adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

News

Big voter turnout this year benefited Republicans, contradicting conventional political wisdom

Published

 on

The 2024 presidential election featured sky-high turnout, approaching the historic levels of the 2020 contest and contradicting long-held conventional political wisdom that Republicans struggle to win races in which many people vote.

According to Associated Press elections data, more than 153 million ballots were cast in this year’s race between Republican Donald Trump, now the president-elect, and Democrat Kamala Harris, the vice president, with hundreds of thousands of more still being tallied in slower-counting states such as California. When those ballots are fully tabulated, the number of votes will come even closer to the 158 million in the 2020 presidential contest, which was the highest turnout election since women were given the right to vote more than a century ago.

“Trump is great for voter turnout in both parties,” said Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University.

The former president’s victory in both the Electoral College and popular vote — Trump currently leads Harris by nearly 2.5 million votes nationwide — also contradicts the belief in politics that Democrats, not Republicans, benefit from high-turnout elections.

Trump himself voiced it in 2020 when he warned that a Democratic bill to expand mail balloting would lead to “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” That warning came as Trump began to sow conspiracy theories about using mail voting during the coronavirus pandemic, which he then used to falsely claim his 2020 loss was due to fraud.

That claim led to a wave of new laws adding regulations and rolling back forms of voting in GOP-controlled states and an expansion of mail voting in Democratic-led ones, as the battle over turnout became a central part of political debate. Such laws usually have a miniscule impact on voting but inspired allegations of voter suppression from Democrats and cheating from Republicans.

“It’s such an embarrassing story for proponents on both sides, because it’s so obviously wrong,” Hersh said.

Though both sides are likely to continue to battle over how elections are run, Trump’s high-turnout victory may take some of the urgency out of that confrontation.

“Now I think, you just won the popular vote, I think it’ll quiet down,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican data analyst and pollster who has long argued his party can succeed in a high-turnout election with a diverse electorate.

Experts note that turnout in the seven swing states at the heart of the election was even higher than in the rest of the country.

“This was a campaign in seven states much more so than previous elections have felt like,” Ruffini said.

While the rest the country shifted significantly from 2020, when Democrat Joe Biden won the popular vote by 7 million, or 4.5 percentage points, the outcome in the swing states was closer. The turnout story also was different. Turnout dropped from 2020 in noncompetitive states such as Illinois, which recorded more than 500,000 fewer votes than in the last presidential election, and Ohio, which reported more than 300,000 less.

Meanwhile, the number of votes cast topped those in 2020 in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which Trump won. Arizona’s turnout was nearly even with four years ago, as the state continued to count ballots.

Harris even met or topped Biden’s vote totals in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, and turnout has far eclipsed that of the 2016 presidential election, when 135.6 million voters cast ballots in a race won by Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton. The problem for Democrats is that Trump did better in the battlegrounds than four years ago.

“The Harris campaign did a pretty good job getting voters out who wouldn’t have come out,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst. “She did get her voters out. Trump got more.”

Those Trump turnout victories included first-time voter Jasmine Perez, 26, who voted for Trump at the Las Vegas Raiders stadium.

“I’m a Christian and he really aligns with a lot of my values as a Christian in America, and I like that he openly promotes Christianity in America,” Perez said.

Voting alongside her was Diego Zubek, 27, who voted for Trump in 2016 but didn’t vote in 2020 because he figured Trump would win easily. He voted for Trump this year.

“I wasn’t going to let that happen again,” Zubek said.

A key part of the GOP strategy was reaching out to voters such as Perez and Zubek, encouraging early and mail voting after Republicans had largely abandoned them in the past two elections due to Trump’s lies about vote fraud. Conservatives mounted extensive voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations targeting infrequent voters, a demographic that many operatives have long believed would not vote for the GOP.

More than half the votes were cast before Election Day this year, according to AP tracking of the advanced vote.

During the campaign, Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for Turning Point Action, a conservative group that ran a get-out-the-vote campaign with more than 1,000 workers in multiple battleground states, cited Stacey Abrams, a onetime Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, as an inspiration in his group’s effort. Abrams’ success mobilizing Black voters and other groups in her home state that were less likely to vote helped pave the way for Biden’s 2020 win there.

“We saw that Trump has this amazing reservoir of low-propensity conservatives who needed a little coaxing,” Kolvet said in an interview Friday. “They didn’t think their vote mattered, and their No. 1 pushback was they didn’t understand, really, how to vote.”

Kolvet acknowledged that conservatives long believed large turnout didn’t help them but contended that’s changed in the Trump era: “Our ideas are more popular,” he said.

Whether it continues is up to what happens next in Washington.

“It’s going to be up to conservatives to make good on those campaign promises,” Kolvet said.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Russia grinds deeper into Ukraine after 1,000 days of grueling war

Published

 on

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022, the conventional wisdom was that the capital, Kyiv, would soon fall and the rest of the country wouldn’t last long against a much larger enemy.

Instead, it was that narrative that quickly collapsed. The Ukrainian army proved it could slow the advance of Russia’s forces and, if not drive them out completely, then – with enough support from the West – at least forestall defeat.

But nearly three years later, the outlook is again grim. Russia is expending huge amounts of weaponry and human life to make small-but-steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls. Ukraine, meanwhile, is struggling to minimize losses, maintain morale and convince allies that, with more military aid, it can turn the tide.

As this brutal war of attrition grinds toward its 1,000th day, neither side seems eager to negotiate. President-elect Donald Trump has said he could quickly end the war, though it is unclear how or in whose favor he might tip the scales.

This backdrop appears to be driving Russia’s strategy in eastern Ukraine, according to Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Trump could try to force an end to the war by halting the supply of weapons to Ukraine, he said.

“If Trump cuts aid to Ukraine and a cease-fire leads to a frozen conflict, Russia wants to secure as much territory as it can now,” O’Brien said.

For Ukraine, the key to any cease-fire would be guarantees from the West that it won’t allow Russia to re-invade in the future. Otherwise, O’Brien said, “a cease-fire is a recipe for constant instability in Europe.”

Russia is advancing slowly but steadily in eastern Ukraine

In the war’s first year, Ukraine lost huge amounts of territory — but it also achieved notable victories. It resisted a much larger adversary with superior air power to survive as an independent country, and it reclaimed some land through gutsy counteroffensives, giving the underdog — and its wealthy allies — the confidence to stay in the fight.

In the second year, which was punctuated by Ukraine’s devastating loss of Bakhmut and its failed counteroffensive, the armies essentially fought to a standstill along a 1,000 kilometer (620 mile) front line. Toward the end of that year, the U.S. Congress delayed the approval of a $61 billion package of aid for weapons, and economic and humanitarian assistance.

With Ukraine’s ammunition dwindling, its outlook deteriorated significantly as the war’s third year began. In February 2024, the town of Avdiivka fell after months of airstrikes by Russia, which used highly destructive Soviet-era bombs retrofitted with navigation systems.

The fall of Avdiivka created a major breach in Ukraine’s defenses. When Russia later mounted an assault on the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian troops were stretched further.

A bright spot for Ukraine came in August, when it launched a surprise incursion into Russia. It took — and still holds — hundreds of square kilometers in the Kursk region. While this could be an important chip in any cease-fire negotiations, it hasn’t stopped Russian forces from taking more land in Ukraine’s east.

“The Russians have paid a very high price to keep advancing, but they’re willing to pay that price in lives to gain a few more meters of territory each day,” said Justin Crump, head of the British strategic advisory firm Sibylline.

Tens of thousands of soldiers from both countries have been killed since the start of the war in 2022, according to estimates, and the U.N. says at least 11,700 Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

While the amount of land Russia has gained in 2024 — about 2,455 square kilometers (948 square miles)— is equal to less than 1% of Ukraine’s pre-war territory, it is having a psychological impact.

With Ukraine in retreat, “we’ve now returned to a period reminiscent of the (war’s) first months,” said Mykola Bielieskov, an analyst at CBA Initiatives Center in Kyiv. “This strengthens Russia’s position — not so much militarily, but in terms of morale.”

A war of attrition requires both sides to seek outside resources

To keep its war machine going, Russia — like Ukraine — has turned to allies for help.

Iran supplies Russia with drones and possibly missiles, and North Korea has sent ammunition — and even troops, who have been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed this year that 700,000 of his troops are fighting in Ukraine. Analysts say Putin would need a much larger force to accelerate Russia’s advance, but that he is unlikely to mobilize more troops because it could stoke internal discontent.

Ukraine’s foothold in Kursk is another complicating factor for Putin, and it could be used as a bargaining chip in any future cease-fire negotiations.

Captain Yevhen Karas, a Ukrainian commander in Kursk, said the fighting inside Russia is highly dynamic, but he believes it will prove effective in diverting Russia’s attention and resources.

“Even a creeping, retreating front exhausts the enemy significantly,” Karas said.

Ukraine has asked the West for longer range missiles and its blessing to fire at air bases deep inside Russia. But its allies have so far resisted, wary of escalating tensions with a nuclear-armed Russia.

The U.S. has provided more than $64 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the war began 1,000 days ago. Soldiers worry about what would happen without sustained American support.

“Bravery, heroism, and spirit alone are not enough,” said a Ukrainian soldier in the eastern Donetsk region who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with military rules.

The soldier estimated that where he is stationed Russian infantry outnumber Ukrainian troops 10 to 1. As the war drags on and the death toll rises, it has become increasingly difficult for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to keep replacing troops.

The US will play a vital role in determining the war’s next direction

What direction the war takes next will depend in large part on how the incoming Trump administration plays its hand.

Trump, who has touted his good relationship with President Vladimir Putin and called the Russian leader “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine, has repeatedly criticized American backing of Ukraine.

During his only campaign debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win — raising concerns that Kyiv could be forced to accept unfavorable terms in any negotiations.

Without security guarantees from the West, Ukraine could find itself vulnerable to future Russian aggression. Analysts say a cease-fire based on the current state of the battlefield would set a dangerous precedent, implying that Europe’s borders are up for grabs through military action — something that hasn’t happened since World War II.

“This would also have a lot of traction in countries like China, India, and elsewhere,” said Richard Connolly, a Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “They could present that as a strategic defeat not only for Ukraine, but also for the West.”

As another winter of war approaches, Ukrainian soldiers say they remain resolute.

“We are standing strong, giving it our all, and we won’t surrender,” said a battalion chief of staff in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. “The most important thing now is not to lose more land.”

___

Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Tea is a way of life in Azerbaijan and center stage at COP29. But it’s not immune to climate change

Published

 on

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Agreements might not yet be brewing amongst negotiators at United Nations climate talks, but tea certainly is.

It’s one of the clearest reminders that the climate summit — COP29 — is hosted by Azerbaijan. Attendees who roam for miles within the indoor venue have ample options to take a pit stop for sugar and caffeine: shops stack high mountains of pastries with sugary, nutty pakhlava and cardamom-tinged, crescent-shaped shekerbura. At Azerbaijan’s country pavilion, women in Baku’s traditional dress pour the warm drink for visitors.

All of it, like daily life in the city outside, revolves around tea — which climate change threatens around the globe. As world leaders descend on the capital city of Baku for climate talks, researchers who study tea report that in some regions around the world, tea cultivation could decrease by over half as rising temperatures, drought, heavy precipitation and erosion batter tea plants and the land they grow on. Scientists are studying ways to improve tea varieties and preparing for a future where some tea production moves north, along with many other crops hard hit by climate change.

Tea “is a source of livelihood for our region; especially for the local people, for tea producers,” said Keziban Yazici, a professor who has been studying the effects of climate change on tea, speaking in Turkish. “We need to take the necessary precautions against climate change to make this product sustainable.”

Their team has been working on developing drought-resistant tea varieties and protecting the tea gene pool at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in Rize, Turkey, one of the major tea-producing areas in the Caucasus region. Yazici traveled to Azerbaijan this spring to initiate further cooperation between the countries — which have many similarities in tea culture and growing — on preparing tea crops for the threat of climate change.

The perilous future of this beloved drink serves as a reminder that if the world fails to meet the global warming goals set in the Paris Agreement, many places around the world stand to grieve not just lives and livelihoods, but also treasured elements of cultural heritage.

“Culture and the future has to be aligned,” said Fatima Fataliyeva, the senior sustainability manager for the COP29 operation company, who was responsible for the design of the Azerbaijan pavilion at the venue. “My mom taught me this, so I will (teach) my kids, so it doesn’t disappear.”

Fataliyeva described the importance for her team of including Azerbaijani culture at the venue. The first thing that comes to your attention, she said, is tea.

From an early age, she learned that drinking tea symbolized hospitality and respect. Tea is for drinking with family and friends, in the home and out on dates. It’s central in gossiping and matchmaking, for grandpas playing chess, on festivals and in times of mourning. People drink it from pear-shaped glasses called armudu that keep the bottom of the tea warm while cooling the top, sometimes served with a wedge of orange or lemon and a lump of boiled sugar.

“When you are happy, you drink tea. When you are sad, you drink tea,” said Levent Kurnaz, a professor who studies climate change and ways of combatting invasive pests that are likely to cause increasing harm to tea plants.

Kurnaz attended COP29 in part because he saw it as an important way to communicate about climate change — a topic he says isn’t talked about as widely in Turkey and Azerbaijan but that is already slamming the few subject-matter experts in the region with a vast array of problems, present and future, in fields ranging from agriculture to immigration.

“Climate change will affect this region seriously,” Kurnaz said, especially for farmers, many of them women, who have grown tea all their lives. “They don’t have a clue what to do when tea production goes sour. But at some point it will.”

Azerbaijan is 25th on the list of top crude oil exporting countries and one of the birthplaces of the oil industry, one of leading sources of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. The country is planning to hike its fossil fuel production over the next decade to meet demand from Europe, and their oil production has been a point of controversy since the beginning of this COP.

But President Ilham Aliyev said earlier this year that the country is an phase of transition toward clean energy, while maintaining the world continues to need fossil fuels to develop in the foreseeable future.

For ordinary people as well as producers, climate change and choices about food and drink are intertwined. That’s evident to Rauf Shikhaliyev, who owns a vegetarian and vegan restaurant in Baku called De Rama, also included in the COP29 venue food court. He felt it was “very important to participate” at the climate talks because his project of creating a vegetarian restaurant was “highly linked to climate change,” he said.

He added that after years in the restaurant business, he’s seen the tea culture firsthand: before they order food, many locals will first order tea.

It’s fitting for the U.N.: “Tea drinking makes people get kind of united,” he said.

___

Frazer reported from Ankara, Turkey.

___

Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly known as Twitter, @MelinaWalling.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

AP sources: Biden for the first time OKs Ukraine’s use of US-supplied long-range missiles in Russia

Published

 on

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has for the first time authorized the use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.

The decision is a major U.S. policy shift and comes as Biden is about to leave office and President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to limit American support for Ukraine and end the war as soon as possible.

The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to Russia in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to one of the people.

The people were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending