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  • How does the Electoral College work? A simple explanation for the 2024 presidential election

    How does the Electoral College work? A simple explanation for the 2024 presidential election

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    Five presidents in U.S. history have won the presidency without winning the popular vote, and the most recent to do so was Donald Trump in 2016. His opponent that year, Hillary Clinton, won over 2.8 million more votes than Trump nationwide, but she lost enough key states to be defeated in the Electoral College, 306 to 232. 

    Trump lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College to Joe Biden in 2020. (Once again the electoral vote was 306 to 232, but this time in the Democrat’s favor.) Trump is the GOP nominee again in the 2024 presidential election, in what’s shaped up to be a tight race against Vice President Kamala Harris. 

    Since its founding, the nation has used the Electoral College to elect the president. Read on to learn more about how it works, its history and what role individual voters play in the outcome of the presidential election.

    What is the Electoral College and how does it work?

    The Electoral College is the process by which Americans elect their president and vice president indirectly through their state’s electors. Candidates must secure 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 at stake, in order to win the White House. 

    Before the general election, states select slates of electors. After voters cast their ballots in November, the candidate who wins the popular vote determines which slate of electors — Republican, Democrat or a third party — will cast electoral votes in the Electoral College for the president. 

    In most states, it’s winner-take-all — whoever gets the most votes in the state wins all of its electoral votes. 

    In Maine and Nebraska, the rules are slightly different. They have a proportional representation system in which the winner of each congressional district is awarded one electoral vote, and the winner of the statewide vote is awarded each state’s remaining two electoral votes. Some Republicans were hoping to change Nebraska’s rules to a winner-take-all model, since one of its electoral votes often goes to the Democrat, but the effort fell short. 

    Electors meet in their respective states in mid-December to cast their votes for the president. The meeting takes place the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, which falls on Dec. 17 this year. 

    There is no Constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, though they almost always do. “Faithless electors” are rare, since the electors are selected by the parties.

    How many electors are in the Electoral College?

    There are 538 electors in total across the 50 states and Washington, D.C. 

    What determines how many electoral votes a state gets?

    Each state is allocated electors based on the size of its congressional delegation. Several states with the smallest populations — Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming — have three electors each, since they have one representative in the House and two senators, while California, the largest, has 54 electoral votes.  Washington, D.C., is also allocated three electors.

    States may gain or lose electors as the population shifts, and there have been a number of changes since the 2020 presidential election.

    In the redistricting that followed the 2020 Census, Texas gained two electoral votes and five states gained one each, while seven states lost one electoral vote.

    Who chooses the electors?

    The electors are chosen before the general election by their respective political party. Their sole purpose is to meet in their state following the November election and cast two votes — one for the president and one for the vice president.

    Who are the electors?

    Each party’s slate of electors may include state and local elected officials, party leaders, community activists and others affiliated with the party. They are typically chosen “to recognize their service and dedication to that political party,” the National Archives explains.

    There are no major qualifications, but members of Congress and certain other office-holders are barred from participating, along with anyone who has engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

    What happens if there’s a tie in the Electoral College?

    In the rare event that there’s a tie in the Electoral College — which in the modern era would mean each candidate wins 269 electoral votes — members of the newly elected House of Representatives would decide the outcome of the presidential election, while the Senate would select the vice president.

    This type of contingent election would also take place if neither candidate wins a majority. This could occur if a third-party candidate wins some of the electoral votes or if there are a number of “faithless electors” who break their pledge and vote for a candidate other than the one who won the state’s popular vote.

    If it went to the House, each state would get a single vote, regardless of the size of its congressional delegation, and the 50 House delegations (the District of Columbia would not participate) would select one of the top three presidential candidates.

    The vice president would be selected by a simple majority in the Senate, and all senators would have a vote. As a result, it’s possible that the president and vice president could be from different parties.

    Since the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804, there have been contingent elections twice.

    In 1824, four presidential candidates split the vote, and no candidate won an electoral majority. John Quincy Adams won the election in the House, even though Andrew Jackson had won a plurality of the popular and electoral votes.

    And in 1837, Martin Van Buren won a majority of electoral votes, but Virginia’s 23 electors refused to support his vice presidential candidate, Richard Johnson, and became faithless electors. That left Johnson one vote short, leading to a contingent election in the Senate, which he won easily.

    Why do we vote if the Electoral College picks the president?

    Five presidents in U.S. history have lost the popular vote and still managed to win the election, leading some to wonder why the nation continues to keep the Electoral College in place. The Electoral College was established in Article II of the Constitution and could be repealed by constitutional amendment. But that’s a difficult road. Amendments require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states, or 38 of the current 50.

    In a 2023 Pew Research poll, 65% of Americans said the president should be elected through the popular vote, not the Electoral College. Hundreds of proposals have been introduced in Congress to change the process over the years. There’s also a multi-state effort called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which has been adopted by 17 states and Washington, D,C. That proposal would ensure that the winner of the popular vote gets all of the electoral votes in the states that signed the compact — but it would only go into effect if enough states agree.

    So why keep the Electoral College in place if there’s so much frustration from Americans? According to the National Archives, the Founding Fathers saw the Electoral College as a middle ground between giving the decision to Congress or to a direct vote by citizens. Proponents say it keeps less populous states from being underrepresented by discouraging candidates from campaigning disproportionately in urban centers that are more heavily populated. 

    What’s the history of the Electoral College?

    The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution in 1787. The term “Electoral College” does not appear in the nation’s historic document, but the word “electors” does, the National Archives noted.

    The ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804 changed some of the rules for the Electoral College. For example, it required separate electoral votes be cast for the president and vice president. With the ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961, the District of Columbia received three electors.

    Mary Cunningham

    Mary Cunningham is a news associate at CBS News, based in New York. She has worked on both the broadcast side, with CBS News 24/7 streaming, and the digital side, writing stories for CBSNews.com. Her next assignment is working with the “60 Minutes” team.

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  • White House Caught Altering Official Transcript Of Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment, Falsifying History

    White House Caught Altering Official Transcript Of Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment, Falsifying History

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    Credit: Screenshot via KSDK News

    The White House reportedly altered the transcript of President Joe Biden’s comments where he appeared to refer to Donald Trump supporters as “garbage.”

    This alteration came after concerns were raised by stenographers about the integrity of the transcript.

    As most of the waking public is already well aware, Biden referred to Trump’s supporters as garbage but then tried to walk it back in a hurry.

    During a rally at Madison Square Garden last weekend, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made jokes about Puerto Rico, musing that it is “literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

    Democrats failed to see the humor.

    “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden countered. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it is un-American.”

    Had To Alter The ‘Garbage’ Transcript For Biden

    The video makes it quite clear who he is referring to. But the White House went into furious clean-up mode, adding an apostrophe to the word “supporters” to make it seem as if he were referring to the comedian alone.

    And the transcript releases itself from the administration, and their friends in the media went completely off the rails.

    Apostrophegate commenced so that it appeared Biden was only referring to a singular individual – the comedian who had insulted Puerto Rico at Trump’s rally.

    However, the edit was made without an immediate review by the stenographers, leading to accusations of a breach of protocol. And the fact that they’re throwing the White House under the bus as the source of the rogue apostrophe is an indication they disagree with the move.

    Keep in mind, these are official historical documents being messed with.

    An email reviewed by Fox News Digital shows a supervisor alarmed by the way the transcript was handled.

    “If there is a difference in interpretation, the Press Office may choose to withhold the transcript but cannot edit it independently,” they wrote.

    “Our Stenography Office transcript — released to our distro, which includes the National Archives — is now different than the version edited and released to the public by Press Office staff.”

    Paging George Orwell! Mr. Orwell? Paging Mr. Orwell…

    RELATED: Biden Desperately Tries To Clean Up After Ruining Kamala’s Big Night With ‘Garbage’ Insult

    This isn’t the first time the White House has tried to clean up Joe Biden’s “gaffes,” as the media likes to call them. The ‘garbage’ cleanup is more of a trend.

    While making remarks about expanding access to mental health care to reporters last July, Biden appeared to make the mind-numbing claim that his administration cured cancer.

    “We ended cancer as we know it,” the President said.

    The official White House transcript changed those words by quoting him as saying, “We can end cancer as we know it.”

    In another clip, Biden significantly slashed the number of people who had been killed by COVID.

    “We’re still feeling the profound loss of the pandemic — as I mentioned earlier — over 100 people dead!” he shouted.

    In fact, he said the number twice. And the White House transcript of those comments was, in a word, hilarious.

    We’re still feeling the profound loss of the pandemic.  As I mentioned, we have over 100 [1 million] people dead.  That’s 100 [1 million] empty chairs around the kitchen table.  Every single loss, there are so many people left behind and broken-hearted.

    It’s odd how the stenographers are upset about the White House altering the transcript to clean up Biden’s ‘garbage’ comments. But they never raised concerns for other instances.

    Regardless, the integrity of our historical documents must be protected.

    Biden Sees Baby In A Chicken Costume For Halloween, So Of Course He Pretends To Bite Him

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    Rusty Weiss

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  • Trump and Harris both support a bigger child tax credit. But which families should get it?

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Never before in a presidential election cycle has there been so much discussion of the child tax credit — a tool many Democrats and Republicans have endorsed as a way to lift children and young families out of poverty.

    Just three years ago, child poverty rates fell significantly when President Joe Biden’s administration raised the child tax credit and made even the poorest families eligible. But the expansion only lasted a year. Congress declined to renew it.

    There is hope for another increase in the tax credit, regardless of who wins Tuesday’s presidential election, but tension remains over who should qualify.

    Democrats seek a massive — and costly — expansion of the social safety net. Vice President Kamala Harris has pitched a major increase to the child tax credit as part of her presidential campaign. Rather than providing the benefit through a tax refund, she wants to send monthly payments to parents, even those who aren’t working and pay no income tax. Republicans have expressed support for increasing the tax credit but also concern that for some parents, it could become an incentive not to work.

    For all its economic prosperity, childhood poverty remains pervasive in the United States. Children under 5 are the age group most likely to encounter poverty and eviction, and more than one in six young people under 18 live below the federal poverty line. Meanwhile, it’s getting more expensive to raise a child, with the cost of groceries, child care and housing going up.

    “Expanding the child tax credit is the single most effective option on the table for reducing child poverty in America,” said Christy Gleason of Save the Children, a global humanitarian organization focused on the well-being of children. “Families are demanding it. Voters are demanding it.”

    Currently, the child tax credit gives families a $2,000 discount on their tax bill for every child under the age of 17 in their care. Families that pay less than $2,000 in income tax get a smaller benefit, and parents who are out of the workforce get none.

    Harris has made expanding the tax credit central to her campaign’s messaging on the economy. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a resume that includes passing a state child tax credit.

    Former President Donald Trump doubled the amount of the child tax credit during his administration. His presidential campaign declined to provide specifics on his plans for the child tax credit except to say he would weigh significantly increasing it.

    Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, raised the possibility of increasing the child tax credit to $5,000 so that more parents can stay home with their children in an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation. But some Republicans have been leery about expanding it to parents who are not working outside the home.

    After voting down a child tax credit bill in August, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said for stay-at-home parents the benefit amounts to “cash welfare instead of relief for working taxpayers.”

    The stakes of that debate are high for parents who are unable to work because of a disability, or because they are caring for children or elderly parents. Many have been excluded from the benefit because they are not earning income.

    Kandice Beckford, 25, is among those. She was a medical assistant at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., last year when her pregnancy made her too sick to work, forcing her to quit.

    She was homeless even when she was earning a paycheck, bouncing between the homes of friends and relatives. When she left the hospital after giving birth in April, she still had no permanent place to stay. There was little she could do except connect with social service agencies — and pray.

    “I’m a godly woman, so I really tried to leave most of that in God’s hands,” Beckford said. “It was worrisome, but I tried not to let it overpower my life and my thinking.”

    Beckford’s story underscores the financial precarity many families — and single mothers in particular — face in raising children. If she doesn’t return to work this year, she won’t qualify for any benefit.

    The Harris proposal would make every household eligible regardless of income, providing $6,000 in benefits to families with newborns and $3,600 for each child after that. She wants to pay it out in monthly payments so families would not have to wait for a tax return. Harris plans to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay for the plan, in part by allowing tax credits adopted under the Trump administration in 2017 to expire.

    As president, Trump doubled the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 and raised the income cap, allowing families earning up to $400,000 to receive the benefit. The child tax credit passed under his administration will expire at the end of next year. If the next Congress and president do not act, the credit will fall back to $1,000 a child.

    In 2021, as part of his American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden expanded the credit to $3,000 per child — and $3,600 for children under the age of 6 — and made it available to every household with citizen children, regardless of their income. It cut child poverty in half by one measure. But those gains were erased when it expired.

    In September, Beckford finally got into a shelter for women and their children in Maryland and was connected with a social service agency that has helped her with many of the expenses a new baby brings, including a stroller and car seat, clothing and toys.

    When asked about her dreams for her daughter Inari, Beckford ticked off a list: She wants Inari to be smarter than her and to get “the best education there is to have.” Inari is already exceeding her development milestones, and Beckford is relishing in her growth.

    Her last wish was something that sounded basic, but has proven elusive for Beckford and so many other American mothers.

    “I want her to have a stable life,” Beckford said.

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    Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    __

    This story has been corrected to note that Biden expanded the child tax credit in his American Rescue Plan, not the Inflation Reduction Act.

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  • Biden Sees Baby In A Chicken Costume For Halloween, So Of Course He Pretends To Bite Him

    Biden Sees Baby In A Chicken Costume For Halloween, So Of Course He Pretends To Bite Him

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    Credit: Screenshot via Sky News Australia

    It’s unclear what compels him to do so, but President Biden continued a longstanding tradition of pretending to bite a baby during a Halloween event at the White House on Wednesday.

    Whereas some people might find it endearing, Biden’s little Chompfest usually sends social media into an uproar for it’s creepy factor.

    Not to mention, with his mental faculties diminished to the point where Democrats were forced to undemocratically remove him from his reelection bid, one has to wonder if he was even aware the baby wasn’t an actual chicken.

    Anyway, a mother at the event brought her baby up to the President. He was adorable in his little chicken costume.

    Bden proceeded to provide the world with an image that will go down in infamy.

    I’ll Take The Treat: Biden Bites A Baby

    Now, let’s circle back to my original comment here that maybe he was just confused. Perhaps he thought the mother was carrying a big ol’ Purdue chicken.

    But alas, that theory kind of goes out the window when you realize ol’ Joe Biden was pictured pretending to take a bite out of not just one baby … but four babies!

    And only one of them was dressed as a chicken.

    You’ve gotta love the state of presidential politics these days. Biden spent the day biting babies yesterday while Donald Trump was giving a speech wearing an orange vest after having driven in a garbage truck.

    One man is a genius, though; the other man is making people question their own sanity by wondering what exactly they’re looking at.

    I’m starting to think that Biden’s dogs had to be removed from the White House due to learned behavior from their owner.

    RELATED: Biden Desperately Tries To Clean Up After Ruining Kamala’s Big Night With ‘Garbage’ Insult

    Why Does He Do These Things?

    As noted, President Biden has a history of doing this with the biting and the babies. It’s like nobody on his team took the time to pull him aside and explain that politicians for years have kissed babies for photo ops, not nibbled on them.

    Here he is absolutely terrifying a small girl during a trip to Finland just last year.

    On a much more serious note, Biden’s inappropriate behavior isn’t limited to the young folk. Several women have come forward to accuse the President of inappropriately touching them and making them feel uncomfortable over the years.

    Former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores wrote a column alleging Biden inappropriately kissed her and smelled her hair.

    He even has a history of making female Secret Service agents uncomfortable by skinny dipping or walking around the house without clothes.

    Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer, accused President Biden of sexual assault.

    But this baby biting thing. Man, is it any wonder Kamala Harris doesn’t want him anywhere near the campaign trail right now?

    Harris Campaign To Joe Biden With The Election On The Line: Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

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    Rusty Weiss

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  • Looking back at the 2020 presidential election

    Looking back at the 2020 presidential election

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    Looking back at the 2020 presidential election – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Americans went to the polls under very different circumstances in 2020. CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett takes a look back ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • “Supporters” or “supporter’s”? Biden comments about Trump “garbage” rally anger the GOP

    “Supporters” or “supporter’s”? Biden comments about Trump “garbage” rally anger the GOP

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    President Biden reinserted himself into the contentious campaign to succeed him, appearing to call former President Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage” on a video call with Latino activists Tuesday evening. Republicans seized on the comments, while the White House offered a different explanation of what Mr. Biden said.

    The president was responding to a joke made at a Trump rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, in which Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” 

    In the video clip obtained by CBS News, it sounded like Mr. Biden, who was speaking by video to left-leaning group Voto Latino, might be denouncing Trump supporters as “garbage.” 

    “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” he seemed to say. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable.”

    But the White House denied that the president had said this about Trump supporters and released a transcript with a statement noting that “supporters” was in fact “supporter’s,” and Mr. Biden was referring to Hinchcliffe and his joke.

    A White House transcript says this is what Mr. Biden said: “And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”  Well, let me tell you something.  I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know —or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr— in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.  It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

    “The President referred to the hateful rhetoric at the Madison Square Garden rally as ‘garbage,’” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. 

    Republicans seized on the video — Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who was appearing with Trump at his rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Tuesday night, told the crowd about Mr. Biden’s comments and demanded the president apologize.

    Trump responded saying, “Garbage, I think, is worse,” and compared the comment to a past statement made by Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she referred to half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Trump added it was “terrible to say a thing like that.”

    “Please forgive him, for he not knoweth what he said,” Trump said of Mr. Biden jokingly, as his supporters screamed “No!”

    The comments — and hasty attempts by the president’s aides to clarify his words — suggest a partisan-fueled argument over syntax could dominate the final days of a campaign with fewer than 200 hours to go.

    And they may serve as a late-stage gift to Trump, who spent more than a year attacking the mental and physical fitness of the president, only to see his strategy upended by Harris’ sudden ascension to the race. In recent weeks, Trump has seized on Harris’ difficulty answering questions about how she’d be different than Mr. Biden. She’s since said in interviews that “of course” her presidency would be different than her boss’.

    Trump also sent a fundraising appeal to supporters: “KAMALA’S BOSS JOE BIDEN JUST CALLED ALL MY SUPPORTERS GARBAGE!…YOU ARE AMAZING!”

    President Biden clarified his comment in a post on X later Tuesday night. 

    “Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” Mr. Biden wrote. “That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.” 

    The brouhaha occurred on the same night Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her closing argument for the campaign. She held up Trump as a figure who would only deepen divisions in America if he’s elected and vowed to work with all — Democrats, Republicans and independents — on improving the lives of Americans.

    Several Harris campaign aides did not reply to requests for comment late Tuesday.

    Pennsylvania Governor and Harris surrogate Josh Shapiro told CNN, “I would never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any Americans even if they chose to support a candidate I didn’t support.”

    Hinchcliffe’s remarks at the Trump rally, which also included offensive jokes about Black people and Latinos, were met with swift backlash, with several celebrities coming out in defense of Puerto Rico and Latinos in the U.S. and voicing their support for Harris’ plan for the island. Among those who weighed in were Jennifer Lopez, Ariana DeBose and Ricky Martin. Martin, with over 18  million followers, took to Instagram and posted, “Puerto Rico, this is what they think of us, vote for Kamala Harris.” 

    Trump, for his part, also said Tuesday that he did not know who Hinchcliffe was and was unaware of the joke he had made. “It’s nobody’s fault, but somebody said some bad things,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not, but I don’t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes. Probably he shouldn’t have been there,” Trump added. His campaign said the jokes were not reviewed or pre-approved by the campaign. 

    Ed O’Keefe


    headshot-600-ed-okeefe.jpg

    Ed O’Keefe is CBS News senior White House and political correspondent. He previously worked for The Washington Post covering presidential campaigns, Congress and federal agencies. His primary focus is on President Biden, Vice President Harris and political issues across the country.

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  • Dana Carvey Explains Why His ‘SNL’ Lady Gaga Joke “Didn’t Land”

    Dana Carvey Explains Why His ‘SNL’ Lady Gaga Joke “Didn’t Land”

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    Much like Joker: Folie à Deux, Dana Carvey‘s latest joke fell a little flat.

    As the Saturday Night Live alum continues his Season 50 run as President Joe Biden, Carvey reflected on the latest episode and a joke that “didn’t land” about Lady Gaga‘s performance in the received musical DC sequel.

    “So I do the little Biden piece as part of the Brett Baier interrogating Maya-Kamala. And he’s kind of confused. He starts talking about the Joker movie, but they don’t know it,” said Carvey on his Fly on the Wall podcast. “I went, who’s the lady gagaga? You know, whatever. I did that. Didn’t land.”

    In the cold open, Maya Rudolph and Alec Baldwin spoofed Kamala Harris‘ Fox News interview with Baier, during which he kept taking quotes out of context, including one of Carvey’s Biden speaking passionately about the sequel at a press conference.

    “Folks, we have other problems on our hands. I’m being serious, come on,” he tells the camera. “Four years ago, it was amazing. It was the guy you wanted. But now they got this girl, and people are going, ‘What’s she doing here?’”

    After Rudolph’s Harris points out that Biden wasn’t talking about her, but the musical Joker sequel, Baier played the rest of the clip. “And why’s she singin’? What’s a Folie à Deux? What’s a ga ga ga ga goo ga? What is it? Come on! No Joker. No joke,” mused Carvey as the POTUS.

    Carvey came up with another line after the fact: “I thought later, I should have said, ‘And who’s Whackin Phoenix? Who the hell is he? Whackin Phoenix would have got a big laugh.’”

    Following his 1986-’93 run on SNL, which earned him five Emmy nominations, Carvey has returned this season to portray Biden amid the 2024 presidential election, along with fellow alums Rudolph as Harris and Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff. Jim Gaffigan has also joined the guest lineup as Gov. Tim Walz.

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    Glenn Garner

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump repeated election lies in his interview with Joe Rogan. Here are the facts

    FACT FOCUS: Trump repeated election lies in his interview with Joe Rogan. Here are the facts

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    In his three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Donald Trump dug in on his false claims about voting, election fraud and his loss in the 2020 presidential election. Rogan helped encourage some of these claims.

    The interview, released late Friday, came on the same day that the former president, on his social media network, re-posted threats to prosecute lawyers, voters and election officials he deems to have “cheated” in the 2024 election.

    Here’s a look at some of the claims by the Republican nominee for president and the truth.

    Trump did lose the 2020 election

    WHAT TRUMP SAID: “I won by like — they say I lost by like — I didn’t lose.”

    THE FACTS: Trump did lose in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s claims that fraud cost him the race were investigated repeatedly.

    Trump’s own attorney general said there were no signs of significant fraud. The Republican-run state Senate in Michigan, one of the swing states where Trump claimed fraud occurred, came to the same conclusion after a lengthy investigation. An investigation by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau in Wisconsin, ordered by the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature in another state Trump claimed to have been defrauded from winning, also found no substantial fraud.

    Rogan chortled when Trump was arguing, correctly, that his loss was close. Trump lost the election narrowly in six swing states. If about 81,000 votes had flipped, Trump could have won Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin and gotten enough support in the Electoral College to remain president.

    Trump misstated that margin as 22,000 votes.

    Judges ruled against Trump on the merits repeatedly

    WHAT TRUMP SAID: “What happened is judges don’t want to touch it. They would say, ‘you don’t have standing.’ They didn’t rule on the merits.”

    THE FACTS: That’s not true. Trump and his supporters lost more than 50 lawsuits trying to overturn the election.

    A group of Republican-affiliated election lawyers and legal scholars reviewed all 64 of the Trump lawsuits challenging the 2020 election and found only 20 of them were dismissed by judges before a hearing on the merits. In 30 cases, the rulings against Trump came after hearings on the merits.

    In the remaining 14 cases, the report for Stanford University’s Hoover Institution found, Trump and his allies dropped their lawsuits before they even got to the merits phase. “In many cases, after making extravagant claims of wrongdoing, Trump’s legal representatives showed up in court or state proceedings empty-handed, and then returned to their rallies and media campaigns to repeat the same unsupported claims,” the report states.

    Almost every state already uses paper ballots

    WHAT TRUMP SAID: “We should go to paper ballots.”

    THE FACTS: Trump and Rogan both argued that voting machines are unreliable and that the United States should rely on paper ballots. Trump even cited his billionaire tech mogul supporter Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for such a change.

    Almost all of the country already made that switch, however.

    In 2020, more than 90% of the election jurisdictions in the U.S. used paper ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The next year, the federal Election Assistance Commission changed its guidelines to recommend every jurisdiction use paper.

    The only state not to use a voting system with paper ballots or a paper trail of any sort is Republican-run Louisiana.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Republicans and Democrats encouraged mail voting during the pandemic

    WHAT TRUMP SAID: “They used COVID to cheat.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s central argument is that a grand Democratic conspiracy changed voting procedures during the coronavirus pandemic to make mail voting more popular and that the conspirators then rigged the election against him through those mail votes. That’s not what happened.

    When the pandemic first hit during the 2020 presidential primary in March, Republican and Democratic election officials quickly switched to encourage mail voting to avoid crowded polls. This was relatively uncontroversial until Trump turned against it, claiming it would lay the seeds for potential fraud.

    In doing so, Trump was returning to his usual playbook, claiming that any election he doesn’t win is fraudulent. He made that claim about the first contest he lost, Iowa’s 2016 Republican caucus. He even claimed he lost the popular vote in 2016 because of voting by illegal immigrants, though a presidential commission he empaneled to find evidence of it disbanded without finding any proof.

    The 2020 election was free of significant fraud

    THE FACTS: Isolated cases of voters fraud have long occurred, but in modern times have not reached the levels needed to sway a national election. An Associated Press review found fewer than 475 cases in all six battleground states that Trump lost by more than a combined 300,000 votes — far too little to change the outcome.

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  • Leonardo DiCaprio endorses Kamala Harris for president

    Leonardo DiCaprio endorses Kamala Harris for president

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    Leonardo DiCaprio is endorsing Kamala Harris for president, with the Oscar-winning actor expressing support for the Democratic nominee in a video Friday.

    “Climate change is killing the earth and ruining our economy, we need a bold step forward to save our economy, our planet and ourselves,” DiCaprio said in the video posted to Instagram. “That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris.”

    DiCaprio, long an outspoken advocate for addressing the climate crisis, has supported Democratic candidates in the past. In early 2020, he attended a fundraiser for Joe Biden at the home of former Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing.

    His Instagram caption cited the recent devastation from Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which he called “unnatural disasters caused by climate change.” In the video, DiCaprio praised Harris’ ambitious targets for achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and helping to build a green economy. He also noted her involvement in passing the Inflation Reduction Act. As vice president, Harris cast the tiebreaking vote on President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law that was approved with only Democratic support.

    He also criticized Trump for withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord and rolling back “critical environmental protections.” Trump, he said, continues to “deny the facts” and “deny the science.”

    With less than two weeks until Election Day, Harris has received the support of many high-profile entertainers including Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Chris Rock and George Clooney.

    The vice president held a rally Thursday night in the Atlanta suburbs with former President Barack Obama and musician Bruce Springsteen. Beyoncé, whose song ‘Freedom’ is a Harris campaign anthem, is expected to be at Harris’ Houston rally Friday, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

    Republican nominee Donald Trump’s celebrity supporters include Elon Musk, Dennis Quaid, Roseanne Barr and Kid Rock. In December 2016, DiCaprio and the head of his eponymous foundation met with Trump, then president-elect, to discuss how jobs centered on preserving the environment could boost the economy.

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  • Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports

    Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports

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    The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building in Washington, D.C., June 5, 2024.

    Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

    The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year — or ever again — breaking decades of tradition and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.

    But the newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters revealing that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over GOP nominee Donald Trump in the election.

    “The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” the article said, citing two sources briefed on the events.

    Trump, while president, had been critical of the billionaire Bezos and the Post, which he purchased in 2013.

    The newspaper in 2016 and again in 2020 endorsed Trump’s election opponents, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, in editorials that condemned the Republican in blunt terms.

    In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it had lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft because Trump had used “improper pressure … to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.

    The Post since 1976 had regularly endorsed candidates for president, except for the 1988 race. All those endorsements had been for Democrats.

    In a statement to CNBC, when asked about Bezos’ purported role in killing the endorsement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird said, “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”

    The Post on Friday evening published a third article, signed by opinion columnists for the newspaper, who said, “The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake.”

    “It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years,” the column said. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”

    CNBC has requested comment from Amazon, where Bezos remains the largest shareholder.

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the UK diplomatic residence in New York City, Sept. 20, 2021.

    Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    Post publisher and chief executive Will Lewis, in an article published online explaining the decision, wrote, “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”

    “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.

    “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” he wrote.

    “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

    Seven of the 13 paragraphs of Lewis’ article either quoted at length or referred to Post Editorial Board statements in 1960 and 1972 explaining the paper’s rationale for not endorsing presidential candidates in those years, which included its identity as “an independent newspaper.”

    Lewis noted that the paper had endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976 “for understandable reasons at the times” — which he did not identify.

    “But we had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” Lewis wrote.

    “Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent,” he wrote. “And that is what we are and will be.”

    Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, a member of the paper’s opinions section, resigned following the decision, multiple news outlets reported.

    More than 10,000 reader comments were posted on Lewis’ article, many of them blasting the Post for its decision and saying they were canceling their subscriptions.

    “The most consequential election in our country, a choice between Fascism and Democracy, and you sit out? Cowards. Unethical, fearful cowards,” wrote one comment. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription, because you are putting business ahead of ethics and morals.”

    The announcement came days after Mariel Garza, the head of The Los Angeles Times‘ editorial board, resigned in protest after that paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, decided against running a presidential endorsement.

    “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

    Soon-Shiong, like Bezos, is a billionaire.

    Marty Baron, the former editor of The Washington Post, called that paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

    ″@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others),” Baron wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

    The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the newspaper’s staff, in a statement posted on the social media site X said it was “deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make a decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election.”

    “The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Guild said in the statement, which noted the paper’s reporting about Bezos’ role in the decision.

    “We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the Guild said. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”

    Read more CNBC politics coverage

    Former Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose stories about the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, in a statement said, “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”

    “Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process,” Woodward and Bernstein said.

    Post columnist Karen Attiah, in a post on the social media site Threads, wrote, “Today has been an absolute stab in the back.”

    “What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line to call out threats to human rights and democracy,” Attiah wrote.

    Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, in his own tweet on the news wrote, “The first step towards fascism is when the free press cowers in fear.”

    Trump in August told Fox Business News that Bezos called him after the Republican narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.

    “He was very nice even though he owns The Washington Post,” Trump said of Bezos.

    Bezos last posted on X on July 13, hours after the assassination attempt.

    “Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote in that tweet. “So thankful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families.”

    Trump on Friday met in Austin, Texas, with executives from the Bezos-owned space exploration company Blue Origin, among them CEO David Limp, the Associated Press reported

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  • For some Native Americans, Biden’s apology over boarding schools means little

    For some Native Americans, Biden’s apology over boarding schools means little

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    MINNEAPOLIS — A historic apology on Friday from the president of the United States. President Biden expressed the nation’s regret over the government’s role in the abuse and neglect of Native American children.

    For about 150 years, thousands of Indigenous children were forced into federal boarding schools to be assimilated into White society.

    An Interior Department report released in 2022 says nearly a thousand Native American children died in the government’s boarding school system. 

    Now this terrible chapter in American history is no longer hidden. But many Native families are still dealing with generational trauma created by those schools.

    “Going back and think about all the things I lost, ” said George Lussier.

    Lussier said it is hard to put into words how much of his culture and history has been lost because his parents were forced into boarding schools.

    “We weren’t even taught about our culture, it wasn’t even mentioned,” Lussier said.

    He says every Native American alive today is impacted by what the federal government and religious institutions did from 1819 to the 1970s, forcing Indigenous people to assimilate into White American culture.

    “My dad used to talk about it, he said they used to run away and then they would catch them, send them back and who knows what they did to them when they got back,” Lussier said.

    Lussier said his father did not speak much about his treatment in boarding school. His mother never talked about it.

    “The important part to take away is tjat Native American history is American history and thatwe have to tell the full story of our country,” said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

    Flannagan was with Mr. Biden in Arizona.

    “It was incredibly powerful to witness the apology from the president of the United States regarding the federal American Indian boarding school policy while my daughter was seated right next to me,” Flanagan said.

    She hopes people do their own research to learn more about the boarding school era and the policies that stripped generations of language and culture away from Native people.

    For Lussier, the president’s apology is too little, too late. He said the apology doesn’t mean anything to him.

    “But I’m being honest, the way I’ve been treated all my life. It’s going to be up to the individual to accept it and some people won’t,” Lussier said.

    The lieutenant governor said she understands these feelings but hopes what happens moving forward helps heal old wounds. 

    Flanagan said the apology is the first step towards healing. It comes with an investment into language revitalization and other resources to help restore some of what was stripped from Indigenous people.

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  • Russia goes all-out with covert disinformation aimed at Harris, Microsoft report says

    Russia goes all-out with covert disinformation aimed at Harris, Microsoft report says

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The video was seen millions of times across social media but some viewers were suspicious: It featured a young Black woman who claimed Vice President Kamala Harris left her paralyzed in a hit-and-run accident in San Francisco 13 years ago.

    In an emotional retelling from a wheelchair, the alleged victim said she “cannot remain silent anymore” and lamented that her childhood had “ended too soon.”

    Immediately after the video was posted on Sept. 2, social media users pointed out reasons to be wary. The purported news channel it came from, San Francisco’s KBSF-TV, didn’t exist. A website for the channel set up just a week earlier contained plagiarized articles from real news outlets. The woman’s X-ray images shown in the video were taken from online medical journals. And the video and the text story on the website spelled the alleged victim’s name differently.

    The caution was warranted, according to a new Microsoft threat intelligence report, which confirms the fabricated tale was disinformation from a Russia-linked troll farm.

    The tech giant’s report released Tuesday details how Kremlin-aligned actors that at first struggled to adapt to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race have now gone full throttle in their covert influence efforts against Harris and Democrats.

    It also explains how Russian intelligence actors are collaborating with pro-Russian cyber “hacktivists” to boost allegedly hacked-and-leaked materials, a strategy the company notes could be weaponized to undermine U.S. confidence in November’s election outcome.

    The findings reveal how even through dramatic changes in the political landscape, groups linked to America’s foreign adversaries have redoubled their commitment to sway U.S. political opinion as the election nears, sometimes through deeply manipulative means. They also provide further insight into how Russia’s efforts to fight pro-Ukrainian policy in the U.S. are translating into escalating attacks on the Democratic presidential ticket.

    The report builds on previous concerns the U.S. has had about Russian interference in the upcoming election. Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in an alleged scheme to secretly fund and influence a network of right-wing influencers.

    Russia-linked actors have spent several months seeking to manipulate American perspectives with covert postings, but until this point, their efforts saw little traction. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report received significant social media engagement from unwitting Americans who shared the fake stories with outrage.

    “As the election approaches, people get more heated,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said in an interview. “People tend to take in information from sources they don’t really know or wouldn’t even know to evaluate.”

    Microsoft explained that the video blaming Harris for a fake hit-and-run incident came from a Russian-aligned influence network it calls Storm-1516, which other researchers refer to as CopyCop. The video, whose main character is played by an actor, is typical of the group’s efforts to react to current events with authentic-seeming “whistleblower” accounts that may seem like juicy unreported news to U.S. voters, the company said.

    The report revealed a second video disseminated by the group, which purported to show two Black men beating up a bloodied white woman at a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The video racked up thousands of shares on the social platform X and elicited comments like, “This is the kind of stuff to start civil wars.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Microsoft’s report also pointed to another Russian influence actor it calls Storm-1679 that has recently pivoted from posting about the French election and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group posted a manipulated video depicting a Times Square billboard that linked Harris to gender-affirming surgeries.

    The content highlighted in the report doesn’t appear to use generative artificial intelligence tools. It instead uses actors and more old-school editing techniques.

    Watts said Microsoft has been tracking the use of AI by nation states for more than a year and while foreign actors tried AI initially, many have gone back to basics as they’ve realized AI was “probably more time-consuming and not more effective.”

    Asked about Russia’s motivation, Watts said the Russia-aligned groups Microsoft tracks may not necessarily support particular candidates, but they are motivated to undermine anyone who “is supporting Ukraine in their policy.”

    Harris has vowed to continue supporting America’s ally Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion if elected president. Trump has demurred when asked about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, saying in the recent presidential debate, “ I want the war to stop.”

    At a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to suggest jokingly that he would support Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. election. Intelligence officials have said Moscow prefers Trump.

    The Harris campaign declined to comment. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

    Earlier this summer, Microsoft found that Iranian groups have also been laying the groundwork to stoke division in the election by creating fake news sites, impersonating activists and targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack.

    U.S. intelligence officials are preparing criminal charges in connection with that attack, which targeted the Trump campaign, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

    Microsoft’s new report also touches on how a Chinese-linked influence actor has used short-form video to criticize Biden and Harris and to create anti-Trump content, suggesting it doesn’t appear interested in supporting a particular candidate.

    Instead, the company said, the China-aligned group’s apparent goal is to “seed doubt and confusion among American voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • False reports of explosives found in a car near a Trump rally spread online

    False reports of explosives found in a car near a Trump rally spread online

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Law enforcement officials on Long Island worked quickly on Wednesday to publicly knock down social media posts falsely reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s planned rally in New York.

    The false reports of an explosive began circulating hours before the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign event at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just days after he was apparently the target of a second possible assassination attempt.

    Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police questioned and detained a person who “may have been training a bomb detection dog,” near the site of the rally and “falsely reported explosives being found.”

    Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesperson for the county police, said in follow-up messages that the person, who police have not yet identified, was a civilian and not a member of a law enforcement agency.

    He also said the person was not working at or affiliated with the event, which is expected to draw thousands of Trump supporters to the arena that was formerly the home of the NHL’s New York Islanders.

    The rally is Trump’s first on Long Island, a suburban area just east of New York City, since 2017.

    In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by a roughly 4% margin on Long Island, besting him in Nassau County by about 60,000 votes, though Trump carried neighboring Suffolk County by more than 200 votes.

    Earlier Wednesday, Skrynecki and other county officials responded swiftly to knock down the online line claims, which appear to have started with a post from a reporter citing unnamed sources in the local police department.

    The claims were then shared widely on X, formerly Twitter, by a number of prominent accounts, including that of the company’s owner, Elon Musk, which has nearly 200 million followers. Spokespersons for X didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

    “False,” Skrynecki texted the AP as the claims spread.

    “No. Ridiculous. Zero validity,” said Christopher Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

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  • AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Utah on Election Day

    AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Utah on Election Day

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Utah voters will cast ballots for the full range of federal and state offices in the Nov. 5 general election, including president, Congress, governor, state Legislature and others.

    Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican former President Donald Trump and half a dozen third-party candidates are competing for Utah’s six electoral votes to replace outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden. It has been 60 years since a Democratic presidential candidate has won Utah.

    GOP Congressman John Curtis, Democrat Caroline Gleich and independent candidate Carlton Bowen are squaring off to replace Republican U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, who announced last year he would not seek a second term.

    Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is running for reelection against Democratic state Rep. Brian King and three other candidates on the ballot. Cox received 64% of the vote in 2020.

    Utah’s four congressional seats, all held by Republicans, are up for election, including the 3rd District seat Curtis is vacating to run for the Senate.

    Two constitutional amendments are on the ballot but votes for or against them won’t count after state courts voided the measures. Both amendments, however, remain on the ballot to keep printing and other election deadlines on track. One amendment would have allowed state lawmakers to rewrite citizen-approved initiatives and the other asked voters to consider changing how state income tax revenue is spent.

    Polls close in Utah at 10 p.m. ET. Utah’s elections are conducted predominantly by mail, and all registered voters are sent absentee ballots, which can returned to a drop box or by mail. Mailed votes must be postmarked by Nov. 4, the day before Election Day. Utah tallies advance ballots prior to Election Day.

    Utah counted a third of its votes after Election Day in 2022 and those additional ballots favored Democrats by 4 percentage points. That’s a substantial change from recent prior elections when the shift expanded the margin of victory for Republicans by one half to almost a full percentage point. The main counties to watch for additional votes have been Davis, Salt Lake and Utah.

    Utah’s mandatory recount provision is triggered when the difference in votes for each candidate is equal to or less than 0.25% of the total number of votes cast.

    Utah has been solidly Republican. Lyndon Johnson was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win there, carrying the state in 1964.

    Still, Utah bears watching. As the state’s Mormon population has dropped, Utah has become more diverse. And some of the state’s Mormon voters have half-heartedly embraced Trump. Although Trump won Utah by 18 and 20 percentage point margins in 2016 and 2020, he far underperformed previous GOP nominees, who carried the state by nearly 30- to almost 50-point margins from 2000 through 2012.

    The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it has determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

    Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Utah:

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Election Day

    Nov. 5.

    Poll closing time

    10 p.m. ET.

    Presidential electoral votes

    6 awarded to statewide winner.

    Key races and candidates

    President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Jill Stein (Green) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Cornel West (unaffiliated) and three others.

    U.S. Senate: Curtis (R) vs. Gleich (D) and one other.

    Governor: Cox (R) vs. Smith King (D) and three others.

    Other races of interest

    U.S. House, state Senate, state House, attorney general, auditor, state Board of Education, treasurer and ballot measures.

    Past presidential results

    2020: Trump (R) 58%, Biden (D) 38%, AP race call: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, 11:07 p.m. ET.

    Voter registration and turnout

    Registered voters: 2,025,754 (as of Oct. 21, 2024). About 14% Democrats, 50% Republicans and 29% unaffiliated.

    Voter turnout in 2020 presidential election: 80% of registered voters.

    Pre-Election Day voting

    Votes cast before Election Day 2020 and 2022: almost all votes cast by mail.

    Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker.

    How long does vote-counting take?

    First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 10:01 p.m. ET.

    By midnight ET: about 63% of total votes cast were reported.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.

    ___

    Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Oregon on Election Day

    AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Oregon on Election Day

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential election and the race for control of the closely divided U.S. House are expected to dominate attention in Oregon on election night on Nov. 5. Voters will also decide a ballot measure to establish ranked-choice voting.

    At the top of the ballot, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump will compete for Oregon’s eight electoral votes. The state had one of the closest vote margins in the 2000 presidential election but was overshadowed by the Florida recount. Since then, Oregon has moved sharply towards Democratic candidates in presidential elections, so much so that neither ticket has stepped foot in the state since becoming their parties’ nominees.

    In the U.S. House, Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer faces a tough reelection bid for a second term in a district where voters preferred President Joe Biden over Trump by almost 10 percentage points in 2020. The Democratic nominee is Janelle Bynum, a state representative. Three third-party or independent candidates are also on the ballot. Chavez-DeRemer was first elected in 2022 by a 51%-49% margin.

    Republicans are targeting two first-term incumbents in Democratic-leaning districts covering the Salem and Eugene areas. Both Reps. Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas won their seats in 2022 with a fraction more than 50% of the vote, although Hoyle enjoyed an 8-point margin of victory over her Republican opponent. Biden carried both Hoyle’s 4th District and Salinas’ 6th District with 55% of the vote.

    Voters will also consider Measure 117, which would establish ranked-choice voting. If passed, the measure would represent a significant shift in Oregon’s voting system. It’s one of five statewide questions on the ballot.

    Voters are also casting ballots for Portland mayor and the city’s new 12-member City Council.

    Oregon’s first reports typically focus on votes cast before Election Day, as the state primarily uses mail-in ballots. Oregon allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive up to seven days later. This means initial results can shift as later ballots are processed. Key areas to watch include Clackamas and Deschutes counties, which are often pivotal in close races. Ballots were mailed out starting Oct. 16.

    Here’s a look at what to expect in the 2024 election in Oregon:

    Election Day

    Nov. 5.

    Poll closing time

    11 p.m. ET.

    Presidential electoral votes

    8 awarded to statewide winner.

    Key races and candidates

    President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (We the People) vs. Cornel West (Progressive) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Randall Terry (Constitution) vs. Jill Stein (Green).

    5th Congressional District: Chavez-DeRemer (R) vs. Janelle Bynum (D) and three others.

    Ballot measures: Measure 117 (establish ranked-choice voting).

    Other races of interest

    U.S. House, state Senate, state House, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, Portland mayor and other ballot measures.

    Past presidential results

    2020: Biden (D) 56%, Trump (R) 40%, AP race call: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, 11 p.m. ET.

    Voter registration and turnout

    Registered voters: 3,051,923 (as of Oct. 2, 2024). About 33% Democrats, 24% Republicans and 36% nonaffiliated.

    Voter turnout in 2020 presidential election: 80% of registered voters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Pre-Election Day voting

    Votes cast before Election Day 2020 and 2022: Almost all votes cast by mail.

    Votes cast before Election Day 2024: See AP Advance Vote tracker.

    How long does vote-counting take?

    First votes reported, Nov. 3, 2020: 11 p.m. ET.

    By midnight ET: about 80% of total votes cast were reported.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.

    ___

    Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Golden small business owner challenges U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen for suburban seat in Congress

    Golden small business owner challenges U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen for suburban seat in Congress

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    Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.

    But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.

    “People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”

    He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.

    Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.

    As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.

    Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.

    “As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.

    Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”

    “We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.

    According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.

    Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.

    Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.

    “We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”

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    John Aguilar

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  • Hunter Biden revives lawsuit against Fox News over explicit images used in streaming series

    Hunter Biden revives lawsuit against Fox News over explicit images used in streaming series

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Hunter Biden has revived a lawsuit that accuses Fox News of illegally publishing explicit images of him as part of a streaming series.

    The president’s son first sued Fox in New York in July over images used in the Fox Nation series “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” a “mock trial” of Hunter Biden on charges he has not faced. He dropped the suit without explanation three weeks later, the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.

    On Tuesday, Hunter Biden filed a largely identical suit in state court in Manhattan, again arguing that the dissemination of intimate images without his consent violates New York’s so-called revenge porn law. The new suit adds one current Fox executive one former executive as named defendants.

    Biden’s attorney, Tina Glandian, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on why the suit was revived.

    In a filing Tuesday, Fox asked that the case be moved to federal court. The company issued a statement describing the second suit as “once again devoid of any merit.”

    “The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” the statement said. “The program was removed within days of that letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.”

    Biden was convicted in July of three felony firearms charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018. The six-part Fox Nation series depicted a dramatized court proceeding on different, fictional charges.

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  • Biden administration announces $750 million investment in North Carolina chipmaker Wolfspeed

    Biden administration announces $750 million investment in North Carolina chipmaker Wolfspeed

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    The Biden-Harris administration announced plans Tuesday to provide up to $750 million in direct funding to semiconductor developer and manufacturer Wolfspeed. The money will be used to support the company’s new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in advanced computer chips and its factory in Marcy, New York.

    In addition to the government grant, a group of investment funds led by Apollo, The Baupost Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Capital Group plan to provide an additional $750 million to Wolfspeed, the company said. Wolfspeed also expects to receive $1 billion from an advanced manufacturing tax credit, meaning the company in total will have access of up to $2.5 billion.

    Wolfspeed stock surged Tuesday on the announcement of the combined $1.5 billion in funding. Shares were up 3 points, or 30%, as of noon ET.

    Wolfspeed’s use of silicon carbide enables the computer chips used in electric vehicles and other advanced technologies to be more efficient. The North Carolina-based company’s two projects are estimated to create 2,000 manufacturing jobs as part of a more than $6 billion expansion plan.

    “Artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and clean energy are all technologies that will define the 21st century, and thanks to proposed investments in companies like Wolfspeed, the Biden-Harris administration is taking a meaningful step towards reigniting U.S. manufacturing of the chips that underpin these important technologies,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.


    Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo: The 60 Minutes Interview

    13:37

    The new Wolfspeed facility in Siler City could be a critical symbol in this year’s election, as it opened earlier this year in a swing state county that is undergoing rapid economic expansion in large part due to incentives provided by the Biden-Harris administration.

    Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, is making the case to voters that the administration’s mix of incentives are increasing factory work, while former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, says the threat of broad tariffs will cause overseas factories to relocate in the United States.

    In 2023, President Joe Biden spoke at Wolfspeed to promote his economic agenda, saying it would help the United States outcompete China. Trump narrowly won North Carolina during the 2020 presidential election and has talked about bringing back the state’s furniture manufacturing sector.

    The Biden administration helped shepherd the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act through Congress amid concern after the pandemic that the loss of access to chips made in Asia could plunge the U.S. economy into recession. Lawmakers at the time expressed concern about efforts by China to control Taiwan, which accounts for more than 90% of advanced computer chip production.

    The Biden-Harris administration’s argument is that the government support encourages additional private investments, a case that appears to apply to Wolfspeed.

    Wolfspeed CEO Gregg Lowe told The Associated Press that the United States currently produces 70% of the world’s silicon carbide — and that the investments will help the country preserve its lead as China ramps up efforts in the sector.

    Lowe said “we’re very happy with this grant” and that the Commerce Department staff awarding funds from the CHIPS Act was “terrific.”

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  • Hurricane Milton has caused thousands of flight cancellations, is yours one of them? What to know

    Hurricane Milton has caused thousands of flight cancellations, is yours one of them? What to know

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of flights in and out of the U.S. have been canceled this week as Hurricane Milton barreled into the Gulf of Mexico and plowed across Florida — causing many airports in the storm’s path to close their doors.

    And airlines across the country grounded flights as a result. There were more than 2,270 U.S. flight cancellations as of Thursday afternoon, according to tracking service FlightAware, following 1,970 on Wednesday.

    After battering the southeastern U.S. and parts of Cuba Wednesday, the hurricane moved into the Atlantic Ocean Thursday. Dangers still persist, with officials pointing to storm-surge warnings for much of Florida’s east-central coast and farther north into Georgia, for example, as well as tropical storm warnings reaching South Carolina. That means travel disruptions across the region will likely continue.

    Airlines can’t control the weather, but they are still required to provide refunds for customers whose flights are canceled. Earlier this week, President Joe Biden and other government officials also warned companies not to overcharge people fleeing the storm — as some travelers reported unusually high prices — but airlines defended themselves, with some noting they had recently imposed fare caps.

    Here’s what to know about your rights, and what to do when cancellations start piling up.

    Watch the weather and check your flight before heading out

    The widespread damage of Hurricane Milton, which arrives as the region is already reeling from Hurricane Helene, is still being assessed. And, again, storm-surge warnings continued to be in place on Thursday.

    Watching weather forecasts and checking your flight’s status ahead of time is key. In recent days, many airports in Florida ceased commercial operations — with Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport, for example, remaining closed to the public Thursday. But Orlando, which saw the highest number of cancellations Thursday, later said it would receive a few arrivals in the evening and plans to begin departures again Friday. Tampa’s airport also said it would reopen Friday.

    People in the region have been instructed to stay inside and shelter in place until officials say it’s safe.

    “If you’re traveling out of Florida, please do not head to the airport unless that airport is open and it’s safe to drive there,” the U.S. Transportation Security Administration wrote Thursday on social media platform X. “Always check with your airline(s) to verify flight status.”

    While Florida has been hit hardest by Milton, travel disruptions spread across the country. For those not in the storm’s path, some might be able to reroute their trips, but capacity will be limited. And it’s better to be stuck at home or in a hotel than to be stranded in an airport terminal, so use the airline’s app or flight websites to make sure that your flight is still on before heading out. Carriers try to cancel flights hours or even days before departure.

    And with nearly two months of Atlantic hurricane season left to go, it’s possible there will be other severe storms in the near future. Keep an eye on weather forecasts leading up to your trip.

    Contact your airline

    Airlines should rebook passengers automatically, but that could take much longer as carriers recover from the hurricane, so passengers may have to take more initiative. And be more creative.

    People already at an airport usually go to an in-person help desk — but lines are long when there’s widespread disruptions. Travel experts suggest calling the airline and using an international help-desk number, if there is one, to reach an agent more quickly.

    Another tactic is to post a few words to the airline on the social platform X. Many airlines have staffers who will help rebook passengers who contact the carrier through social media.

    Use your airline’s app — it may have more-current information about flight status than delays and cancellations displayed in the airport terminal.

    Can I ask to be booked on another airline?

    You can, but airlines aren’t required to put you on another carrier’s flight. Some airlines, including the biggest ones except Southwest, say they can get you to a partner airline, but even then it’s often hit or miss.

    A good tip is to research alternative flights while you wait to talk to an agent. It may also be worth checking nearby airports for other routes.

    Can I get a refund?

    Passengers whose flights are canceled are entitled to a full refund in the form of payment they used to buy the ticket. That’s true even if the ticket was sold as non-refundable.

    A refund may be acceptable to travelers who no longer want to make the trip, but many people just want another way to reach their destination, and buying a last-minute replacement ticket could cost more than the refund will cover.

    Am I eligible for other cost reimbursements?

    There is no provision for additional compensation under U.S. law, and airlines set their own policies for reimbursing stranded travelers for things like hotels and meals.

    However, the Biden-Harris administration has been working to change that. In other recent moments of widespread travel disruptions, Transportation Department has appeared to be taking the view that many cancellations and delays are within the airlines’ control, pressuring carriers to cover passengers’ costs.

    “We have reminded the airlines of their responsibilities to take care of passengers if they experience major delays,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said earlier this year, when a widespread technology outage also canceled thousands of flights in July.

    And last year, the Transportation Department fined Southwest $35 million as part of a $140 million settlement to resolve an investigation into nearly 17,000 canceled flights in December 2022.

    The department maintains a “dashboard” showing what each airline promises to cover during travel disruptions.

    ___

    Koenig reported from Dallas.

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  • Ted Cruz and Colin Allred meet in the only debate in the Texas Senate race

    Ted Cruz and Colin Allred meet in the only debate in the Texas Senate race

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    DALLAS (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Rep. Colin Allred met for their only debate Tuesday night, trading attacks over abortion and immigration in a closely watched race that could help determine which party wins control of the U.S. Senate.

    Nationally, Democrats view Texas as one of their few potential pickup chances in the Senate this year, while Cruz has urged Republicans to take Texas seriously amid signs that the former 2016 presidential contender is in another competitive race to keep his seat.

    From start to finish in the hourlong debate, Cruz sought to link Allred to Vice President Kamala Harris at nearly every opportunity and painted the three-term Dallas congressman as out of step in a state where voters have not elected a Democrat to a statewide office in 30 years.

    Allred, who would become Texas’ first Black senator if elected, hammered Cruz over the state’s abortion ban that is one of the most restrictive in the nation and does not allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The issue is central to Allred’s underdog campaign and his supporters include Texas women who had serious pregnancy complications after the state’s ban took effect.

    Pressed on whether he supports Texas’ law, Cruz said the specifics of abortion law have been and should be decided by the Texas Legislature.

    Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a U.S. Senate debate with Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Dallas. (Shelby Tauber/Texas Tribune via AP, Pool)

    “I don’t serve in the state Legislature. I’m not the governor,” he said.

    Cruz later blasted Allred over his support of transgender rights and immigration polices of President Joe Biden and Harris, accusing him of shifting his views on border security from the positions he took when he was first elected to Congress in 2018.

    “What I always said is that we have to make sure that as we’re talking about border security, that we don’t fall into demonizing,” Allred said.

    Allred accused the two-term U.S. senator of mischaracterizing his record and repeatedly jabbed Cruz for his family vacation to Mexico during a deadly winter storm in 2021 that crippled the state’s power grid.

    The two candidates closed the debate by attacking each other, with Cruz painting an Allred victory as a threat to Republicans’ grip on Texas.

    “Congressman Allred and Kamala Harris are both running on the same radical agenda,” Cruz said.

    Image

    Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, left, speaks during a U.S. Senate debate with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, in Dallas. (Shelby Tauber/Texas Tribune via AP, Pool)

    Allred, meanwhile, cast himself as a moderate and accused Cruz of engaging in what he described as “anger-tainment, where you just leave people upset and you podcast about it and you write a book about it and you make some money on it, but you’re not actually there when people need you.”

    The last time Cruz was on the ballot in 2018, he only narrowly won reelection over challenger Beto O’Rourke.

    The debate offered Allred, a former NFL linebacker, a chance to boost his name identification to a broad Texas audience. Allred has made protecting abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign and has been sharply critical of the state’s abortion ban. The issue has been a winning one for Democrats, even in red states like Kentucky and Kansas, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to strip away constitutional protections for abortion.

    Cruz, who fast made a name for himself in the Senate as an uncompromising conservative, has refashioned his campaign to focus on his legislative record.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Allred has meanwhile sought to flash moderate credentials and has the endorsement of former Republican U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

    The two candidates alone have raised close to $100 million, according to the most recent reports from the Federal Election Commission. Tens of millions more dollars have been spent by outside groups, making it one of the most expensive races in the country.

    Despite Texas’ reputation as a deep-red state and the Democrats’ 30-year statewide drought, the party has grown increasingly optimistic in recent years that they can win here.

    Since former President Barack Obama lost Texas by more than 15 percentage points in 2012, the margins have steadily declined. Former President Donald Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016, and four years later, won by less than 6. That was the narrowest victory for a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996.

    “Texas is a red state,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “But it’s not a ruby-red state.”

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