents said they would consider voting for a third-party candidate, while another 47 percent said they would not. While 64 percent of independents said they would consider a third-party ticket, just 35 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans said the same. With a third-party candidate on the 2024 general election ticket, President Biden's lead over former President Trump is nine points, 37 percent to 28 percent, according to Jul 21, 2023 Monmouth University polling.
- Professor and activist Cornel West has already launched his presidential bid as the Green Party candidate. Cornel West is a political activist who is seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination. He is running as a third-party candidate in 2024. West has said that he believes voters have given up on Biden. He has also defended his candidacy from questions about whether it could sap support from President Biden. The Green Party promotes green politics, including environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice, and anti-racism. The party is generally seen as left-wing. Peter Daou, a former Democratic activist, is running West's third-party campaign. West owed about half a million dollars between unpaid taxes and unpaid child support.
- Andrew Yang, former US presidential candidate says Americans are fed up with both Republicans and Democrats, and his new party, Forward, can disrupt the dysfunction of the two-party system. A society overflowing with guns and drugs. Politicians who would rather cater to the extreme fringes of their parties instead of the country as a whole. And dark money flowing in from secretive billionaires with eccentric agendas. This is the United States depicted in the novel The Last Election by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Yang left the Democratic Party to start his own non-partisan party, called Forward.
- The third-party No Labels group will stay out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race if polling shows its candidate would play a "spoiler" role by helping to elect either the Democratic or Republican nominee, co-chairman Joe Lieberman said July 16, 2023. The group released what it called a "common sense" agenda of policies meant to help unite the country behind a cooperative moderate alternative to the partisanship that characterizes contemporary U.S. politics. No Labels raised concerns that it could wind up playing a spoiler role in 2024, as political analysts say Ross Perot did for Republicans in 1992 when Bill Clinton won and Ralph Nader for Democrats in 2000 when George W. Bush won.
If an election were held today, former US President Donald Trump would defeat President Joe Biden by a 10% margin of the popular vote, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found. The result shows the strongest lead for Trump since both men declared their candidacy for the 2024 election. Published on 23 September 2023, the poll found that 52% of respondents would choose Trump and 42% would side with Biden, while the remainder are either undecided or would not vote. When the Post/ABC pollsters asked the same question in February 2023, Trump led Biden by four points, at 48% to 44%. An NBC News poll, also published on Saturday, showed Trump and Biden tied at 46%, while a Fox News survey last week placed Trump ahead of Biden at 48%-46%, and a Quinnipiac University poll put Biden in the lead by 47%-46%.
Siena College Research Institute in partnership with the New York Times surveyed 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from October 22 to November 3. Trump topped Biden in Nevada by 11 points, in Georgia by 7 points, in Arizona by 5 points, in Pennsylvania by 4 points and in Michigan by 3, while Biden was up in Wisconsin by 3 points. Biden won all six battleground states in the 2020 election. The odds were better for another Democrat candidate. Across the six states, 59% of voters said they disapproved of Biden's job performance, 71% said he was too old to run for president again, and 62% said he lacked mental sharpness. Only 38% said Trump was too old and 54% said Trump did have the mental sharpness to be president.
Christopher A. Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, spoke February 29, 2024 at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Leadership Breakfast. "The U.S. has confronted foreign malign influence threats in the past, but this election cycle, the U.S. will face more adversaries, moving at a faster pace, and enabled by new technology. Advances in generative AI [artificial intelligence], for instance, are lowering the barrier to entry—making it easier for both more and less-sophisticated foreign adversaries to engage in malign influence, while making foreign-influence efforts by players old and new more realistic and difficult to detect.
"Defending against these evolving threats requires us all to be lashed tightly together to continue hitting these threats together, early and hard. For us at the FBI, that means close collaboration with intelligence professionals like you from all of our partner agencies—NSA [the National Security Agency], U.S. Cyber Command, CIA [the Central Intelligence Agency], etc. We’re also working with state and local policymakers and election authorities that oversee nearly all the actual running of elections in the U.S., as well as CISA [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency]. And, vitally, we’re working with the private sector, as well, where appropriate."
CNN Presidential Debate in Atlanta on 27 June 2024 had President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump facing off on several key issues in a tight presidential race. The debate proved to be a night of contrasts between two candidates who agree on little and disagree on much. The main points of discord included the U.S. economy, reproductive rights, foreign policy and threats to democracy. Biden and Trump appeared to agree on their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated terms for the end of the war. But Trump doubled down on his claims that the war would have never started in the first place if he had been president. He also criticized how much aid the United States had given to Kyiv. Biden said Trump would pull the United States out of NATO and risk an expanding war. And on the Russian leader, Biden said, "The fact is that Putin is a war criminal."
Biden and Trump also clashed on foreign policy questions surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. Trump criticized Biden’s handling of the war, saying Biden has "become like a Palestinian" because of Biden’s demand that Israel do more to protect civilians in Gaza. Trump has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying in an April interview that he should have prevented the October 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the conflict. Biden deflected criticism that his administration has withheld some weapons from Israel. "We are providing Israel with all the weapons they need," he said. The sitting president also outlined his three-phase proposal for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, blaming the militant group for why a deal has not yet been reached.
A central component of Biden’s campaign — and his talking points during the debate — has been an attempt to present Trump as a threat to American democracy. Trump in May was found guilty of 34 felony counts in a hush money trial, making him the first main-party candidate to be a convicted felon, and he faces additional legal charges over his role in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. "The only man on the stage who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at," Biden said at one point during the debate, referring to Trump. "You have the morals of an alley cat," Biden said at a later point.
Biden's performance was widely criticized, with the noted journalist Thomas Friedman saying in an article in the New York Times that Joe Biden is "a good man, a good president, but he is not in a position to run for a second term." In a statement to MSNBC, former Senator Claire McCaskill said, “He had to do one thing (during the debate), which was to reassure the United States that he was capable of being president at his age... He failed.”
Former US President Barack Obama said , "Yesterday's debate did not change the fact that the choice is between those who tell the truth and know what is right, and those who lie for their own interests."
Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect, wrote: "Donald Trump had a preposterous debate, never answering the questions put to him about the climate crisis, child care, and other such trivialities, and coming up with such day-for-night absurdities as historians rating his presidency as the most successful in American history. And yet, he emerged the undisputed winner, because Biden was simply too old and infirm to counter even Trump’s most blatant fabrications or to persuasively defend his demonstrably superior record and positions."
The Supreme Court had done everything in its power to delay criminal proceedings against Trump. The supposedly nonpartisan trial court in Florida had likewise acted as an arm of the Trump campaign. Much of the mainstream media — including and especially CNN — treated Trump as a normal political figure and bent over both forwards and backwards to avoid even the appearance that they might prefer democracy to authoritarianism. The business community has treated Trump and Trumpism with a deference that resembles a perverted version of Pascal’s wager.
Before the debate and before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts, Data for Progress found that swing voters were more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges (48%) than Biden’s age (41%), with 11% unsure. After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden’s age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges, an 11-point decrease. This is a much larger shift among swing voters than among all likely voters. Among the full sample of likely voters, there has been a two-point increase in concern for Biden’s age over Trump’s criminal charges.
Billionaire Elon Musk will reportedly spend $180 million to encourage former President Donald Trump supporters in swing states to vote absentee, a practice Musk had publicly described as "insane," "too risky," and a recipe for "large-scale fraud." Trump and Musk were reportedly developing a friendly rapport and talk on the phone several times a month as the election neared. Musk had previously pledged not to donate to Trump or Biden. The contributions to America PAC, which was formed in May, would make Musk the biggest financial backer of Trump in 2024 and one of the largest political donors of all time.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC), in a 20 March 2024 advisory opinion, decided that "canvassing literature and scripts are not public communications, and as a result are not coordinated communications under Commission regulations."
On 13 July 2024 at a Trump rally in Butler, the US state of Pennsylvania, Trump sustained a gun wound to his right ear and was briefly hospitalized. Thomas Crooks, 20, killed a member of the audience and injured two others in the crowd before the Secret Service neutralized him. The FBI was investigating the incident as an assassination attempt and potential domestic terrorism. FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Wednesday that shooter Thomas Crooks fired at least eight shots at former President Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania, as eight cartridges were found at the scene.
ABC News on 18 July 2024 quoted informed sources as saying that major donors had stopped their donations to US President Joe Biden's campaign. Democratic Party sources told Axios that Biden had secretly succumbed to mounting pressure and poor polls and that it will be impossible for him to continue his campaign. CNN quoted a source as saying that President Biden is asking his advisers if they believe his Vice President Kamala Harris can win the election.
Democratic leaders, his friends and key donors believe that Biden cannot win, cannot change the public perception of his age and cannot achieve a majority in Congress. Biden has come to terms with the mounting pressure, unfavorable polls and scrutiny of his fitness to continue campaigning. "His choice is to be one of the heroes of history or be sure that there will never be a Biden presidential library," one of the president's close friends told Axios. ABC News quoted informed sources as saying that Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Biden that it would be better for the party and the country if he withdrew from the presidential race. ABC sources said that House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told President Biden that it would be better for him to drop out of the race. In turn, the Washington Post quoted informed sources as saying that the two Democratic leaders informed Biden, each separately, that his continued candidacy undermines the Democratic Party's ability to lead the scene in either house of Congress in the upcoming elections. In a related context, Reuters reported that former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi informed President Joe Biden that opinion polls show that he cannot defeat former President Donald Trump.
Biden tested positive for the coronavirus 18 July 2024. The Democratic National Committee postponed an online vote that would have confirmed Joe Biden as the candidate for the US presidency.
The stunning decision 21 July 2024 by U.S. President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race drew praise from Democratic lawmakers and criticism from Republicans who called on him to resign. Biden announced his decision Sunday afternoon after weeks of speculation and increasing calls from within his own party to step aside following a disastrous debate performance last month against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
Trump questioned whether his Democratic rival Kamala Harris is “Indian or Black”, speaking 31 Jul 2024 at the annual gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists. Trump said “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black”. He said “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or Black?” Trump continued “I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t.” Harris, 59, has long self-identified as both Black and South Asian. She was born in Oakland, California, to an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father and is the first Black and the first Asian-American vice president in US history.
Kristen Welker, NBC News: “... can you say if Donald Trump does not win, do you commit to certifying the election results?” Mike Johnson: “A free and fair and legal election will be certified.” ”Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way,” Trump said at a September 2024 campaign rally. “She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he continued, going after Harris for her lax border security performance.
“You can make the auto industry thrive, bring it back to where it was 50, 60 years ago,” Trump said in his speech 10 October 2024. “And I’m laying out a policy that will absolutely do it in my opinion. … My goal is to see U.S. auto manufacturing even greater than it was in its prime and for Detroit and Michigan to be at the center of the action.”
On 14 October 2024, Trump declared that “it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on cognitive stamina and agility.” “Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her,” he continued. “Even 60 Minutes and CBS, in order to protect Lyin’ Kamala, illegally and unscrupulously replaced an answer she had given, which was totally ‘bonkers’, with another answer that had nothing to do with the question asked.” “Also, she is slow and lethargic in answering even the easiest of questions,” Trump continued. “We just went through almost four years of that, we shouldn’t have to do it again!”
Trump ran an unorthodox campaign, with threats and insults towards various people and institutions, and embracing a darkening rhetoric. On 15 October 2024 he meandered through an interview in which he would not directly say whether he would allow a peaceful transfer of power after the election. Many Americans no longer saw Trump unfiltered since news networks stopped carrying his rallies live. He labeled some Americans “the enemy from within” during a televised interview, suggesting the military be deployed against them.
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within… totally destroying our country… [I]n terms of Election Day, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big– and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by [the] National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric at a rally 15 October 2024 in Atlanta, saying, “This is an invasion of a military force.” He also said that “any African American or Hispanic — and you know how well I’m doing there — that votes for Kamala, you got to have your head examined.” When he campaigned in Detroit 10 October 2024, he insulted the city. “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s the president,” he said, referring to Harris. “You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”
Jake Tapper of CNN noted: "Trump is traveling with a veritable legion of doom of bigots and liars. Perhaps none so depraved as this woman, Laura Loomer. Just on Sunday, she posted an insanely racist message that if Harris, whose mom was an Indian immigrant, wins, the White House will 'smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.' On this 23rd anniversary of 9/11, we should also note Loomer posted last year that 9/11 was 'an inside job.' Trump continues to bring this person along on his travels with him."" Former US President Donald Trump on 10 September 2024 debated Vice President Kamala Harris on ABC News, Harris is widely considered to have won the debate, with Trump struggling to fend off attacks from the vice president, as well as moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. According to a flash poll conducted by CNN, 63% of viewers felt that Harris had outperformed Trump.
Trump claimed: "In Springfield (Ohio), they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there." Springfield police told a local news outlet the department has received no reports of pets being stolen and eaten. There was a single report to the police of four wild geese being grabbed from a park. Spencer Lindquist claimed that "residents of Springfield, Ohio the town reeling from an influx of Haitian migrants, are claiming that the heads and carcasses of slaughtered pigs are being left out in public. Lindquist has a long history of spreading misinformation by including baseless claims with no evidence to support his words.
Trump claimed: "Millions and millions of people … are pouring into our country monthly. Where it's, I believe 21 million people." During Biden’s administration, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border around 10 million times. When accounting for "got aways" — people who border officials don’t stop — the number rises to about 11.6 million. During Biden’s administration, about 3.8 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings.
Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country. Operation Wetback’s main objective was not to remove Mexican immigrants but rather to frighten U.S. farmers, especially in Texas, into hiring them legally. Trump planned to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.
Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration policies who remains close to him and is expected to serve in a senior role in a second administration, “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) released a new report 10 October 2024 entitled, Proposed 2024 Mass Deportation Program Would Socially and Economically Devastate American Families, by Matthew Lisiecki and Gerard Apruzzese. Of the 10.9 million undocumented residents living in the US, over 5.8 million US households are home to at least one undocumented resident. Of those, 4.7 million households are home to undocumented residents and US citizens or others with legal status. Therefore, mass deportation threatens to break up nearly 5 million American families. Over half of the US undocumented population is woven into American life, having been in the country for at least 10 years; their deportation would damage long-standing communities. Undocumented workers contribute an estimated $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes; their removal from the workforce would have a substantial impact on local economies.
Trump said: "Viktor Orban loves me", to which VP Harris said: "Autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they can manipulate you with flattery and favors."
Piers Morgan said : "Trump had a bad night but there’s no doubt the ABC moderators gave him a much harder time than Harris." Mehdi Hasan retorted : "Because he lied more Piers, this isn’t hard." Republicans are waving a red flag over possible "election theft" ahead of the November vote. They draw attention to efforts to cancel ID checks and ballot verification, the hiring of predominantly Democratic observers in some counties, and apparent attempts to create loopholes allowing illegal aliens to vote.
"Election theft has always been present in America," US economist and former Reagan administration official Dr. Paul Craig Roberts wrote. "In the 19th century, a vote could be bought for 50 cents and a half pint of whiskey. But in the 21st century, organized vote theft is a big business."
The economist pointed out that "normally, it does not matter to the ruling establishment which candidate wins, because the establishment owns both candidates." However, in 2016, 2020, and 2024, Donald Trump emerged as a player "outside the grip and control of the establishment. Therefore, to keep him out of office, vote fraud has been elevated to the fore," as per the economist.
Conservatives argue that the Democratic Party has launched full-fledged lawfare against the Republican frontrunner ahead of the election. The former president has been charged with a total of 88 felony counts in four criminal investigations, and found guilty of 34 of them. He is routinely vilified in the US mainstream press, and was most recently subjected to unfair "fact-checking" by ABC News during his September 10 debate with Kamala Harris, Republicans say.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump headlined a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on Sunday 27 October 2024 that began with a series of vulgar and racist remarks by allies of the former president. Trump, a New York celebrity for decades, hoped to use the event at the iconic venue known for Knicks basketball games and Billy Joel concerts to deliver his closing argument against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, even though the state last backed a Republican presidential candidate in 1984. The list of at least 20 opening speakers varied widely from former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe used crass language in joking that Latinos "love making babies" and called the Caribbean U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." While Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, those living on the island cannot vote in US general elections. However, millions of Puerto Ricans who have moved to the mainland United States can fully participate in elections.
Trump's 2016 presidential opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, accused him of "re-enacting" a pro-Nazi rally that was held at Madison Square Garden in 1939 on the eve of World War Two. Trump’s critics have long accused him of empowering white supremacists with dehumanizing and racist rhetoric.
Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney called former US president Donald Trump a "vindictive, cruel" dictator on Friday after he said she was a "war hawk" and suggested she face a firing squad. "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face." Trump said: “They're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying ‘Oh gee, let's send 10,000 troops into the mouths of the enemies.' She always wanted to go to war with people.” Trump made the remarks as he criticised Cheney's father for endorsing his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, during an interview with Fox News. "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death," the former US congresswoman and daughter of ex-vice president Dick Cheney said Friday in a post on social platform X.
Political polls leading up to this week's U.S. presidential election showed a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. But Trump pulled off a resounding win across several demographic groups, securing critical battleground states that often determine the outcome of U.S. presidential contests. Trump held on to his base of voters while making gains with several groups that traditionally vote for Democrats, including young Black men, Latino men and young people, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. "They came from all corners — union, nonunion, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, Muslim American," Trump said after declaring victory. "We had everybody."
Americans were still feeling the hangover of the inflation shock that followed the Covid pandemic. Trump won big and everywhere: gaining ground in 48 of the 50 states, in counties rural, urban and suburban, across almost every demographic, including those groups such as Hispanic voters, who were once reliably Democratic. “The 2024 election marks the biggest shift to the right in our country since Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980,” according to Doug Sosnik, a former political adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House.
Trump, who was convicted on 34 felony charges for falsifying business records in May, was the first Republican presidential candidate in 20 years to win the popular vote. In addition, in May 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing former columnist E. Jean Carroll and subsequently defaming her. What has stuck is Trump's messaging and his ability to successfully tap into the concerns of many Americans across numerous demographics.
He is now backed up by a triumphant comeback with a strong popular mandate. This time, unlike before his first term, he has not only trounced the Democrats in the bizarrely un-representative Electoral College but also won the popular vote, that is, the actual majority of individual ballots nationwide. In addition, with Republican control of the Senate and the House of Representatives now certain, Trump had a “trifecta,” with the presidency, both chambers of Congress, and th Supreme Court in one hand.
The Harris campaign made much of Trump’s stance on reproductive rights in a bid to woo female voters, particularly in the swing states. However, early national exit polls showed that Harris had won the support of 54 percent of women, lower than President Joe Biden did in 2020 when he had the support of 57 percent. While it is true that Trump and his Republican aides have been called out for making sexist remarks about women, Trump made up for it by strategically distancing himself from the notion of a federal abortion ban in the run-up to this election. The top issue that emerged for women voters overall was inflation, including rising household expenses. CNN’s exit polls found that Harris won female voters’ support by 10 percentage points over Trump. But in 2020, Biden won their support by 15 percentage points, and in 2016, Clinton did by 13 percentage points.
Harris won 92 percent of the votes of Black women, compared with Trump’s 8 percent. This was up from Biden’s 90.5 percent vote share in 2020. However, the Democrats lost support among Latina women this time. Harris won 61 percent of their votes this election – 22 percentage points above Trump. But this margin was markedly lower than the 39-point lead Biden had over Trump with Latina women in 2020.
Voters had more confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the economy, and the Republican candidate ostensibly was better at persuading working class and middle class voters on his economic policies. Harris on the other hand, appealed more to college-educated, upper middle class voters. White women with college degrees tended to vote for Harris this election – 53.5 percent did so – while 64 percent of white women without degrees voted for Trump, according to a CNN poll.
Trump's campaign targeted key audiences, often through podcasts and social media. His appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast has drawn almost 47 million views on YouTube. They targeted young men. They targeted those that didn't vote. They targeted those individuals that have struggled under the last several years of inflation, and that paid off. Throw in fear of migrants and the accusation that Democrats are the party of the liberal coastal elites, in thrall to the progressive fringes and out of touch with ordinary people.
Harris' inability to distance herself from an unpopular president may have hurt her chances. It was clear that the American public wanted change. It's difficult to know how much, if at all, being a woman of color hurt Harris. Thirty percent of people polled by Pew Research before the election said that Harris' gender would be a liability at the polls.
In a historic shift, Muslim and Arab Americans broke with two decades of Democratic loyalty, splitting most of their votes between President-elect Donald Trump and third-party candidates in the presidential election. The exodus, fueled by anger over the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza, helped Trump win key battleground states, especially Michigan, as he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win a second term in the White House.
A nationwide exit poll of more than 1,300 voters by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that significantly less than 50% of Muslim voters backed Harris. That compares with an estimated 65% to 70% that reportedly voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. The lion’s share of the Muslim vote went to Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who advocated for ending U.S. military support for Israel, or Trump, who received the backing of several Arab and Muslim community leaders and elected officials in Michigan.
An estimated 3.7 million Americans trace their heritage to Arab countries, and a similar number is classified as Muslim Americans. Both groups are exceedingly diverse, and not every Arab and Muslim American, whether conservative or progressive, fits neatly into a category.
RealClearPolitics does not filter out low-quality polls, incorporating results from pollsters with a poor track record that other aggregators reject. It also does not weight its averages. One of its pages displays a map of the electoral college with a winner projected for each state, even those the site currently deems to be tossups. As of 31 October 2024 the “no tossups” map showed Trump winning every swing state except Michigan and Wisconsin [which he also won]. If all seven "toss-up" states were indeed toss-ups, the odds of all seven breaker on way were 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 [ten quintillion]
Engagement was high across the political spectrum in yesterday’s US elections that underscored the resilience of the country’s democratic institutions. The presidential vote was highly competitive, but the campaign was marked by deep polarization and harsh and confrontational rhetoric, while public trust was undermined by disinformation campaigns and political violence, international observers said in a statement today. The joint observation mission from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) found that while the constitution and a number of federal laws provide a broad and sound framework for holding elections in line with democratic standards, the legal framework has remained mostly unchanged at the federal level since the last elections, leaving most previous ODIHR recommendations unaddressed.
The elections were organized efficiently and professionally, but threats, harassment, and violence against election administrators were a cause for serious concern and made recruiting election workers a challenge, as well as making additional security measures necessary. Voting technologies were used extensively for voter registration, ballot casting, and vote counting. While a range of useful tools and training were developed to strengthen election safety, concerns about security and assertions from both foreign and domestic sources that sought to sow doubt and delegitimize the electoral process continued to damage public trust.
“Disinformation, threats and even cases of political violence have put this country through a stress test, but these elections showed that the democratic processes in the US remain in good health,” said OSCE PA Head of Delegation Pere Joan Pons. “With campaign spending at record high levels in what appears to be continuous ‘campaign inflation’, systems that enable independent groups to circumvent campaign finance regulations must be amended to avoid inequalities.” While campaign finance is regulated by federal laws and court rulings that contain detailed regulations on the funding of candidates, the campaigns for this year’s election were marked by record high spending, increasing concerns over unregulated financial contributions and disproportionate advantage for candidates with extensive funding.
“The nuts and bolts of the American electoral process are strong and stable, despite deep mistrust among the general public,” said Tamás Meszerics, who headed the ODIHR election observation mission. “But the sharp polarisation we are seeing across the country, reinforced by the echo chambers that many people are locked into also through the partisan media, are a worrying trend that could seriously damage democracy in the long term.”
Civil and political rights were respected throughout the campaign, but it unfolded in a highly polarized environment amidst personal attacks and incidents of election violence including assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump. There is a legal prohibition of international election observation in 17 states, against the commitments made by all 57 states of the OSCE.
Trump punctured the "cult of learned helplessness" at the core of most American institutions by appearing to be a man of action. One key to Trump’s appeal was that he appeared to to do stuff when no one else can. Trump's daily ritual of signing an executive order with a flourished sharpie was perhaps the most notable instance in which Trump was seen to be governening. In “The End of American Exceptionalism,” Daniel Drezner argues that, due to Trump’s genuine popularity, “when the rest of the world looks at Trump, they will no longer see an aberrant exception to American exceptionalism; they will see what America stands for in the twenty-first century.” Other said much of America-as-it-really-is recognized itself in Trump: obsessively individualistic yet deeply conformist, naturally anarchic yet intuitively authoritarian, and, last but not least, violently aggressive yet thin-skinned, too. Critics said America had always stood for overbearing violence wrapped in blatant hypocrisy. It was not the “21st century”; it was thewhole story. Trump was just rude enough to make it screamingly obvious even for those US academics most committed to preserving, at least, appearances.
The Democratic Party's actions had left many US citizens feeling humiliated. Trump primarily mobilized White people and men. After the election, some Democratic pundits said mobilizing “identity groups” didn’t work and “failed miserably,” erasing Trump’s mobilization of White and male identity groups. Instead, they claim Trump prevailed with a “working class coalition,” erasing the women and Black people who are disproportionately working class. To be racist and sexist is to erase the presence of Black people and women — and center White identity and male identity so profoundly that White people and men are no longer seen as “identity groups.”
Irontortoise at Daily Kos noted "in terms of cheating via suspect “bullet ballots,” we can pretty much rule that out, at least in terms of this election. ... one rather curious aspect of the 2024 election is that Harris apparently received fewer votes in 24 of the 36 states where a Democratic candidate for the Senate or Governor was also on the ballot — compared to just 10 states where Trump was in a similar relationship to the Republican candidate for other office. Unfortunately, Trump did apparently get more votes this time than he got in 2020 in all but nine states, while Harris got fewer votes than Biden back in 2020 in all but five (though four of them were at least swing states: GA, WI, NC, and NV."
Disinformation generated through artificial intelligence or deepfakes did not significantly impact UK, French or European election results. The same cannot be convincingly said of the United States. Research published in The Brookings Institution comes to the same conclusion that disinformation played a significant role in shaping public views of candidates and issues discussed during the campaigns. Its authors mention false stories about immigrants, fabricated videos and images targeting the Democrat candidate, and misleading crime and border security claims as examples of misinformation. These narratives, they argue, were amplified by social media, memes, and mainstream media, exacerbated by generative AI tools that made it easier to create realistic fakes.
Karina Mariani suggested "Day one showed Biden signing a series of executive orders to promote the insane dogma of woke ideology: regulations to institutionalize the supremacist creeds of critical race theory and gender ideology, which soon dominated the federal bureaucracy. They hadn't even finished settling into the White House and were already allocating funds for race- and gender-based anti-Covid policies. Biden became the world's first woke president, the most bigoted and irrational. His Administration was the bastion of the hysterical turn of the radicalized elites that plagued the world in recent years....
"The Democrats who were coming in 2020 to be temperate, rational and normal were the most inept, delusional, vindictive, irrational and illiberal collective in the world. Curiously, a senile Biden, a meritless inconsequential Kamala and a Democratic Party rotten to the bone succeeded in making Trump the sane, sensible and normal choice; the most palatable to voters fed up with a disturbed, authoritarian, reality-divorced and brutally anti-freedom establishment."
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