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kamala harris
Swing State Polls Show Harris 'Must Change Course' on Climate and Gaza, Says Sunrise
"The polls we're seeing unfortunately tell the same story we're hearing from the 900,000 young swing state voters we've contacted in the past two months," said one organizer.
Oct 16, 2024
The youth-led climate action group Sunrise Movement said Wednesday that the latest polling numbers in swing states—showing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leading Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in all but one—demonstrate what they've been hearing in their massive voter mobilization push, and reiterated their demand that Harris course-correct on key issues.
"The polls we're seeing unfortunately tell the same story we're hearing from the 900,000 young swing state voters we've contacted in the past two months," said Stevie O'Hanlon, communications director for Sunrise. "VP Harris is losing ground with young people. To win this election, VP Harris must change course. The campaign urgently needs to work to energize and turn out millions of young voters."
The RealClearPolitics polling average on Wednesday showed Trump pulling ahead in every swing state except Wisconsin, where Harris has 48.3% support compared to Trump's 48%.
Trump is beating Harris by one percentage point in Michigan—the state with the largest share of Arab American voters, where campaigners have been warning for months that Harris' support for continued arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza and Lebanon is a political liability. In Arizona, he is winning by 1.1 points, and in North Carolina by 1.2 points.
"We can look at the math. In every swing state, the number of young voters dwarfs the anticipated margins of victory," said O'Hanlon. "In my home state of Pennsylvania, [President] Joe Biden won the state by 80,000 votes in 2020. More than 80,000 people turn 18 in Pennsylvania and become newly eligible voters each year."
Sunrise has been contacting young voters in swing states since Harris was officially nominated to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate, and in mid-September, the group issued a warning about what they were hearing from voters.
"People are fired up and getting engaged with the election, but there is a sizable number of young people who don't want to get out the vote for Kamala Harris until she backs an arms embargo and puts forward a real climate plan," said Noah Foley-Beining, an organizer with the group, at the time.
A month later, said O'Hanlon, Harris appears to be "splitting hairs for a small fraction of the undecided middle-aged, white, conservative voter base" instead of "electrifying the Democratic base by talking about how she will take on big corporations, tackle the climate crisis, and end U.S. military support for Israel's assault on Gaza."
"VP Harris is losing ground with young people... The campaign urgently needs to work to energize and turn out millions of young voters."
Harris has won applause from progressives for speaking frankly and unequivocally about her support for abortion rights and for unveiling economic justice proposals like a federal ban on food industry price gouging and an expansion of Medicare to cover home healthcare, vision, and hearing care.
But as Israel has expanded its U.S.-backed military operations to Lebanon—killing more than 2,000 people—and cut off northern Gaza from humanitarian aid in what advocates warned appeared to be an ethnic cleansing campaign, the Harris campaign has refused to support an arms embargo on the Middle Eastern country.
Harris has also boasted about the Biden administration's expansion of oil production and her support for fracking.
In an op-ed at Common Dreams on Wednesday, Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation for Food and Water Watch, wrote that the "conventional wisdom" among pundits that politicians must embrace fossil fuels is misinformed, as evidenced by polling in swing states including Pennsylvania.
"A recent survey from the Ohio River Valley Institute showed that 74% of Pennsylvanians support stricter regulations on fracking due to concern about health risks, while 90% or more want expanded setbacks from schools and hospitals, stronger air monitoring, and more rigorous regulation on transportation of fracking waste. Ignoring these concerns and instead framing fracking as a virtue makes little political sense in the Keystone State," wrote Jones.
"Further, in Pennsylvania and beyond, Harris needs a groundswell of support from young and progressive voters—people most likely to care deeply about climate change and preventing it," Jones added. "In a recent survey of young people in swing states from the Environmental Voter Project, 40% said that 'a candidate must prioritize "addressing climate change" or else it is a "deal breaker."' More significantly, 16% said they would definitely not support a candidate that talks about 'increasing U.S. use of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal,' yet this is exactly what Harris has been bragging about. This election will be decided at the margins, and these are the type of hesitant voters we need to be motivated and engaged to put Harris over the line."
With just 20 days left until Election Day, said O'Hanlon, Sunrise Movement campaigners are "giving everything we've got to contact millions of people and turn out young voters to elect Harris."
"What we're asking," O'Hanlon said, "is that the Harris campaign help us do that."
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Embrace of Fossil Fuels Isn't Helping Kamala Harris
Trump represents an existential threat and it remains imperative that Kamala Harris win this election. But to do that, she would be well-advised to stop embracing fracking and return to her roots of confronting the coal, oil, and gas companies head-on.
Oct 16, 2024
The impacts of climate change are all around us—hurricanes battering Florida and Appalachia, extreme heat in October baking the West, and a continual stream of new temperature records. It’s pretty clear what needs to happen. We need to rapidly move away from fossil fuels. But for some reason, rather than taking on the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis, Vice President Harris’s team has determined that it's good politics to tout fracking and increased oil and gas production. This is not a winning approach, and it could actually cost Harris an election we desperately need her to win.
Embracing fracking and fossil fuel production is bad politics in addition to bad policy. D.C. conventional wisdom holds that in order to win Pennsylvania, candidates need to embrace fracking—but like much of D.C. conventional wisdom, this is wrong. Food & Water Action has worked on the ground in Pennsylvania for years. We’ve seen up close the dark underside of fracking - polluted water and air, cancer, and other social ills. Working with impacted communities, we have passed dozens of local measures restricting the practice in the state. Pennsylvanians don’t love fracking. In fact, they want to see it reined in rather than further unleashed.
The science is clear: We need to leave the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground. No amount of investment in renewable energy by itself will avert worsening climate change as long as we are simultaneously continuing to increase fossil fuel production.
Polling reflects this deep concern. A recent survey from the Ohio River Valley Institute showed that 74% of Pennsylvanians support stricter regulations on fracking due to concern about health risks, while 90% or more want expanded setbacks from schools and hospitals, stronger air monitoring, and more rigorous regulation on transportation of fracking waste. Ignoring these concerns and instead framing fracking as a virtue makes little political sense in the Keystone state.
Further, in Pennsylvania and beyond, Harris needs a groundswell of support from young and progressive voters—people most likely to care deeply about climate change and preventing it. In a recent survey of young people in swing states from the Environmental Voter Project, 40% said that “a candidate must prioritize ‘addressing climate change’ or else it is a ‘deal breaker.’” More significantly, 16% said they would definitely not support a candidate that talks about “increasing U.S. use of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal,” yet this is exactly what Harris has been bragging about. This election will be decided at the margins, and these are the type of hesitant voters we need to be motivated and engaged to put Harris over the line..
When she ran for president in 2019, Harris advocated for a much different agenda. She was one of several major candidates to call for an outright ban on fracking, she embraced a Green New Deal, and she championed a quick transition to a clean energy economy. These are the policies that would give her a great platform to address the climate crisis and talk about building a new energy economy based on good, unionized clean energy jobs.
They also have the advantage of being in line with what scientists are telling us is necessary to avert worse and escalating climate chaos. The science is clear: We need to leave the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground. No amount of investment in renewable energy by itself will avert worsening climate change as long as we are simultaneously continuing to increase fossil fuel production.
Based on her prior statements and record (she went after fossil fuel companies as California attorney general) Harris knows this. And, she has an opportunity to draw a stark contrast with Donald Trump, whose record is the epitome of climate denial and fossil fuel industry pandering. But now, if she is elected, Harris will face tremendous pressure to work with the fossil fuel industry and support its pet projects. It will be up to all of us to provide a loud and clear message from day one that this approach is unacceptable.
The stakes in this election could not be higher. Trump’s agenda poses a severe threat to our environment and our climate, as well as our democracy. It is imperative that Kamala Harris wins this election. But to do that, she would be well-advised to stop embracing fracking and fossil fuels, and return to her roots of confronting the oil and gas industry head-on. A large and powerful movement is ready to back her if she does, or hold her accountable if she doesn’t.
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New FTC 'Click-to-Cancel' Rule Marks Latest Pro-Consumer Win by Lina Khan
"Consumers shouldn't have to navigate a Rube Goldberg machine to get out of a subscription they purchased with a keystroke," said one advocate.
Oct 16, 2024
The target of the latest consumer protection rule unveiled by the Biden-Harris administration's Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday is, as one journalist said, "one of those things that sounds minor but is at the heart of many of the frustrations of American life": The hoops people in the U.S. are required to jump through to cancel subscriptions or services they no longer want or need.
The FTC announced that its "click-to-cancel" rule, part of the agency's review of the 1973 Negative Option Rule, was finalized and will go into effect 180 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
Under the rule, sellers will be required to "make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up," said the FTC.
Negative option marketing, which allows sellers to interpret a customer's failure to take a specific action as an acceptance of an offer, "can be convenient for sellers and consumers," said the FTC. But the number of complaints the commission has received about subscriptions that are difficult to cancel "has been steadily increasing over the past five years and in 2024 the commission received nearly 70 consumer complaints per day on average, up from 42 per day in 2021."
FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has been applauded by progressives for taking on corporate greed and monopolies, said the FTC aims to end "tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money."
"Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription," said Khan. "Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want."
Advocacy group Demand Progress said the click-to-cancel rule is an example of the kind of action that has made Khan a target of billionaire donors who have lobbied for the chair to be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris if she wins the November election—and of why voters should push for Khan to remain at the helm of the FTC.
"When Big Tech and Big Business billionaires attack Lina Khan and the FTC, they are attacking commonsense consumer protections like the 'click to cancel' rule," said Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of corporate power at the Demand Progress Education Fund. "On one side, you have Lina Khan and the FTC taking action to stop companies from harassing and confusing consumers into paying for subscriptions they don't want. On the other side, you have billionaire CEOs trying to stop the FTC's work to empower consumers."
Thanks to Khan, said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, the rule "will put a stop to [corporations'] predatory pricing model, saving consumers time and money."
"Companies are no longer content to overcharge you just once. Now they are deploying deceptive subscription models to overcharge you as many times as they can for as long as they can," said Owens. "Consumers shouldn't have to navigate a Rube Goldberg machine to get out of a subscription they purchased with a keystroke."
David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, noted that Republican FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak claimed the rule was taking effect too quickly—even though it was first proposed 19 months ago.
"Incredible that this was a 3-2 vote," said Dayen. "Republicans on the FTC think it should be hard to cancel subscriptions."
A poll by Data for Progress in August found that 83% of voters support the click-to-cancel rule.
"Corporations were taking our money, we didn't want them to, and we couldn't stop them," said Helaine Olen, managing editor at the American Economic Liberties Project. "Now we can."
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