US presidential election, live: Trump's last rally marred by controversy and racist references

Attacks on Kamala Harris and racist outbursts have flared up at Donald Trump's last campaign rally, this Sunday, October 27th in New York.

The Essentials

• The US presidential election will be held on November 5, 2024, but Americans have already started voting since the end of September with early voting gradually opening in the different states.
• Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are the main candidates for the US presidential election. They are neck and neck in the national and state polls. In the seven swing states that will swing the election one way or the other, the gap is also very tight, with the advantage shifting back and forth from Trump to Harris.
• On Sunday, October 27, a highly anticipated meeting was held for the Republican camp in the legendary Madison Square Garden in New York. A meeting that brought together 20,000 people as well as Donald Trump's close associates such as Elon Musk, Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., and former conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
• The meeting was marked by numerous controversial remarks concerning immigrants and certain communities in the United States, whether from Trump himself or through some of his speakers. The comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, for example, compared Puerto Rico to a "floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean".
• During the evening, Donald Trump heaped more on his rival by calling Kamala Harris incompetent, before Tucker Carlson went off the rails by targeting the Democrat's origins, calling her a “Samoan-Malaysian with a low IQ.” As a reminder, the Vice President of the United States has Jamaican and Indian origins.
• Finally, one of the Republican candidate's advisers spoke to the crowd to declare that “America is for Americans and Americans only.” An activist called Harris the “anti-Christ” while brandishing a crucifix in a white-hot room.
• Follow the latest news on the US presidential election campaign in our live feed.

Live

10:12 – Trump slams Harris' record, vows to “keep (the country) from war”

&In New York, crime has skyrocketed since Covid-19 and unemployment has now reached 5.2%, a figure that Donald Trump did not fail to highlight during his rally at Madison Square Garden this Sunday: "Are you in a better situation than you were four years ago ?". "No", the audience overwhelmingly responded. He took the opportunity to highlight his program and reaffirm his desire to implement the largest project to expel irregular migrants. For him, the United States is now an “occupied country,” which he will “liberate on the first day” of his return to the White House. “I am the only president who in eighty-four years has not started a war (…) “My rhetoric will keep us from war,” he said. in front of the crowd.

09:16 – A Democratic campaign headquarters targeted by gunfire in Arizona

In Tempe, near Phoenix, the windows of a Democratic campaign headquarters were targeted by gunfire, as revealed in a report by France Info. In recent weeks, the office has been the target of gunfire three times. After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, violence seems to be taking over this campaign more generally, creating a heavy political climate in the country. The latest shootings took place on October 6, according to ABC News. While it's impossible to say with certainty whether the office was targeted for political reasons, the “Arizona for Harris” signs inside leave little room for doubt. “I didn't think this kind of thing could happen here,” said a woman who works near the Democratic headquarters.

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08:34 – Star Ricky Martin is outraged by Trump's comments on Puerto Rico

During Donald Trump's rally this Sunday, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”, enough to trigger a real uproar on social networks and the reactions of certain stars of this community. The singer Ricky Martin, in particular, was outraged : “This is what they think of us,” he said. He then advised his 18 million followers to support the Democratic candidate on November 5: “Vote for Kamala Harris.”08:23 – A meeting criticized before its time and compared to a Nazi rally

Even before the meeting began, the location was problematic because of a Nazi rally that had been held in the same room in 1939. Indeed, a pro-Hitler American organization, the German-American Bund, had organized a meeting at Madison Square Garden. A similarity denounced by Hillary Clinton on CNN, Donald Trump's former opponent in 2016. This Sunday, Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' running mate, confirmed that there was a “direct parallel” between the two events. Donald Trump's campaign team refutes his arguments, and calls these comments “disgusting”.

08:12 – “America is for Americans and Americans only”

New controversies for Trump a big week before the election. This Sunday, September 27, during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Republican candidate, accompanied by his close guard including Elon Musk, did not hesitate to multiply the controversial, even racist, statements against Kamala Harris and certain communities residing in the United States.

After once again recalling the “incompetence” of his competitor, he accused her of having opened the floodgates of the country to let in millions of “criminal” migrants, but that's not all. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the vice president of the United States a “Samoan-Malaysian with a low IQ.” In reality, Kamala Harris has Jamaican origins on her father's side and Indian origins on her mother's side. A Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, did not hesitate to declare that: “America is for Americans and Americans only”, before an activist called Harris “the anti-Christ” while brandishing a crucifix to the applause of the audience.

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What you need to know

The American presidential election will take place on November 5, 2024 and is mainly between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, despite the presence of a few other minor candidates in the race for the White House. The election promises to be particularly tight this year according to the various national polls or those conducted in each state. In the United States, it is the results of the state-by-state ballot that are decisive for the outcome of the election.

Each of the 50 states in the country represents a certain number of electors, the more populated the state, the greater the number of electors. It is ultimately these electors who vote for the future president of the United States. But the electors are not distributed to the Republican and Democratic camps proportionally to the results of the election, they all go to one and the same party: the one that obtained the highest score. To hope to win the presidential election, candidates must therefore win the ballot in as many states as possible to obtain the most electors possible. It is necessary to win 270 electors to be assured of victory.

The outcome of the election is already known in most American states that have very deep-rooted electoral habits: the territories on the east and west coasts are usually very progressive like California or New York and vote for the Democratic camp, those in the Midwest are rather conservative and mainly support the Republican party. But there are a handful of states, called swing states, which from one election to the next can swing from one camp to another. These are the states that decide the outcome of the election: Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.