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Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk speaks as Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump looks on during a rally at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.
Election Countdown: Harris, Trump, and Musk focus in on the swing states
It's two weeks until Election Day, and both candidates are scrambling to pull ahead in the seven swing states that could decide the election.
Kamala Harris hit three battleground states on Monday – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan – accompanied by former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney. The two aimed to win over Trump-skeptic Republicans and independent voters in the suburbs to secure a “blue wall” against the GOP-dominated rural stretches of the states.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump campaigned in western North Carolina, criticizing FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene in a region where many people are still without water, internet, and power. These counties are also 61% Republican, and Trump is trying to galvanize residents by attacking the government’s response to the storm, baselessly accusing FEMA of spending funds on undocumented immigrants, “They don’t have any money ... It’s all gone. They’ve spent it on illegal migrants, many of them are murderers.”
Monday was also the deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania, the election’s most critical swing state and the site of Elon Musk’s controversial sweepstakes giving $1 million to one registered voter who signs his petition every day until the election. The scheme is raising alarm bells among election law experts because it could be considered financially incentivizing registering to vote or voting, which is illegal. But on its face, it is only a reward for signing a petition that affirms the rights to free speech and to bear arms.
Its potential impact is up for debate. Of the 9.95 million people of voting age in Pennsylvania, 90.8% of them are already registered, a slight uptick from the 2020 presidential election. However, it undoubtedly raises awareness and anticipation of the upcoming vote, which could lead to more of Musk’s fans — who disproportionately lean to the right — casting their ballots.
Wondering which swing states each candidate needs to win to secure the White House? Read this for everything you need to know.Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk reacts next to Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump during a campaign rally, at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.
Can Elon Musk sway the election?
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, has thrown his full weight behind former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Musk endorsed Trump in July after a gunman attempted to assassinate the former president at a Pennsylvania rally. In the time since, he’s spent millions to help Trump get elected, echoed conspiracy theories spread by the ex-president, and taken to the campaign trail to muster support for the GOP presidential nominee. But will it be enough to propel Trump to victory?
How influential is Musk? Through his various business holdings, Musk has the capacity to shape everything from public discourse and space travel to internet access in war zones.
For years, Musk — who has a net worth of $265 billion — was best known as the owner of Tesla and SpaceX. But in 2022, he acquired X (formerly Twitter). Musk has taken controversial steps since purchasing the social media platform, ranging from using his personal account with 201 million followers to spread outlandish, false claims to restoring accounts that had been banned for spreading misinformation, including Trump’s.
After Hurricane Helene devastated North Carolina last month, for example, Musk took to X and amplified baseless claims about the federal government seizing and blocking aid from being distributed, among other groundless assertions. Subsequently, there have been reports of FEMA aid workers being threatened, leading the agency to adjust operations — including stopping door-to-door visits.
This is just one example of the power Musk wields via his immense wealth and ownership of X, a major public forum. The erroneous information he’s helped spread has complicated hurricane relief efforts, making it harder to get aid to victims.
Can Musk sway the 2024 presidential election? Even before he publicly endorsed the former president,Musk launched a pro-Trump super PAC — America PAC — and pumped $75 million of his own money into it between July and September. America PAC has primarily focused on canvassing, digital operations, and direct mail.
Meanwhile, Musk has hit the campaign trail in swing states like Pennsylvania — even appearing onstage with the former president — as part of his efforts to boost Trump’s campaign. But Musk is a highly divisive figure, and polling suggests he could struggle to appeal to on-the-fence voters who could be crucial to winning in November.
A recent NBC News poll found that just 31% of independents view Musk positively. That said, the billionaire is fairly popular with Republican voters. The poll found 62% of GOP voters have positive feelings about Musk, though only 7% of Democrats said the same.
It remains to be seen whether Musk’s efforts to help Trump win will pay off. His super PAC has stumbled in its canvassing efforts in key battleground states due to problems linked to last-minute vendor switches and hiring struggles. Musk himself has acknowledged these setbacks. In response to a tweet about the super PAC’s woes earlier this month, he said, “Sorry, so many dumb things happening. Working on fixing.”
What does Musk get out of this? If the election goes the way the billionaire wants, Musk could be given a great deal of credit and gain even more influence over Trump as the former president once again assumes the most powerful office on the planet.
Trump has even suggested that he might offer Musk a spot in his Cabinet. He’s also discussed making Musk the head of a government efficiency commission, which could give the billionaire sway over rules that impact his companies. This could help explain why Musk has gone all-in on Trump’s campaign, despite once privately referring to the ex-president as a “stone-cold loser.”
Musk has openly admitted to supporting Democratic candidates in the past, but in 2022 he said he would start voting Republican because Democrats were now the party “of division & hate,” without elaborating. That same month, Musk also said he was switching to the GOP because of “unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX.”
Along these lines, it seems that Musk’s support for Trump is motivated by personal and transactional reasons as much as anything else. Musk’s companies have already received billions from the US government — SpaceX, for example, raked in $14.7 billion over the past decade in federal launch prime contracts. Trump could be a gateway to even more government money for Musk if he defeats Vice President Kamala Harris.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends a campaign rally, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.
Harris ventures into conservative territory
Now, the Harris campaign seems to believe the vice president should speak directly to the Fox audience rather than allow Donald Trump and the network’s best-known conservative opinion-makers to define her.
The Harris campaign is also in talks about a possible appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the country’s most popular podcast. The show has an estimated 14.5 million followers, and Rogan himself has more than 19 million followers on Instagram and 17 million on YouTube.
According to arecent poll, more than 80% of Rogan’s audience is male, and 56% are under 35 years old, making this a demographic group Harris wants to target. Anew poll from Pew Research found that Trump leads Harris among men by a margin of 51% to 43%.
Trump, meanwhile, appears to be courting the dance party demographic after a bizarre town hall event at which he stopped taking questions to play (and sway to) his campaign playlist for nearly 40 minutes. Hits included “YMCA” by The Village People, Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor.
When to worry about AI and the election
There are 21 days until Election Day in the United States — and voters in numerous states have already begun early voting. So far, artificial intelligence applications have had minimal effects on the election, though it’s reared its head a few times.
During this US election cycle, generative AI has been used in an RNC ad, a fraudulent Joe Biden robocall for New Hampshire voters, and deepfake photos of Taylor Swift endorsing Donald Trump.
Microsoft and OpenAI say they’ve disrupted foreign influence campaigns from China, Iran, and Russia seeking to sow discord in the US, including around hot-button political issues such as Israel’s war with Gaza.
While malicious actors haven’t yet used AI tools in very novel ways, the technology has made it easier, quicker, and cheaper to generate online propaganda and disseminate it over social media. In Indonesia, for example, notorious Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto used a chubby-cheeked, friendly AI-generated avatar to appeal to voters in the presidential election. In Pakistan, Imran Khan used AI voice cloning to spread his political message and support his party’s candidates from prison.
Now, with the US election looming, there’s a very real possibility of a more malicious and effective AI campaign targeting Americans. So GZERO AI asked experts what they’re most concerned about in the run-up to Nov. 5. Their overriding concern revolved around misinformation – and how AI is used to create and distribute it – impacting whether and how people vote.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow in the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution, for example, said she was concerned by the onslaught of generative AI images circulating on social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene — including ones alleging that the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to support residents affected by the storm.
“These images were clearly AI, and when pointed out as such, the response was a simple shrug – that the images resonated because they ‘felt accurate’ anyways,” she said.
There hasn’t been any new federal legislation in the US regarding AI use around elections, and the Federal Election Commission recently chose to forgo new rulemaking on the matter ahead of November. That said, OpenAI, Anthropic, and most major AI companies have self-regulated, instituting rules preventing users from using their tools to generate election-related materials, such as images of presidential candidates. Many of them will refuse to provide voting information as well. That said, many of these rules are porous.
Wirtschafter said she’s most concerned about AI-generated media — particularly audio — being used not to affect how people vote but rather if people vote. Audio-generated content, she said, could be used to “try to prevent a targeted but vital subset of the population from voting” or “sow confusion about where and how to vote,” she said.
“While swing states have prepared for this possibility, it is still such a difficult task, and AI-generated content is most impactful at the local and highly targeted level.”
Scott Bade, a senior analyst in Eurasia Group’s geo-technology practice, said he’s concerned not only by the use of generative AI in the lead-up to the election but also by how politicians might invoke the technology to help cast doubt on things that are, in fact, true.
Like Wirtschafter, Bade said he’s most worried about anything that “muddies the waters and creates fear and confusion that can suppress votes on election day.”
But the threat won’t end after Americans go to the polls. The 2020 election and aftermath showed how conspiracy theories abound even without generative AI.
Politicians, especially those aligned with Trump, falsely claimed there was widespread voter fraud. Bade warned that AI might be used to affect how voters feel about the “sanctity of the ballot.”
So, what should we do about it? Around the elections, it’s important to keep an eye on the source of the materials you’re viewing, check government websites for reliable voting information, and take everything you hear or see in this age of AI with a grain of salt – even if it confirms your prior assumptions.
“This type of content can be obviously AI-generated but still ‘feel’ correct,” Wirtschafter said.
Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris cheer before the start of the golf cart rally in the retirement community of The Villages, Florida U.S. October, 14, 2024.
Harris and Trump take very different approaches in the homestretch
With exactly three weeks left before Election Day, both campaigns are battling it out on the ground for the handful of undecided voters who will decide the election. But the Harris and Trump teams seem to have very different assumptions about what will work.
According to a report by the New York Times, the Harris campaign is using a large, well-established party infrastructure to find, call, and knock on the doors of reliably Democratic voters from past cycles. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is taking its base for granted and instead using scrappier, less experienced networks to find people who don’t vote regularly but who might be Trump-curious.
What does that tell us? That as we enter the homestretch, the Blue Team, despite the boost in enthusiasm that came after Harris entered the race, is still more worried about shoring up its reliables than about pioneering fresh supporters, while the Red Team is betting it has a message that can bring new voters into the fold.
Where do things stand? The latest polling shows Harris ahead of Trump 48.5 to 46.1 nationwide, and holding a razor-thin lead in key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump holds a similarly slim edge in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.
Ian Explains: How Harris and Trump define freedom
Americans love their freedom. And depriving other Americans of said freedom (see: slavery, manifest destiny). But lately it's been the Democratic candidate for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been focusing on freedom.
At a recent rally, she said this: "Across our nation, we have been witnessing a full-on assault on hard-won hard-fought freedoms and fundamental rights. The freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do."
In the past, Democrats have talked about how the government could protect the freedom to love or the freedom to unionize. Flash forward to 2024, Reagan would be proud. What explains this rhetorical jujitsu? Well, it makes for a handy political foil. Trump could become that threat that Americans need protecting from.
There is, of course, one little problem with this messaging: reality. Because, in reality, Harris fundamentally believes that policy can make people's lives better. Sure, she received some criticism in her debate against Trump for being light on policy, and her campaign waited until well into September to publish an “Issues” page on her website. But make no mistake, Kamala Harris wants to use the levers of big government to build more housing, pass new child tax credits, and modernize education.
So, the question for Kamala—and Donald—is whether enough voters can live with those contradictions. We'll find out when millions of them exercise their most fundamental freedom at the ballot box on November 5th.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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- Harris, Trump and the hypocrisy in US politics ›
- Will Kamala Harris’ momentum last in the race against Trump? ›
- Trump vs. Harris: A high-stakes election and its risks to democracy ›
- How Harris and Trump plan to tackle America’s housing crisis ›
- Muted mics, amplified impact: Harris and Trump debate for razor-thin margins ›
Audience members watch as Republican President Candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Candidate Kamala Harris debate on CNN on September 10, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana.
Buckle up for presidential election madness
The US presidential election is just over three weeks away – and it’s a close race, which means the parties are throwing everything they have into the final weeks of the campaign. For Kamala Harris and the Democrats, that’s a lot. Harris and the Dems have raised over $1 billion dollars since she rose to the top of the ticket, an amount and pace observers say is likely record-breaking.
The cash won’t win the election on its own, but it will help the Harris campaign with its media blitz, including a series of interviews this week on “60 Minutes,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast as Democrats worry about campaign shortfalls and Donald Trump’s chances of retaking the White House.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaignis busy cleaning up – or trying to clean up – a series of messes, including a new book by journalist Bob Woodward that claims Trump has kept in touch with Vladimir Putinsince leaving office and that he sent the Russian president COVID-19 testing equipment at the height of the pandemic. Trump and the campaign deny the claims.
Trump is also claiming, without evidence, that he has visited Gaza, and he’s using hurricanes Helene and Milton to make false claims about the Biden administration’s disaster response and Harris’ record.
Nonetheless, the Trump campaign is doing double-time in key states ahead of the November vote, outpacing by on his own Harris and Walz’s combined effort. When you add vice president contender JD Vance’s events, the Republicans come out way ahead. The Trump campaign is also deploying a new get-out-the-vote model that it’s betting big on, particularly in tight states that will likely determine the election. Trump is also working to mobilize its male voters, and has recently gained some support from Black men who are turning away from Harris.
According to the 538 election model, Harris is currently projected to win 53 out of 100 times in its simulations compared to Trump’s 47 victories – and in a tiny fraction of the simulations, there is no electoral college winner, the ultimate chaos scenario – and one to watch closely.Donald Trump and Melania Trump stand on stage at the conclusion of the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, WI.
What’s inside Melania Trump’s little black book?
After being relatively absent this campaign cycle, Melania Trump has decided the pen will be her sword in Donald Trump’s fight for the White House. The former first lady dropped her memoir, “Melania,” on Tuesday, just 27 days before the election, in which she breaks from her husband on immigration and abortion but refuses to concede that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Inside the book’s simple black cover is 182 pages that are equal parts CV and political manifesto. It takes the reader through the greatest hits of her career, from her idyllic childhood in Slovenia to her successful modeling career and QVC jewelry business, to her “focus on cybersecurity and the well-being of children” as first lady. It also avoids any mention of Stormy Daniels or the many other women who have accused her husband of sexual misconduct.
Instead, it paints a picture of a perfect relationship that began at the Kit Kat Club, where Trump asked for her number while there with another woman. But then “in private, he revealed himself to be a perfect gentleman.” Perhaps the part of her personal life that felt most sincere was her love and protection of her son, Barron Trump.
But from the beginning, this was undeniably a political piece of writing.
Immigration got the most print space. The book begins with a 26-year-old Melania in the immigration line at JFK airport, anxious to begin her modeling career. “My personal experience dealing with the trials of the immigration process opened my eyes to the difficulties faced by all who wish to become US citizens,” she writes. She claims that she was not briefed on Trump’s immigration policy, which she described as an example of “an occasional political disagreement” between her and her husband.
“While I support strong borders, what was going on at the border was simply unacceptable and went against everything I believe in,” she writes, claiming that because of her urging, Trump signed an executive order ending family separation and child detention at the southern border.
She also declared herself unequivocally pro-choice, without acknowledging her husband’s role in overturning the right to abortion. “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” the Republican nominee’s wife writes. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
Her declaration comes a week after the vice presidential debate, during which Trump’s running mate JD Vance also seemed to break with his party’s, Trump’s, and even his own previous stance on abortion by criticizing the uneven availability of abortion services.
During the debate, Vance presented himself as a potential voice of reason in the Trump campaign, effectively laundering his running mate’s most extreme views to make them more appealing to moderates. Melania may have been seeking to do the same for women – Trump is behind by 13 points with female voters – by breaking with her husband on immigration and abortion.
Even if this is just campaign rhetoric, critically, neither Melania nor Vance were willing to refute Trump’s belief that the 2020 election was fraudulently won by Biden. Melania’s book echoes Trump’s doubts that the time it took to decide the election was evidence that it was fraudulent. This could foreshadow that the Trump campaign may double down on election-undermining rhetoric if the election is close or takes days to decide, which many forecasts predict it will. “You can’t continue to count votes for days,” she writes. “Many Americans still have doubts about the election to this day. I am not the only person who questions the results.”