One week out: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris hit the home stretch
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are locked in a tight race just one week out from Election Day. Trump hosted a rally at Madison Square Garden Sunday night, riffing off the fiery crowd and hitting on a range of topics in his typical style. “…nine days from now it is hard working patriots like you who are going to save our country,” Trump said. “After all we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history of the U.S.A.” The same day, Harris spoke at a lively rally of her own in Philadelphia in the key swing state of Pennsylvania. “We are here because we are fighting for a Democracy, and we respect the voices of all people,” Harris said. “And we’ve got a job to do in the next nine days to fight for this Democracy we love. According to Real Clear Politics’ polling average, which aggregates recent polls, Trump leads by half a point in the state of Pennsylvania, well within the polls margins of error. In fact, Trump leads in all seven of the closest swing states, albeit very narrowly, according to RealClear. Trump leads by 1.5 points in Arizona, 2.3 points in Georgia, 0.1 points in Michigan, 0.7 points in Nevada, 0.8 points in North Carolina, and 0.3 in Wisconsin. Nationally, the two are virtually tied with recent polls showing one or the other with slight leads. An ABC News Ipsos poll released Sunday has Harris leading Trump, 51%-47%. A Wall Street Journal poll released last week showed Trump up by three points. And an Emerson College poll released Sunday has the two candidates tied at 49%. “With ten days until Election Day, the national poll finds a divided electorate,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement. “In this poll, independents report breaking for Trump 49% to 46% – a reversal from 2020, where they reported voting for Biden by about ten points. “Male voters are breaking for Trump by 13 points, 55% to 42%, a larger margin than in 2020, while women break for Harris by ten points, 54% to 44%, underperforming Biden’s support in 2020,” he added. A few last-minute developments have added to the stakes of an already fast-paced close to this election cycle. Two ballot boxes were set ablaze on Monday in Oregon and Washington, targeting early votes and drawing national attention and concern about foul play in the election. And in Pennsylvania, election workers flagged 2,500 voter registrations that were dropped off Monday in Lancaster County that are suspected to be fraudulent. The state’s attorney general is investigating. With concerns about threats and election integrity on the rise, security has increased at many polling locations. Joe Rogan, who hosts the most popular podcast in America, released an interview with Trump that has 33 million views on YouTube. Rogan said during the interview that there were talks about Harris coming on the show and that he would be happy to have her, but so far it has not worked out. While Trump and Harris continue to flit about the swing states fighting for votes, the Emerson poll also found that most voters have already made up their mind. “When asked when they made up their mind for president, 80% have made up their mind over a month ago, 10% in the past month, 7% in the past week, and 4% have not made up their mind yet,” Emerson said in its report. “Regardless of whom they will vote for, 50% think Trump will win the election and 49% think Harris will win the election.” Republished with permission of The Center Square.
Beauty and the Beasts: Jennifer Cornett vs. Hoover City Leadership
Last Monday, the City of Hoover held its regularly scheduled city council meeting, during which the city’s chief financial officer, Jennifer Cornett, spoke. Ordinarily, the CFO would speak when presenting budget updates, during occasional budget amendments (Hoover has had many this year), and giving general operations information. However, Cornett’s first year has been anything but ordinary. In response to a request during a previous council meeting from Councilman Derrick Murphy, Cornett presented an update and plan for remedying some of the concerns raised in the secretly commissioned forensic audit by the nationally renowned firm Kroll. As previously reported by Alabama Today, Cornett, who started with the City of Hoover late last year, has been in a precarious position since day one. By all accounts, including the Kroll forensic audit, the regular auditor BMSS’s regular audits for years, the Gallagher report, and other internal investigations, the city’s financial offices have been understaffed for years due to the mayor’s lack of leadership in requesting funding or managing his staff. As Cornett detailed in her report on Monday, this understaffing and a general lack of accountability and management over the years have led to a host of problems she is now having to clean up. On Monday, as she has every time she’s addressed the Council, she stressed a commitment to transparency and accountability. A commitment that puts her directly at odds with others in city leadership, including Mayor Frank Brocato, who has seemingly, at every turn during this process, denied that problems existed, sought out the least transparent way forward to cover them up, and downplay them, and who, to this day, refuses to acknowledge it was during his tenure and because of his leadership failures that these problems were allowed to happen and remained for years. Cornett’s commitment to good governance is certainly at odds with the public position presented in word and action by City Attorney Phillip Corley, who has sat back as the mayor, mayor’s staff, and City Council President John Lyda declared publically that they are shielded from their actions, words, and failure to act by Corley directing or allowing them to declare “attorney/client privilege” as if it’s a “Get out of Jail” free card in a game of Monopoly. Anyone who has been to council meetings or had any interaction with the council, be it on the forensic audit, asking questions about the Riverwalk Development or costs related to the Certificate of Need hearings, have seen Corley use his Alabama Bar Association membership as both a weapon and a shield to allow himself and everyone around him to avoid transparency and accountability. When he or his friends don’t want to answer a question or an inquiry, Corley declares “it’s privileged.” Again, public records laws and other laws be damned, though we have heard from both the mayor and CFO recently that the attorney general’s office has finally been called to look into what they want to be investigated. In one instance of the questionable use of privilege, Lyda sent an email to the rest of the council seeking approval for the forensic audit, an email that the city failed to produce in a public records request, even though it was just one councilor to others with no legal counsel included. That didn’t stop Corley from withholding said document from a public records request. Finally, Cornett’s pledge is at odds with the Council, which, under Lyda’s leadership, has been all but ambivalent about developing and maintaining the checks and balances required to correct the multitude of problems facing the city. One could only imagine if, rather than the beasts at city hall deflecting blame and responsibility, hiding plans, cutting backroom deals, picking fights with one another, and all the madness we’ve seen in Hoover since early this year, how beautiful, peaceful and productive growing and governing could be.
