Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump will face each other in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, after a divisive, closely fought contest. Several third-party hopefuls are also running.

Here is a list of the candidates:

REPUBLICAN PARTY

DONALD TRUMP

Trump, 78, became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when a Manhattan jury in May found him guilty of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to a porn star to silence her ahead of the 2016 election. He says he is innocent and will appeal the conviction.

Trump’s July 11 sentencing was postponed until Sept. 18 after he asked for a chance to argue he should have been immune from prosecution following a July Supreme Court ruling that presidents are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

On Monday, the Republicans National Convention convenes to formally nominate the former president to face Biden in what would be the first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years. The party mirrored Trump’s views in its new policy platform.

Trump, in office from 2017-2021, has leveraged his unprecedented legal challenges to solidify support among his base and has cast his third bid for the White House in part as “retribution” against perceived political enemies.

But after his felony conviction, 10% of Republican and 25% of independent registered voters said they were less likely to vote for him, Reuters/Ipsos polling found.

Trump faces 54 charges in three other criminal cases: a federal case involving efforts to subvert the 2020 election, a Georgia election interference case and a federal case in Florida over his handling of classified documents after leaving office. He denies any wrongdoing.

However, he is unlikely to face any other trials before the Nov. 5 election. July’s Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity makes it improbable that Trump will be tried on federal criminal charges regarding efforts to undo the 2020 election loss to Biden before voters cast their ballots.

Trump has refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results or to rule out possible violence around the Nov. 5 contest or his sentencing and is already laying the groundwork to contest a potential election loss.

He calls his supporters jailed for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol “hostages” and “warriors,” and uses increasingly dystopian rhetoric, including calling his enemies “vermin.”

If elected, Trump has vowed “revenge” on his political enemies and said he would not be a dictator except “on day one,” later calling that “a joke.”

He also wants the power to replace federal civil service workers with loyalists, while a consortium of Trump-friendly think tanks touts a sweeping policy agenda known as “Project 2025” that takes aim at diversity programs and the Justice Department’s independence, among other reported plans. Trump has sought to distance himself from the plan.

On foreign policy, Trump sparked criticism from Western leaders for saying the U.S. would not defend NATO members that did not spend enough on defense and that he would encourage Russia to attack them. He has also questioned military aid for Ukraine.

Trump has made immigration a top domestic campaign issue, vowing to carry out mass deportations with the National Guard and possibly federal troops, end birthright citizenship, and expand a travel ban on people from certain countries.

He has referred to some migrants as “animals” who are “poisoning the blood of our country,” among other inflammatory remarks, and has not ruled out building detention camps on U.S. soil. But foreigners who graduate from a U.S. college would get a green card allowing them to stay, he said, which his campaign later said would only apply to the “most skilled” graduates who had been vetted.

On abortion, Trump takes credit for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and has said abortion should remain a state issue.

While he has criticized some Republican-led state actions such as those in Florida and Arizona, he said he would allow Republican-led states to track women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate their state bans. Trump has said he does not support a ban on access to birth control.

He promised to eliminate Obamacare health insurance before saying on April 11 that he would not “terminate” it. On education, he has pledged to halt federal funding to schools with vaccine mandates and to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. He has also vowed to undo much of the Biden administration’s work to fight climate change.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY

JOE BIDEN

Biden has cast himself as the country’s best hope to defend American liberties and protect democracy, saying Trump is unhinged and threatens the future of the country.

While he faced no serious challenger in the Democratic primaries, his weak performance at the first presidential debate against Trump has prompted some Democrats to call for him to step aside as the party prepares to formally nominate him.

Already the oldest U.S. president ever at 81, Biden must now convince his own party as well as voters that he is more fit for office than Trump, who is just three years his junior.

One in three Democrats think Biden should end his reelection bid following the debate, but no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Biden in a hypothetical match-up against Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in July.

The July Reuters/Ipsos poll puts both Biden and Trump on 40% among registered voters, suggesting that Biden had not lost ground since the debate. Trump leads Biden in many battleground states, several other polls have shown.

The economy will also likely be a major factor in determining whether Biden returns to the White House amid low approval ratings.

While the U.S. escaped an anticipated recession and is growing faster than economists expected, voters have been disenchanted with rising food costs, higher fuel prices and elevated interest rates, even as more recent data shows consumer prices moderating and inflation cooling.

Biden pushed through massive economic stimulus and infrastructure spending packages to boost U.S. industrial output but has received next to no credit from voters so far.

His campaign has highlighted new semiconductor manufacturing plants, housing plans and other economic efforts. Two labor groups, the United Auto Workers Union and the North America’s Building Trade Union, have endorsed him while the Teamsters have yet to announce which candidate they are backing. Three groups representing older Americans have also endorsed Biden.

Along with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden has zeroed in on abortion as a top issue. They also created a new coalition to court Black voters, a critical voting bloc.

Biden’s handling of immigration policy has been criticized by Republicans and some Democrats as he has struggled with millions of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

In June, he signed an executive order to curb migration along the southern border. He also announced a new path for citizenship for certain immigrants in the country illegally who are married to U.S. citizens.

The president has led the response of Western governments to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, persuading allies to punish Russia and support Kyiv, including at NATO’s summit in Washington. He also secured additional funding from Congress.

Biden has provided military aid to Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack while urging more humanitarian assistance for Palestinians as a May Reuters/Ipsos poll found Democrats remain divided over the issue.

He has faced criticism from many Democrats and younger voters for continuing to give weapons to Israel while largely failing to curb Israel’s deadly military offensive in Gaza. Biden has presented a new Israeli proposal for a fresh Gaza ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages while talks to end the conflict continue.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

Best-selling author and self-help guru Marianne Williamson, 72, relaunched her long-shot 2024 presidential bid earlier this year focusing on “justice and love” less than one month after dropping out.

In a February statement, she said she was getting back in to fight Trump’s “dark and authoritarian vision” after earlier suspending it because she was losing “the horse race.”

Williamson previously ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary but dropped out before voting began.

INDEPENDENTS

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

An anti-vaccine activist and environmental advocate, Kennedy, 70, is running as an independent after initially challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination but missed the deadline to qualify for the first presidential debate.

While he lags in overall polling, Kennedy could siphon votes from Trump and Biden, with a June Reuters/Ipsos poll showing he was backed by 10% of respondents.

The son of Democratic U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 during his own presidential bid, Kennedy has drawn rebukes from his famous family, which endorsed Biden.

Kennedy, who chose wealthy lawyer Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, supports Israel and questioned a six-week ceasefire backed by Biden.

He said he views the U.S. southern border situation as a humanitarian crisis and opposes Trump’s border wall. He has also vowed to repeal parts of Biden’s climate bill over tax breaks he says help the oil industry.

Kennedy has taken different positions on abortion rights, including restrictions on when a woman can access an abortion. He told Reuters he thought every abortion was a “tragedy” but that it should be a woman’s right “throughout the pregnancy.”

He has been criticized for making false medical claims over the years on vaccines but says he would still allow Americans to access them.

Asked about an alleged sexual assault, he said in July that he has “so many skeletons in my closet.” His campaign has also said Kennedy had a brain worm more than a decade ago but he has fully recovered.

Kennedy’s campaign has said he is officially on the ballot in a handful of states so far, including California, Michigan and Utah, although he faces a challenging, costly battle to be listed in all 50.

CORNEL WEST

The political activist, philosopher and academic is making a third-party bid for president that is most likely to appeal to progressive, Democratic-leaning voters.

West, 71, initially ran as a Green Party candidate but said in October that people “want good policies over partisan politics” and declared himself an independent. He has promised to end poverty and guarantee housing.

GREEN PARTY

JILL STEIN

Jill Stein, a physician who ran under the Green Party in 2016, is trying once again in 2024.

She launched her current campaign accusing Democrats of betraying their promises “for working people, youth and the climate again and again – while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place.”

Stein, 74, raised millions of dollars for recounts after Trump’s surprise 2016 victory. Her allegations yielded only one electoral review in Wisconsin that showed Trump had won.

LIBERTARIAN PARTY

CHASE OLIVER

While the Libertarian Party invited both Trump and Kennedy to speak at their convention in late May, it ultimately selected Chase Oliver, 38. Oliver ran for a Georgia state Senate seat in 2022 and garnered 2% of the vote.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

was:

Joe Biden’s presidential reelection bid hung in the balance Saturday after his latest efforts to put a disastrous debate showing behind him failed to silence voices urging him to quit the White House race.

Murmurs of dissent within his own Democratic Party have — in the case of five individual House representatives — morphed into direct calls for him to drop out. And a number of key donors have threatened to cut off funding if Biden insists on staying the course.

“I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump,” Angie Craig, the latest House Democrat to break ranks, said Saturday.

The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has scheduled a virtual meeting of senior Democrat representatives for Sunday to discuss the best way forward, and Democrat Senator Mark Warner is reportedly working to convene a similar forum in the upper chamber.

In what had been billed as a make-or-break TV interview on Friday, Biden’s strategy was to flatly deny the falling poll numbers and concerns over his mental and physical fitness triggered by his dismal performance against rival Donald Trump.

He blamed a severe cold for the debate debacle and insisted it was just a “bad night” rather than evidence of increasing frailty and cognitive decline. And the 81-year-old was adamant that he would not be pressured to end his campaign.

“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” he said. “But the Lord Almighty is not coming down.”

Calls for less divine intervention do, however, appear to be strengthening.

Internal dissent

Biden’s campaign team is pushing ahead regardless, with two events planned in Pennsylvania on Sunday and visits to other battleground states later in the month.

At a rally in Wisconsin before Friday’s interview, Biden had delivered a forceful, energetic stump speech, unequivocally declaring, “I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump.”

Then came the sit-down with the ABC network that appeared unlikely to soothe the concerns of critics who say that — away from a teleprompter — Biden can struggle to communicate.

Some of his answers were tentative, meandering and difficult to follow, even as he sought to deflect questions about his mental acuity and dismissed the notion that his party would consider replacing him.

The Biden campaign had another small fire to put out Saturday after it emerged that the White House had provided the questions for interviews the president gave to two Black radio stations on Friday.

Out of touch?

Democratic strategist David Axelrod suggested in a CNN op-ed that Biden is engaged in “Denial. Delusion. Defiance.”

“The stakes are as great as Biden describes. And if he believes it, as I think he does, he will eventually do what duty and love of country requires, and step aside,” Axelrod wrote in the piece published Saturday.

“If he does not, it will be Biden’s age, and not Trump’s moral and ethical void, that will dominate the rest of this most important campaign and sully the president’s historic legacy.”

Trump, meanwhile, sarcastically suggested Biden should “ignore his many critics and move forward, with alacrity and strength.”

“He should be sharp, precise and energetic, just like he was in The Debate,” the Republican challenger said in a social media post Saturday.

For now, Democrats are largely keeping a lid on any simmering discontent with their leader — at least in public.

But with election day just four months away, any move to replace Biden as nominee would need to be made sooner rather than later, and the meetings of top Congressional Democrats in coming days will be scrutinized for any signs of more open rebellion.

Meanwhile, for Biden and his campaign team, the strategy seems to be to ride it out.

His next major test will be a press conference scheduled for Thursday during the NATO leaders’ summit in Washington.

When pressed in the ABC interview on why he doesn’t take an independent neurological exam, Biden argued that the role of US president meant being subjected to constant mental assessment.

“I have a cognitive test every single day,” he said. “Not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world.” 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

President Joe Biden forcefully tried on Friday to quell Democratic anxieties over his unsteady showing in his debate with former President Donald Trump, as elected members of his party closed ranks around him in an effort to shut down talk of replacing him atop the ticket.

Mr. Biden’s halting delivery and meandering comments, particularly early in the debate, fueled concerns from even members of his own party that at age 81 he’s not up for the task of leading the country for another four years. It created a crisis moment for Biden’s campaign and his presidency, as members of his party flirted with potential replacements and donors and supporters couldn’t contain their concern about his showing against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Biden appeared to acknowledge the criticism during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, saying ”I don’t debate as well as I used to.” But he added, “I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.” Speaking for 18 minutes, Biden appeared far more animated than his showing the night before, and he excoriated Mr. Trump for his “lies” and campaign aimed at “revenge and retribution.”

“The choice in this election is simple,” Mr. Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”

He added, alluding to his candidacy, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Even before the debate, Mr. Biden’s age had been a liability with voters, and Thursday night’s faceoff appeared to reinforce the public’s deep-seated concerns before perhaps the largest audience he will garner in the four months until Election Day.

Privately, his campaign had spent the previous hours working to tamp down concerns and keep donors and surrogates on board. Democratic lawmakers on Friday acknowledged Mr. Biden’s poor showing, but tried to stop talk of replacing him as their standard-bearer, and instead tried to shift the focus onto Mr. Trump’s attacks and falsehoods that they hoped would remind voters of the daily turbulence of his presidency.

“Well, the president didn’t have a good night, but neither did Donald Trump with lie after lie and his dark vision for America,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told The Associated Press on Friday, hours before he introduced the president in Raleigh. “We cannot send Donald Trump back to the White House. He’s an existential threat to our nation.”

Former President Barack Obama backed up his former vice president, posting on X that “Bad debate nights happen.” Alluding to his own poor showing in the first debate of his reelection campaign in 2012, Obama continued, “Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”

He added: “Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries answered with a flat “no” when asked Friday if Mr. Biden should step aside.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, said, “Since performance last night, I had to take a few more antidepressants than usual.”

“People have asked me, ‘Do I feel comfortable with the debate?’ You know, a Donald Trump presidency would cause me far greater discomfort than a Joe Biden debate performance.”

Mr. Biden’s campaign billed the Raleigh event as the largest-yet rally of his reelection bid in the state Mr. Trump carried by the narrowest margin in 2020. He’ll then travel to New York for a weekend of big-dollar fundraisers that his campaign now needs more than ever, as it looks to stave off Mr. Trump.

Mr. Biden’s campaign announced that it raised $14 million on debate day and the morning after, while Mr. Trump’s campaign said it raised more than $8 million from the start of the debate through the end of the night.

Vice President Kamala Harris, whom the Mr. Biden campaign sent out to defend his performance, was set to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada. She told CNN hours after the debate, “There was a slow start, but it was a strong finish.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said he could hardly sleep because of the number of telephone calls he got after Mr. Biden performed “horribly” in the debate.

“People were just concerned. And I told everybody being concerned is healthy, overreacting is dangerous,” Cleaver said. “And I think I wouldn’t advise anybody to make rash decisions right now.”

Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who was formerly a longtime fixture in House Democratic leadership, said he would likely speak to Mr. Biden later Friday and his message would be simple: “Stay the course.”

Mr. Biden and his allies were looking to brush aside concerns about his delivery to keep the focus on the choice for voters this November. They seized on Mr. Trump’s equivocations on whether he would accept the will of voters this time around, his refusal to condemn the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, and his embrace of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide.

But Mr. Biden fumbled on abortion rights, one of the most important issues for Democrats in this year’s election. He was unable to explain Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A conservative Supreme Court with three justices nominated by Mr. Trump overturned Roe two years ago.

As elected Democrats united behind Mr. Biden publicly, donors and party operatives shared panicked text messages and phone calls Thursday night and into Friday expressing their concern that Mr. Biden’s performance was so bad that he may be unelectable this fall.

But there were no immediate signs of organized efforts among donors, his campaign leadership or the Democratic National Committee to convince the president to step aside, according to interviews with several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive conversations.

Still, morale was poor among some Biden campaign staffers across the country, who had been encouraged by top campaign officials in Delaware to organize hundreds of debate watch parties to get as many eyes as possible on the Biden-Trump showdown. The morning after, some embarrassed lower-level campaign staffers privately expressed their desire for Biden to quit the race.

It was the same among some top Democratic donors in New York, southern California and Silicon Valley, who talked up the need to embrace a Biden replacement during a series of text chains and private conversations. There were informal conversations between donors and those close to potential Biden alternatives to gauge their willingness to step into the race. But there was no sense that a sitting governor or member of Congress would be willing to risk the political fallout that might come with a public break from the Democratic president.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat frequently mentioned as a 2028 contender and speculated about as a potential replacement for Mr. Biden on the ticket should he step aside, released a statement backing him on Friday.

“The difference between Joe Biden’s vision for making sure everyone in America has a fair shot and Donald Trump’s dangerous, self-serving plans will only get sharper as we head toward November,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom also dismissed questions on whether he would consider stepping in for Mr. Biden, telling reporters after the debate, “I will never turn my back on him.”

Under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Mr. Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without party officials being willing to rewrite the rules at the August national convention.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, flew to his golf club in Virginia, a onetime battleground that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years but that his aides believe can flip toward the Republican in November. He was set to hold at rally in Chesapeake Friday afternoon.

Washington:

Two years after the US Supreme Court stripped constitutional protections for abortion, the explosive issue will feature prominently in Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — with the Republican under pressure not to alienate voters.

On June 24, 2022, the high court — with a super-conservative majority built under Trump’s presidency — overturned the historic ruling in Roe v. Wade that had protected abortion rights, placing the issue in the hands of the states.

That same day, a handful of US states banned abortions, forcing clinics to close in haste or move to more welcoming places.

The nation, already politically polarized, is now split between the states that have banned or significantly restricted access to the procedure — and the states that have adopted new protections for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

The Supreme Court’s decision sent political shockwaves across the country, and had repercussions — since the ruling, conservatives have lost nearly every referendum or vote revolving around abortion access.

And some of those losses came in states that have recently shifted solidly to the right, such as Ohio, Alabama and Kansas.

Kamala Harris takes the baton 

Since Roe was overturned, “the abortion rights movement discovered that Americans care more about abortion rights than may have been anticipated,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis law school.

“And so they are trying to capitalize on that in ballot initiative fights that have gone mostly the way of the abortion rights movement,” she told AFP.

Democrats are making the most of the moment, hoping to win some crucial support from women and young voters.

Biden, a practicing Catholic who was long vexed by the issue, has become a champion of abortion rights and made it a defining part of his re-election bid, winning the backing of several family planning organizations.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman in the job, has crisscrossed the country for months to mobilize her party faithful.

The 59-year-old Harris in March became the first vice president to visit a clinic performing abortions, in Minnesota.

On Monday, she will hold an event in Arizona — a state seen as a crucial battleground in the November presidential election, and one where the supreme court said a Civil War-era rule banning abortion was valid.

Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs later signed a repeal of the 1864 law.

Across the country, Democrats have also encouraged the organization of mini-referendums on abortion in key states, so that they will coincide with the presidential vote — and hopefully motivate unenthused voters to cast ballots.

Trump deliberately vague 

Democrats are right to be confident in their reasoning, if an avalanche of opinion polls are correct.

According to a Fox News poll published Wednesday, 47 percent of voters consider abortion to be “extremely important” in how they decide between Biden and Trump.

The presumptive Republican candidate, who often mentions that he nominated three Supreme Court justices who helped to overturn Roe v. Wade, has lately been decidedly vague on the issue of abortion.

“You must follow your heart on this issue but remember, you must also win elections,” Trump said in a video message in early April.

He has not campaigned on any promise to make abortion illegal with federal legislation, as the religious right has lobbied him to do.

“The best you can do if your position is unpopular is to not clarify your position,” Ziegler says.

Biden, whose approval rating is less than stellar, will almost certainly attack Trump on the issue when the two take the stage Thursday for their first debate in 2024.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during the 36th Annual Candlelight Vigil to honor the law enforcement officers who lost their lives in 2023, in Washington, on May 13, 2024. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The White House has blocked the release of audio from President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel about his handling of classified documents, arguing on May 16 that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.

The dispute over access to the recordings is at the center of a Republican effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress and more broadly to hinder the Democratic president’s reelection effort in the final months of the closely contested campaign.

“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a scathing letter to House Republicans ahead of scheduled votes by two House committees to refer Mr. Garland to the Justice Department for the contempt charges over the department’s refusal to hand over the audio.

“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate,” Mr. Siskel added.

Mr. Garland separately advised Mr. Biden in a letter made public Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.

“There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the Justice Department,” Mr. Garland told reporters. “This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law enforcement files is just most recent.”

Mr. Garland said in his letter to Mr. Biden that lawmakers’ efforts “are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.”

The Justice Department also warned Congress that a contempt effort would create “unnecessary and unwarranted conflict,” with Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte saying: “It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress.

Mr. Siskel’s letter to lawmakers comes after the uproar from Mr. Biden’s aides and allies over special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about Mr. Biden’s age and mental acuity, and it highlights concerns in a difficult election year over how potentially embarrassing moments from the lengthy interview could be exacerbated by the release, or selective release, of the audio.

The transcript of the Hur interview showed Mr. Biden struggling to recall some dates and occasionally confusing some details — something longtime aides says he’s done for years in both public and private — but otherwise showing deep recall in other areas. Mr. Biden and his aides are particularly sensitive to questions about his age. At 81, he’s the oldest ever president, and he’s seeking another four-year term.

Hur, a former senior official in the Trump administration Justice Department, was appointed as a special counsel in January 2023 following the discovery of classified documents in multiple locations tied to Mr. Biden.

Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Mr. Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

But investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure related a subset of records found in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, house, including in a garage, an office and a basement den.

The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Mr. Biden had vigorously opposed. Mr. Biden kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday. Some of that information was shared with a ghostwriter with whom he published memoirs in 2007 and 2017.

With just over six months left for the American general elections, some South Asian election activists are mobilizing to re-elect U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House. The all-volunteer group, South Asians for Mr. Biden, kicked off its activities for the election season with a virtual event held on April 25 that featured messages from lawmakers and functionaries of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and focused on issues such as reproductive rights and gun control.

The group, like other groups working in this space, is motivated by the idea that South Asian populations in battleground States had exceeded the margins of victory for Democrats in previous election cycles (2020 and 2021 for example). This makes South Asians, like other Asian American and Pacific Islander groups (AAPI or  AANHNPI to include Native Hawaiians ), a potential deciding factor in who wins in battleground states.

 In a close election, such as the 2020 race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden,  winning swing states could be key to winning the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. However, Democrats and Republicans are focused not just on the Biden v Trump rematch this year but also other ‘down ballot’ races –  crucial Senate and House seats as well as contests for  state offices.  

South Asians for Biden had reached out to  a few hundred thousand South Asian and AAPI voters directly and via its digital and video campaigns in 2020 and 2021, according to Neha Dewan, National Co-Director of the group. Ms Dewan listed the group’s outreach in States such as Georgia and Wisconsin where Mr Biden won by wafer-thin margins ( around 12,000 votes in Georgia for example).

During the virtual event, titled, ‘Mobilizing the South Asian Community to be the Margin of Victory’, Ms Dewan highlighted the work of the Biden administration in areas she said were of importance to the community : reproductive rights (e.g., women’s access to contraception and abortion), curbing gun violence and hate crimes against Asian Americans.

“I know that the calls that were made into Georgia and into Wisconsin, were beyond the winning margin,” said Principal Deputy Campaign Manager for Biden-Harris 2024, Quentin Fulks, in a recorded video message.

The AAPI vote was 4% of the electorate in Georgia, and an important part of the margin (just under 3%) that got Senator Raphael Warnock re-elected the Senate (December 2022), Mr Fulks said. Democrats retained control (51-49) of the U.S. Senate with Mr Warnock – who initially came to the chamber after winning a partial term in 2020 – getting elected for full term in the 118th Congress that began in 2023.

“It’s going to take all of us again in 2024 to make sure that we hit 270 electoral votes,” Mr Fulks said.

The majority of U.S. born and foreign-born Indian Americans lean towards the Democratic Party (as per 2020 data), a statistic the group appears to capitalise on. One of the speakers at the virtual event, Washington (State)  Democrat, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal cited data to support the view that South Asian social and political priorities were aligned with those of the Biden-Harris platform.

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ro Khanna, an Indian American California Democrat emphasized that South Asian voters were critical  to electoral victories  in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Mr Biden won the electoral college votes in each of these States in 2020.

“We were key to President Biden and Vice President Harris’s 2020 historic win. We need to mobilize again,” he said.

Mr Khanna, whose constituency includes a part of Silicon Valley,  highlighted his involvement with the CHIPS and Science Act, one of the Biden administration’s big ticket policies aimed at increasing semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. (Mr Khanna was one of the lawmakers who introduced one of the  two pieces of legislation that later went on to become the Act).

“There are so many South Asians involved in creating good jobs and Arizona, in upstate New York, in Ohio, as a result of that act,” he said.

Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) AAPI Caucus Bel Leong Hong described the 2024 elections in existential terms.

“We are fighting for a place for us to be in, we are fighting to be who we are,” she said.

Democrats rallying around abortion rights and gun control

Issues important to South Asian Americans – especially reproductive rights, voting rights and gun violence – featured repeatedly through the event. This mirrors the overall approach of Democrats – starting at the top with Mr Biden and Ms Harris – to rally voters, especially women, will who would otherwise have not voted or voted for Mr Trump, to vote for Mr Biden.

Anita Somani, a physician who is a representative in the Ohio State Assembly had a message about voting officials in who would  protect reproductive rights.

Abortion and — more broadly — reproductive rights, have been a key electoral issue, especially since June 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a judgement that broadly protected a woman’s right to have an abortion. With reproductive rights becoming a state issue since the judgement was overturned, a number of States have enacted measures to protect these rights, with Ohio residents voting in November 2023 to do the same.  

“Imagine that kids are now the experts on how to dodge bullets while sitting at their desks are walking to the corner store,” said Shikha Hamilton,  the parent of bi-cultural Indian and Black daughter , who has worked for over two decades on gun violence prevention.

Anita Somani, a physician who is a representative in the Ohio State Assembly had a message about voting officials in who would  protect reproductive rights.

Editorial | Square one: On the 2024 U.S. Presidential election as a Biden-Trump rematch

Ballot access is an issue

Battle lines this year are also drawn around voting rights with a number of Republican governed states passing tightening access to the ballot. Last year (data as of October) at least 14 States had passed laws making it harder to vote while 23 had made it easier to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

At the South Asians for Biden re-launch, Gen Z candidate for Georgia State Senate, Aswhin Ramaswami, a former election security official, discussed the growing legislative challenges to voting in Georgia. The 24 year old is  running against State Senator Shawn Still, who was indicted, along with Mr Trump and others, for illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Americans will elect the next President of the United Sates, as well as a number of U.S. Senators and Congressmen, State governors and local officials on November 5 this year.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history that was forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and threw the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.

McCarthy’s chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, forced the vote on the “motion to vacate,” drawing together more than a handful of conservative Republican critics of the speaker and many Democrats who say he is unworthy of leadership.

Next steps are uncertain, but there is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.

Stillness fell as the presiding officer gavelled the vote closed, 216-210, saying the office of the speaker “is hereby declared vacant.”

Moments later, a top McCarthy ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., took the gavel and, according to House rules, was named speaker pro tempore, to serve in the office until a new speaker is chosen.

The House then briskly recessed so lawmakers could meet and discuss the path forward.

It was a stunning moment for the battle-tested Mr. McCarthy, a punishment fuelled by growing grievances but sparked by his weekend decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown.

An earlier vote was 218-208 against tabling the motion, with 11 Republicans allowing it to advance.

The House then opened a floor debate, unseen in modern times, ahead of the next round of voting.

Mr. McCarthy, of California, insisted he would not cut a deal with Democrats to remain in power — not that he could have relied on their help even if he had asked.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a letter to colleagues that he wants to work with Republicans, but he was unwilling to provide the votes needed to save Mr. McCarthy.

“It is now the responsibility of the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War,” Mr. Jeffries said, announcing the Democratic leadership would vote for the motion to oust the speaker.

As the House fell silent, Gaetz, a top ally of Donald Trump, rose to offer his motion. Gaetz is a leader of the hard-right Republicans who fought in January against Mr. McCarthy in his prolonged battle to gain the gavel.

“It’s a sad day,” Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said as debate got underway, urging his colleagues not to plunge the House Republican majority “into chaos.”

But Gaetz shot back during the debate, “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy.”

Mr. McCarthy’s fate was deeply uncertain as the fiery debate unfolded, with much of the complaints against the speaker revolving around his truthfulness and his ability to keep the promises he has made since January to win the gavel.

But a long line of Mr. McCarthy supporters, including Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a founding leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, stood up for him: “I think he has kept his word.” And some did so passionately. Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., waved his cellphone, saying it was “disgusting” that hard-right colleagues were fundraising off the move in text messages seeking donations.

At the Capitol, both Republicans and Democrats met privately ahead of the historic afternoon vote.

Behind closed doors, Mr. McCarthy told fellow Republicans: Let’s get on with it.

“If I counted how many times someone wanted to knock me out, I would have been gone a long time ago,” Mr. McCarthy said at the Capitol after the morning meeting.

Mr. McCarthy insisted he had not reached across the aisle to the Democratic leader Jeffries for help with votes to stay in the job, nor had they demanded anything in return.

During the hourlong meeting in the Capitol basement, Mr. McCarthy invoked Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon, who more than 100 years ago confronted his critics head-on by calling their bluff and setting the vote himself on his ouster. Cannon survived that takedown attempt, which was the first time the House had actually voted to consider removing its speaker. A more recent threat, in 2015, didn’t make it to a vote.

Mr. McCarthy received three standing ovations during the private meeting — one when he came to the microphone to speak, again during his remarks and finally when he was done, according a Republican at the meeting who was granted anonymity to discuss it.

At one point, there was a show of hands in support of Mr. McCarthy and it was “overwhelming,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Gaetz was in attendance, but he did not address the room.

Across the way in the Capitol, Democrats lined up for a long discussion and unified around one common point: Mr. McCarthy cannot be trusted, several lawmakers in the room said.

“I think it’s safe to say there’s not a lot of good will in that room for Kevin McCarthy,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass.

“At the end of the day, the country needs a speaker that can be relied upon,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “We don’t trust him. Their members don’t trust him. And you need a certain degree of trust to be the speaker.”

Removing the speaker launches the House Republicans into chaos, as they try to find a new leader. It took Mr. McCarthy himself 15 rounds in January over multiple days of voting before he secured the support from his colleagues to gain the gavel. There is no obvious GOP successor.

Mr. Trump, the former president who is the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race to challenge Biden, weighed in to complain about the chaos. “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves,” he asked on social media.

One key Mr. McCarthy ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., took to social media urging support for “our speaker” and an end to the chaos that has roiled the Republican majority.

Republicans were upset that Mr. McCarthy relied on Democratic votes Saturday to approve the temporary measure to keep the government running until Nov. 17. Some would have preferred a government shutdown as they fight for deeper spending cuts.

But Democrats were also upset with Mr. McCarthy for walking away from the debt deal that he made with Biden earlier this year that already set federal spending levels, as he emboldened his right flank to push for steep spending reductions.