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Taiwan braces for uncertainty following Trump’s victory

Taipei, Taiwan — Leaders from China and Taiwan have congratulated Donald Trump’s national election victory, despite growing uncertainty about how his second presidential term might impact dynamics across the Taiwan Strait.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged China and the United States to find the right way to get along in the new era, to benefit ‘’both countries and the wider world.”

He hopes the two sides will “uphold the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” according to a readout released by China’s official Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, who came to power in May, said in a post on social media platform X that he is confident that the “longstanding Taiwan-U.S. partnership, built on shared values and interests, will continue to serve as a cornerstone for regional stability and lead to greater prosperity.” 

On the Chinese internet, some social media users say they expect Trump to impose high tariffs on Chinese products but expressed mixed views on how the looming trade war might affect the Chinese economy. 

In Taiwan, some Taiwanese people express concern about the U.S. reducing their support for Taiwan under Trump’s second term due to his comments about Taiwan during the campaign and his isolationist approach to international affairs. 

“Judging from his comments on Taiwan over the last few months, I worry the U.S. won’t be so supportive of Taiwan if they want to stabilize relations with China,” Lydia Yang, a 35-year-old marketing professional in Taipei, told VOA by phone.

During an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek in July, Trump said Taiwan should pay the U.S. for defense and compared U.S. military spending on Taiwan to an insurance policy.

“I know the people very well. Respect them greatly. They did take 100% of our chip business. I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he said during the interview. 

In addition to asking Taiwan to pay for U.S. protection, Trump also accused Taiwan of stealing semiconductor technologies from the United States and threatened to impose tariffs against Taiwanese semiconductor companies.

“We put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come in and borrow the money and build chip companies here. They’re not going to give us the good companies anyway,” he said during an interview with Joe Rogan on October 25. 

Some Taiwanese people said these comments reflect Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy and underline that he would prioritize American interests once he returns to the White House next January.

“When it comes to things that don’t directly benefit the U.S., I would be worried about his approach,” Lai Ming-Wei, a 44-year-old engineer, told VOA in a recorded interview.

The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a VOA request for comment regarding the president-elect’s policy toward Taiwan.

Despite these concerns, some Taiwanese officials have tried to reassure the public that bilateral relations between Taiwan and the United States won’t significantly change under the second Trump administration.

“On relations across the Taiwan Strait, we believe that the United States will continue its current approach of constraining China and being friendly to Taiwan,” Tsai Ming-yen, Director-General of Taiwan National Security Bureau, told journalists on the sideline of Taiwan’s parliament on Wednesday.

Analysts say while the basic elements of U.S.-Taiwan relations will remain the same, Trump’s campaign comments and more isolationist foreign policy approach could increase uncertainty for bilateral relations between Taipei and Washington.

“We don’t know what version of Donald Trump we are going to see and this kind of uncertainty doesn’t bring stability and predictability to the Taiwan Strait,” Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University, told VOA by phone.

Other experts say Taiwan will have to take concrete actions to convince Trump that the island is serious about boosting its defense capabilities amid rising military pressure from China.

“Taiwan needs to offer something concrete, such as increasing the defense budget, because if Taiwan fails to do so, Trump may think Taiwan isn’t doing anything, so he doesn’t need to be too nice to Taiwan,” said Chen Fang-yu, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taiwan, speaking by phone to VOA.

Taiwan’s defense minister Wellington Koo said on Tuesday that Taipei must show its determination to defend itself regardless of who won the U.S. presidential election.

“We have to let them understand that Taiwan has the determination to defend itself, and the importance of Taiwan’s economic security and strategic geopolitical position,” he told journalists on the sidelines of the parliament. 

However, some Chinese analysts say Taiwan’s attempt to deepen military cooperation with the United States, including buying more weapons from Washington, would be counterproductive to the stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Trump’s comments about Taiwan paying for U.S. protection mean “he is asking Taiwan to increase their defense spending so they can buy more American weapons, but sending more arms to Taiwan wouldn’t help convince China that peaceful reunification is still possible,” Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in China, told VOA by phone.

Despite concerns about Trump’s potential policies toward Taiwan, based on his campaign comments, some analysts say it remains to be seen how his administration will formulate Taiwan policies.

“There are different voices in his camp. There are voices focusing on the economic competition side, which is represented by Trump himself, and there are voices talking about pulling away from Europe and focusing more resources in Asia to compete with China, and there are voices looking at drawing together U.S. assets, including allies, to compete hard with China,” Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, told VOA by phone.

However, he said Taiwan should be prepared for potential inconsistency in Trump’s approach as he tends to “cycle through officials very quickly” during his first term in office. “That inconsistency may create an impression that there’s an opening for Beijing,” Chong said.
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China expects bumpy relations with the US under Trump

Taipei, Taiwan — Following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory, Chinese netizens said they expect the U.S. to increase trade tensions with China while analysts say Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion might weaken under a second Trump administration.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump has vowed to impose tariffs, between 60% to 200%, on Chinese products on several occasions. During an interview with Fox News on February 4, Trump said he would impose more than 60% tariffs on Chinese imports but emphasized he wasn’t going to start a trade war with China.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he would tax China at 150% to 200% if Beijing decides to “go into Taiwan.”

Some Chinese internet users expect Trump to follow through on the campaign promise to impose huge tariffs on Chinese products but have mixed views about how the tariffs will affect the Chinese economy and their livelihoods.

Amid China’s ongoing economic downturn, some Chinese social media users worry that Trump’s return to the White House could exacerbate the economic pressure on many Chinese citizens.  

“It’s hard to look at Trump’s victory with pure joy, because he is going to launch a trade war with China when he comes into power, and our economy will suffer further,” a Chinese netizen in the capital, Beijing, wrote on the popular microblogging site Weibo, which is similar to X.

“How will the lives of normal citizens change? I’m feeling a sense of unease about the unpredictability of the future,” the person added.

Others say the 60% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States that Trump proposed during the campaign will push Chinese companies to redirect exports from the U.S. to other markets, including Southeast Asia, South America and Europe.

“Trump’s approach of being [an] enemy with the whole world may make some left-wing regimes in Europe disappointed, and this development may lead to a de-escalation of trade tensions between China and Europe,” Niu Chun-bao, chairman of Shanghai Wanji Asset Management Co., posted on Weibo.

Some Chinese netizens predict the immense pressure that Trump is likely to impose on Beijing will enhance China’s domestic unity, and his transactional approach to resolving tensions may offer more room for negotiation and bargaining.

“As long as there are no major internal problems, no external pressure can overwhelm China. So, I think the overall situation may still be positive,” another netizen in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong wrote on Weibo.

‘Significant hit’

While Chinese netizens hold mixed views about the potential tariffs that Trump has vowed to impose on Chinese imports, analysts say this move would be “a significant hit” to the Chinese economy, which has been troubled by an ongoing property crisis, high youth unemployment and weak domestic demand.

If Trump decides to impose 60% tariffs on all Chinese products imported to the U.S., “This would be a return to a big-picture trade war rather than a narrow tech war. And it would have a much deeper impact on China’s export-driven growth potential because he is hitting the entirety of China’s exports to the U.S.,” Jacob Gunter, an expert on China’s political economy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA by phone.

In Gunter’s view, Trump may use the tariffs to force China to make more concessions on trade. After imposing up to 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods imported to the U.S. in 2019, the Trump administration and China reached a trade deal that saw Beijing promise to increase purchases of American goods to at least $200 billion.

“We could see a return to the deal-making Donald Trump, where he wants to strike a deal and be viewed as this great negotiator, because that’s who he imagines himself to be,” Gunter said, adding that it remains to be seen how Trump might position the tariffs during his second term.

Other experts say one thing to look out for is what concessions Trump might make during a potential negotiation with China.

“One big question is whether Trump will soften the position the Biden administration has maintained on Taiwan in exchange for more exports and more U.S. investment into China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, told VOA by phone.

The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a VOA request for comment regarding his administration’s trade plans with China once he takes office in January.

In response to potential tariffs that the incoming Trump administration could impose, analysts say China could impose counter-tariffs on U.S. agricultural products from states controlled by the Republican Party.

“Economic and political tensions between the two countries will inevitably rise, while the global economy and global supply chains will be thrown into chaos,” Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University, told VOA in a written response.

Weakened coordination with allies

While trade and economic tensions between China and the U.S. are expected to rise during Trump’s second term, Zhu said Trump’s return to power may also be good news for Beijing, as Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion of its influence in the Indo-Pacific region may be weakened due to Trump’s isolationist approach in international affairs.

“Trump is more likely to push ahead with his agenda without consulting allies and partners or seeking their support, and this might be good news for China,” Zhu told VOA.

“China can take a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy to dilute the effectiveness of Trump’s foreign policy, especially the Indo-Pacific strategy, and we may see improvements in China’s relations with its neighbors, particularly Japan, South Korea and India, as well as U.S. allies in other parts of the world,” Zhu added.

In his view, bilateral relations between China and the U.S. will be dominated by competition under the second Trump administration, but there is also room for diplomacy and cooperation.

“Competition itself is not necessarily harmful, because if the two countries can manage the competition in a healthy way, both sides can benefit,” Zhu said.  
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Harris concedes presidential defeat to Trump

The United States is gearing up for a transfer of power, with President Joe Biden congratulating President-elect Donald Trump on his victory and Vice President Kamala Harris conceding defeat. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports from Washington. Camera: Adam Greenbaum.
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Israelis, Palestinians welcome election of Trump

Both Israelis and Palestinians on Wednesday welcomed Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory. Israelis hope he will support them in their conflicts with Hamas and others; Palestinians hope he will offer new statehood ideas. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem. Camera: Ricki Rosen.
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Excitement, disappointment in US after Trump’s win

Former President Donald Trump will return to the White House, as is the will of the American people. The news has been received with a mix of cheers and tears in a deeply divided country. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports from Washington. Camera: Afshean Hessam, Veronica Balderas Iglesias.
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A US election watch party in Kenya, excitement at first, followed by disappointment

nairobi, kenya — In a vibrant Nairobi community center, American citizens living in Kenya gathered with palpable excitement early Wednesday to watch the U.S. election results unfold. The atmosphere buzzed with anticipation as expatriates shared snacks and stories, their eyes glued to screens displaying real-time updates.

As the results of the U.S elections trickled in, a mix of American citizens and local Kenyan friends anxiously monitored the results.

Robyn Emerson, an American expatriate in Nairobi and chairperson of Democrats Abroad Kenya, which organized the event, said all American citizens were invited to the event, regardless of the party they support.

“American voters have come to a central place so that we can be together and watch the election come in so that we can really celebrate the right to vote,” Emerson said. “That we have done our part; we participated in a democratic process. And watching how the different states are coming in, and the results that are there.”

Bentley Wilson, an independent voter from the western state of Utah, agreed.

“It’s important for us to see each other as one country. And no matter whether we go for a certain party, it’s important for us to come together because it’s our country’s significance that’s at stake,” Wilson said. “So, we better come together. I like coming together no matter whether I’m leaning one side or another, to come together with citizens of my country to support the cause of … choosing an elected official.”

The Democrats Abroad Kenyan chapter estimates that approximately 30,000 American expatriates reside in the country.

Tom Wolf, an American researcher based in Nairobi, said most expatriates are keen to engage in the election process back home.

“They are well educated people … or they wouldn’t be allowed to stay in Kenya, they wouldn’t have jobs here,” Wolf said. “Whether they are diplomats or businesspeople, or with NGOs. So, they tend to be of higher education levels than the averages in their home countries. And we all know from studies of voting that people with higher education levels are more likely to vote.”

Lisa Maroni, a native of Detroit, said the event provided her with a special opportunity to interact with fellow citizens.

“I’m so grateful for the community in Kenya. I think it’s really special. I’ve lived in other countries and never had such an opportunity to spend time with other Americans and friends,” she said. “There are some allies from other countries here who are interested in what’s happening in the country, and I’m just very grateful to have somewhere to share that experience.”

Given that the event was organized by Democratic Party supporters, the early morning excitement began to dissipate as it became clear that their candidate, Kamala Harris, was losing to the Republican, former president Donald Trump.

Wilson, a Harris supporter, was among the disappointed people.

“I was really hopeful that we would vote the first U.S. woman and woman of color president this year,” Wilson said.

Disappointed in the results, most of the participants started leaving the event and it ended earlier than scheduled.
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In Photos: Reaction to US presidential election

Around the nation and around the globe, people responded as former U.S. President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to earn a new four-year term as the country’s leader.
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Donald Trump projected winner in US presidential race

With Donald Trump’s projected victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, VOA’s Tina Trinh explores how his past policies and current positions offer insight into the upcoming presidency. (Camera: Tina Trinh)
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Trump wins US presidential election 

Former U.S. President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to earn a new four-year term as the country’s leader. 

In a tightly contested race, Trump secured at least 277 of the 538 available electoral votes in Tuesday’s election, giving him the necessary majority to become the first U.S. leader to win non-consecutive terms since the 1890s. 

Harris, the Democratic candidate who joined the race late after President Joe Biden dropped out in July, was trying to become the first woman elected to the U.S. presidency. 

Trump claimed victory early Wednesday as he thanked his supporters at a rally in Florida. 

“This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and, frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,” Trump said. 

He pledged to “fix our borders” and “fix everything in our country.” 

Trump also said he would work to deliver a “strong, safe and prosperous America.” 

A Harris campaign official told a crowd of her supporters in Washington that she would not address the gathering overnight but would speak later Wednesday. 

In the U.S. system, where the presidential election is tallied in a series of state-by-state contests, both Harris and Trump were quickly declared winners in states where their parties enjoy clear majority support, while the nation focused on roughly seven so-called battleground states that were expected to tip the balance in the direction of the winner.  

Ultimately it was Trump’s victories in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin that gave him the advantage.   

Republican success Tuesday extended to Congress, where the party won back a majority in the Senate with at least 51 of 100 seats. Control of the House of Representatives, which is currently held by Republicans, was not yet decided early Wednesday. 

Trump served from 2017-2021 but left office after losing to Biden in an election that Trump continued to falsely assert that he won. That denial helped fuel the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters who disrupted the official tallying of the 2020 election results. 

Trump and his allies also launched numerous legal challenges after the 2020 vote, with state and federal judges eventually dismissing more than 50 lawsuits. 

Since leaving office, Trump was convicted of 34 charges linked to hush money payments he made to an adult film actress in the lead-up to the 2016 election.  Sentencing in that case is scheduled for November 26. Trump was also indicted in three other cases, including two accusing him of trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election and another alleging he took hundreds of highly secret national security documents to his Florida home.  

Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated for a new term on January 20. 

A key foreign policy focus in a new Trump administration will be relations between the United States and China, including subjects such as trade, Taiwan and China’s actions in the South China Sea. 

Trump instituted a series of tariffs against Chinese imports amid a trade war with China during his previous administration. 

Vincent Wang, dean of the college of arts and sciences at Adelphi University, told VOA Mandarin that China would be less likely to take an aggressive stance than it would have been if Harris won. 

“If Trump is elected, I think China may not dare, because he doesn’t go through drafts, he has already said harsh words. If he wakes up today, he might say he’s going to raise tariffs by 200 percent. If he wakes up tomorrow, he might want to bomb Beijing. So I think this so-called this Trump-type deterrent, on the contrary, will make them a little bit more restrained,” Wang said Tuesday. 
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World leaders congratulate Trump on election win

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — World leaders offered congratulations to Donald Trump after news media projections showed he secured a decisive victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Trump defeated his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, marking a historical political comeback for the former Republican president following four years out of office.

Early Wednesday, many world leaders took to the social media website X to congratulate Trump, whose unpredictable “America First” foreign policy approach complicated relations with many U.S. allies and foes alike during his first term in office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first U.S. allies to send a message of support, praising Trump’s “historic return,” which he said offers a “powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has called for more U.S. and Western support to fight off Russia’s invasion, spoke positively of what he said was Trump’s commitment to ‘peace through strength’ in world affairs.

“This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” said Zelenskyy.

The head of NATO — the Western military alliance that Trump has long criticized for not doing enough to take care of Europe’s defense — made similar comments in his congratulatory message for Trump.

“His leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong. I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through #NATO,” said Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General.

French President Emmanuel Macron also quickly offered congratulations, saying he is “ready to work together as we did for four years…with your conviction and mine.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government stands “shoulder to shoulder” in defense of shared values of freedom, democracy and enterprise.

“From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come,” Starmer said.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, said she “warmly congratulate[s]” Trump and praised the “true partnership” between the European Union and the United States.

During Trump’s first term, friction erupted between the EU and the U.S., partly over Trump’s imposition of tariffs on European exports.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, a conservative Trump ally, called Trump’s victory the “biggest comeback in US political history” and said it was a “much needed victory” for the world.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the U.S. election results. But on X, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev relished the apparent defeat of Harris, saying “Kamala is finished…let her keep cackling infectiously.”

Asian leaders also began sending congratulatory messages.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “Australians and Americans are great friends and true allies.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered the “heartiest congratulations” to Trump, who he called his friend.

“As you build on your successes of the previous term, I look forward to reviewing our collaboration to further strengthen” the U.S.-India relationship, Modi said.

In a statement, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed hope that the “unshakeable alliance” between Washington and Manila, “will be a force of good that will blaze a path of prosperity and amity, in the region, and in both sides of the Pacific.”
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US voters explain their choices on Election Day

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How Votes Are Counted in US Elections

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Trump campaign blocks some journalists from watch party

Washington  — At least six journalists have been denied media credentials to cover Donald Trump’s election night watch party in Florida, at least one of whom was told it was because of her coverage of the Republican presidential candidate.

VOA confirmed that the six journalists work for the media sites Axios, Politico and Puck.

In the case of Politico, three reporters and a photographer had been approved to attend the event in Florida.

On Monday, Politico Magazine reported that a White nationalist had been fired from working on the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania. The following morning, the Politico reporters and photographer found out that their credentials had been withdrawn.

Politico declined to comment to VOA.

Tara Palmeri, political correspondent at the news site Puck, was publicly denied access by Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita.

In a post on the social media platform X last Thursday, LaCivita said Palmeri was denied credentials to enter Mar-a-Largo.

Palmeri confirmed the incident in an email to VOA. She was scheduled to cover the Republican watch party as part of Amazon’s election night special hosted by Brian Williams.

On a podcast, the journalist said she would now broadcast from Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Axios reporter Sophia Cai was denied a credential not long after she reported on “anxiety” within the Trump campaign ahead of Election Day, according to media reports.

Cai referred VOA to Axios’ communications team. In a statement emailed to VOA, Axios Editor-in Chief Aja Whitaker-Moore defended Cai, calling her “an excellent reporter who has covered the 2024 presidential election with essential, clinical coverage.”

VOA contacted the Trump campaign for comment, but as of publication had not received a response.

The broadcaster CNN reported that VOA journalists were among those denied accreditation for their coverage, which a VOA spokesperson denied.

“VOA requested several credentials to cover Trump headquarters and some were granted, but not all were able to be accommodated,” a VOA spokesperson said.

Separately, Trump last week sued CBS News over an interview of Democratic rival Kamala Harris and filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against The Washington Post.

Media analysts have expressed concern that Trump will restrict press freedom in the United States if he returns to the White House. Throughout his campaign, he has called for major news networks to lose their broadcasting licenses.

Trump’s campaign and his former administration have previously revoked credentials from journalists, including CNN’s then White House correspondent Jim Acosta in 2018.
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VOA talks with US presidential 3rd party candidates

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have spent the past few months battling for the White House, and experts say that votes for third party candidates could be a deciding factor for who will become the next president of the United States.  

With the latest polls showing Harris and Trump in a dead heat in battleground states around the country, ballots cast for third-party candidates Jill Stein of the Green Party, independent Cornel West and Libertarian Chase Oliver could be enough to tip the scales.  

VOA Persian spoke with all three of them. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.  

Green Party candidate Jill Stein 

VOA: During one of his final campaign rallies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump praised you, saying he loved the Green Party and that you might be one of his favorite politicians. What do you make of this?  

Jill Stein: I make of that about as much as I make of Donald Trump’s assessment of climate change, which is that he sort of believes the opposite of reality. I am in this race to provide an alternative to the two parties that are bought and paid for, that are serving Wall Street and the war contractors and definitely not the American people. So I don’t have a lot of high regard for Donald Trump’s political strategies or his values.  

VOA: How much support do you expect to receive in battleground states like Michigan? There were some polls that suggested you have support of over 40% of the Arab American population there.  

Stein: Exactly what the numbers will turn out to be, it depends how many people are turning out to vote. It depends how strong the vote of the, not only the Muslim population, but also many African Americans and Hispanics and young people who feel like they do not have a future under Kamala Harris, and they do not have a future under Donald Trump. At this point, it’s too soon to say. We ourselves do not strictly work based on polls. We’re really in this based on principle and for the long haul. We would be delighted if we make the 5% cut in the national poll in the national results, but it’s very hard to say at this point.  

VOA: What would be your position regarding the government of Iran?  

Stein: I think we need to open the door to negotiations with Iran. Iran has elected a new president who is said to be moderate and interested in improving relations with the West, and we need to explore that. I think the most critical thing in the Middle East right now is resolving this expanding war and the intention of Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to create a wider war and drag the U.S. into it. I think that is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East right now and has the potential to grow into a conflict that’s even bigger than the Middle East. 

Independent candidate Cornel West 

VOA: How many states allowed you to have your name on the ballot and why did others not?    

Cornel West: We’ve got 16 states where we have direct ballot access. We have 24 states where we have write-in access, and that did require petitions and signatures. So that required a lot of work on behalf of magnificent volunteers. But it was very difficult. There’s been a tremendous struggle, but we come up swinging.  

VOA: How different will your policy be compared to what we hear from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump?  

West: Martin Luther King [Jr.] said, militarism, racism, poverty and materialism are the four forces that are sucking the democratic energy out of the American social experiment. I take very seriously his critique of militarism. I see that as a criticism of American foreign policies in which we are so eager to create these lethal armed forces rather than engage in wise diplomatic processes. And so there would be no genocide. I would have had an embargo on any kind of military or financial support of Israel as it was very clear that they were laying bare this kind of massive massacre on innocent people, especially innocent children and women and men.  

The same would be true in terms of being able to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Same would be true in terms of trying to be more diplomatic with China. I see Kamala Harris as a militarist, Black woman. That is to say she’s willing to not just provoke, but to push [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. And I think Putin himself is still very much a gangster and a war criminal in his own way, but he has a right — Russia has a right to security. And the same is true with China. There’s too much provocation, and I think that moves us toward World War III in the same way that Trump moves us towards Civil War II at home. And that was one reason why I wanted to provide some kind of alternative to Trump and [U.S. President Joe] Biden.

And then when Biden had his LBJ moment [referring to Biden’s poor debate performance] something that we talked about many, many months ago, we just predicted that Harris now is following through on the same militarism in Gaza. And of course, genocide, the crime of genocide, is a litmus test of morality of any nation, any country, and if you deny it, if you enable it, it’s a sign that you don’t have a moral fiber in your military policy.  

VOA: Many people in the occupied West Bank are disturbed by Tehran’s support for militants in Gaza. How do you see this considering the moral aspects of your vision, your doctrine and your policy?    

West: Malcolm X used to say, I’m for truth, no matter who’s for it, and justice, no matter who supports it. People can actually support just movements for motivations that themselves are highly suspicious. When the French supported the American revolutionaries, when Lafayette came to the United States, it was partly because the French were over against the British in Europe, they didn’t have a whole lot of solidarity with these colonists responding against the British Empire. … The Soviet Union supported the freedom struggles in Africa. It wasn’t always because they just love Africans so much. It was anti-United States. They had a Cold War going on, and their policies were strategic and tactical in that way. The same would be true for Iran vis-a-vis Palestinians.

So I think we have to be very truthful about the ways in which the motives might not always be attractive, but when you’re a people like Palestinians this moment, whose backs are against the wall, they need help from anybody, and it’s very important that people highlight their plight so that their babies are not crushed. But that doesn’t mean that those who are supporting them always have the right motives, and therefore we can still be critical of what those motives are.  

Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver 

VOA: In your platform, you mentioned that Libertarians seek the United States at peace with the world. How different will your foreign policy be?

Chase Oliver: It would be a drastic difference than what the status quo has been, certainly since I’ve been an adult. Since I’ve been an adult, let’s just call it the post-9/11 War on Terror kind of foreign policy mindset that we’ve had, which I think is rooted in ideas that are very black and white. You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.

The best way to solve a problem is through a preemptive war or through increasing our military presence in the region, to flex our muscle. And what I think that has done is actually created further instability, particularly in the Middle East, which I don’t think has been a success despite the trillions of dollars we’ve spent in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t think you can say either of those nations are particularly bastions of democracy, or that the region itself is now more stable than it was.

And so for me, I would say let’s remove our military footprint and start flexing our diplomatic muscle. Let’s start meeting with world leaders directly, one on one. Let’s start forming coalitions around peaceful ideas and free trade and voluntary exchange to tear down barriers between our nations so that we can have cultural exchanges with one another. I think these are the ideas that we really need to be pushing, and not a militarized foreign policy that’s ruined the idea that the United States must be the world’s enforcer.   

VOA: So you don’t see America as the leader of the free world with its responsibilities?    

Oliver: I absolutely see America as a leader in terms of the markets of the world, the economic engine of the world, the diplomatic arm of the world. But it doesn’t need to be coming, using the military might of the world. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We have a very powerful military that can defend ourselves, and ultimately, if there were a need and if Congress declared a war, fight a war anywhere in the world with absolute certainty that we could dominate our opponent. But you don’t flex your muscle like that around the world. That’s not a position of strength. When you use that military might to push your agenda, that’s actually a position of weakness, because good ideas should not require force, and you should be able to diplomatically work throughout the world.

And I recognize the world is not perfect. The world does not lack violence. The world is not lacking for bad people, particularly governments around the world who represent good people. And Iran is no different. The government of Iran is abhorrent. They’re abusive to their people. They curtail their rights. But the people of Iran are good, innocent people who don’t deserve to have things like airstrikes and missiles raining down upon them because of the evils of their government. And I hope that ultimately, we can liberalize the world more towards more liberalized things like free speech, freedom of movement and freedom of religion. But that’s not going to come just from us beating people down. 

VOA: How difficult is it to run as a third-party candidate?    

Oliver: Running as an alternative party candidate has a lot of challenges because the two mainstream parties have a lot of built-in incumbency power, both in the number of elected officials they have as well as things like taxpayer-funded primaries. So they basically take taxes out of my wallet to fund primaries that help promote the candidates that are Republicans and Democrats.

And as a Libertarian, we’re kind of left in the lurch there. So there’s a lot of challenges, especially around things like ballot access. There’s a lot of solutions. And actually a big part of my platform is a thing called the voter bill of rights that will open up this process, not just for Libertarians like myself, but all sorts of other alternative parties that really need to have their voices heard. 
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FBI: Bomb threats against US voting locations appear to be coming from Russia

WASHINGTON — A series of bomb threats sent to polling locations across the United States appears to be coming from Russia, according to new assessments from both federal and state officials.

The initial bomb threats early Tuesday put a temporary stop to voting at a number of locations in parts of the Southeastern state of Georgia. But state officials quickly determined the threats were not credible.

“We identified the source, and it was from Russia,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters.

“They’re up to mischief and it seems they don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election,” Raffensperger added. “They think if they can get us to fight amongst ourselves, they can count that as a victory.”

Only the effort to disrupt the U.S. election appears to be much broader.

The FBI Tuesday said it is “aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states.” 

It further said many of the threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”

“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the bureau said. “We will continue to work closely with our state and local law enforcement partners to respond to any threats to our elections and to protect our communities as Americans exercise their right to vote.”

The suspected Russian ploy builds on other last-minute attempts to disrupt the U.S. election.  

Earlier Tuesday, as many U.S. voters prepared to cast their ballots, the FBI warned voters of at least two efforts to use the bureau’s name and likeness to promote false narratives.

In one case, FBI officials pointed to faked news clips urging Americans to “vote remotely” because of the increased threats of a terror attack. In the other, the FBI cautioned that social media accounts were spreading video of a fabricated news release about five prisons across the country involved in a vote-rigging scheme.

The bureau said both videos are “not authentic” and do not represent the current threat posture.  

The FBI did not say who was responsible for creating the videos, which began to circulate just three days after two other fraudulent videos purporting to be from the FBI began circulating on social media.

The earlier videos falsely stated the bureau had apprehended three-linked groups for ballot fraud and made false claims about the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. 

In recent days, U.S. intelligence officials have assigned responsibility for other videos, not referencing the FBI but claiming to show voting irregularities to Russian influence actors.  

Russia has denied any involvement.

The latest incidents are part of what some U.S. officials have described as a “firehose of disinformation” and follow a warning from U.S. intelligence agencies late Monday that Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, were likely to intensify their influence operations on Election Day and in the days and weeks that follow.

“Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences,” according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close,” the statement added. “These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials.”  

But CISA, which helps oversee the security of U.S. election infrastructure, said Tuesday the election was running as smoothly as could be expected.

“At this point, we are not currently tracking any national level significant incidents impacting security of our election infrastructure,” CISA Senior Adviser Cait Conley said during a briefing with reporters.

Conley said earlier that CISA has been tracking some disruptions related to weather and other issues like equipment failures, describing them as “really routine and honestly, expected types of disruptions.”

CISA officials have warned that informational websites and infrastructure related to the election could be targeted by ransomware or distributed denial of service attacks. But they have emphasized that while inconvenient, such attacks would have little impact on the ability of Americans to cast ballots, since none of the country’s election systems are connected to the internet and because 97% of voting precincts have paper backups.

Still, there are concerns U.S. adversaries may try to seize upon any disruptions to incite panic and even violence.

“We know our foreign adversaries see this window of time, both Election Day and the days immediately following, as an opportunity to stoke further division and undermine American confidence in our democratic institutions,” Conley said. “And that is regardless of who wins.”  

Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog and advocacy organization that has election observers stationed across the country, said Monday there has been tension at some polling places.  

“We’re seeing instances of folks being yelled out at the polls,” Suzanne Almeida, the group’s director of state operations, said during a call with reporters. 
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Time for action, not words: Americans vote on Election Day

It’s Election Day in America, and voters are making their choice for president, and in down-ballot races that will determine control of Congress. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Wisconsin.
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In photos: America votes in 2024 presidential election

Millions of U.S. voters are set to cast their ballots Tuesday as they decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will be the country’s next leader.
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Key county in swing state of Georgia counting ballots ahead of Election Day

Lawrenceville, Georgia — One of the most ethnically diverse counties in the Southeastern United States will be among those issuing early voting results Tuesday night, a reveal that could indicate which of the presidential candidates is in the lead in the crucial count of 538 electoral votes.

The victor must receive at least 270 of those electoral votes, and Georgia, seen as one of the seven states where the outcome is uncertain, has 16 of those precious votes. Only Pennsylvania has more — 19 — among the battleground states. North Carolina also has 16.

The other wild cards are Arizona (11), Michigan (15), Nevada (6) and Wisconsin (10).

It is possible for the declared victor in the electoral count to lose the national popular vote total. That last happened in 2016, when Republican Donald Trump won 304 electoral votes but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 2%.

It could be days before the United States knows who its next president will be, but at the Gwinnett County Voter Registration and Elections headquarters in the swing state of Georgia, workers are already scanning several hundred thousand ballots submitted in advance by mail-in and early voters. The tabulations of those ballots will be released the moment the polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Up to 70% of the vote total from those already-processed ballots will be known within that first hour, said Zach Manifold, the county’s elections supervisor.

“And then, kind of a long night begins,” Manifold told VOA on Monday. “Our first precinct usually arrives maybe about 8:30, just depending on how much line there is at seven o’clock. But 8:30 is the first precinct. We have 156 precincts that all have to come back. I don’t know why, but it always seems like that last one comes in sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

“After you get past midnight, you’ll probably have just about all the precincts in and have a pretty good feel for the final — at least the unofficial results — for Gwinnett,” Manifold said.

To demonstrate transparency, the media, which is expected to include dozens of TV news crews and other journalists from around the world, will be allowed in the large room where the ballots are opened. The reporters will be kept behind a cordon but not prevented from observing the entire process. Activities in the tabulation room, in another part of the same building, will be livestreamed online.

Gwinnett County, with a population of about 1 million, is the second-largest county in Georgia. It is remarkable for its exceptional diversity, with no single ethnic group making up more than about one-third of its residents. In 2023, non-Hispanic whites made up about one-third of the country’s population, as did African Americans, according to census data.

“We have a very large Hispanic population, Asian population, Black population,” said Manifold. “It is a very much a mixture of what is America. And, so, I think a lot of the reason that people are wanting to see what Gwinnett’s like [on election night] is, I think, Gwinnett is a lot like modern America.”

Democrat Joe Biden’s strong margin in this suburban county four years ago helped him narrowly win Georgia and thus the presidency, unseating Trump.

Gwinnett County voted Republican every year between 1980 and 2012, but in line with a trend of suburban political realignment, went narrowly for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump, a political novice that year, won Georgia overall in 2016, which was key to his unexpected presidential victory.

Regardless of the outcome this week, Manifold knows he will be drinking a lot of coffee from Tuesday morning to stay alert.

“It’s about a 24-hour day a lot of the time in these presidential elections,” he said. “I’ll start at our warehouse at 4 a.m., and we’ll see what time we get out of here at the main office.”
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US presidential election in the hands of voters as Harris, Trump battle for White House

Millions of U.S. voters are set to cast their ballots Tuesday as they decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will be the country’s next leader.

Polls heading into Election Day indicated a tight race, particularly in a group of battleground states that will be key to deciding the winner.

Both candidates made stops Monday in Pennsylvania, one of those closely watched states, holding a series of rallies including nearby each another in the Pittsburgh area as they projected confidence in their own campaigns.

“Tomorrow is Election Day, and the momentum is on our side,” Harris told her supporters gathered at a historic steel facility that nodded to Pittsburgh’s history as the heart of the country’s steel industry. “Our campaign has tapped into the ambitions, the aspirations and the dreams of the American people. And we know it is time for a new generation of leadership in America.”

“We must finish strong,” Harris added. “Make no mistake, we will win.”

Trump, addressing his supporters at a sports arena, said another Trump administration would “launch the most extraordinary economic boom the world has ever seen.”

“If you vote for Kamala, you will have four more years of misery, failure and disaster,” Trump said. “Our country may never recover. Vote for me and I will deliver rising wages, soaring income, and a colossal surge of jobs, wealth and opportunity for America of every race, religion, color and creed. Every one of them.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s Election Day, more than 81 million Americans cast early votes, either in person at polling stations or by mail.

The total is more than half the 158 million who voted in the 2020 election, when President Joe Biden defeated Trump. It was a Democratic victory that to this day Trump says he was cheated out of by fraudulent voting rules and vote counts.  

Dozens of court decisions, often rendered by Trump-appointed judges, went against him as he attempted to challenge the 2020 results. But Sunday, he told a Pennsylvania rally he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 when Biden assumed office.   

Trump has said he will only accept Tuesday’s outcome if he concludes that the election is conducted fairly, which Democratic critics have said they assume means only if he wins. Both Trump and Harris have assembled vast teams of lawyers to contest voting and vote-counting issues as they materialize Tuesday during the day, into the evening and the following days, until a clear winner emerges.  

A Trump victory would make him only the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms, after Grover Cleveland in the 1880s. He would also be the first felon to serve as president as he awaits sentencing later in November after being convicted of 34 charges linked to his hush money payment to a porn film star ahead of his successful 2016 run for the presidency.   

Trump has often punctuated his campaign with angry broadsides at his Democratic opponents, calling them the “enemy within” the country and a threat to the country’s future. He has belittled Harris as a person of limited intellect and said she would be the pawn of other world leaders in dealing with international relationships.   

Harris for weeks has claimed she is the underdog in the campaign but lately expressed more optimism and now says she expects to become the country’s 47th president. If elected, she would be the first woman to be the American leader, its first of South Asian descent and its second Black president after Barack Obama.  

She has described Trump as an “unserious man,” saying he would be a threat to American democracy and unhinged by any normal presidential constraints after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that presidents cannot be prosecuted for any wrongdoing linked to their official actions.   

Pollsters say the country’s voters are deeply divided between the two candidates. It is an assessment reflected in how major media outlets look at the possible outcome just ahead of the official Election Day.  

Last-minute polling shows the Harris-Trump race all but tied in the battleground states, within the margin of statistical error.  

ABC News polling shows Trump winning five of the seven battleground states, but The Washington Post says its aggregation of polls has Harris ahead in four. The New York Times says Trump is ahead in four, Harris two, and the race tied in Pennsylvania.   

The importance of battleground states cannot be overstated.  

U.S. presidential elections are not decided by the national popular vote but through the Electoral College, which turns the election into 50 state-by-state contests, with 48 of the states awarding all their electoral votes to the winner in those states. Nebraska and Maine allocate theirs by both statewide and congressional district vote counts.  

The number of electoral votes in each state is based on population, so the biggest states hold the most sway in determining the overall national outcome, with the winner needing 270 of the 538 electoral votes to claim the presidency. Pennsylvania alone has 19 electoral votes.  

Polls show either Harris or Trump with substantial or comfortable leads in 43 of the states, enough for each to get to 200 electoral votes or more. Barring an upset in one of those states, the winner will be decided in the seven remaining battleground states, where both Harris and Trump have staged frequent rallies, all but ignoring the rest of the country for campaign stops.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters
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Key county in swing state of Georgia starts counting ballots ahead of Election Day

One of the most ethnically diverse counties in the Southeastern U.S. will be among those to issue early results in the national election Tuesday. From Lawrenceville, Georgia, VOA Chief National Correspondent Steve Herman looks at how votes are being processed in Gwinnett County, outside Atlanta.
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US aiming for hack-proof election

Washington — Countries aiming to undermine Tuesday’s U.S. elections are being forced to rely on faked videos and other disinformation because they are unable to penetrate systems that could alter the actual tally of the vote, according to the latest assessment by the U.S. agency responsible for election security.

Officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, said late Monday that with less than 24 hours before polls open on Election Day, there is no evidence to suggest foreign adversaries like Russia, Iran and China have the wherewithal to infiltrate and manipulate the country’s election infrastructure.

“I can say with great confidence that I do not believe that a technical hack of our elections in the way that it would materially impact the presidential election is possible,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly.

“Given the multiple layers of safeguards, the cybersecurity protections, the physical access controls, the pre-election testing of equipment for accuracy, the postelection audits, it would not be possible for a bad actor to tamper with or manipulate our voting systems in such a way that it would have a material impact on the outcome of the presidential election, certainly not without being detected,” Easterly told reporters.

Some of the confidence stems from the decentralized way U.S. elections are run — with each state using its own, individual system to record and tally ballots. But it also follows years of preparation by CISA, working with state and local election officials across the United States. 

Those efforts have included more than 700 cybersecurity assessments, and hundreds of election exercises and training sessions since the start of 2023.

Additionally, none of the state voting systems are connected to the internet, and an estimated 97% of U.S. voters will be casting ballots in jurisdictions that produce paper records as a backup. 

“Our election infrastructure has never been more secure,” Easterly said. “The election community has never been better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free and fair elections.”

As of late Monday, CISA estimated that more than 77 million Americans had already cast ballots during the early voting period, with tens of millions more expected to vote in person on Election Day.

Yet while most votes have been cast without issue, organizations representing state election officials cautioned there are likely to be some disruptions.

“As with any Election Day, it is important to note operational issues may arise,” according to the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State.

“Voting locations could open late, there could be lines during busy periods, or an area could lose power,” they said in a statement. “These are inevitable challenges that will arise on Election Day.”

There have also been other efforts to try to derail the election.

CISA said it has observed “small scale incidents,” including efforts to take down official election websites with distributed denial of service attacks, as well as several attempts to blow up or set fire to ballot drop boxes. 

“We expect that these types of incidents and other forms of disruptions will continue on Election Day [and] in the days that follow,” Easterly told reporters.

But she added that despite those disruptions, there has been “no significant impacts to election infrastructure.”

Instead, the bigger concern is what U.S. officials have described as “a firehose of disinformation,” much of it blamed on Russia, Iran and China.

A declassified U.S. assessment issued just two weeks before the election warned those three countries “remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests.”

 Russia, Iran and China have repeatedly rejected the allegations. But U.S. officials and cybersecurity analysts argue there is ample proof.

U.S. intelligence agencies have already attributed responsibility for some social media videos to Russian influence actors — including one claiming to show Haitian immigrants voting multiple times, and another purporting to show ballots in Pennsylvania being ripped up.  

And the FBI has likewise denounced additional videos pretending to be from the bureau as fakes. 

Separately, tech giant Microsoft last week identified a Chinese cyber campaign targeting Republican lawmakers and candidates seen as critical to Beijing. 

And U.S. intelligence has previously pointed to Iranian efforts to hack the campaign of former President Donald Trump. 

Gauging the effectiveness of these efforts, especially the recent videos attributed to Russia, is difficult to determine.

“The successfulness, I would say, is quite small,” said Brian Liston, a senior threat intelligence analyst with Recorded Future’s Insikt Group.

“We have not really seen these videos, or this content break out beyond social media or on Telegram,” Liston told VOA.

There are concerns, however, that some of these narratives could gain traction on more mainstream social media platforms, like X and Meta.

“Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and gutted content moderation and really changed the purpose of X, we’ve seen it become just a hotbed of mis and disinformation,” said Audrey McCabe, an information accountability analyst at Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog and advocacy organization.

McCabe told reporters Monday that the changes to X have rippled across the social media space. 

“[It] has allowed other platforms to lower their standards for content moderation and what they’re doing to protect users,” she said. “And so, we’re seeing an increase of this stuff everywhere, including on Meta, and other platforms as well.”

And with voters going to the polls Tuesday, there are concerns that the threat environment could worsen.

The latest U.S. intelligence assessment, for example, warned that both Russia and Iran are likely to use their influence operations to incite violence, especially in the hours and days after the voting ends.

“They are deliberately finding narratives to try to stoke partisan discord and inflame domestic tension and pit Americans against one another, and we cannot let them succeed,” a senior CISA official said, who briefed reporters last Friday on the condition of anonymity.

“We’ve seen how these disinformation campaigns have led to very real threats of violence targeting these public servants, and that should be unacceptable,” the official added, citing repeated threats against election officials across the country.

CISA’s Easterly said Monday that state and local election officials have been in close contact with law enforcement agencies, and that precautions have been put in place.

She and other CISA officials also emphasized that so far, there have been no credible or specific threats to polling locations.

“We’ve not seen specific reporting about violence at polling places,” Easterly said in response to a question from VOA. “I certainly don’t want voters to feel at all intimidated about going to voting locations.” 
…

Harris, Trump stage rallies in Pennsylvania on last day of campaign

The tumultuous 2024 U.S. presidential campaign is in its final hours Monday, with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump traveling to key political battleground states, in a contest that polls indicate is too close to call.   

Both Harris, the Democratic candidate, and Trump, her Republican challenger, are making multiple stops in Pennsylvania, the eastern Rust Belt state that is the biggest electoral prize among the seven battleground states that are likely to determine the national outcome.   

Both candidates are staging rallies in Pittsburgh, the heart of the U.S. steel-making region. Trump is also heading to Reading, a smaller city in eastern Pennsylvania, bookended by a stop in Raleigh, the capital of the mid-Atlantic state of North Carolina, and closing out his day with an evening rally in the Republican stronghold of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the former president also concluded his 2016 and 2020 runs for the White House.  

Harris is spending the entire day in Pennsylvania, starting in Scranton, the hometown of President Joe Biden, the Democrat she replaced at the top of the party’s ticket in July when he dropped out of the contest after a poor debate performance against Trump and falling poll numbers.   

The vice president is ending the day with a major rally in Philadelphia, the country’s 6th biggest city and a major Democratic stronghold. Pop star Lady Gaga, other musical groups and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey are accompanying Harris to voice their support. 

Harris is also spending part of her day campaigning in majority-Latino Allentown, then, like Trump, also stopping in 95,000-resident Reading, where 70% of the residents are Latino, most of them Puerto Rican.  

Trump will come face to face in Reading with anger over a joke comic Tony Hinchcliffe told at a New York rally of his last week that characterized the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” In response, Trump said a day later he did not hear the joke but made no attempt to disown it, although his campaign said it was not reflective of his views. 

Harris, meanwhile, produced a blueprint to upgrade the island’s hurricane-damaged electrical grid and her campaign says that late-deciding Hispanic voters are casting ballots for her partly because of their resentment over the Puerto Rico putdown.  

In her first stop of the day in Scranton, Harris buoyed campaign workers heading out to knock on doors to identify people likely to vote for her and persuade the undecided. 

“Let’s get to work,” she said. “Twenty-four hours to go.” 

In Raleigh, Trump renewed his attacks on migrants crossing the Mexican border into the United States, threatening Mexico with a hefty tariff on all imports as a strategy to curb illegal immigration. 

“If they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send into the United States of America,” he said.  

As the 2024 campaign for a new four-year term in the White House starting in January heads to Tuesday’s official Election Day, more than 80 million Americans have already voted, either in person at polling stations or by mail.   

The total, as early voting ends Monday in some states and has already ended in other places, is more than half the 158 million who voted in the 2020 election, when Biden defeated Trump. It was a Democratic victory that to this day Trump says he was cheated out of by fraudulent voting rules and vote counts.  

Dozens of court decisions, often rendered by Trump-appointed judges, went against him. But Sunday, he told a Pennsylvania rally he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 when Biden assumed office.   

And, as he reflected on enhanced security necessitated at his rally sites by two assassination attempts on him during the campaign this year, he suggested that he would not mind whether reporters — purveyors of “fake news,” in his view — were shot at.  

Trump has said he will only accept Tuesday’s outcome if he concludes that the election is conducted fairly, which Democratic critics have said they assume means only if he wins. Both Trump and Harris have assembled vast teams of lawyers to contest voting and vote-counting issues as they materialize Tuesday during the day, into the evening and the following days, until a clear winner emerges.

Both candidates are expressing optimism about the outcome.  

Trump says he will win in a landslide, an outcome that would make him only the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms, after Grover Cleveland in the 1880s. He would also be the first felon to serve as president as he awaits sentencing later in November after being convicted of 34 charges linked to his hush money payment to a porn film star ahead of his successful 2016 run for the presidency.   

Trump has often punctuated his campaign with angry broadsides at his Democratic opponents, calling them the “enemy within” the country and a threat to the country’s future. He has belittled Harris as a person of limited intellect and said she would be the pawn of other world leaders in dealing with international relationships.   

Harris for weeks has claimed she is the underdog in the campaign but lately expressed more optimism and now says she expects to become the country’s 47th president. If elected, she would be the first woman to be the American leader, its first of South Asian descent and its second Black president after Barack Obama.  

She has described Trump as an “unserious man,” saying he would be a threat to American democracy and unhinged by any normal presidential constraints after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that presidents cannot be prosecuted for any wrongdoing linked to their official actions.   

Pollsters say the country’s voters are deeply divided between the two candidates. It is an assessment reflected in how major media outlets look at the possible outcome just ahead of the official Election Day.  

Last-minute polling shows the Harris-Trump race all but tied in the battleground states, within the margin of statistical error.  

ABC News polling shows Trump winning five of the seven battleground states, but The Washington Post says its aggregation of polls has Harris ahead in four. The New York Times says Trump is ahead in four, Harris two, and the race tied in Pennsylvania.   

The importance of battleground states cannot be overstated.  

U.S. presidential elections are not decided by the national popular vote but through the Electoral College, which turns the election into 50 state-by-state contests, with 48 of the states awarding all their electoral votes to the winner in those states. Nebraska and Maine allocate theirs by both statewide and congressional district vote counts.  

The number of electoral votes in each state is based on population, so the biggest states hold the most sway in determining the overall national outcome, with the winner needing 270 of the 538 electoral votes to claim the presidency. Pennsylvania alone has 19 electoral votes.  

Polls show either Harris or Trump with substantial or comfortable leads in 43 of the states, enough for each to get to 200 electoral votes or more. Barring an upset in one of those states, the winner will be decided in the seven remaining battleground states, where both Harris and Trump have staged frequent rallies, all but ignoring the rest of the country for campaign stops.
…

What does Harris mean by an opportunity economy?

As U.S. voters remain largely dissatisfied with the economy under President Joe Biden, Kamala Harris has sought to define her own economic policy under the label of an opportunity economy. But what does that term mean, and how different is it than what Biden has offered?

Among many contentious topics influencing the 2024 election, the economy remains the number one issue for a majority of voters. With Americans reporting feeling worse off financially despite positive economic trends, Vice President Harris has sought to distinguish her own economic platform from that of the administration in which she currently serves.

President Biden’s economic platform has been characterized by support for unions and American industries, efforts to cancel student debt and attempts to pass major disaster recovery and infrastructure packages. Harris has aimed to build on these policies while doing more to address concerns over rising prices due to inflation, and her economic program has focused largely on ways to lower costs for Americans.

These proposals include a ban on price-gouging, a price cap on prescription drugs and subsidizing the construction of new homes in hopes that increasing supply will help stem rising housing costs.

Harris has also sought to make the case to voters that tariffs proposed by her rival, former President Donald Trump, will exacerbate price increases as companies pass higher import costs on to consumers. However, the vice president has also proposed tariffs in strategic industries such as energy and is likely to retain tariffs on Chinese goods maintained under the Biden administration.

The Harris campaign’s frequent references to an “opportunity economy” combine the Democratic Party’s traditional support for social safety nets and consumer protection regulations with an entrepreneurial message usually associated with Republicans. Besides expanding the child tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, the vice president has echoed Trump’s proposal for eliminating taxes on tips earned by service workers.

Harris has also announced plans to provide more loans for new small businesses and to ensure that historically disadvantaged groups can benefit economically from the growing legal cannabis industry.

Harris’ California background and connections to Silicon Valley also suggest that she may be more friendly to the tech industry and the emerging cryptocurrency market. It remains to be seen whether a Harris administration would replace Lina Khan of the Federal Trade Commission and Gary Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission – two Biden appointees known for their tough regulatory approach.

The vice president’s economic plan has received a mixed reception. Many economists believe Trump’s proposed tax cuts and deregulation may help spur economic growth, but a majority polled by The Wall Street Journal have predicted that Harris’ less aggressive trade policy will be better for curbing inflation and the deficit.

When it comes to the general public, however, Harris is still perceived as less capable of handling the economy than Trump, although the margin of Trump’s advantage has shrunk as the election draws near.
…

Trump and Harris make final push before Election Day

Voters in the United States cast ballots Tuesday to choose their next president. Political polls show candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a close race. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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Puerto Rico prepares for Election Day as a third-party candidate makes history

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The two parties that have dominated Puerto Rican politics for decades are losing their grip as they face the stiffest competition yet from a younger generation fed up with the island’s corruption, chronic power outages and mismanagement of public funds.

For the first time in the island’s governor’s race, a third-party candidate has a powerful second lead in the polls ahead of the U.S. territory’s election Tuesday — and some experts say there’s a possibility he could win.

“This election is already historic,” said political analyst and university professor Jorge Schmidt Nieto. “It already marks a before and an after.”

Juan Dalmau is running for Puerto Rico’s Independence Party and the Citizen Victory Movement, established in 2019. A Gaither international poll this month shows Dalmau closing in on Jenniffer González, a member of the New Progressive Party and Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress. She beat Gov. Pedro Pierluisi in their party’s primary in June.

Gaither’s poll shows Dalmau with 29% of support versus González’s 31% as he nearly caught up with her since a different poll in July showed him with only 24% compared with González’s 43%. Coming in third was Jesús Manuel Ortiz, of the Popular Democratic Party, followed by Javier Jiménez of Project Dignity, a conservative party created in 2019.

Under pressure

Puerto Rican politics revolve around the island’s status, and up until 2016, the New Progressive Party, which supports statehood, and the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the status quo, would split at least 90% of all votes during general elections, Schmidt said.

But that year, U.S. Congress created a federal control board to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances after the government announced it was unable to pay a more than $70 billion public debt load. In 2017, Puerto Rico filed for the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy in history.

The debt was accrued through decades of corruption, mismanagement and excessive borrowing, with Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority still struggling to restructure its more than $9 billion debt, the largest of any government agency.

Puerto Ricans have largely rejected and resented the board, created a year before Hurricane Maria slammed into the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing the electrical grid.

In 2020, Pierluisi won but received only 33% of votes. His opponent from the Popular Democratic Party received 32%. It marked the first time either party failed to reach 40% of votes.

The power outages that have persisted since the elections, coupled with the slow pace of hurricane reconstruction, have frustrated and angered voters.

Under Pierluisi, the government signed contracts with two companies, Luma Energy and Genera PR, which together oversee the generation, transmission and distribution of power. Outages have persisted, with the companies blaming a grid that was already crumbling before the hurricane hit due to a lack of maintenance and investment.

“Disastrous things have occurred during this four-year term, especially with the electric energy,” Schmidt said. “It has affected everyone, regardless of social class.”

Voters, he said, are viewing Tuesday’s elections “as a moment of revenge.”

Dalmau said he would oust both companies in an “organized fashion” within six months if he becomes governor. Ortiz said he would cancel Luma’s contract, while González has called for the creation of an “energy czar” that would review potential Luma contractual breaches while another operator is found.

However, no contract can be canceled without prior approval of the federal control board and Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau.

The candidates also are under pressure to create affordable housing, lower power bills and the general cost of living, reduce violent crimes, boost Puerto Rico’s economy, with the island locked out of capital markets since 2015, and improve a crumbling health care system as thousands of doctors flock to the U.S. mainland.

Dalmau, who suspended his campaign for two weeks in mid-October after his wife had emergency brain surgery, also has said he would eliminate tax breaks for wealthy U.S. citizens from the mainland.

Apathy dominates

Despite their promises to turn Puerto Rico around, candidates face persistent voter apathy.

In 2008, 1.9 million out of 2.5 million registered voters participated in that year’s election, compared with 1.3 million out of 2.3 million in 2020.

This year, nearly 99,000 new voters registered and more than 87,000 reactivated their status, according to Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission.

“A much higher number was expected,” Schmidt said.

He noted that those middle age and older favor González and her pro-statehood party, while those younger than 45 “overwhelmingly” favor Dalmau, which means that if a majority of young voters participate on Tuesday and fewer older ones do so, he might have a chance of winning.

The Bad Bunny factor

The months leading up to the Nov. 5 elections have been contentious.

Reggaetón superstar Bad Bunny paid for dozens of billboard ads criticizing Puerto Rico’s two main parties. In response, the governor’s New Progressive Party financed a billboard ad suggesting an obscenity in reference to Bad Bunny.

On Friday, the singer published a page-long letter in a local newspaper deriding González’s pro-statehood party.

While the artist has not endorsed any local officials, the sole person he recently began following on Instagram was Dalmau.

On Sunday, he briefly appeared at Dalmau’s closing campaign. A hush fell over a crowd of tens of thousands of people as Bad Bunny spoke before singing, saying he doesn’t endorse a specific candidate or party.

“My party is the people. … My party is Puerto Rico,” he said as he later praised the alliance between Puerto Rico’s Independence Party and the Citizen Victory Movement.

Meanwhile, a so-called “cemetery of corruption” was set up Thursday in the capital, San Juan, featuring large black-and-white pictures of nearly a dozen politicians from the island’s two main parties who have been charged or sentenced by federal authorities in recent years. It was created by Eva Prados with the Citizen Victory Movement, who is running for Puerto Rico’s House. By Friday, police reported that the pictures were destroyed or stolen.

As the race heats up, the number of formal complaints about alleged electoral crimes also has increased. These include people who say they received confirmations for early voting when they made no such request.

A persistent question

Voters on Tuesday also will be asked for a seventh time what Puerto Rico’s political status should be.

The nonbinding referendum will feature three choices: statehood, independence and independence with free association, under which issues like foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship and use of the U.S. dollar would be negotiated.

Regardless of the outcome, a change in status requires approval from the U.S. Congress.

The push for a change in status doesn’t depend on whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump win in the U.S. mainland.
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