The Vibe Has Shifted Downballot Too

Former President Donald Trump has been very clear about his intentions if he returns to power: He will take revenge on everyone who, he believes, stood in his way during the 2024 election. “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences,” he posted on Truth Social on Saturday.

For most Americans, the start of Donald Trump’s presidential career can be traced to those golden escalators, a 2015 Trump Tower spectacle that previewed much of the racism, lying, and vitriol that would come to define the political era ahead. It was a campaign kickoff unlike anything that had been witnessed before, still referenced today to deride Trump’s ugly beginnings.

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A month ago, it seemed unlikely that Vice President Kamala Harris would ever reach a goal she set out to achieve as a presidential hopeful in 2019. But at 9 p.m. on Tuesday night at the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia—five-odd years after she dropped out of her first presidential race—Harris finally faced off against Donald Trump in what will likely be the only debate between the two candidates before Election Day. Harris and Trump are diametrically opposed to each other on issues ranging from national security to the economy to foreign policy, but perhaps nowhere are the candidates more at odds than on the matter of climate change: One thinks rising temperatures pose an existential threat, the other thinks climate science is nonsense.

After Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump squared off in the ABC News presidential debate on Sept. 10, attention has already shifted to when a rematch will happen—if at all. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While the Harris campaign was on the fence before the ABC debate whether they would take part in another, immediately after the first face off, which observers widely deemed a victory for Harris, an eagerness to do it again was clear.

The markets have decided or have they?

“The federal government has for the first time declared that the certification of the presidential vote next year will be treated as a ‘national special security event’ — an acknowledgment that the once-routine part of the democratic process now carries special risk,” Politico reports. “The designation by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas places the Jan.