Key events
Biden set to visit key battleground states amid crucial Senate races for Democrats
The US president, Joe Biden, is set to campaign on Tuesday in Pennsylvania for a close ally, the Democratic senator Bob Casey, when he participates in a private campaign fundraiser.
Casey, an incumbent running against Dave McCormick, has a narrow lead in the race in CBS News polling from September.
Biden is also set to travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday to discuss his administration’s progress in replacing lead pipes and creating jobs.
Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic Wisconsin senator who was first elected in 2012 on a tide of progressive support, will be conspicuously absent. She is facing Eric Hovde, a real estate mogul and banker, in a critical Senate race for the Democrats.
Baldwin, who has managed to keep a support base among farmers and rural voters, has previously refrained from campaigning with Biden when he made stops in Wisconsin. You can read more about her up-to-now successful electoral coalition here.
Casey’s and Baldwin’s races are seen as must-wins for Democrats who are trying to maintain their razor-tight control of the Senate. As the presidential campaign has played out, Biden has largely stayed on the sidelines as he’s remained a flawed surrogate (in the eyes of many) for Harris and down-ballot Democrats.
Pennsylvania (which narrowly voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020) and Wisconsin (which voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020) are both critical swing states that Trump and Kamala Harris are fiercely trying to appeal to.
Project 2025 would ‘unequivocally’ lead to more hurricane deaths, experts warn
With communities still reeling from Hurricane Helene, one of the deadliest storms ever to hit the US, further pain in the form of Hurricane Milton is about to hit Florida. Experts warn such disasters will be deepened if Donald Trump is elected and follows the policy plans of the controversial rightwing Project 2025 manifesto.
Under Project 2025, authored by numerous former Trump officials but disavowed by the former president himself, the federal forecasting of severe storms and aid given to shattered towns and cities would be drastically scaled back. Emergency management officials say the cuts would severely worsen the outcomes from a storm like Helene.
Project 2025 calls for “breaking up and downsizing” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which it calls a primary component “of the climate change alarm industry”. The agency’s climate research is “harmful to future US prosperity” and should be disbanded, the document says.
You can read the full story by my colleagues Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman here:
Donal Trump is set to hold a rally in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday, according to a release from his campaign. Trump is due to speak at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center at 1pm (MDT). The Republican presidential candidate has repeated the false claim that Venezuelan street gangs have overtaken Aurora, where he has said deportations would begin if he wins the election next month.
Trump has said members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, a false claim refuted by the Aurora police department.
In the press release announcing his campaign stop in Colorado on Friday, Trump made several references to the gang, adding at the bottom of his statement:
Kamala’s border bloodbath has made every state a border state, leaving Colorado families at the mercy of criminals. The only solution to stop the border crisis is to elect President Trump, who will secure the border, deport dangerous criminals, and Make America Safe Again.
Joe Biden won 55.4% of the vote in Colorado on his way to winning the presidency in 2020, while Trump got 41.9% of the votes in the state, which he is not expected to win this year.
In a release on its website, the White House said the Biden administration is mobilising additional resources and personnel to prepare for the impacts of Hurricane Milton, and has contacted over 15 local officials in cities and counties in areas that will likely be hit by the storm.
The White House also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has enough money to support disaster relief for both Milton and Hurricane Helene.
Biden yesterday approved Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ request for an emergency declaration, the White House said. This means the federal government will provide additional funding to designated counties, and federal support for emergency responses such as evacuation, sheltering and search and rescue missions.
Tonight, I spoke with Florida Governor DeSantis and Tampa Mayor Castor for firsthand reports on Hurricane Helene recovery and preparations for Hurricane Milton.
My Administration is ready to support both leaders and the people of Florida with any further resources they may need. pic.twitter.com/imXXVXQnoD
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 8, 2024
NBC News reported on Monday that DeSantis, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination earlier this year, was ignoring calls from the US vice president, Kamala Harris, because they “seemed political”. “Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” the DeSantis aide told the outlet.
“We have to assume this is going to be a monster,” DeSantis told reporters on Monday afternoon, as he warned of a potentially higher storm surge and more power outages from Milton compared to Helene.
Hurricane Milton delays Washington DC reception between Joe Biden and Irish PM
Joe Biden is expected to receive a briefing from homeland security advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall today as Hurricane Milton heads across the Gulf of Mexico.
Biden is reported to be delaying a reception in Washington DC with the Irish Taoiseach, Simon Harris, to deal with the response to the category 4 hurricane.
The two leaders are still planning to meet in the Oval Office – to mark the centenary of diplomatic relations between Ireland and the US – but the reception in the Rose Garden has been postponed, BBC News reports.
Officials warn Hurricane Milton poses an ‘extremely serious threat’ to Florida
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned that Hurricane Milton, expected to bring heavy rainfall and storm surges as high as 15 feet, “poses an extremely serious threat to Florida”.
The densely populated west coast of the state is braced for landfall of the category 4 storm on Wednesday. More than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.
The NHC projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people.
It comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US.
The death toll from Helene- which made landfall on the Florida Gulf coast on 26 September – stands at about 230 people, but this is expected to increase.
It then ripped through Georgia and North Carolina, both of which are swing states and essentially must wins for the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Both Trump and the US vice president, Kamala Harris, are targeting these states hard.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has already had to respond to rife misinformation concerning its response to Helene, amplified on the presidential campaign trail by Trump and some of his supporters.
Trump has falsely accused the US president, Joe Biden, and Harris of favouring migrants over disaster-hit areas. “They stole the Fema money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” Trump has said.
“Kamala spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants.” Trump added the places worst hit are “largely a Republican area so some people say they did it for that reason”.
Harris takes narrow lead in NY Times poll over Trump as she embarks on media blitz
Good morning, US politics readers.
The Democratic US vice-president, Kamala Harris, has taken a narrow national lead over her Republican rival, Donald Trump, in the race for the White House, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted between 29 September and 6 October.
It is the first time Harris led Trump in the Times/Siena poll since July, when Joe Biden dramatically dropped out of the presidential race and urged fellow Democrats to support Harris after his disastrous debate performance against Trump on 27 June.
The poll – which surveyed 3,385 likely voters – shows Harris leading Trump by 49% to 46%. In mid-September, after the presidential debate between the two, which Harris was viewed by many to have won, the two candidates were both at 47%.
Here are some other main takeaways from the latest New York Times/Siena College poll:
-
Harris has gained support from Republican voters – 9% said this time round they would support her, an increase from 5% last month.
-
46% of respondents said Harris, 59, represented change this election, compared to 44% for Trump, 78.
-
61% of non-white voters see Harris as the change candidate, while 29% view Trump this way.
-
Trump was still viewed by more people as a “strong leader”, though this was by a small amount.
-
Trump is leading among male voters by 11 points. 42% of voters surveyed said they personally benefited from Trump’s policies, when he was president between 2016 and 2020, compared to Biden’s policies.
-
Respondents trusted Trump more than Harris to manage the economy, which 75% of the likely voters described as in a “fair or poor condition”, the same as last month.
-
The percentage of voters holding favorable or unfavorable views of Trump and Harris has not changed since September.
The margin of sampling error among likely voters in the poll was plus or minus 2.4 points for the national poll and about plus or minus five points for each state poll.
Despite Harris edging Trump in some polls, the race is essentially deadlocked, both nationally and in so-called battleground states. The victory on 5 November will be decided by the slimmest of margins. In order to appeal to voters in the critical swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, appearing largely in front of politically sympathetic interviewers.
Harris has already talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy. In the CBS News interview, Harris was pressed on issues including the Middle East, Ukraine, gun ownership and immigration. Trump was invited on the programme too, but declined to participate in it.
As Ed Pilkington, Guardian US’ chief reporter, notes in this story, on Tuesday Harris hits New York for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with the late-night host Stephen Colbert. We will bring you all the latest news from these media appearances as they happen.
