Georgia sees record amount of early voting – report
The day is not over, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgia has seen a record amount of early voting on the first day polls have been open:
More than 200,000 voters have cast ballots in Georgia during the first day of in-person early voting according to state elections officials, shattering the state’s record. #gapol https://t.co/mrjIq41dx2
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) October 15, 2024
This is not necessarily indicative of how the swing state, where many polls have shown Donald Trump with a narrow lead, will end up voting in November.
Key events
Harris promises to decriminalize marijuana as she addresses accusations that she disproportionately prosecuted Black men
Kamala Harris defended her record as a prosecutor and pledged to decriminalize marijuana as president in Detroit on Tuesday, as she aims to shore up support among Black men in an interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God.
Charlamagne, a Black comedian and author who hosts radio program “The Breakfast Club,” is known for his blunt interviews of celebrities.
Although he is a Harris supporter, he has been critical of her and President Joe Biden in the past and called Democrats “cowards” for ineffectively prosecuting a case against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. One of his first questions was asking Harris to address a common rumour – that she disproportionately locked up Black men over her more than a dozen years as San Francisco’s district attorney.
Harris said she was “one of the most progressive prosecutors” on marijuana cases, and would work to decriminalise it, because she knows how that has hurt certain populations, especially Black men.
Kamala Harris is holding a town hall in Detroit hosted by Charlemagne Tha God.
“So can you imagine you go to a city and you say you want the votes of those people and you disparage that city,” Harris is saying now. She is referring to Trump’s comments last week in Detroit.
The former US president and Republican nominee was speaking on Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club in the city, which is the biggest city in Michigan – one of the most crucial swing states in the 2024 US election.
But Trump, whose speeches are frequently rambling and lengthy discourses rather than set piece deliveries, could not stop himself from lambasting the city in which he was speaking by pointing to Detroit’s recent history of economic decline from its heyday as the home of American car production.
As he was speaking about China being a developing nation, Trump said: “Well, we’re a developing nation too, just take a look at Detroit. Detroit’s a developing area more than most places in China.”
He later returned to the theme, warning of an economic disaster if his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, wins in November’s election.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said.
This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live US elections coverage.
Summary
Early voting has begun in several states including Georgia, where a record number of voters are casting ballots.
Donald Trump spoke at Economic Club of Chicago, where he dodged questions about the peaceful transfer of power, refused to say whether he had spoken with Russia’s Vladimir Putin since the election and promoted his tariff-heavy proposals that economic expects say will do little to address inflation and will likely push prices higher.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris joined a town hall in Detroit hosted by Charlemagne Tha God.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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Trump was scheduled to appear on CNBC this week, but backed out unexpectedly. It was the second time the former president canceled an interview recently, after declining to appear on the popular CBS News show 60 Minutes
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There are many theories about why presidential polls have moved so little since Harris entered the race in July. In an interview today with CNN, veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the atmosphere is beginning to remind him of 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, despite winning the popular vote.
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Tim Walz spent the day in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. Wearing a plaid shirt, Walz spoke at a farm in Volant, Pennsylvania – a small town with a population of just 125 – to tout his campaign’s agenda for rural America.
George Chidi
More than a quarter-million Georgia voters cast ballots by 4pm on the first day of early voting Tuesday.
Lines stretched as much as two hours at some locations in Atlanta at peak times. For context, about 130,000 people cast early ballots in person on the first day of early voting in 2020. So far, about 260,000 Georgians have requested an absentee ballot.
Voters at the Buckhead branch of the Fulton county library said they were concerned about the economy, the tone of the election and attacks on immigrants, but particularly abortion rights.
John Dodson, an orchestra conductor from Atlanta, said he voted for Harris.
“I think she’s enormously capable, and I believe that she understands this moment, that she is the right person to lead us from this moment,” he said. “This moment is unique. We are divided as we have not been since the time just before the civil war. And while I hope it wouldn’t – and don’t think it would – rise to those kinds of outcomes, the foundations of the public are being shaken. Frankly, the way we have seen ourselves is being re-evaluated in ways I could never have imagined. So I think this is a very important moment for us to re-establish norms and return to what made us the ‘shining city on the hill’.”
With regard to the Ronald Reagan quote Dodson referenced, he said Reagan “was quoting someone else, and that is the point. He and I could disagree with a policy, and would have, but that isn’t what we’re discussing. We’re now talking about the functioning of the democracy and whether we simply seize power by hook or crook, or whether we actually allow people a voice in their governance. That’s the real issue underneath this contest.
“I think that election day plus one will be a very difficult day for a lot of people, and election day plus two, and election day plus three, but also Thanksgiving, and also December, at Christmas, or at the New Year’s party or at Hanukkah. I mean, I think that when you really think about it, one half of this country will be very, very unhappy with the results. But the question is, and you spoke about the tenor of this conversation, the conversation has degraded to a point of coarseness, and fear is ruling a huge amount of this discourse. And under fear comes this feeling of being threatened. And when you get threatened, people get angry. And so then, now we’ve filled a country with weapons, and I, too, worry that there are people who really do seem to feel that an outcome that is OK here is a violent outcome, So, this is the point: this is not the great experiment that has been us. And we’ve got to try to find our north star again and return.”
Harris has spent the town hall addressing very specific policies, focusing on a list of plans to boost the middle class, and help Americans though an affordability crisis.
“I’m going to extend tax deductions to $50,000. Every first-time homeowner, wherever they are, whatever their race, will benefit if they are [a] first-time homebuyer with a $25,000 down-payment assistance. Everyone is going to benefit from my plan to extend the child tax [credit to] $6,000 for the first year of their child’s life,” she said.
In a substantive discussion, Harris also repeatedly emphasized that policies that will benefit Black Americans will help everybody.
Charlemagne: ‘I had a politician tell me once that if you’re running for a national election, it’s bad electoral strategy to say you are going to do things for Black people, which is why a lot of politicians don’t speak directly to their plans for Black people.’
Harris: ‘I don’t know that that’s true. I think that what is true is that I am running to be president for everybody, but I’m clear eyed about the history and the disparities that exist for specific communities.’
Kamala Harris joins town hall hosted by Charlamagne tha God
The vice-president has joined a town hall in Detroit, hosted by Charlamagne tha God. “This is a margin-of-error race. It’s tight. I’m gonna win. I’m gonna win, but it’s tight,” she told him.
The event is being livestreamed on iHeartRadio. Prior to the town hall, Harris stopped by the Norwest Gallery of Art for a conversation with Black men about entrepreneurship.
As early voting begins in Georgia, a county judge in the state has ruled that local officials cannot refuse to certify election results.
The ruling from judge Robert McBurney on Monday night rebukes an argument from Donald Trump and his allies that local election officials should have the discretion to deny the certification of election results.
McBurney found that “the superintendent must certify and must do so by a certain time” – with no exemptions. The ruling could help protect the election against rogue officials, encouraged by Republicans who have falsely alleged widespread fraud in elections.
“While the [election official] must investigate concerns about miscounts and must report those concerns to a prosecutor if they persist after she investigates, the existence of those concerns, those doubts, and those worries is not cause to delay or decline certification,” McBurney wrote. “That is simply not an option for this particular ministerial function in the superintendent’s broader portfolio of functions.”
Tim Walz is spending the day in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
Wearing a plaid shirt, Walz spoke at a farm in Volant, Pennsylvania – a small town with a population of just 125 – to tout his campaign’s agenda for rural America.
“When people think rural America, farm policy matters,” Walz said. “Crop insurance matters. Trade matters, tariff matters. But you’re bigger than that. Your families, your healthcare matters, your education matters, your roads matter, your retirement matters, all those things matter.”
He also tried to push an optimistic message, saying: “I saw the Wall Street Journal said: ‘Joyfulness isn’t a plan.’ Well, no one said it’s a plan. But it’s a hell of a lot better to be joyful than to be angry and terrible like they’re doing on the other side.”
Trump cancels CNBC interview – report
Donald Trump was scheduled to appear on CNBC this week, but backed out unexpectedly, CNN reports.
It was the second time the former president had canceled an interview recently, after declining to appear on the popular CBS News show 60 Minutes. He has instead given interviews to rightwing news outlets, and earlier today had a live conversation on economic policy moderated by Bloomberg News.
CNN reports that Trump’s campaign cited a scheduling conflict as the reason he could not appear on CNBC’s Squawk Box show.
“Trump canceled, and he was going to come on,” co-anchor Joe Kernen announced on air earlier today. He added that the network had also asked Kamala Harris to appear but that “she’s not coming on”.
There are many theories about why presidential polls have moved so little since Kamala Harris entered the race in July.
In an interview today with CNN, veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz says the atmosphere is beginning to remind him of 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, despite winning the popular vote and polls generally showing her with the edge. Here’s what Luntz had to say:
“I began to look at this as quite similar to 2016 when Donald Trump surprised voters and beat Hillary Clinton.”@FrankLuntz weighs in on the Trump debate debacle, Harris’ narrow lead, the 3 groups to watch for, and why authenticity matters in the #Election2024 pic.twitter.com/dk3i9dorJ9
— Julia Chatterley (@jchatterleyCNN) October 15, 2024
In other swing state news, Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, is suing CNN after the network revealed his history of lewd and offensive remarks on pornography websites, the Associated Press reports:
Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, announced a lawsuit Tuesday against CNN over its recent report alleging he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board, calling the reporting reckless and defamatory.
The lawsuit, filed in Wake county superior court, comes less than four weeks after a television report that led many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates, including Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign. Robinson announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Raleigh.
CNN “chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Robinson’s data – including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account – were previously compromised by multiple data breaches”, the lawsuit states.
CNN declined to comment, spokesperson Emily Kuhn said in an email.
Polls at the time of the CNN report already showed Josh Stein, Robinson’s Democratic rival and the sitting attorney general, with a lead over Robinson. Early in-person voting begins Thursday statewide, and well over 50,000 completed absentee ballots have been received so far.
