US election news LIVE: 1.6 mn overseas swing state voters come into focus in toe-to-toe race

“Foreign actors, particularly Russia, Iran and China, remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the US democratic system,” Reuters quoted an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as saying.

The official noted that foreign actors could consider physical threats and violence in the pre-election period. They said that after the election, these entities highly likely to conduct post-election disinformation operations to create uncertainty and undermine the election process.

Roughly 1.6 million Americans abroad are eligible to vote in seven crucial swing states in the upcoming US presidential elections, according to the Democratic National Committee. Only a small fraction of these eligible overseas voters return a ballot.

It is no wonder that in a tight race, with polls saying Harris and Trump are almost tied, both Democrat and Republican campaigns are reaching out to US voters abroad. Volunteers are taking part in outreach programs to help Americans abroad navigate the bureaucracy around voting and send in their ballots.

The method of voting for these Americans requires them to submit ballots to the states where they are registered, usually by mail, according to Reuters.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to say that the leak of highly confidential documents that contained a US assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran likely came from the Department of Defense.

The documents that surfaced on the messaging app Telegram on Friday (October 25) allegedly contain a US assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran. The assessment is based on the interpretation of satellite imagery and other intelligence.

The FBI is currently investigating the leak of two highly classified intelligence documents that describe Israel’s preparations for a retaliatory strike on Iran, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday (October 22).

With his allegation, Trump is understood to be taking a shot at Biden administration, of which his rival candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a part.

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Texas, a traditionally Republican state, just 10 days before Election Day.

She will focus on abortion rights and reproductive care, an important issue in the campaign against former President Donald Trump.

Harris will attend an event in Houston with women affected by the state’s strict abortion laws, which were implemented after the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade.

She has also visited Georgia, another state with strict abortion laws, and has raised concerns about the potential nationwide impact of similar legislation under former President Trump.

As part of the final push in battleground states, Harris has deployed former President Barak Obama to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is among the most fiercely contested state in the 2024 presidential election. Even though Trump has a 2 per cent razor-thin lead over Harris in the state, it is well within the margin of error and the contest can go either way, according to Decision Desk HQ-Hill’s forecast.

As Obama scored historic victories in 2008 and 2012 in Wisconsin, Harris counting on him to shore up support in the key state.

In the past six elections, only Obama has won the state with more than 1 per cent margin. The victory in 2008 was particularly historic as he won with a nearly 14 per cent margin.

The previous two elections were won by razor-thin margins. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by 0.77 per cent and Biden flipped the state in 2020 with 0.63 per cent margin.

READ MORE: 3 reasons why Obama’s Wisconsin campaign matters

Harris continues to maintain the razor-thin lead of 3 per cent over Trump, according to the latest Reuters/Ipson poll.

The poll found that while 46 per cent voters favour Harris, 43 per cent favour Trump.

The pollsters noted that Harris’ lead was within the margin of error so the election could still go either way.

READ MORE: Harris maintains razor-thin lead over Trump, shows latest Reuters poll

In the final two weeks of election campaign, Trump has turned to religion to seek votes and has painted Harris as the enemy of Catholic Christians.

In the swing state of North Carolina, Trump on Monday told Catholics that Harris will be their “worst nightmare” as president.

Trump said that the God was on his side and urged voters nationwide to “stand up and save your country” and said that “Christian voters need to turn out in the largest numbers ever”, according to Washington Times.

“She is very destructive to religion, she is very destructive to Christianity and very destruction to evangelicals and the Catholic Church. Let me put it this way; she is your worst nightmare,” said Trump, as per the newspaper.

Contrary to Harris, who he dubbed as the enemy of Christianity, Trump pitched himself as the God’s chosen one.

“As I look back at my life’s journey and events, I now recognize that it has been the hand of God leading me to where I am today,” said Trump.

Even as Trump questions the US electoral system and alleges voter fraud frequently, he admitted on Monday that he has not seen any evidence to support his claims.

In the swing state of North Carolina, Trump was asked on Monda if he has seen any evidence of voter fraud.

Trump replied, “Well, I haven’t. Unfortunately, I know the other side [Democrats], and they are not good. But I have not seen that.”

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a lifelong Republican hawk, made the case for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to moderate Republicans in critical battleground states.

Cheney said that the decision to support to Harris should be based on the most fundamental Republican value of respect for the Constitution.

“I’m a conservative and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution. You have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who – it’s not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election. We watched what he did on January 6,” said Cheney.

Further slamming Trump, Cheney said, “If you wouldn’t hire somebody to babysit your kids, you shouldn’t make that guy the president of the United States.”

READ MORE: ‘Choose someone faithful to Constitution’: Liz Cheney makes case for Harris to moderate Republicans

Several Japanese American organisations have condemned former President Donald J. Trump for comparing the treatment of Jan. 6 rioters to what Japanese Americans endured in internment camps during WWII.

Trump drew the connection during a podcast hosted by conservative media figure Dan Bongino, which was released on Friday. More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, with over 1,000 convicted or pleading guilty.

A Republican county official in Arizona who delayed certification of the 2022 election pleaded guilty on Monday to a misdemeanour charge of neglecting or refusing to discharge her duties as an election officer.

Peggy Judd, the administrator, cited worries about voting equipment as a reason for postponing ballot certification in Cochise County. Her case gained national attention as a high-profile example of the politicisation of the electoral system in the aftermath of former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.

The more serious criminal charge of conspiracy was dismissed. Prosecutors are seeking a 90-day probation sentence, which would cover the certification of this year’s presidential election.

One of the tightest US election races of modern times enters its final, two-week stretch Tuesday, with Republican Donald Trump making a special pitch to Latino voters as Democratic rival Kamala Harris sits down for a national network interview.

Both campaigns are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a final push for any wavering, undecided voters who could tilt the balance in their favor, with polls consistently showing their candidates in a dead heat ahead of Election Day.

Whatever the outcome, Americans will make history on November 5: they will either elect the first woman president in the world’s leading superpower — or they will put the first convicted felon into the White House.

As America hurtles towards the 2024 election, the road to the presidency passes through Georgia, one of the seven battleground states considered vital to the fortunes of anyone who wants to win the White House. Georgia also is one of the few southern states considered up for grabs, having gone to President Joe Biden in 2020 after a run of six-straight wins there by Republican presidential candidates.

Four years after Biden won the state by fewer than 12,000 votes, the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have poured financial and tactical resources into the state based on the theory that the outcome may be determined as much by who doesn’t vote as who does.

The question is whether their sales pitches will have the ear of everyone. For people at the lower rungs of the economic ladder, there are often more basic priorities. Bibb County made a good test area with its high poverty rate, diverse demographics and large number of seemingly eligible voters who stayed home in 2020. Interviews with dozens of women and some men on the lower socioeconomic level showed there is a possible relationship between poverty and turnout that candidates are working to overcome.

The Democratic National Committee estimates that 1.6 million U.S. voters abroad are eligible to vote in one of the seven so-called swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that will likely determine the outcome of the election.

The Democrats Abroad is believed to favour Democrats. Among people who used Vote From Abroad, a non-partisan voter support tool linked to the DNC, three-quarters of overseas voters in the 2020 election said they were Democrats.

So for the first time in a presidential election the DNC has given Democrats Abroad funding – around $300,000 – to help register Americans overseas to vote and ramp up its mail-in voting operations and other efforts. It has taken out ads on social media urging Americans abroad to send in their ballots.

“This election will be won on the margins, and every single vote counts,” said DNC spokesperson Maddy Mundy in a statement. “We’re going to win this election by engaging every eligible voter, no matter where they live.”

Republican presidential candidate Trump is also after American expatriates. Earlier this month he said he would end the double taxation of overseas Americans.

The former president’s campaign has not offered further detail on how the policy would work but it could end a burdensome requirement that mandates U.S. citizens to file income taxes in the United States regardless of where they live.

While Americans abroad do not have to pay U.S. tax on their first $126,500 in earned income and are eligible for some foreign tax credit, it can be a bureaucratic headache expatriates from many other countries don’t face.

Pennsylvania is arguably the hardest fought of the battleground states and happens to have one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the country, in what is known as the 222 Corridor, after the highway that connects small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia. It’s fertile ground for both Democrats and Republicans to test their strength among Latinos in a state where small margins decide who gets 20 electoral votes. It’s a place where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris can prove that her party still commands a large share of the demographic’s support, and where Trump’s campaign has been working to gain ground.

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential contender, appeared late Monday on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, where he joked about being “the poorest person ever to run for vice-president” and jogging in Central Park.

The show’s viewership leans left, but that didn’t stop Walz from using it to reach the Democrats’ primary target voters: disillusioned Republicans and undecideds.

He said, “I know it’s difficult to imagine, but there are people still deciding what they’re going to do…” They’re seeing the crazy stuff you’re seeing and recognising it’s serious.”

Former President Donald J. Trump worked the fryer at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday, an unusual campaign trip that sparked widespread coverage from media outlets across the political spectrum.

Trump, a long-time McDonald’s devotee, used the stop to imply, without evidence, that Vice President Kamala Harris lied about working there as a college student.

Harris reported that she worked at a McDonald’s in California after finishing her first year of college. A friend of hers confirmed her story in a recent interview with The New York Times.

On Monday evening Trump’s campaign texted supporters, mostly in all caps, aiming to leverage a change in Musk’s stance: “Elon Musk has big news. He will match every dollar this message raises.”

The truth was in the fine print. Sentences preceded by an asterisk said that Musk would “match all donations in response to this solicitation with a contribution to Trump 47 Committee Inc., until he has reached his personal legal maximum of $924,600.”

With early voting underway in numerous areas, former President Donald J. Trump conceded Monday that he had seen no evidence of fraud, despite continuing to cast doubt on the election’s integrity during a campaign swing through North Carolina.

Trump has long claimed that Democrats are attempting to rig the election on November 5, implying that his support is so strong that fraud is the only way he could lose. His complaint, for which he has supplied no facts or evidence, is based on his false claim that he won the 2020 election. That assertion is now at the centre of two criminal investigations accusing him of illegal activities in his four-year-old attempt to reverse the election.

With two weeks until Election Day, more than 15 million individuals have already voted, the clearest indication yet that the coronavirus pandemic has permanently altered voting behaviour and that early voting has become an indelible part of the American political process.

While many individuals cast mail-in ballots or voted early in the 2020 election due to a severe pandemic, many voters are also choosing to vote early this year. Some are taking advantage of new rules that have extended early voting possibilities, while others simply prefer the procedure, which gained popularity four years ago.

Many states have set records for the first day of early voting. On Thursday, more than 353,000 ballots were cast in North Carolina, a record for the swing state still reeling from Hurricane Helene. On Friday, nearly 177,000 voters cast a ballot in Louisiana, a record for the deep-red state.

A Michigan court has dismissed a Republican lawsuit that sought to prevent certain Americans living abroad from voting in the important swing state.

The Republican National Committee contended that eligible voters should be barred from participating because they have family in the state but have never lived there.

Judge Sima Patel of the Michigan Court of Claims determined that the voting rule is legal and that “there is no ground to invalidate it”.

The contest is about to enter its most hectic moment, with both parties attempting to gain last-minute support in the swing states that will determine who wins the presidency.

These include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The time polls shut on November 5th will vary depending to time zones, so people will still be queuing to vote in Seattle and California, while ballots are already being counted in critical states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Donald Trump spoke to evangelical Christians in Concord, North Carolina during his last event of the day.

Among the scores of people he picked out for special attention was former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, who Trump said assured him in 2016 that God had chosen him as the future US president.

During Trump’s speech, some in the audience chanted “Jesus”.

Towards the end of his remarks, he spoke at length about the assassination attempt against him on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, claiming that he felt “knocked to the ground by a supernatural hand”.

“I now recognise that it’s been the hand of God leading me to where I am today,” he claimed.

So far, Democrats have a strong advantage in early voting, but Republicans are more open to voting before Election Day than in previous election cycles, despite former President Donald Trump’s conflicting signals on the subject.

According to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab, more than 15 million Americans voted early in person or by mail-in ballot, with 5.3 million doing so in the seven battleground states. In places where voters can register by party, Democrats have cast approximately 47% of the early votes, while Republicans have cast 33%. Battleground states like Michigan and Georgia are not included in the breakdown of party registrations.

Three Indian American Republican leaders — Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy — have slammed Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running for president on the Democratic ticket, over her allegedly flawed immigration, economic and foreign policies.

Former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in a video, which is being run as an advertisement on social media, has claimed that Harris’ Medicare plan will give 12 million illegal immigrants “gold-plated” healthcare.

“It will flood the US with more illegal immigrants,” Jindal said in a video released by America First Policy Institute, a political action committee. “Don’t let your families and friends fall for the lies.” Jindal, 53, was the Louisiana Governor from 2008 to 2016. In 2016 he unsuccessfully tried his luck in the Republican presidential race. After keeping a low profile and initially being on the other side of the Trump campaign, Jindal is now back in action supporting former president Bobby Jindal on his policies.

Besides Jindal, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and businessman-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy have run for the presidency. Jindal ran in 2016 and the other two in the 2024 election cycle.

Now all three have endorsed Trump for the presidency. Ramaswamy has emerged as the close confidant of Trump and has been campaigning in his favour.

US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris made a push to woo moderates in her rival’s camp in three swing states Monday, while Donald Trump slammed the government’s response to Hurricane Helene as he toured the devastated state of North Carolina.

With just over two weeks until Election Day, the Democratic vice president and her Republican opponent are on a blitz through the battlegrounds that will decide the outcome in a race that polls say is too close to call.

On Monday, Harris appeared in Pennsylvania alongside Liz Cheney — a prominent Republican — who called on undecided voters “to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump.”

Trump toured storm-damaged Asheville and repeated conspiracy theories about the government’s disaster response. Later, at a rally in Greenville, he hammered home his campaign message that immigrants were “looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging” the country.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, delivered radically different messages on the U.S. campaign trail on Monday as they sought to win over undecided voters in the two weeks before Election Day.

Vice President Harris, campaigning alongside Republican former lawmaker Liz Cheney, attempted to convince conservative, suburban women in three Midwestern battleground states that former President Trump was a threat to abortion rights, national security and democracy.

As the election draws closer, Harris has been sharpening her attacks on Trump’s fitness for office, often calling him “unstable” or “unhinged” and questioning his temperament.

“In many, many ways Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of him being president of the United States are brutally serious,” Harris, 60, said at an event in Malvern, Pennsylvania, one of seven battleground states expected to decide the winner of the Nov. 5 election.

Trump ended his day at an evangelical Christian event in Concord, North Carolina, telling a crowd he likes to think that during the failed assassination attempt against him on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, he was saved by being “knocked to the ground by a supernatural hand.”

In his remarks, he avoided using some of the off-color rhetoric he has been using in recent speeches. He said as he looks back on his life, “I now recognize that it’s been the hand of God leading me to where I am today.”

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham offered a prayer that Trump be elected.

“Rallies and positive poll numbers are not going to win this election,” Graham said. “It’s going to be God.”

Courts in Michigan and North Carolina on Monday rejected attempts by Republicans to disqualify the ballots of certain overseas voters.

Both cases targeted people who have never lived in the state but were born overseas to parents who were residents of the state. The Michigan case also targeted the spouses of military and overseas voters.

A state judge in Michigan dismissed the Republicans’ case because it was filed so late — less than a month before the Nov. 5 presidential election. But the judge also found that the election language allowing those voters to cast ballots complied with both state and federal law, as well as the Michigan Constitution.

The state GOPs and the Republican National Committee were among the plaintiffs bringing both cases, which were filed as part of a broader legal strategy against overseas ballots in presidential battleground states ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Las Vegas market worker Maria Salinas believes Democrats have failed their traditional Latino supporters for too long, and — like many others in this key voting bloc — is ready to vote for Donald Trump for the first time.

“I think Trump can change things a little,” she said, speaking to AFP at the juice stand she runs in the electoral battleground state of Nevada.

The Democrats offer “promises and promises… but nothing changes for us,” said Salinas, whose relatives have been waiting for years to receive the legal right to move to the United States.

“This time I’m going to vote for Trump to see if he helps us.”

Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, and represent 22 percent of voters in Nevada.

That share has grown rapidly to become a vital factor in the southwestern swing state’s elections, as thousands of immigrants are lured each year by the promise of work at Las Vegas’s flashy casinos and hotels.

Democrats have won every presidential election in Nevada since 2008. But barely two weeks before this year’s election, Harris leads Trump in Nevada by just half a point in polling averages.

JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, was questioned why he felt it was “necessary” to continue using the phrase “enemy from within” to describe US people who disagreed with him.

Donald Trump is unfiltered, stated JD Vance.

He said that one of the reasons why their campaign has gone well was because Trump was not doing a basement campaign strategy.

When people ask him questions, he speaks from the heart, added Vance.

Kamala Harris ‘ campaign and affiliated Democratic groups raised about $633 million for the quarter, which ended last month, pushing their total to over $1 billion while maintaining a large financial advantage over Republican candidate Donald Trump in the presidential election’s final sprint.

The vice president’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties raised more than $359 million in September alone. Harris’ campaign raised about $222 million in September. Harris’ team alone spent more than it took in last month, paying out about $270 million to help boost a large advertising push, as it works to reach voters on the radio, television, online, billboards and other avenues.

The Harris campaign and affiliated committees entered October with $346 million on hand, according to federal filings.

The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and affiliated groups previously reported raising $160 million in September — up from the $130 million they reported raising in August. They had $283 million in the bank to start October.

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who supports Kamala Harris for president, refers to the January 6, 2021 riots and emphasises the need of a country with a “peaceful transfer of power.”

Cheney declares: “Every one of us has a duty and an obligation to do what’s right for the country.”

She criticises Donald Trump’s foreign policy, calling it “totally erratic” and “completely unstable.”

She contends that the option in national security is between a guy who has failed to defend the country and Vice President Harris.

Crowd chants Jesus at Trump pic.twitter.com/q5ow8FaqkK

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 21, 2024

Former US president Donald Trump has made it clear that if he returns to the White House in 2025, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants will be a top priority.

His campaign is once again focused on immigration, with Trump and his key advisors pledging to remove millions of people from the United States.

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump grabbed headlines this weekend after he stepped behind the counter at a McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania.

Wearing a black and yellow apron, Trump worked the fry station, quipping to the store manager that he’d “always wanted to work at McDonald’s”.  

Under the guidance of an employee, Trump, whose love for fast food has been well chronicled, fried, salted, and boxed fries while his team and reporters watched.  

The men formerly known as the Central Park Five before they were exonerated on Monday filed a defamation lawsuit against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

With election day two weeks away, the group accused the former president of making “false and defamatory statements” about them during last month’s presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. The group is asking for a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages.

“Defendant Trump falsely stated that plaintiffs killed an individual and pled guilty to the crime. These statements are demonstrably false,” the group wrote in federal complaint.

The state of New York was one of the 13 original colonies that joined the union back in 1788. However, the state was not able to participate in the country’s first election due to some internal disputes. Interestingly, in the 1810 census, it became New York became the most populous state in the United States. The state carried most electoral voters from the 1812 election until the 1972 election, until it relinquished its throne to the state of California.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are virtually tied in seven key battleground states, just two weeks before the US presidential election, according to a Washington Post/Schar School poll.

Harris leads Trump 51-47% in Georgia, while Trump edges Harris 49-46% in Arizona, both within the poll’s 4.5% margin of error. Harris who rose as the party’s nominee after US President Joe Biden stepped aside over the summe also holds an advantage in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin where she will campaign with former Republican Representative Liz Cheney.