Hello all, this is it. The final countdown. The celebs are out in force - Beyoncé has thrown her star power behind Kamala Harris and Mel Gibson has said the vice president has the “IQ of a fence post”. What a time to be alive.
When this is published, I will be somewhere deep inside Pennsylvania, where this election could be decided. We’ve got lots to come from the Keystone State over the coming days on 1News, 1News.co.nz, and TVNZ+.
1News US Correspondent Logan Church reports from Pennsylvania. (Source: 1News)
I meet the anti-Trump Republicans
While former president Donald Trump has the overwhelming support of most Republicans, there is a small but loud contingent of conservatives who are working hard to convince other members of their party to vote for Kamala Harris.
In Philadelphia, I was invited to spend some time on the ‘Republicans Against Trump’ bus tour through Pennsylvania. On board, I met conservatives who had travelled across America as they took their message to the masses.
“If Donald Trump gets re-elected, we are never going to have a conservative movement in this country in my lifetime again,” Ethan Lenz told me. “By voting for Kamala Harris, I believe the Donald Trump element will eventually leave the Republican Party.”
Rebecca Foster, another Republican who told me she was voting for Harris, said she was increasingly unimpressed by the former president.
“It's his lack of competence, his lack of cognitive ability, his behaviour leaving the white house the last time.”
Lots more on this on 1News, later tonight, and TVNZ+.
Video of ballots being shredded revealed as fake
There was outrage in Bucks County, Pennsylvania this week, when a video went viral purporting to show ballots with ticks for Donald Trump on them being destroyed.
However, the authorities have revealed the video was fake.
"It didn't take long for us to determine that it was not an authentic video; that it was fabricated,” Bucks County district attorney and registered Republican Jennifer Schorn told NBC.
Schorn said it was clearly done "in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election."
The FBI now, according to USA Today, believe the video was a hoax that Russia was behind. The law enforcement agency was investigating.
US officials have already expressed concern about foreign actors influencing the outcome of the election – and what happens afterwards.
Trump’s McDonald's work day makes McWaves
Was it political theatre? Yes. Did it pretend to be otherwise? Not really. Was the McDonald's shut at the time and pretty much the whole thing staged? Yes. Did it make headlines? Heck yes.
On Monday, Trump donned a uniform to serve customers at a Pittsburg McDonald's, with his campaign aiming to portray the former president as a champion for low-income workers.
While in the kitchen, he held a news conference through a drive-thru window, made digs at Kamala Harris by claiming she lied about working at McDonalds - which the Harris campaign says is not true - and interacted with the public while handing out meals.
For those interested in the "behind the scenes" of political campaigns, McDonald's itself actually had nothing to do with the campaign stop.
Most of the company's restaurants are run by a franchisee, who in this case was approached by local law enforcement asking if Trump could make the campaign stop.
“[The franchise owner] was proud to highlight how he and his team serve their local community and make delicious food, like our World-Famous French Fries,” the company said after the event.
“Upon learning of the former president’s request, we approached it through the lens of one of our core values: we open our doors to everyone.”
McDonald's doesn’t endorse political candidates, and one can imagine they would've been less than thrilled that any candidate held a campaign event in one of its restaurants.
However, there's a simple rationale behind a candidate wanting to tie their image to the brand, with one in eight Americans having worked for Maccas at some point in their lives.
There has been backlash for this individual restaurant, however, with Yelp temporarily suspending reviews for it after a flood of negative – many totally bogus – reviews from people furious they let former president Trump "work" there.
“Convicted felon s**t-talking customers, especially women, did not wear gloves while preparing French fries and only worked five minutes at a time before having to sit down or take a nap,” one particularly harsh review said.
Regardless, the Trump campaign will have seen the event as a big PR win.
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