Reuters

Trump gains with Hispanic men, Harris up with white women, Reuters/Ipsos polls show

Published

3 months ago

October 30, 2024

electionlive_gcw35j

By Jason Lange and Bo Erickson

October 28, 20247:09 PM GMT+6Updated 2 days ago

0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Republican Donald Trump has nearly erased Democrats’ longstanding advantage among Hispanic men ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election when he will face Democrat Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Former President Trump now trails Vice President Harris by just 2 percentage points among Hispanic men – 44% to 46% – compared with his 19 point deficit with Democrat Joe Biden at the same point in 2020, according to the analysis of more than 15,000 responses to Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted in the month through Oct. 21 and during the same period of 2020.

Trump’s gains have been offset by increased support for Harris among white women, who favored him over Biden by 12 points late in 2020 but now lean Republican by 3 points, 46% to 43%. The two candidates are locked in an exceptionally tight race, with Harris up only marginally – 46% to 43% – in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 16-21.

The shifts are part of larger changes in the coalitions that each candidate is counting on for victory, with Trump boosting his advantage with Hispanic and Black voters – particularly men – while Harris has cut away at the Republicans’ longstanding edge with white voters by gaining ground with women.

Robert Alomia, a Hispanic voter in Elizabeth, New Jersey, who works at a security firm, said he respects Trump’s career as a businessman and plans to vote for him this year after sitting out the 2020 election.

“We need people who think quick and people who are willing to lead – he’s a leader,” said Alomia, 42, who said he was also sympathetic to Trump’s hardline views on immigration. “You have these people that come into the country where they get everything, and basically the door is open for them.”

Trump has accused the Biden administration of leaving the southern border open to migrants while Harris has pushed back against that by blaming Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to jettison a bipartisan border security bill that have would tightened border controls.

Hispanic voters, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. electorate, have leaned heavily Democratic in most presidential elections since the 1970s but Trump has made significant inroads.

The analysis of recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows Trump with support from 37% of registered Hispanic voters, up from 30% at the same point in 2020. Harris is at 51% compared to Biden’s 54% four years earlier. The numbers are subject to sampling error, and have levels of precision of between 2 and 6 percentage points.

Trump ended up winning 38% of the Hispanic votes in 2020, 21 points below Biden but still the biggest share for a Republican candidate since President George W. Bush won 44% in 2004, according to a 2020 exit poll analysis by the Pew Research Center and historical figures compiled by the American Enterprise Institute.

SHIFT AMONG BLACK MEN

The Republican is also on track to whittle away at the edges of Democrats’ strength in the Black electorate. Some 18% of Black men picked him in recent Reuters/Ipsos polls – up from 14% four years earlier – as did 8% of Black women, up from 4%. Exit polls after the 2020 election showed that about 8% of Black voters overall picked Trump in 2020, while the recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows him at 12%.

Item 1 of 2 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point Action, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 24, 2024. REUTERS/Ronda Churchill

[1/2]Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point Action, in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 24, 2024. REUTERS/Ronda Churchill Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Republican campaign strategist Kristin Davison said Trump is wooing Black voters by convincing them that the Democratic Party is too extreme on social issues.

“That’s what Trump has been able to do with Black men and with Hispanics in the last four years, not just on the issues of the economy and hard work, but with country and family,” she said.

America’s history of racial tension and injustice looms large in the minds of Trump’s supporters and detractors alike. Trump famously asked Black voters during his 2016 presidential campaign, “What the hell do you have to lose?”

“A lot of people might play the race card. They might say he’s racist, they might say he’s using Black people. They might say a lot of stuff. But for me, personally, I feel like he proved that he wants to see everybody win,” said Kedrick Benford, a Black voter in Houston who didn’t vote in 2020 but said he thinks he’ll vote for Trump this time.

Benford, 30, a self-employed retailer, said he considered Trump more experienced than Harris.

Harris has kept the race close in part by winning over white women, who made up about four in 10 voters in 2020, double the combined share of Black and Hispanic voters.

While the two candidates’ shares of support from white men is largely unchanged, Harris’ boost among white women means Trump is only leading by nine points with white voters overall, compared to when he led Biden by 14 points with them in 2020.

Davison, the Republican strategist, said many women have turned to Harris in part because Democrats have effectively focused them on abortion following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling by ending the nationwide right to abortion.

Women are also evaluating “the stark contrast in leadership and character between the vice president and Trump, which is influencing their choices,” said Meghan Hays, a Democratic strategist and former senior communications aide to President Biden.

“The vice president must widen her lead among women voters to offset Trump’s advantage with Black and Latino men,” Hays added. “This election will be won by the smallest of margins.”

Donna Berg, a white woman in St. Charles, Illinois, voted for Trump in 2016 and again “reluctantly” in 2020, but Berg decisively dumped Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

“After Jan. 6, it was all over,” Berg said. She said the Republican Party has veered into extremism under Trump’s leadership and she would vote for Harris this year. “I am not necessarily voting for her as much as I’m voting against Trump.”

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by Jason Lange and Bo Erickson; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington

Reuters

Podcaster Joe Rogan endorses Donald Trump for president

Published

3 months ago

November 5, 2024

electionlive_gcw35j

By Kanishka Singh

November 5, 20249:16 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago

Item 1 of 2 Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo

[1/2]Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Joe Rogan talks to fans in the paddock at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who recently interviewed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for nearly three hours, said on Monday he has endorsed the former president in the race to the White House.

Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 U.S. election in what polls show to be a tight race. Harris has got multiple celebrity endorsements.

“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Rogan said on X while posting a clip of his interview with billionaire Elon Musk, who has also endorsed Trump. Rogan said in his post that Musk made the “most compelling case for Trump.”

Trump’s recent interview with Rogan lasted about 3 hours and was released on YouTube and Spotify in late October. The two discussed a range of topics and the interview got over 45 million views on YouTube.

The former president criticized Rogan in August on Truth Social, his social media platform, after the podcaster praised then-independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has since pulled out of the race and endorsed Trump. Trump later called Rogan a “good guy.”

Trump and Harris have courted voters with appearances on podcasts, in addition to more traditional rallies and media interviews.

Spotify (SPOT.N), opens new tab said in March “The Joe Rogan Experience” had 14.5 million followers, almost triple the platform’s second most popular program. Rogan also has more than 19 million followers on Instagram and 18 million followers on YouTube.

A poll by YouGov last year found that 81% of his listeners are male and 56% are under 35 years old, a demographic that tends to support Trump over Harris.

Harris’ team had been in touch with Rogan’s program about a possible appearance but her campaign said in late October she will not appear on his podcast.

Rogan joins a list of celebrities like Musk and wrestler Hulk Hogan to have endorsed Trump.

Harris has a much bigger list of celebrity endorsements – ranging from basketball superstar Lebron James and actress Meryl Streep to comedian Chris Rock and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Superstar singers Beyonce and Taylor Swift have also endorsed her.

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan

Reuters

Musk and X are epicenter of US election misinformation, experts say

Published

3 months ago

November 5, 2024

electionlive_gcw35j

By Kanishka Singh and Sheila Dang

November 5, 20249:52 AM GMT+6Updated 4 hours ago

Rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in New York

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X this year, according to a report, opens new tab by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.

The platform is also playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race, election and misinformation experts said on Monday.

A spokesperson for X said the company’s Community Notes feature, which lets users add additional context to posts, is more effective at helping people identify misleading content than traditional warning flags on posts.

Since taking over the company formerly known as Twitter, Musk has curtailed content moderation and laid off thousands of employees. He has thrown his support behind former President Donald Trump, who is locked in an exceptionally close race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Musk’s massive reach with nearly 203 million followers helps enable “network effects” in which content on X can jump to other social media and messaging platforms such as Reddit and Telegram, said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and expert on disinformation. “X is a conduit from one platform to another,” she said.

At least 87 of Musk’s posts this year have promoted claims about the U.S. election that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, amassing 2 billion views, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s report.

In Pennsylvania, one of the seven key swing states, some X users have seized on instances of local election administrators flagging incomplete voter registration forms that would not be processed, falsely casting the events as examples of election interference, said Philip Hensley-Robin, Pennsylvania executive director at Common Cause, during a press briefing on Monday.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization that promotes accountable government and voting rights.

Some X accounts implied “that there was voter fraud, when in fact, we know very clearly that election officials and election administrators in all of our counties were following the rules and … therefore only eligible voters are voting,” Hensley-Robin said.

Cyabra, a firm that uses AI to detect online disinformation, said on Monday that an X account with 117,000 followers played a key role in helping spread a fake video purporting to show Pennsylvania mail-in ballots for Trump being destroyed.

X’s spokesperson said the platform took action against many accounts that shared the video.

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sheila Dang in Austin; Additional reporting by Stephanie Burnett; Editing by Lincoln Feast

Georgia

Georgia top court won’t extend ballot deadline in win for Trump

Published

3 months ago

November 5, 2024

electionlive_gcw35j

By Reuters

November 5, 20244:36 AM GMT+6Updated 9 hours ago

Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting

A person picks up a sticker while voters head to a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The top court in the battleground state of Georgia ruled on Monday that Cobb County cannot extend the deadline for counting about 3,000 absentee ballots that were sent out shortly before Election Day, handing a victory to the Republican National Committee and presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Siding with the RNC, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned a judge’s ruling extending the deadline until Friday in Cobb County, located in suburban Atlanta. The court decided that only absentee ballots that arrive by 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday (0000 GMT Wednesday) can be counted.

Civil rights groups had sued last week seeking to extend the deadline, arguing that the county violated state law by failing to promptly send out about 3,000 absentee ballots. County officials said they were overwhelmed by a surge in requests.

The Republican National Committee had argued that extending the deadline would violate state law.

“Election Day is Election Day – not the week after,” RNC Chair Michael Whatley wrote in a post on social media.

Cobb County is a large and racially diverse area in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. The county voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump by 14 percentage points in the 2020 election. Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020.

A spokesperson for Cobb County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The state high court ordered that ballots received after Election Day be separated from other ballots and set aside. Voters who did not receive an absentee ballot or did not have enough time to mail it can vote in person on Tuesday.

Georgia is one of seven closely contested states expected to decide the outcome of the race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.

Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham