AP
Two closing arguments show the stark choice between Trump and Harris
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This combination of photos shows Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, left, speaking at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaking at a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo)Read More
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to deliver remarks during a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to deliver remarks during a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
BY STEVE PEOPLESUpdated 6:55 AM GMT+6, October 30, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — In the shadow of the White House, seven days before the final votes of the 2024 election are cast, Kamala Harris vowed to put country over party and warned that Donald Trump is obsessed with revenge and his own personal interests.
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Appearing before an overflowing crowd near the White House one week ahead of election day, Kamala Harris issued her closing argument to voters, urging them to reject Donald Trump’s efforts to sow division and fear, declaring, “That is not who we are.”
Less than 48 hours earlier inside Madison Square Garden, Trump called his Democratic opponent “a trainwreck who has destroyed everything in her path.” His allies on stage labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and said Harris, who would be the first woman to be president, had begun her career as a prostitute.
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Donald Trump took the stage Sunday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden to deliver his campaign’s closing argument with the election nine days away after several of his allies used crude and racist insults toward Vice President Kamala Harris and other critics of the former president.
Two nights and 200 miles apart, the dueling closing arguments outlined in stark terms the choice U.S. voters face on Nov. 5 when they will weigh two very different visions of leadership and America’s future.
Trump’s raucous rally, marked by crude and racist insults, highlighted the uglier elements of his coalition. But other parts of it underscored the former businessman’s appeal as someone who vows to fix the economy and the border, and as a political outsider eager to defy any and all conventions despite the risks.
Harris, the vice president for the last four years, chose a more formal setting — the grassy Ellipse near the White House — to underscore the seriousness of this moment in American history and the threat Trump poses to democracy. She faced a massive audience in the same place where Trump addressed thousands of his loyalists on Jan. 6, 2021, before they stormed the U.S. Capitol in one of the darkest days of modern history.
But more than simply reminding voters of the danger that Trump poses to U.S. democracy, Harris’ remarks were designed to highlight her opponent’s record of prioritizing his personal interests instead of the nation’s.
“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: That’s not who we are,” Harris said. “I pledge to be a president for all Americans — to always put country above party and above self.”
Senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon noted that Harris’ closing argument is designed to reach the narrow slice of undecided voters; many moderate Republicans are among them.
“We know that there are still a lot of voters out there that are still trying to decide who to support — or whether to vote at all,” O’Malley Dillon said. “And this race is extremely close. We talk about it as a margin of error race. We know it is going to be closed out in this final week.”
Trump’s team is more focused on energizing his partisan base and reaching infrequent voters across the political spectrum who are frustrated by the direction of the country and looking for change.
Still, Trump framed his comments in recent days with a simple question that cuts across political lines, asking voters whether they are better off now than they were four years ago at the end of his first term. While the nation was still in the throes of the pandemic when Trump left office, polls indicate that most voters are unhappy with the direction of the country today.
Trump has vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and impose broad tariffs to generate revenue and boost American manufacturing.
Ever defiant facing criticism from even some Republicans, Trump on Tuesday called his Madison Square Garden event “a lovefest” and did not address the comments of pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Hinchcliffe also made demeaning jokes about Black people, other Latinos, Palestinians and Jews in his routine before Trump took the stage.
“Nobody’s ever had love like that,” Trump said of the hours-long Sunday event that featured his family members and high-level surrogates and supporters including billionaire Elon Musk, TV psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “It was really love for our country.”
The Republican former president on Tuesday also offered a dark assessment of Harris’ leadership. He said that she “obliterated” the nation’s borders, “decimated the middle class,” brought “bloodshed and squalor” to major cities and “unleashed war and chaos all over the world.”
“No person who has caused so much destruction and death at home and abroad should ever be allowed to be the president of the United States,” Trump told dozens of supporters who gathered at his Florida estate.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said Trump has made clear his plans to fix the economy, secure the southern border and “improve people’s daily lives.”
“Kamala Harris hasn’t done any of that,” he said. “It’s a message of despair, personal attacks and nothing from Harris or her campaign about what they’re actually going to do to help Americans. So it’s a massive contrast.”
Harris has largely moved on from the “joyful” campaigning style that defined her entrance into the presidential contest this summer. She pledged unity on Tuesday night, but she also cast Trump as someone driven more by revenge and grievance than a commitment to the people.
“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power,” Harris said. “This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better.”
She spoke directly to Republican voters at times and promised to listen to those who didn’t vote for her if elected. Harris previously said she would include a Republican in her Cabinet.
“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said. “He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.”
Heading into the speech, the Democrat’s campaign was aware of criticism from her party’s far-left base that she has been too focused on courting moderate Republican voters. They urged Harris to focus more on working-class priorities than the threat Trump poses to U.S. democracy.
Ultimately, the vice president’s speech was designed to tie both issues together. She warned of Trump threatening democratic norms and vowed to take action against high grocery prices and help first-time home buyers with making a down payment.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top Harris ally, said voters can “walk and chew gum at the same time — meaning they can hear an argument about freedom and about something that affects their pocketbook. And I think she is certainly capable to prosecute both cases at the same time.”
Sisters Michelle Detwiler and Renee Newell drove from Virginia to attend Harris’ remarks at the Ellipse.
“We both have daughters and we’re both here for them,” Newell said. Detwiler said the location of the event is a “great counterpoint to the imagery of Jan. 6. D.C. is a great city for peaceful public gatherings.
“We’re so glad to be here and to experience the joy,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Fatima Hussein in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed.
AP
The final day of voting in the US is here, after tens of millions have already cast their ballots
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People stand in line during the last day of early voting, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)Read More
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Voters line up to vote as a early voting location opened in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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A person walks past a sign during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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An election worker demonstrates mail-in ballot processing during a media preview at the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, in Philadelphia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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A voter fills out their their ballot during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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People line up to vote at the Chicago Early Voting Loop Supersite in Chicago, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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Bennett College student Zairen Jackson listens to a fellow student answer a question during a roundtable in Greensboro, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
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FILE – A Delaware County secured drop box for the return of vote-by-mail ballots is pictured, May 2, 2022, in Newtown Square, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
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An elections official sorts counted mail-in ballots on the first day of tabulation, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
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People wait in line to cast their ballots at an early voting location, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Blue Springs, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
BY CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY AND ALI SWENSONUpdated 11:05 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — Election Day 2024 arrived Tuesday — with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner.
The early turnout in Georgia, which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections, has been so robust — over 4 million voters — that a top official in the secretary of state’s office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls.
As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote.
That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads.
By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.
Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.”
Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible.
The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day.
He has mischaracterized an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The investigation is into registration applications; there is no indication that ballots are involved.
In Georgia, Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day, votes that are allowed under state law. A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekend.
Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive.
One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot.
This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden’s win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year.
Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements.
On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted.
Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same.
Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass.
While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states.
On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast.
Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections.
“This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”
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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Swenson reports on election-related misinformation, disinformation and extremism for The Associated Press.
AP
Georgia high court says absentee ballots must be returned by Election Day, even in county with delay
Updated 5:13 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — Thousands of voters in Georgia’s third-largest county who received their absentee ballots late will not get an extension to return them, the state’s highest court decided on Monday.
Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, didn’t mail out absentee ballots to some 3,400 voters who had requested them until late last week. Georgia law says absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls on Election Day. But a judge in a lower court ruled last week that the ballots at issue could be counted if they’re received by this Friday, three days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruling means the affected Cobb County residents must vote in person on Election Day, which is Tuesday, or bring their absentee ballots to the county elections office by 7 p.m. that day.
The high court ruling instructs county election officials to notify the affected voters by email, text message and in a public message on the county election board’s website. And it orders officials to keep separate and sealed any ballots received after the Election Day deadline but before 5 p.m. Friday.
Board of elections Chair Tori Silas said the board will comply with the Supreme Court order, but it’s still up in the air whether ballots received after Election Day will be counted. The order only addressed a motion for a stay, so election officials will have to wait for the court’s final ruling to see whether votes received after Tuesday will be counted, she said in a statement.
To deliver the ballots on time, election officials in Cobb County were using U.S. Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery, and sending the ballots with prepaid express return envelopes. The Board of Elections said that more than 1,000 of the absentee ballots being mailed late were being sent to people outside of Georgia.
Silas last week blamed the delay in sending out the ballots on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballot requests during the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.
The original ruling extending the deadline stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they had not received absentee ballots by mail as of Friday.
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Elon Musk is pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution. The giveaway by the Donald Trump supporter is raising questions among some who say it’s a violation of the law.Read More
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America PAC lawyer Chris Gober speaks with members of the media ahead of a hearing at a City Hall courtroom in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner arrives for a hearing at a City Hall courtroom, in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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America PAC lawyer Chris Gober speaks with members of the media ahead of a hearing at a City Hall courtroom in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, third from right, arrives for a hearing at a City Hall courtroom, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
BY MARYCLAIRE DALEUpdated 4:19 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024Share
Follow live: Updates from AP’s coverage of the presidential election.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk ‘s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday.
Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta — ruling after Musk’s lawyers said the winners are paid spokespeople and not chosen by chance — did not immediately explain his reasoning.
District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, had called the process a scam “designed to actually influence a national election” and asked that it be shut down.
Musk lawyer Chris Gober said the final two recipients before Tuesday’s presidential election will be in Arizona on Monday and Michigan on Tuesday.
“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said Monday. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”
Chris Young, the director and treasurer of America PAC, testified that the recipients are vetted ahead of time, to “feel out their personality, (and) make sure they were someone whose values aligned” with the group.
Musk’s lawyers, defending the effort, called it “core political speech” given that participants sign a petition endorsing the U.S. Constitution. They also said Krasner’s bid to shut it down under Pennsylvania law was moot because there would be no more Pennsylvania winners before the program ends Tuesday.
Young also acknowledged that the PAC made the recipients sign nondisclosure agreements.
“They couldn’t really reveal the truth about how they got the money, right?” Summers asked.
“Sounds right,” Young said.
In an Oct. 20 social media post shown in court, Musk said anyone signing the petition had “a daily chance of winning $1M!”
Summers grilled him on Musk’s use of both the words “chance” and “randomly,” prompting Young to concede the latter was not “the word I would have selected.”
Young said the winners knew they would be called on stage but not specifically that they would win the money.
Musk did not attend the hearing. He has committed more than $70 million to the super PAC to help Trump and other Republicans win in November.
“This was all a political marketing masquerading as a lottery,” Krasner testified Monday. “That’s what it is. A grift.”
Lawyers for Musk and the PAC said they do not plan to extend the lottery beyond Tuesday. Krasner said the first three winners, starting on Oct. 19, came from Pennsylvania in the days leading up to the state’s Oct. 21 voter registration deadline.
Other winners came from the battleground states of Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. It’s not clear if anyone has yet received the money. The PAC pledged they would get it by Nov. 30, according to an exhibit shown in court.
More than 1 million people from the seven states have registered for the sweepstakes by signing a petition saying they support the right to free speech and to bear arms, the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Krasner questioned how the PAC might use their data, which it will have on hand well past the election.
“They were scammed for their information,” Krasner said. “It has almost unlimited use.”
Krasner’s team called Musk “the heartbeat of America PAC,” and the person announcing the winners and presenting the checks.
“He was the one who presented the checks, albeit large cardboard checks. We don’t really know if there are any real checks,” Summers said.
Foglietta presided over the case at Philadelphia City Hall after Musk and the PAC lost an effort to move it to federal court.
Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, as he’s tasked with protecting both lotteries and the integrity of elections.
Pennsylvania remains a key battleground state with 19 electoral votes and both Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have repeatedly visited the state, including stops planned Monday in the final hours of the campaign.
Krasner — who noted that he has long driven a Tesla — said he could also seek civil damages for the Pennsylvania registrants. Musk is the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla. He also owns the social media platform X, where America PAC has published posts on the sweepstakes, and the rocket ship maker SpaceX.
Dale covers national legal issues for The Associated Press, often focusing on the federal judiciary, gender law, #MeToo and NFL player concussions. Her work unsealing Bill Cosby’s testimony in a decade-old deposition led to his arrest and sexual assault trials.
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