ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Another Democratic lawmaker questions Biden’s ability to mount successful campaign

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NATO alliance meets under cloud over President Biden’s future

President Joe Biden welcomes members of the newly enlarged NATO alliance this week for a summit aimed at planning for Ukraine’s future defense — and, some observers say, “Trump-proofing” it if Biden loses the November poll amid growing doubts over his future. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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US voters mixed on Biden staying in race 

U.S. President Joe Biden says he is staying in the race for reelection against former President Donald Trump after Biden struggled in their first debate. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns looks at what U.S. voters think about the president’s continuing candidacy.
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Biden tells Democratic lawmakers to ‘end’ debate over his reelection campaign

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Biden’s reelection bid faces consequential week

This coming week could be consequential for U.S. President Joe Biden’s reelection bid as voices continue to grow for him to leave the race amid concern over his age and capacity to lead. So far however, he still has the support of many of his peers, even as they acknowledge Democratic voters’ worries. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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Biden hits campaign trail as Democrats fret about his candidacy

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Which states could have abortion on the ballot in 2024?

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Biden rejects independent evaluation, says ‘I have a cognitive test every single day’

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Republicans focus on Harris as talk of replacing Biden intensifies

NEW YORK — For years it’s been a Republican scare tactic.

A vote to reelect President Joe Biden, the GOP often charges, is really a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s an attack line sometimes tinged with racist and misogynist undertones and often macabre imagery.

But after Biden’s dismal performance at last week’s presidential debate, which has sparked Democratic calls for him to step aside, what was once dismissed as a far-right conspiracy — Harris replacing Biden — could now have a chance of coming to pass. And Republicans, including Donald Trump, are ramping up their attacks.

Trump and his allies have been rolling out new attack lines against Harris, insulting her abilities, painting her as Biden’s chief enabler and accusing her of being part of a coverup of his health. It’s an effort, campaign officials insist, is not a reflection of their concerns about a potential change at the top of the ticket, given Biden’s insistence he is not leaving the race.

But in a post marking Independence Day on his Truth Social site Thursday, Trump singled out Harris, calling her his “potentially new Democrat Challenger” and giving her a new derisive nickname: “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.”

“She did poorly in the Democrat Nominating process, starting out at Number Two, and ending up defeated and dropping out, even before getting to Iowa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a “highly talented” politician! Just ask her Mentor, the Great Willie Brown of San Francisco,” he wrote. (Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s.)

The post came after Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles released a statement earlier this week that offered a different, but similar, moniker, calling her Biden’s “Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris.”

Trump also posted an expletive-laced video, which was first been reported by The Daily Beast, in which he was captured on the golf course calling Biden an “old broken-down pile of crap” and declaring that he’d driven the president from the race. (Trump, in interviews, has repeatedly said he did not expect Biden to be pushed aside.)

“He’s quitting the race,” Trump said. “And that means we have Kamala. I think she’s going to be better. She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic,” he said.

Allies have also joined the attacks, painting Harris as a chief defender of Biden’s faculties and accusing her of lying to the American public.

Biden, the White House and his campaign insist he has no plans to drop out of the race. He told reporters Friday he was “completely ruling that out.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against the tenor of attacks against Harris, particularly Trump’s decision to invoke a decades-old relationship.

“I think it’s gross, I think it’s disturbing,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One. “She should be respected in the role that she has as vice president. She should be respected like any other vice president before her who was in that room. It is appalling that, I’m going to be careful here, that a former president is saying that about a current vice president. And we should call that out — it is not OK.”

It remains unclear how Harris would fare against Trump, compared to Biden. Replacing a candidate this late in a presidential cycle — much less an incumbent president who has already sailed through the Democratic Party’s primaries — would be unprecedented in modern history, and the mechanics are complicated and potentially messy.

Polling shows that Harris’ favorability ratings are similar to Biden’s and Trump’s. A June AP-NORC poll found about 4 in 10 Americans have a favorable opinion of her. But the share of those who have an unfavorable opinion is slightly lower than for Trump and Biden, and about 1 in 10 have no opinion of her yet.

Harris, at 59, would be a marked generational contrast to Trump, who is 78 and has also shown signs of aging. As the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president, she would also chart a potentially barrier-breaking candidacy that could draw the support of women, minority voters and younger people — groups with whom Trump has been working to make significant inroads.

Harris has also been the Biden administration’s leading voice on abortion rights, an animating issue for Democrats since the overturning of Roe v. Wade that could again motivate turnout this fall.

Trump’s campaign, however, said it was confident in Trump’s chances regardless of his opponent and dismissed the idea that Harris might pose a greater challenge to Trump, seeing her as a more polarizing figure than the president.
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Some voters blame media for US polarization as election nears

With four months remaining until the U.S. presidential election, political divisions among the electorate are stark. Some voters blame the media for deepening the sense of separation. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has more.
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‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Biden tells July 4 crowd

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Biden says he ‘screwed up’ in presidential debate  

U.S. President Joe Biden says he “screwed up” in last week’s debate with Donald Trump but is staying in the race for reelection. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns looks at the presidential campaign as Americans celebrate Independence Day. Contributor: Evgeny Maslov. Camera: Vladimir Badikov.
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