The Supreme Court on Wednesday stepped in to prevent a group of known illegal aliens from voting next Tuesday. The commonwealth of Virginia filed an emergency appeal after being chastised by a federal judge for taking the names of 1,600 self-identified illegal aliens off the list of registered voters. The case is now on hold and will be resolved after the election.
“It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a statement after the lower court’s ruling. “Yet, today a court — urged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice — ordered Virginia to put the names of non-citizens back on the voter rolls, mere days before a presidential election.”
DOJ had teamed up with liberal activist groups to stop the Old Dominion from preventing people who shouldn’t vote from casting a ballot. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin put rules in place to minimize the potential for mistakes. The only people who were removed provided residency documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles establishing their status as noncitizens.
Officials double-checked these names against a federal database, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, confirming they had not recently become naturalized citizens. Those affected were also given notice and 21 days to correct any errors. Everything was done in accordance with state laws that have been on the books since 2006.
That wasn’t good enough for U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles. She sided with Biden-Harris administration lawyers in insisting illegal aliens must stay on the rolls because no names may be removed within 90 days of an election, unless they personally ask to be removed.
Not only did she order the restoration of ineligible voters, the judge, appointed by President Biden, also commanded the Virginia Department of Elections to send each noncitizen a note explaining that “the registrant may cast a regular ballot on Election Day in the same manner as other eligible voters.”
In addition, the state must provide training to every poll worker in Virginia’s 95 county and municipal jurisdictions about how these illegal aliens are to be allowed “to cast a regular ballot without submitting supplemental paperwork or documentation.” She gave the state five days to comply — even though election officials are occupied with early voting.
Other jurisdictions have come up with equally baffling rulings. In Pennsylvania, a federal judge rejected a challenge brought by Republican legislators to block foreigners living abroad from voting in next week’s contest. A day before that, Nevada’s Supreme Court said purported mail-in ballots that have no postmark could be counted up to three days after Election Day.
It’s no wonder skepticism over the validity of elections has been on the rise. The GOP candidate, former President Donald Trump, says there’s only one reason this is happening: “They want to cheat.”
His solution is straightforward. “Republicans must win, we want a landslide. We have to win so it’s too big to rig,” he said at a rally in March.
Any long-term fix must include overhauling the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. This statute contains language activist judges contort to enfranchise noncitizens and encourage other electoral shenanigans. A significant majority of the public favors adoption of voter identification laws, so there’s no reason not to do so.
Congress is the ultimate authority in federal elections. It needs to step up and do its job so that half the country doesn’t end up doubting the Election Day outcome.
Just in time for the weekend before Election Day, Donald Trump’s campaign on Thursday eveningreleaseda stirring closer in the media ad wars that, with a soaring voiceover, arresting visuals, and a commanding on-screen script, used the platform of the presidency to take him above the daily campaign fare of political rallies, rope lines, and attack commercials. And yet, the ad also delivers powerful if subliminal campaign messages about a time when the economy was good, the world was safe, the border was secure, schools were sane, and the future was welcoming.
Using the single most unifying moment a president has outside of an inaugural address, the Trump ad employs the political imagery of his State of the Union addresses by displaying the famous House gallery moments that thrilled the public—including a salute to Buzz Aldrin, a soldier returning home to his family, a North Korean defector holding up his crutches, and Nancy Pelosi clapping amidst thunderous applause in the House of Representatives. Moments that came, as the ad notes, in a speech that was “bigger than the Academy Awards” and the “NFL playoffs,” and that “47.7 million watched,” and says that “he can do it again,” and that “we can do it again”—meaning “Make America Great Again.”
While presenting Trump as the candidate of national unity and American pride and employing the presidential imagery that always works the most powerfully for any candidate, the ad reminds Americans that Trump had arguably the most successful first term of any U.S. president in history—displayed clearly by his State of the Union addresses, which drew far larger audiences than Obama’s or Biden’s and won much stronger reviews. But most of all, the ad reminds the public that Donald Trump has already done the job—and does so by evoking the single most unifying moment a president has outside of an inaugural address.
The ad works for three particular reasons—first among them is the forgotten eloquence of Trump’s words and his rousing narrative of the American Story.
“What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?” Trump says in his 2019 State of the Union remarks, which are featured in the ad. “Look at the opportunities before us.”
“America is a land of heroes,” Trump says. “This is a place where greatness is born… Our ancestors… settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine… and we are making it greater than ever before.”
“The people dreamed this country,” Trump continues. “And it’s the people who are making America great again.”
“No matter the trials… no matter the challenges to come… We must keep freedom alive in our souls… that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise, and the light and the glory, among all the nations of the world,” the ad concludes.
Second, the ad features, in a virtuoso display by Trump’s creative team, moving images to tell a narrative. The ad features stirring imagery of cowboys, Americans settling the frontier, arriving on Ellis Island, storming the beaches of Normandy, and carrying American flags on horseback—spliced between footage from Trump’s State of the Union remarks and from his 2024 campaign rallies. This inspiring imagery complements Trump’s soaring rhetoric and cements his distinctive storytelling power.
And third, the ad includes an on-screen script that emphasizes the popularity of Trump’s State of the Union remarks—and reinforces that American greatness is still within reach, with, as mentioned, “Bigger than the Academy Awards,” the ad says on-screen in all-caps, referring to the high viewership of Trump’s State of the Union addresses, and “Bigger than the NFL playoffs.”
“47.7 million watched,” the script reads, in reference to Trump’s 2017 address to a joint session of Congress.
“We remembered what made America great… He brought us together… and we made America great again,” the captions say.
“He can do it again…We can do it again… And together… we can make America great again.”
At the time, even left-wing media pundits praised Trump’s annual State of the Union Addresses. “I think people where I came from will like the speech tonight,” said former MSNBC host Chris Matthews of the 2020 address. “I think regular people will… they’ll see it but they’ll like it. Because it’s all good stuff.”
Left-wing CBS News host Norah O’Donnell agreed: “This was a speech unlike any other I have witnessed from President Donald Trump—the reality TV president took on the state of the union, a master showman at his best,” she wrote on social media.
And The Washington Post’s David Von Drehle praised the remarks as a “lethally effective exploitation of the presidential bully pulpit.” No previous address, he wrote, “so cunningly adapted the ancient ritual of a former speech to the visceral medium of television.”
Ultimately, this ad is a powerful reminder of how much success Trump had in his first term—when the American experience was marked by pride, optimism, and hope. As the 45th President, Trump remade the federal judiciary with hundreds of conservative appointments—including the three Supreme Court justices. His low-tax, low-regulation economic agenda propelled the U.S. economy to unprecedented heights. His border security measures effectuated the most secure southern border in recorded history. And his foreign policy, rooted in the philosophy of “peace through strength,” ensured America stayed out of endless wars overseas and that the world was safe.
Trump’s State of the Union remarks not only reminded Americans of these accomplishments, but also gave them a reason to have hope for their futures and pride for their country after eight years of negativity and dread under the Obama administration.
Given that the overwhelming majority of Americans currently believe that the country is on the wrong track, Kamala Harris cannot be afforded the same opportunity to galvanize voters around a common vision of American greatness grounded in success, optimism, and ambition—making Trump’s closing ad all the more effective.
In the closing days of the 2024 presidential contest, Trump’s closing ad reminds voters of a leader who, despite the accusations of self-promotion from the left, never loses sight of the people he serves. Trump’s first term in the Oval Office elevated everyday Americans—the unsung heroes who built this country, defended its freedoms, and continue to shape its future. The ad’s tribute to astronaut Buzz Aldrin, for instance, vividly demonstrates Trump’s honoring of an American hero who embodies the ambition and grit of space exploration, a testament to the 45th president’s commitment to those who exemplify the American spirit.
As Election Day approaches, the Trump campaign’s closing ad is a call to voters to remember that with the right leadership, America’s best days are still ahead.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats claim they are the party of freedom. In Harris’ interview on Club Shay Shay on Monday, shearguedthat people need to vote for her to preserve theFirst, Second, and Fourth Amendments, that Trump “wantsto terminate the Constitution.”
Yet, on the First Amendment, Harris previously called for government “oversight or regulation” of social media to stop what she calls misinformation. In 2022, her vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz, claimed: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.”
On gun ownership, Harris went so far as claiming: “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, I don’t believe that we should be taking anyone’s guns away.”
Reassuring, but Harris’ emphatic past support for gun control is consistent and legion. Let’s look at her record. She claimed during her 2020 presidential campaign, “I support a mandatory buyback program.” When pressed about Joe Biden’s claim at the time that she couldn’t ban assault weapons with an executive order, Harris enthusiastically responded, “Hey, Joe, rather than saying ‘No, we can’t,’ let’s say ‘Yes, we can.’”
But this is nothing new. Harris has strongly advocated for gun control for years. As San Francisco’s District Attorney, she declared, “Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible.” She even supports warrantless searches, raising concerns she also doesn't want to be bothered by the Fourth Amendment.
In a 2008 amicus brief, Harris argued that a complete ban on all handguns is constitutional. She even said there is no individual right to self-defense.
The Biden-Harris administration has been the most anti-self defense administration to date, shutting down thousands of gun dealers by mid-2022 due to minor paperwork errors. They renewed Obama’s Operation Choke Point to cut off financial resources for gun manufacturers and dealers; the companies that remained had to grapple with increased costs. The Biden-Harris administration has also established a national gun registry.
If Kamala Harris becomes president, she will push for even more restrictions. The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention is “overseen” by Harris, which coordinates the administration’s gun control initiatives. The office oversaw a recently released U.S. Surgeon General report that fails to mention a single benefit of gun ownership.
The OGVP was instrumental in implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, introducing complex rules that classify many gun owners as firearms dealers. If you sell a gun to a friend once and discuss selling a second one to anyone, you must first become a licensed dealer. If you sell one gun and keep a record of the transaction, you are also required to first become licensed.
Many BCSA rules are vague, giving the government discretion to arbitrarily label individuals as dealers.
Under Harris’ leadership, the OGVP pushed for lawsuits against gun makers and sellers whenever criminals use their guns. She also pushed to ban semi-automatic “assault” weapons, and require background checks on all private gun transfers.
By early 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had developed a digital database containing nearly a billion firearms transactions.
U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan and Thomas Massie found that Bank of America provided the FBI with credit card data for firearms purchases without even requiring a warrant or probable cause.
With a national gun registry in place, officials can now easily identify legal gun owners. Harris’ past threats to confiscate guns become much more likely to succeed.
Gun control has already taken center stage in Harris’ campaign. Harris made gun control a key topic in her first event in Wisconsin and again at a gathering of the American Federation of Teachers.
It isn’t just that Democrats want to regulate every part of our lives, but the real threat to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments to the Bill of Rights are at risk from Harris. Those freedoms are endangered if she wins.
John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He served as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department.
LATROBE, Pennsylvania— “If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing.”
Two weeks ago, former President Donald Trump announced these words to rallygoers in this Westmoreland County town at a packed event, which included several former Pittsburgh Steelers taking the stage to endorse him and steelworkers as well, who even got the former president to put on a hard hat that ruffled his hair.
Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Oct. 19, 2024. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
It was a statement that made the thousands of supporters, most of which were young, go understandably wild with emotion. Many of the attendees I spoke to were young women, many of them mothers with their children, who could not wait to vote in the first election they were truly excited about.
Trump wasn’t wrong. Heading into the final stretch of the election, I’d rather be him than Vice President Kamala Harris in the Keystone State. Several pollsters across the political spectrum shared data showing that Trump has a consistent edge in Pennsylvania and that Harris is at a standstill.
However, he’s a better fit for the commonwealth than Harris for reasons beyond just polling. In weeklong travels across the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, all the indicators told a story outside the worldview, or bubble, of Washington, D.C., and New York City, of why Harris has failed in key places to earn people’s votes and Trump has found a way to bring out new voters and earn just enough support to win the state.
Former President Donald Trump enters the stage during a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
In 2016, David Urban, a western Pennsylvania native, West Point graduate, and former chief of staff to the late Arlen Specter, a Republican senator who changed his party to Democrat in 2010 but lost in the Democratic primary, was a senior adviser to Trump.
Urban, who did not work with Specter when he changed parties, understood the importance of the smaller counties outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, explaining that there was an untapped center-right constituency in those counties that could sway the election for Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Urban said most people thought he was nuts, except, of course, Trump, who had found appeal with traditionally unmotivated voters because he was not part of the system of either party. It worked. Trump over-performed in the smaller counties and, to the astonishment of both Democrats and Republicans, flipped the traditional Democratic counties of Luzerne, Erie, and Northampton in significant amounts. He thus won the state that had not favored a Republican for president since 1988.
A man salutes during the National Anthem at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Oct. 19, 2024. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
“Those counties negated whatever happened in Philly and Pittsburgh,” said Urban, adding, “Going in, I understood Trump needed 2,000 voters over Romney’s numbers in 2012 in ten counties, less so in the more rural ones, and he would win the state narrowly.”
The same holds true for today. In 2020, President Joe Biden was able to cut into those margins with the working class in those small counties, in part because of his years of referring to himself as “Scranton Joe” and the familiarity he earned campaigning for downballot Democrats in local races, and also in part because of the circumstances of COVID-19. Now, though, Biden’s policies as president and his comportment are turning those voters off.
Voters in places just 15 minutes outside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will tell you, more often than not, they do not have a voice in D.C. and are acutely aware of how people there, and in New York, view them as “lesser than” or “backward.”
Former President Barack Obama reinforced this at a San Francisco fundraiser when he said Pennsylvanians who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Clinton reinforced it with her “basket of deplorables” and “irredeemable” remarks when she was running, and Biden himself reminded voters a week before the election, with a slip of the tongue, that he views them as “garbage.”
Trump took Biden’s remark and rolled with it, dressing in an orange vest and riding in a garbage truck in Wisconsin. His ability to be nimble with the situation has earned him more votes than it cost him. The number of parents I saw either in person or posting on social media from Pennsylvania dressed in garbage bags, orange vests, or as Mcdonald’s employees, a hat tip to Trump’s decision to work at the fast-food chain two weeks ago, showed an undercurrent that has been missed.
“It may surprise some people in the Democratic Party that folks don’t particularly like to be called fascists, or Nazis, or have their family members called that,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist, and co-author of The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.
Todd said it may turn out that the voters who determine Pennsylvania’s outcomes will more than likely be people who work with their hands, such as “a barber or a welder or a waitress.”
Karen, Angela, and Elizabeth are all working-class waitresses. One owns the small Main Street Diner in Westmoreland County, and the other two are servers. All three, just eight years ago, would have been Democrats, but today, they are all in for Trump.
A sign is displayed in front of a veteran’s home, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
“It is the economy,” said Angela, who was busy bussing tables. Elizabeth, who just turned 18 in August, has worked at the diner since she was 14 and at the bar down the street as a server. She is also drawn to Trump.
“It is all on the economy and the way he addresses voters from places like here,” she said.
Gallup pollsters have shown, in survey after survey, that the economy remains voters’ number one concern, and they don’t like the direction the country is going in. Conversely, Harris’s biggest struggle has been connecting with voters, such as Angela and Elizabeth, on the economy.
She has also struggled to connect with voters on energy concerns in Pennsylvania, where the industry is a giant. Switching from “I would ban fracking on day one” in a hypothetical to “I won’t ban fracking” falls flat because her own administration has placed a ban on exporting liquid natural gas for the foreseeable future, and she has not only done nothing about it, she has not even mentioned it.
Her events in the state have also often been very staged, with attendees coming from an invitation-only list, while her speeches have rarely tapped into the vein of the economic hurt people are feeling. In recent weeks, her comments have fallen into a darker narrative that has not inspired persuadable people.
Her messages on abortion, “greedflation,” and “snackflation” have also fallen flat. Almost everyone in Pennsylvania knows abortion in the state is legal for up to 24 weeks, and the only person who can take abortion away is the sitting governor. However, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) has repeatedly said he would not do that. Meanwhile, nobody thinks the increase in the cost of snacks was caused by Trump.
His rallies have worked, despite ridicule and skepticism from reporters, because he showed up in places such as Butler, Luzerne, Cambria, Erie, and Northampton, where people feel unseen and unheard and where climate change and pronouns mean less than the cost of food.
In interviews across the state, middle-class voters, white, black, and Hispanic, are now voting shoulder to shoulder, not divided by race but by the economic despair they are experiencing together. Food costs, gas prices, utilities, car insurance, rent, and mortgages (if they can even afford to buy a house) are driving their vote.
Leslie Rossi stands on the porch of the “Trump House” on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Youngstown, Pennsylvania. Rossi, a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, painted one of her vacant rental properties to support Trump’s 2016 presidential bid and has continued to maintain the home, a popular stop for Trump supporters. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
These voters often did not attend college, but they are middle-class and have found their calling as artisans, such as hairdressers, medical technicians, welders, plumbers, waitresses, laborers, or small business owners.
Todd said those voters are the key: “There’s a real chance Trump will end up with less from college-educated women than he did in 2016 for sure, he is likely to make up for it with lower income, lower education Democrats, people who used to be Democrats and are not anymore.”
He also said, “Gen Z is not turning out to be as liberal as Millennials. And we were all assured that demography was destiny. And turns out that when you’re coming of age with a pretty crappy economy, you’re not real happy about it.”
There is also still a silent suburban mother cohort, which includes married and unmarried female voters with children in the home, in places such as Allegheny, Erie, Bucks, and Northampton counties who preferred to keep their names out of the story.
Harris will win with women without children, specifically unmarried women without children, a bloc she’ll win by about 70 points, said Todd.
Vice President Kamala Harris plays a video of former President Donald Trump to a large crowd during a campaign rally at Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Pennsylvania, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (Justin Merriman / for the Washington Examiner)
“When we talk about a gender gap, what we really are talking about is a marriage gap and a parent gap, and that’s something that’s culturally changing in politics,” he said.
The one thing that confused people as to why this cycle is leaning toward Trump in Pennsylvania is just two years ago, Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) won statewide. This made some reporters believe that Pennsylvania had gone back to being a blue state. What they missed is both Shapiro and Fetterman ran as centrist, “get-things-done” Democrats and stayed away from the left-wing cultural matters that drive moderate Democrats and Republicans away.
“People have also missed how rightward the state has moved,” said Todd, referring to the stunning voter registration movement for Republicans in the state that has the Democrats with the weakest voter registration dominance in the state in decades.
In 2008, Obama won the state by a landslide. He ran on “hope and change” and being part of something bigger than self, and it worked. In 2012, he ran on internationalism, division, and social justice, and as a result, 280,000 fewer Pennsylvanians voted for him. While Obama still won (more narrowly), the parties were shifting. Clinton ran the same divisive race in 2016, and most of the media was shocked by her loss. She calculated that she could win with Obama’s numbers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. She did win those, but she lost in the rest of the state.
Biden was able to pick those voters back from Trump, but Harris has struggled to connect with them, and it appears just enough of Trump’s suburban voters are coming back to him to join the middle-class coalition to power his comeback.
Now, there may be a surge of voters who do not account for supporting Harris. Still, based on the two candidates’ messages, delivery, and understanding of what people are looking for, both pollsters and voters said they’d rather be Trump than Harris on Tuesday.
The lateWalter Williams, who taught economics at George Mason University for 40 years while also writing a syndicated newspaper column, liked to remind his students and readers that political leaders often exploit economic illiteracy to win votes. “I think it’s important for people to understand the ideas of scarcity and decision-making in everyday life so that they won’t be ripped off by politicians,” he once told me.
This year’s presidential race provides ample evidence of those concerns.Donald Trumpis offering tax breaks to select voters like you would Halloween candy—a Kit Kat for people who receive overtime pay, a Snickers for people who earn tips—with no regard for how these exemptions would distort labor markets and affect a federal Treasury that is already running a $1.8 trillion deficit. Mr. Trump is also promising more tariffs if re-elected, even though the tariffs imposed in his first term led to higher prices for consumers, just as economists predicted.
“The Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, amounting to one of the largest tax increases in decades,” according to the Tax Foundation. Moreover, the former president insisted that slapping tariffs on goods from China and other countries would reduce the trade deficit. Instead, countries retaliated with tariffs of their own, the export competitiveness of U.S. firms suffered, and the trade deficit increased.
Kamala Harris can’t really critique these proposals, because she largely agrees with them—the Biden administration has kept most of Mr. Trump’s tariffs in place—and her own economic policies might be even worse. Ms. Harris wants to increase levies on corporations, income and capital gains, which historically has discouraged investment and retarded economic growth. She has also proposed increasing the minimum wage, notwithstanding that teenage unemployment and prices at fast-food restaurants shot up after her home state of California raised its wage floor in 2020.
Whatever her proposals, Ms. Harris’s overriding problem is that she can’t run away from the Biden administration’s record. Her campaign’s closing message is that Mr. Trump is a fascist threat to the republic, which is something you come up with when you can’t defend what your administration has been doing for the past four years about inflation, the economy, border security and other issues that voters care most about. Ms. Harris has spent a lot of time ducking serious interviews and deflecting tough questions so that she could focus on telling people what they already know about Donald Trump. Will it work? Not if Mr. Trump’s own closing message resonates.
“I’d like to begin by asking a very simple question,” Mr. Trump said at the top of his speech in New York City on Sunday. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Unlike his opponent, Mr. Trump can run on his economic record, which surveys show is fondly remembered by a growing number of Americans. A poll released by NBC News earlier this month found that 48% of voters retrospectively approve of Mr. Trump’s performance as president. “That’s a higher job-approval rating than Trump ever held in the NBC News poll when he was president,” according to the network. “It also stands in contrast to Biden’s current 43% approval in the poll.”
Ms. Harris’s greatest fear is that working-class voters will see through her scaremongering and give some thought to the question that Mr. Trump is posing. If they do, the Democrats are toast. The southern border remains a mess. Cities are still being overrun with illegal migrants who force officials to divert resources away from communities that were already struggling. And people are still paying more than they were during the Trump administration for life’s basics: food, energy, housing.
The Journal reported this week that the housing market is “stuck.” The median price of a home has risen by more than 35% since 2021. Sales of existing homes “are on track for their worst year since 1995 for the second year in a row.” Higher mortgage rates have reduced the number of existing homes on the market because homeowners who have low rates don’t want to sell and take on a higher one on their next house.
The average 30-year mortgage rate is down from its peak in 2023, but at 6.54% it remains more than twice as high as it was when Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris took office. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta show that the share of household income needed to cover housing costs fell during the Trump presidency. Under Mr. Biden, it’s up by nearly 50%.
Is it any wonder Ms. Harris and the Democrats would rather talk about threats to democracy?
Novartis expects to increase its annual sales by least 5% per year in the coming years, CEO Vas Narasimhan said in an interview on Saturday, with the pharmaceuticals giant having nothing to fear from the end of patent protection on some drugs.
"I am very confident that we will achieve average growth of at least 5% per year until 2028," Narasimhan told Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft.
This would be made possible by eight or nine drugs with multi-billion dollar sales, he told the newspaper, although a big challenge will be maintaining the pipeline of new medications.
Narasimhan said he was confident the company would reach its growth target despite the imminent expiry of patents on some medications including Entresto used to treat heart failure.
"We also expect sales and profit growth for 2025. We will announce a specific forecast in January," said Narasimhan, who has led Novartis since 2018.
"In the past, the expiry of major patents in our industry has often led to declining sales, but this is not to be feared at Novartis."
The company will not, however, increase its core operating profit margin much beyond the current level of 40.1%, Narasimhan said.
"I consider a margin in the low 40% range to be sufficient - higher margins are generally not rewarded in the pharmaceutical industry as they come at the expense of investments in research, development and sales growth," he said.
Novartis will also consider acquisitions, with a focus on bolt-on deals worth less than $1 billion.
"Of course, we will continue to look for deals of up to $10 billion or more," Narasimhan said. "However, our analysis shows that the track record of such deals in the sector has historically been rather poor."
Barack Obama once said if there were no Scranton, Pennsylvania, there would be no Joe Biden.
The sitting president, whose term ends in January, returned to his childhood hometown on Saturday for a final campaign stop in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, seeking to use his sway in a critical part of an important swing state to help her beat his onetime rival, Republican Donald Trump.
Scranton has a storied history for Biden, and if he were still at the top of the Democratic ticket, a stop here would likely be seen as a full-circle moment for his final campaign.
Instead it was Biden's swan song of sorts for his No. 2, and a muted one at that.
The president rallied union workers, a constituency with whom he is popular, in the town where he grew up before his family moved to Delaware, where he would launch his more than fifty-year political career.
"I'm so proud to be back," Biden said, launching into familiar remarks about his and Harris' support for unions, his pride in having been the first president to walk a picket line, and their efforts to restore pensions.
"Don't forget where you came from," he said to applause, warning of the ramifications if Trump were elected and did away with the Affordable Care Act healthcare program.
Biden, who stepped aside as the Democratic Party's standard bearer in July following a disastrous debate performance against Trump, has not been a regular feature on the campaign trail for Harris since she ascended to the top of the ticket.
They held a handful of early events, both official and campaign-related, as she took the baton and energized demoralized Democrats in the summer. But his former campaign largely left him in the shadows since, amid concerns about his age, his penchant for gaffes, and his low approval ratings with the American public.
The wisdom of that strategy was highlighted earlier this week when Biden's call with a Latino group in which he referred to a Trump supporter or supporters as garbage partially overshadowed Harris' well-received closing argument speech to tens of thousands of supporters in Washington. He later clarified his remarks, but the episode was an unwelcome one for Harris and her team in the closing stretch of the race.
It was not enough, however, for them to ask Biden to eschew his stop in Pennsylvania, where he spoke at a union get-out-the-vote meeting with Carpenters Local 445, standing in front of a wall of signs that said "Harris for President" and "Thank you, Joe."
