President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Friday, July 31, 2020. Trump is en route to Florida to attend events. (AP)
Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the United States is all set to vote in the upcoming presidential elections due in November. The elections are seen as a direct contest between sitting US President and Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who was vice-president during the Barack Obama presidency.
Earlier on July 30, through a series of tweets, President Trump sparked a political firestorm in America after he suggested that the upcoming presidential elections should be delayed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. Though, he later clarified saying that he does not want to delay the election, but expressed apprehension that counting of mailed ballots could take weeks and hamper the results, leading to a compromised poll. His suggestion was immediately criticised by leaders by the opposition Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, Biden is soon to announce his vice presidential choice, the Associated Press reported. His campaign, however, hasn’t finalized a date for naming a running mate yet, but three people who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity said that a public announcement likely wouldn’t happen before the week of August 10.
Biden’s supporters have also announced a launch of outreach in 14 languages to influence the Indian-American community. Slogans such as “America Ka Neta Kaisa Ho Joe Biden Jaisa Ho” (America’s leader needs to be like Biden) have been created to generate similar enthusiasm among voters.
In this June 20, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump arrives on stage to speak at a campaign rally at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla. (AP photo)
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at the William "Hicks" Anderson Community Center in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, July 28, 2020.(AP)
In the 2016 presidential election, 77 per cent of Indian Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, according to statistics by CRW Strategy, a research firm. A recent survey carried out by Donald Trump's supporter Al Mason claims that 50 per cent of Indian-American voters in key battleground states are moving away from the opposition Democratic Party towards Trump. The US presidential elections are slated to be held on November 3.
Around 1.3 million Indian-Americans are expected to vote in this year's election, with nearly 200,000 in battleground states like Pennsylvania and 125,000 in Michigan, according to the research firm CRW Strategy, Makhija wrote, adding that Indian-Americans register and vote at high rates, even though they remain under-represented in elected office.
Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris is the best bet as a running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the presidential elections as she can not only bring along her immigrant experience to the fore but also send a strong signal that no door is closed to Indian-Americans in public life, an eminent community leader has said. Harris, 55, is reportedly among the candidates shortlisted for a running mate for Biden. The former vice president, who is challenging incumbent Donald Trump, a Republican, has said that he would select a woman as his running mate this month.
"Harris knows the Black American experience. She knows the South Asian-American experience. She knows the immigrant experience. She knows the aspirational power of the American dream. She is the running mate for this moment," wrote Neil Makhija, Executive Director of IMPACT, in an op-ed published by CNN.
President Donald Trump has no intention of “peacefully” transferring power if he loses the November election, according to House Majority Whip James Clyburn.
Trump, who floated the idea of delaying the vote last week over fraud concerns, neither plans to leave the White House nor hold “fair and unfettered elections,” the Democratic Representative from South Carolina said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I believe that he plans to install himself in some kind of emergency way to continue to hold onto office,” Clyburn said. “And that’s why the American people had better wake up.”
In a huge blow to Indian IT professionals eyeing the US job market, President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order preventing federal agencies from contracting or subcontracting foreign workers — mainly those on H-1B visa — from hiring.
The move came over a month after the Trump administration in June 23 suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers in a crucial election year. The new restrictions took effect from June 24.
Joe Biden Monday said that President Donald Trump was telling 'bald-faced lies' about voting by mail to distract from his own failures, after Trump last week suggested it could lead to be cause to delay the election, Reuters reported. "He suggested we should postpone the election, full of just bald-faced lies about how mail-in votes were fraud, and how it was so terrible," Biden said, adding, "Well look, he's calling out any effort to exploit this pandemic for political purposes. It distracts from his complete failure."
Nevada lawmakers passed a bill Sunday that would add the state to a growing list of US states that will mail active voters ballots ahead of the November election amid the coronavirus pandemic. he bill now heads to Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat. If he signs it as expected, Nevada will join seven states that plan on automatically sending voters mail ballots, including California and Vermont, which moved earlier this summer to adopt automatic mail ballot policies. President Donald Trump called the bill's passage "an illegal late night coup" in a tweet Monday morning. He accused Sisolak of exploiting COVID-19 to ensure votes in Nevada would favor Democrats. (PTI)
The House Oversight Committee has invited the new postmaster general to appear at a hearing next month to examine operational changes to the US Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries across the country. The plan imposed by Louis DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser who took over the top job at the Postal Service in June, eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and orders that mail be kept until the next day if postal distribution centers are running late. (AP)
Last week, Joe Biden’s supporters announced launch of an outreach to the influential Indian-Americans in 14 languages, reflecting the linguistic diversity of an ethnic community which is being sought after by both Democrats and Republicans in the key battleground states.
For instance, “America Ka Neta Kaisa Ho, Jo Biden Jaisa Ho,” (America’s leader needs to be like Biden) has been picked from a popular election campaign slogan from the world’s largest democracy.
Opposition Democratic Party’s election slogan in Indian languages comes four years after the phenomenal success of Trump campaign’s election slogan in 2016, “Ab Ki Trump Sarkar” (This time, Trump government), on the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 election catch-line “Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkaar”.
Ajay Bhutoria, the national finance committee member for Biden for President 2020, said the campaign is planning to reach out to the Indian-American voters in their own languages. Read more here.
President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, both promise of remarkable progress for the country in the coming next four years –- via starkly different paths.
Trump, like his fellow Republicans, offers tax reductions and regulatory cuts to fix the American economy. He has predicted that the US economy will rebound in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
On the other hand, Biden who became the Democratic presidential nominee after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race on April 8, pitches for necessary actions required to avoid an extended recession or depression caused due to the pandemic. In his campaign, he has addressed the long-standing wealth inequality that disproportionately affects nonwhite Americans.
Amongst his plans include: a $2 trillion, four-year push intended to eliminate carbon pollution in the US, energy grid by 2035, and a new government health insurance plan open to all working-age Americans. He also proposes new spending on education, infrastructure, and small businesses, along with raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour.
US President Donald Trump has a key advantage in the battleground states that could re-elect him in November, his eldest son Donald Trump Jr has said, citing an op-ed which claims that 50 per cent of Indian-American voters in these states are moving away from the opposition Democratic Party towards his father.
Seeking re-election for his second consecutive term, Trump, 74, is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, in the November 3 presidential elections. Most of the opinion polls show that Biden is several points ahead of Trump.
Trump Jr, who is leading his father's 2020 re-election campaign, played a key role in the outreach to the Indian-American community in 2016, which he has continued during the last three-and-a-half years, news agency PTI reported.
The vote to renominate President Donald Trump is set to be conducted in private later this month, without members of the press present, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Convention said on Saturday, citing the coronavirus.
However, according to the Associated Press, a Republican National Committee official contradicted that assessment Sunday, emphasizing that no final decisions have been made and that logistics and press coverage options were still being evaluated, The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While Trump called off the public components of the convention in Florida last month, citing spiking cases of the virus across the country, 336 delegates are scheduled to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 24 to formally vote to make Trump the GOP standard-bearer once more.
As the US presidential election is set to take place in November, many states are making postal voting options more easily accessible due to the coronavirus pandemic – which has impacted the US harder than all other countries.
President Donald Trump, however, has stridently opposed mail-in options, tweeting on Thursday, “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
Previously, Trump has even said that should plans to expand postal voting succeed, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
So how postal voting works in the United States? Read our explainer.
Should former Vice President Joe Biden win the White House in November, America will likely be in for a foreign policy about-face as Biden reverses, dismantles or severely curtails many of President Donald Trump’s most significant and boldest actions.
From the Middle East to Asia, Latin America to Africa and, particularly, Europe, and on issues including trade, terrorism, arms control and immigration, the presumptive Democratic nominee and his advisers have vowed to unleash a tsunami of change in how the US handles itself in the international arena, the Associated Press reported.
With few exceptions, Americans could expect Biden to re-engage with traditional allies. Where the iconoclastic Trump has used blunt threats and insults to press his case, Biden, a former senator, would be more inclined to seek common ground.
The United States woke up on Thursday (July 30) to a series of tweets by President Donald Trump suggesting that the upcoming presidential election should be delayed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For months, several state governments in the US have been contemplating mail-in voting due to public health concerns that in-person voting may lead to an increase in infection cases.
But can Trump delay the election, scheduled to be held on November 3? We explain here.
Earlier on July 30, through a series of tweets, President Trump sparked a political firestorm in America after he suggested that the upcoming presidential elections should be delayed on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. Though, he later clarified saying that he does not want to delay the election, but expressed apprehension that counting of mailed ballots could take weeks and hamper the results, leading to a compromised poll. His suggestion was immediately criticised by leaders by the opposition Democratic Party.
Welcome to the Indian Express LIVE blog of US Elections 2020. Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the United States is all set to vote in the upcoming presidential elections due in November. The elections are seen as a direct contest between sitting US President and Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who was vice-president during the Barack Obama presidency.