📹CNN anchor on the possibility of Kamala Harris winning

In light of survey results, according to which 72% of Americans are dissatisfied or angry with the country's leadership, it would be a "miracle" if Kamala Harris wins, Chris Wallace said:

"It would be a miracle that Kamala Harris could win with that kind of headwind [...] If she is able to overcome those numbers and still win this election, then she has done a remarkable job of somehow separating herself that she's part of the solution and not part of the problem," he said.

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In the swing state of North Carolina, Harris is leading with 68.78%, while Trump trails at 30.06%.

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THROWBACK: Putin welcomes Trump's readiness to restore US-Russian relations

"Trump is a vivacious individual," Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2016.

"But what I'm precisely focusing on and what I certainly welcome... is that Mr. Trump has stated that he is ready for a full-scale restoration of US-Russian relations. We all welcome it. And you don't?" Putin queried.

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❗️In the swing state of Pennsylvania Harris is leading with 72.5%, while Trump trails at 26.7% with 2.6% of the votes counted.

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❗️In the swing state of Michigan, Harris is leading with 76.73%, while Trump trails at 22.06%.

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Economic interests key as US election unfolds with minor incidents

The US election on November 5 proceeded in a calm atmosphere, albeit with some “incidents,” Roberto Zepeda Martínez, a researcher at the Center for North American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), tells Sputnik.

The analyst believes that the outcome of the election will be determined by the results in the battleground states. Additionally, the final results of early voting will need to be awaited. However, in his opinion, a surge in violence following the public vote is unlikely.

“I don’t think that will happen; of course, such a scenario is possible, but the US cannot afford protests of this kind that would undermine democracy [...] We’ll see, I’m not a pessimist, and it’s important to remember that economic and industrial interests carry significant weight,” he adds.

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⚡️At present, Donald Trump is leading in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina, securing 101 electoral votes.

In contrast, Kamala Harris is leading in Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, with a total of 71 electoral votes.

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Top five most surprising presidential upsets in US history

Part 1 👉 Part 2

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election may have shocked pollsters, his opponent, many Americans and even Trump himself, but it certainly wasn’t the first political upset of its kind:

Reagan vs. Carter

🔸 Historical retconning aside, the result of the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan seemed anything but certain. While Carter’s presidency was mired by inflation and energy crises and the Iran hostage fiasco, Reagan’s landslide was a surprise to many contemporaries, with the incumbent expected (erroneously) to carry more of the powerful evangelical voting bloc, working class and urban voters.

* Polling up to the final weeks showed Carter and Reagan within a hair sliver of each other, with an October 17-20 Gallup poll showing Carter leading 41-40%. A week later, Reagan was in the lead 46-43%, thanks to his performance in the October 28 TV debate, whose 80 million voter viewership made it the most-watched debate until 2016. Helping Reagan were allegations that his aides secretly negotiated with Iran to delay the release of US hostages until after the election. Sure enough, on January 20, 1981, minutes after Reagan gave his inaugural address, Iran announced the hostages’ release. His administration would spend much of its second half mired in the Iran-Contra scandal.

‘Dewey Defeats Truman’

🔸 Becoming president in April 1945 after FDR’s death, Harry Truman managed to make a big enough mess of domestic and foreign policy by the 1948 race that every major pollster predicted victory for his GOP opponent, Thomas Dewey.

Sentiments that Truman’s opponent would emerge victorious were so strong that the Chicago Daily Tribune ran with the headline ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’. The photo of Truman holding up the paper and smiling in a press conference became iconic, and the upset showed that sometimes, pollsters can be dead wrong. Still, after four more years, Truman left office in 1953 as one of America’s least popular presidents.

👉 Part 2

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Top five most surprising presidential upsets in US history

Part 2 👉 Part 1

Defeat at dusk, victory at sunrise

🔸 In 1916, the Woodrow Wilson presidency was in the dumps, with pundits naming GOP opponent Charles Evans Hughes the favorite and predicting a blowout.

Wilson’s detractors seemed to have guessed right, with Hughes sweeping the vote-heavy northeast and taking 254 electoral votes – just a dozen fewer than needed to win, on election night. Newspapers ran stories like “Hughes Wins in Heavy Vote” and referred to him as “president-elect.” But counting in western states ultimately pushed Wilson over the top to victory.

Surprise, you’re the nominee!

🔸 President Hayes’ decision in 1880 not to seek a second term thrust the GOP into chaos, with 14 candidates vying to replace him, including Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, Congressman James Blaine and Treasury head John Sherman. Splitting the party, frontrunners turned the GOP’s June into a madhouse, with no consensus reached after 33 ballots.

Finally, Congressman James Garfield, who wasn’t seeking the nomination, began picking up votes, clinching the nomination in the 36th ballot. Garfield went on to defeat his rival – William Scott Hancock, in November, but his presidency was cut short by a disgruntled ex-supporter who assassinated him after being refused a diplomatic job abroad.

‘Corrupt Bargain’

🔸 In 1824, the two-party system of today was not yet set in stone. In fact, all four candidates that year – Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Senator Andrew Jackson, Treasury chief William Crawford and House Speaker Henry Clay, were members of the Democratic-Republican Party.

No candidate won outright. Instead, in what was has since been characterized as one of the best-known examples of quid-pro-quo corruption, Adams lobbied Clay to transfer his voters’ support to himself in exchange for the secretary of state job. Jackson, who won 99 electoral votes compared to Adams’ 84, and 40.5% of the popular vote compared to Adams’ 32.7%, accused Adams of a “corrupt bargain.”

👉 Part 1

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❗️Trump is leading in the swing state of Wisconsin with 57.4%, while Harris trails at 41.3% with over 3% of the votes counted.

Thus, at this point of counting, three of the seven swing states (Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina) are behind Trump, two (Michigan and Pennsylvania) are behind Harris, and votes in two more - Arizona and Nevada - have not yet been counted.

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President Biden ‘can still do a great deal of damage’ between now and January 20

Throwing aside comparisons of the potential pros and cons of the next US president, it’s important to remember that between now and January 20, 2025, when Joe Biden’s successor formally takes office, the outgoing commander-in-chief can do a great deal of harm both domestically and internationally, whether it’s in Ukraine, the Middle East, or elsewhere, says veteran US and international politics expert Joe Siracusa.

“You know, there are a lot of things at stake here, a lot of reputations. And a lot of people in Washington don’t want to see Donald Trump come in because he looks like he’s going to change the rules of the game and they don’t want to change the rules of the game…I mean a lot of these intelligence agencies, the foreign policy elite and the political elite, they’re just doing their own thing and the American people follow suit,” Siracusa told Sputnik.

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Judge rejects Democrats' efforts to extend voting near Pennsylvania university - report

According to CNN, Democrats asked the judge to extend voting at a polling station until 10 p.m. eastern time to take into account the queues, which they said stretched for four hours. They claimed that the election commission had not provided enough voting machines or staff at the polling station.

A judge denied the request, adding that registered voters in the line at 8 pm ET will be able to vote.

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😦Bush, Clinton and Biden families captured elections?

For almost 50 years, at least one member of three American political families, Bush, Clinton or Biden, has been on the ballot since 1976. Now Kamala Harris has taken Biden's place.

🤔Looks like an oligopoly...

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❗️With 34% of the votes counted in Arizona, Trump and Harris are running neck and neck, both holding 49.59%.

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⚡️At present, Donald Trump is leading in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, Utah, and the swing states of Georgia and Wisconsin, having overtaken North Carolina and Pennsylvania from the Democratic candidate. He has secured 198 electoral votes so far.

In contrast, Kamala Harris is leading in Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and the swing state of Michigan, with a total of 109 electoral votes.

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📹Marjorie Taylor Greene: "The reason why [Barack Obama] is saying 'we may not know [the results] for days' is because they plan on stealing the election"

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Trump would have hard time governing without enough allies in the House and Senate

Donald Trump has got a real shot at winning the presidential election, but he’s got to have “coattails” – effective allies forming majorities in both chambers of Congress to have a shot at governing effectively, political commentator and Newsmax columnist Michael Shannon told Sputnik.

“We need to get a larger majority in the House and we need to get rid of that pipsqueak, Mike Johnson, who's currently the speaker, and get someone in there who will be an ally and fight with Trump. Then in the Senate, we need to take the Senate over by taking, I think we need to turn 2 or 3 Senate seats. But even better than that would be get, say, 54 senators. And at that point, Trump needs to meet with the Republican senators and tell them…[that] he's not going to tolerate another majority leader like ‘Glitch’ McConnell, who is stepping down, who will undermine the Trump agenda.”

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📹Even if the majority on both sides don't like how the voting machines work, they're still going to be there because the US government helps voting machine companies make money, MTG told in her conversation with Tucker Carlson at Mar-a-Lago.

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Ka-ching! 2024 becomes most expensive presidential election in American history

The Trump and Harris campaigns raised a whopping $4.2 bln in cash for their election war chests in 2024, and spent about $3.5 bln of that by mid-October, accounting by the Financial Times has calculated.

The figures, based on campaign filings, found Harris’s campaign to have out-fundraised Donald Trump by a wide margin, raking in over $2.3 bln, and spending $1.9 bln of that. The former president, by comparison, collected $1.8 bln, and spent $1.6 bln of that.

The campaign cash was spent for the most part on media and ads ($1.03 bln by Harris compared to $760 mln for Trump, respectively), operations and administrative expenses ($240 mln to $210 mln), fundraising ($180 mln compared to $80 mln), direct mail ads ($60 mln vs. $90 mln), legal expenses ($30 mln compared to $110 mln), travel and accommodations ($50 mln vs. $70 mln), canvasing and field operations ($50 mln, $70 mln), merchandise ($60 mln, $40 mln), event production ($70 mln, $40 mln) and more.

The majority of media spending was spent in a selection of seven swing states, with the Harris camp dropping over $1 bln there.

The amount of money the two major parties and their donors are willing to spend on elections has over tripled since 2000, with a recent analysis by OpenSecrets finding that, when accounting for support from allies – including infamous dark money Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs), spending in 2024 is expected to reach over $15.9 bln total – up from the previous record of $15.1 bln in 2020 – with spending by super PACS alone expected to exceed $5 bln when all is said and done.

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