Elon Musk’s $75m puts him among largest Republican donors – US politics live

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Two US officials who resigned last year in protest over president Joe Biden’s policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organisation and a political action committee (PAC) to advocate for a revamp of Washington’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Reuters reports.

Josh Paul, a former State Department official and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy advisor at the Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favour of unconditionally sending US weapons to Israel, but that elected officials have lagged behind.

Their PAC, called “A New Policy”, would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict align with US policies on human rights and equality and would ensure US arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel, comply with both US and international law.

Washington’s support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason for why Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly had backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.

“American voters are clear: they do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians,” Habbash said.

Judge halts new hand-count rule in Georgia

A Georgia judge has temporarily halted a new rule requiring poll workers to hand count ballots in the 5 November election, in a defeat for Donald Trump, whose Republican allies pushed for the change after he lost the battleground state in 2020, Reuters reports.

The hand-count rule was passed last month by a pro-Trump conservative majority of Georgia’s election board, who said they were attempting to make the Nov. 5 election more secure and transparent.

Democrats had said the change would sow chaos and delay results.

Georgia, where early voting began in record numbers yesterday, is one of seven states likely to determine the presidential contest next month. In 2020, Trump made false claims of widespread voting fraud in the state.

Judge Robert McBurney said in his decision that it was appropriate to pause the vote counting rule because it introduced fresh uncertainty into the process just weeks before election day.

“Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public,” according to a copy of the decision posted by Democracy Docket, a website founded by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias that tracks election cases.

Elon Musk gave $75m to pro-Trump group

Elon Musk gave around $75 million to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures showed, underscoring how the billionaire has become crucial to the Republican candidate’s efforts to win the presidential election Reuters reports.

America PAC, which is focused on turning out voters in closely contested states that could decide the election, spent around $72 million of that in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.

That is more than any other pro-Trump super PAC focused on turning out voters. The Trump campaign is broadly reliant on outside groups for canvassing voters, meaning the super PAC founded by Musk – the world’s richest man – plays an outsized role in the razor-thin election between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

Opening summary

Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. We’re now less than three weeks away from the US election on 5 November.

Earlier it was revealed Elon Musk gave around $75m to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures show, underscoring how the billionaire has become one of the largest Republican donors. Here’s a rundown of what’s been happening and what to expect on the campaign trail today:

• The first day of early voting in the battleground state of Georgia saw a record turnout, with 328,000 people casting a vote in person or by mail. This more than doubled the previous record of 136,000 set in 2020.

• Trump will launch a bus tour of north Carolina later today. The tour will travel across the state for three days before ending at the Wayne County Republican Party HQ on Friday. Early in-person voting begins tomorrow in the battleground state.

• Kamala Harris will return to the battleground state of Pennsylvania for another campaign event later today, after she visited Erie on Monday. She will then head to Wisconsin to visit Milwaukee, La Crosse and Green Bay on Thursday.

• Trump refused to say if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the 5 November election, in an interview with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait. He claimed there had been a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election, despite his supporters’ violent attack on the Capitol on 6 January.

• He also doubled down on his promise to levy tariffs on all imports in a bid to boost American manufacturing. Economists say this policy would probably mean higher prices for consumers and anger US allies.

• Yesterday Harris defended her record as a prosecutor, pledged to decriminalise marijuana and push for police reform. She was aiming to shore up support among black men in an interview with radio host Charlamagne tha God.

• The Harris Victory Fund, the Democratic candidate’s ‘big-dollar fundraising committee’, raised $633m in the three months from 1 July to 30 September. This was over a third higher than the amount raised by Biden in the same period in 2020, the New York Times reported.

• President Joe Biden said Harris would “cut her own path” once she wins the 2024 election, as he hit the campaign trail to help win over sceptical voters three weeks before Election Day. “Kamala will take the country in her own direction, and that’s one of the most important differences in this election,” he said. “Kamala’s perspective on our problems will be fresh and new. Donald Trump’s perspective old and failed and quite frankly, thoroughly totally dishonest.”