Trump accuses Britain’s ruling Labour Party of election interference
Trump voters in Arizona say they think he will concede if he loses
NBC News asked five Trump supporters if they think the former president will concede the 2024 election if he loses. They expressed confidence that Trump would do so, although a couple of them also said they don’t believe there’s any way Harris can win legitimately.
“He’s going to walk away, he’s going to accept, just like he did four years ago,” said John Crann, 66, of Peoria. Crann, a two-time Trump voter, described the former president’s exit in 2020 as graceful.
“He walked out of the office with class, even though January 6th happened, he still exited the office,” he said.
“And to me, that was a sign of a person doing the right thing,” added Michael Chevalier, 61, of Scottsdale, who also expressed confidence Trump will concede if he loses this time around.
“I think he’s an honest guy, and I think that he’ll realize that it’s not a good thing to divide the country and not concede, so I don’t think there’ll be a repeat of anything that happened last time,” said Janell Rubin, 60, also of Peoria, acknowledging that in 2020 Trump begrudgingly left office.
Harris says Trump is ‘increasingly unhinged’ and blasts his reported praise of Hitler as ‘troubling’ and ‘dangerous’
Harris delivered brief remarks today in response to former Trump chief of staff John Kelly’s interview with The New York Times in which he confirmed reports that his former boss had made admiring statements about Adolf Hitler and said he meets the definition of a fascist.
“It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Harris said. “All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”
Harris said Kelly’s comments furthered her belief that Trump is “unstable” and unfit for office, adding that he has now surrounded himself with people who would allow him to operate with “unchecked power.”
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guard rails against his propensities and his actions,” Harris said. “So, the bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants, he wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?”
Why Democratic megadonors poured millions into blue New York and California
The nation’s largest network of left-leaning megadonors poured millions of dollars into California and New York House races this year to build a get-out-the-vote operation in states so blue that Democrats have not bothered to build much political infrastructure, revealing previously unknown details about the effort to NBC News.
Many Democrats credit failures in New York with costing them the House of Representatives in 2022. This year, analysts think the battle for the narrowly divided chamber could come down to New York and California, which between them have at least 17 contested congressional races, including more than half of the most expensive contests in the country.
After the 2022 losses, the Democracy Alliance, which funds a vast array of left-leaning causes and advocacy groups, decided to wade deeper into electoral politics than it typically does by partnering with unions to fund massive field organizing efforts in two states that will get practically zero resources from the presidential or Senate campaigns.
“2022 was a wakeup call,” Democracy Alliance president Pamela Shifman said in an interview. “The reality is that blue states like New York and California often get overlooked by national organizations and national donors because they’re not presidential battlegrounds. But the reality is that the road the House runs right through New York and California.”
Harris campaign prepares for election security concerns
In a memo obtained by NBC News, the Harris campaign has outlined plans to address election security concerns of voters and allies.
A main takeaway from the memo, according to campaign sources, is that their approach is about preparation, building a team, early legal filings and using the legal system to bring clarity to who is an eligible voter and how the process should work across the battleground states.
“We’ve done the work, so this will be ok, and we just need to execute,” an official working on some of the plans for election security and potential litigation said.
Excerpts from the memo indicate that the campaign has plans to have observers at polling stations, hire hundreds lawyers in battleground states, and take legal action if needed.
Liz Cheney endorses Rep. Elissa Slotkin for Senate
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican, has endorsed Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin for Senate in Michigan. In a statement, Cheney said her endorsement is “not about policy differences” but rather “about doing what’s right for our country.”
“Cheney, a lifelong Republican and former Chair of the House Republican Conference, has fought back against extremist rhetoric in today’s politics, choosing to support serious and principled leaders who will put the good of the country first,” Slotkin’s team said in a news release.
This isn’t the first time Cheney has endorsed Slotkin for office over a Republican. In 2022, Cheney backed Slotkin for Congress and stumped for her in Lansing — Cheney’s first-ever cross party endorsement.
Cheney, who endorsed Harris for president along with a handful of other down-ballot Democrats this year, campaigned for the vice president on Monday in key battleground suburbs, including outside Detroit.
Harris team and some Trump allies anticipate he will declare a premature election win
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Harris, her campaign team and some of Donald Trump’s own allies say they expect the former president to quickly declare victory on election night — even if the outcome is not yet settled in key swing states.
Between the time it takes to process mail ballots and deal with provisional ballots in some battleground states, votes will not be fully tabulated on election night. Projections of who won a close presidential race might not come for days, similar to the 2020 election.
NBC News spoke to four Trump allies, all of whom speculated that the former president may be prepared to pull a repeat of 2020 and quickly declare he is the victor on election night when that is not yet certain. The sources all noted they did not have direct knowledge that this was a formal Trump campaign plan.
Others noted that this November could be different because he is surrounded by a new slate of top aides who wouldn’t push him to make such a declaration.
Seven Harris aides — and the vice president herself — said they are making preparations if Trump does indeed prematurely say he won or if he legally challenges the results if he loses.
Harris will deliver remarks at 1 p.m.
Harris is set to deliver remarks this afternoon from the vice president’s residence before hitting the campaign trail in Pennsylvania.
House Democrat says Trump campaign has ‘refused to commit to a smooth transition’
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, is sounding the alarm over former President Donald Trump’s failure to enter into key agreements with the Biden administration for the presidential transition process, warning that it could endanger the peaceful transfer of power and threaten U.S. national security.
In a letter sent today to Trump and his vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, obtained exclusively by NBC News, Raskin warned that they are “breaking the precedent set by every other presidential candidate since 2010” by not accepting resources provided by the federal government for a smooth transition.
“Your actions depart from well-established norms of the federal government and demonstrate a spectacular disregard for the successful continuation of the essential institutions of American democratic government,” Raskin wrote.
The Maryland Democrat said it appears Trump could be trying to flout fundraising reporting requirements and rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest in the incoming administration.
Walz applauds John Kelly for speaking out against Trump
After voting in Minnesota, Walz commented on The Atlantic’s reporting that Trump praised Adolf Hitler. Walz called the reporting “shaking” and applauded former Trump official John Kelly for expressing his concerns about a second Trump term.
“As John Kelly said, Donald Trump doesn’t understand the Constitution, nor does he respect the rule of law. If there was ever a red line, he has stepped across it,” Walz said. “And so I appreciate Gen. Kelly coming out at this moment, I ask the American public, go look, go see what he’s saying.”
In a number of interviews, Kelly told reporters that Trump had praised Hitler, to which Walz said, “Donald Trump made it very clear that this is election about Donald Trump taking full control of the military to use against his political enemies.”
Philly’s Black motorcycle clubs hit the streets to encourage Black men to vote
Reporting from PHILADELPHIA
For 30 years, the Rev. Alyn E. Waller has led his flock at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, the largest Black congregation in Philadelphia. But on Saturday, the good pastor led another kind of assembly: 100 Black men, mostly clad in leather, astride a pack of snarling motorcycles.
“Here we are in Philly, 100 fellas on bikes in the city and the police are helping us, not chasing us,” Waller said, a chorus of hogs, trikes and slingshots rising around him. “At the end of the day, we know that we have done some good, not just for us, but for everybody.”
Just days ahead of Pennsylvania’s voter registration deadline and weeks before Election Day, this Harley-Davidson-riding pastor and a collective of some of Philadelphia’s Black motorcycle clubs, along with two nonpartisan voter engagement groups, are encouraging men in some of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods, where voter turnout and political engagement has been low, to register and to show up at the polls.
“We’ve got Black Bikers Vote, Black Men Vote and then just people who care about democracy getting together on a beautiful day to ride bikes through some of the areas in Philadelphia that need to be reminded to exercise their franchise,” Waller said.
Georgia audit finds just 20 noncitizens among 8.2M registered voters
An audit by election officials in Georgia identified 20 noncitizens among more than 8 million registered voters, Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced today.
A spokesperson for Raffensperger’s office told NBC News that 11 of those 20 people never voted, while the other nine had voted in election cycles prior to 2016.
The audit’s findings help to back up the notion that noncitizen voting is an exceedingly rare occurrence.
Despite that, many Republicans have pushed the false notion that noncitizens are voting in widespread numbers and that Democrats have helped them enter the country to cast those ballots. Election experts have sounded the alarm that it’s one way Republicans are attempting to sow doubt about the upcoming election results.
Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said at a news conference today that the 20 individuals were found to be noncitizens based on affidavits they signed to get out of jury duty. The office then compared those records with federal citizenship and voter registration databases.
Raffensperger said he had canceled their voter registrations and has referred all 20 cases to law enforcement for further investigation and possible prosecution.
Raffensperger said that the audit also identified 156 people whose citizenship status wasn’t able to be immediately determined and that his office will continue to investigate those cases.
Walz votes in Minnesota
Walz voted this morning in St. Paul at the Ramsey Government Center, along with his wife, Gwen, and their son, Gus, who voted for the first time.
“To have my son with me, Gus, to vote for the first time, exciting, an opportunity to turn the page on the chaos of Donald Trump and a new way forward,” Walz said afterward.
Early voting began in St. Paul on Sept. 20.
Would a Trump supporter date a Democrat? Vance rally attendees confront the question
Reporting from PEORIA, Arizona
In an increasingly polarized political climate, NBC News asked several Trump supporters here whether they’d ever consider dating a Democrat.
The informal survey found that two Trump supporters said they would not date a Democrat, while three said they’d be open to it.
John Crann, 66, who is currently single and mourning the passing of his fiance, said he couldn’t date a Democrat because they are “the people who want to use abortion as a form of birth control.”
But Sally Foree, 66, told NBC News she could date a Democrat “as long as they’re a good person.”
Michael Chevalier, 61, shared a similar sentiment. “If a Democrat would align, could align with my values, and even if they didn’t, I’m still in love with that person versus their values,” he said.
In Gen Z early voting push, DNC targets 30 college campuses in battleground states
The Democratic National Committee launched a six-figure ad blitz today, targeting young voters on more than two dozen college campuses across battleground states and key battleground districts, according to a memo shared first with NBC News.
Their message to Gen Z: Vote early.
The campaign, featuring ads on buses, bus shelters, billboards and posters that read “Freedom is on the ballot,” is expected to reach 30 college campuses across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as Florida, Iowa, New York and Ohio. The call to action on the signs will direct Gen Zers to IWillVote.com, a website with information on how to vote early.
“The one thing I tell young people all the time is, ‘You are the largest voting demographic in the country — so imagine the world that you want and go vote for it,’” said Jaime Harrison, chair of the DNC.
This latest push is in direct response to a growing concern that Gen Z may not vote early at the same rate as other generations. In 2022, where early voting is less common in midterms compared to presidential elections, just 1 in 3 Gen Zers voted early compared to about half of those over the age of 50, according to Gallup. Amid record turnout of early voting this month in states like Georgia, Democrats are hoping to seize on that kind of momentum to push young people to head to cast their ballots early.
“We’ve seen young people make the difference in these campaigns,” said Harrison. “You have the power. You have the vote. You just have to use it.”
Multiple Arizona Trump supporters agree Democrats are the ‘enemy from within’
Reporting from PEORIA, Arizona
Following Trump’s recent comments calling Democrats the “enemy from within,” NBC News spoke with Trump supporters here who wholeheartedly agreed with the former president.
“I think Democrats are bound to determine to destroy our country and make us like Venezuela. They want to destroy the middle class,” Sally Foree, 66, said.
Another voter, Neil Rubin, 64, told NBC that the Democratic Party “has been taken over by leftist, communist, Marxist Democrats.”
“So yes, Donald Trump is correct,” Rubin added.
Another voter, John Crann, 66, told NBC News that he believes Democrats have “no morals, no values anymore.”
Member of the Insane Clown Posse endorses Harris: ‘I want her to win’
One half of hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse endorsed Harris during an interview on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”
“I want her to win because she’s a Democrat and I love my mom,” Violent J told “Daily Show” correspondent Troy Iwata during a segment in which Iwata showed the rapper digitally altered photos of the major party presidential and vice presidential nominees in clown makeup.
Earlier in the segment, Violent J spoke about Trump, telling Iwata, “Now I know why I hated Trump, that wall s—,” and referring to Trump’s attempts to build a wall along the southern border.
He also praised Democrats broadly, saying “Democrats are basically saying less taxes on the poor, more taxes on the rich.”
Asked about Harris running mate, Walz, Violent J added, ““I’m absolutely opinionless on that man.” He also spoke unfavorably about Vance, using a derogatory term.
Police arrest suspect in shooting incidents at Harris campaign office in Arizona
Police in Tempe, Arizona, have arrested a 60-year-old man suspected of shooting at a Democratic National Committee office over the last two months and hanging suspicious bags of white powder from political signs in a nearby village.
Police announced the arrest late yesterday and identified the suspect as Jeffrey Michael Kelly. He was charged with several felonies, including the unlawful discharge of a firearm, shooting at a nonresidential structure and committing an act of terrorism, and misdemeanor criminal damage.
Tempe police also allege that the suspect posted several political signs hung with suspicious bags of white powder and lined with razor blades in the village of Ahwatukee, Arizona.
Last month, the police said officers responded to the DNC office, which organizes and campaigns for Harris, after staff members reported they noticed what appeared to be gunshots through the office’s front windows. Earlier in September, police said the same office’s front windows appeared to be hit by a pellet or BB gun.
Battleground states flooded with voting lawsuits weeks out from Election Day
Political parties and groups have filed nearly 100 lawsuits across seven battleground states that could shape how votes are cast and counted ahead of Election Day and the legal battle that’s expected to follow.
The majority of suits were brought by Republicans and allied groups who are focused on rooting out alleged voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence of its occurring in a widespread way, particularly around mail ballot procedures and noncitizen voting.
Many suits have sought to purge voter rolls or bolster signature and voter identification requirements — or invalidate ballots that don’t meet them — while others have looked to revamp different aspects of election administration, including reducing the use of ballot drop boxes and instituting unusual vote-counting protocols, like requiring that ballots be counted by hand.
Lawsuits from Democrats and allied groups have focused mostly on expanding voting access by trying to extend registration deadlines or appealing for broader interpretations of laws about absentee ballots and voter identification.
Harris campaign targets Gen Z voters in the final stretch of the election
Harris’ campaign is launching an early voting push targeting students on battleground state college campuses. The effort consists of concerts, block parties and tailgates, in addition to a new seven-figure targeted ad buy focused primarily on reaching students through social media platforms.
The ad buy will geographically target students in battleground states across platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube Shorts. Some of the ads, according to the campaign, are designed to mirror popular social media trends.
The “Vote for Our Future” tour will put the campaign’s principals alongside high-profile surrogates working to mobilize young voters across the battlegrounds, not just engaging the students, but also encouraging them to register to vote and vote early.
John Kelly, who was the White House chief of staff during the Trump administration, is speaking out about what he sees as the dangers of a second Trump term. In a series of interviews with The New York Times, he sharply criticized Trump, saying he fits “the definition of a fascist.” NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
MoveOn launches ‘brat’-inspired ad targeting young voters
The progressive organization MoveOn said today it’s spending $250,000 on a Charli XCX-inspired ad targeting young, infrequent voters in a get-out-the-vote effort.
The 15-second digital ad, first shared with NBC News, spoofs Charli XCX’s song “Guess” off the artist’s rereleased “brat” album. It will run across Meta platforms as a video and a gif in key battleground states.
“We have been reaching beyond traditional GOTV methods to remind young people their vote is their power and can affect our daily lives 365 days of the year,” MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich said in a statement.
MoveOn said the ad is part of a $1.2 million digital campaign in support of the Harris-Walz ticket and key congressional races and targets 1.63 million so-called surge voters — people who are new and vote infrequently, lean Democratic, skew younger and cast their first ballot after the 2016 election.
Vance emerges as Trump’s explainer-in-chief
Vance’s willingness to regularly take questions from mainstream news outlets has added an unofficial duty to his role as Trump’s running mate: explainer-in-chief.
In interviews, at news conferences and while speaking with reporters on his campaign plane, Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, often finds himself having to defend, decode or “well, actually” whatever provocative Trump comment made most recently.
That time Trump questioned whether Harris is really Black? “I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance contended.
When Trump disparaged Detroit, a majority-Black city in battleground Michigan? Trump, Vance said, “was just talking honestly about the fact that Detroit has been left behind.”
And when Trump name-dropped a Democratic congressman when he warned about an “enemy within” and stoked fears of chaos justifying military intervention on Election Day? “The enemy within,” Vance offered, “are people that Kamala Harris let into this country unvetted, unchecked and undocumented.”
Obama urges young men not to give up on the political process in new podcast with NBA players
Former President Barack Obama made a direct plea for young men not to get frustrated at the slow pace of political progress as he made the case to support Harris for president on the inaugural episode of a new podcast hosted by NBA players.
“A lot of young people — a lot of young men — they get frustrated, and they say, ‘Well, nothing’s happened,’” Obama told NBA All-Star Tyrese Halliburton, 24, and producer Tommy Alter in a clip first shared with NBC News. “But let’s say — when I was president I didn’t cure racism, I didn’t eliminate poverty. But 50 million people got health insurance. That didn’t happen before, and that saved lives and made people’s lives better.”
Obama added that the reason to vote is that there is somebody “who can see you, knows your life, cares about you,” who will be making “a million decisions” that will hopefully “make your lives a little bit better each year.”
The podcast, “The Young Man and the Three,” is a rebrand of a show that was called “The Old Man and the Three,” which had more than a million YouTube subscribers, with an overwhelming young and male audience.
Analysis: How Harris and Trump are making their closing arguments
Given the tumultuous nature of the Trump era in general and the twists and turns that of the 2024 campaign specifically, it’s hard to believe we are most likely at the end game of this historic election cycle and (knock on wood) it’s ending more normally than any campaign featuring Donald Trump has ended so far.
I accept that the phrase “so far” is doing a lot of work in the above paragraph — and to be clear, I’m talking about campaign-shaking events, not Trump’s penchant for crude or uncomfortable remarks. Clearly, something unforeseen can still happen, but I’m not sure we’ll have any new event that would dramatically affect either candidate’s vote share in this late stage of the race. But if you aren’t prepared for the unexpected in politics anymore, then you haven’t been paying attention!
But what has been different — so far! — about this campaign in these last few weeks is how semi-, sorta, kinda conventionally both campaigns are behaving.
For one thing, the campaigns appear to agree on who the final persuadable voter is: a Republican or Republican-leaning independent who doesn’t like Trump personally but is skeptical of Vice President Kamala Harris’ perceived liberal politics.
In a polarized nation, local governments are oases of compromise and community, study finds
Local governments are uniquely able to combat growing national polarization, according to a new study out today from the nonprofit research organization CivicPulse and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The study, which involved interviews with more than 1,400 local elected policymakers and local civil service leaders, found that 87% of those surveyed said political polarization negatively affects the country “a great deal” or “a lot.” But just 31% of local officials said that political polarization negatively impacts their local communities to that extent.
“Political polarization, which is dominating the media at the national level, really is not dominating life at the local level at all,” Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic fund supporting research and education, told NBC News about the report.
Dividing responses by population size, the survey found that local officials from smaller communities see fewer negative effects from polarization than those from larger communities. While 46% of officials from communities with 50,000 or more residents said their community is negatively affected “a lot” or “a great deal” by polarization, just 28% of local officials from communities with 1,000 to 10,000 residents said the same.