Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris on handling Israel, Ukraine wars, WSJ poll shows

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Rawhide Event Center on October 10, 2024 in Chandler, Arizona. (AFP)
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Updated 12 October 2024
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Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris on handling Israel, Ukraine wars, WSJ poll shows

  • The poll published on Friday showed Harris and Trump tied across the seven states that could decide the November presidential election

Former Republican President Donald Trump has an edge over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on who would better navigate the country through the Ukraine and Middle East wars, a Wall Street Journal opinion poll of seven battleground states showed.
In overall support, the poll published on Friday showed Harris and Trump tied across the seven states that could decide the November presidential election.
The poll showed Harris with marginal 2 percentage point leads in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, Trump up 6 points in Nevada and 1 in Pennsylvania, and the two tied in North Carolina and Wisconsin. The poll of 600 registered voters in each state conducted on Sept. 28-Oct. 8 had a margin of error of 4 percentage points in each state.
The neck-and-neck results echo other polls reflecting a tight race before the Nov. 5 election as Americans grapple with concerns about the economy, immigration, women’s rights and the nation’s democratic values in picking between the two candidates.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week also found Trump and Harris locked in a close race nationally, with Harris marginally ahead 46 percent to 43 percent.
Surveys of swing state voters can be an important indicator given that state-by-state results of the Electoral College will determine the winner, with the seven battleground states likely being decisive.
Harris would win a narrow majority in the Electoral College if she captures the states where she holds an edge in the WSJ’s poll.
According to the WSJ poll, Trump leads Harris in the seven swing states 50 percent to 39 percent on who is best able to handle Russia’s war in Ukraine. Trump also has a 48 percent to 33 percent lead over Harris on who is better suited to handle the Israel-Hamas war.
More voters said they backed Trump on the economy and immigration while more said Harris would do a better job when it comes to housing, health care and caring about people like them, the WSJ poll found.


UK’s Starmer urges ‘sleeping giant’ Europe to curb dependence on US

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UK’s Starmer urges ‘sleeping giant’ Europe to curb dependence on US

MUNICH, Germany: British leader Keir Starmer will tell the Munich Security Conference that Europe is “a sleeping giant” and must rely less on the United States for its defense, his office said Friday.
In a speech on Saturday at the summit, the UK prime minister will argue that the continent must shift from overdependence on the United States toward a more European NATO.
“I’m talking about a vision of European security and greater European autonomy that does not herald US withdrawal but answers the call for more burden sharing in full and remakes the ties that have served us so well,” Starmer is expected to say.
The gathering comes as European leaders remain concerned that a United States led by President Donald Trump can no longer be relied upon to be the guarantor of their security.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has frequently criticized European countries for not sharing enough of the burden on common defense, and raised questions about the future of NATO.
European members of the transatlantic military alliance are rushing to build up their defenses in the face of an increasingly belligerent Moscow, whose war in Ukraine is set to enter its fifth year this month.
“As I see it — Europe is a sleeping giant. Our economies dwarf Russia’s, 10 times over,” Starmer will tell allies, according to excerpts released ahead of his address.
“We have huge defense capabilities. Yet, too often, all of this has added up to less than the sum of its parts,” he was to say, citing fragmented planning and procurement problems.
Late last year, talks on Britain joining the bloc’s new 150-billion-euro (£130 billion) rearmament fund broke down, reportedly because London baulked at the price for entry.
Downing Street said Starmer would use his speech to call for closer UK-EU defense cooperation.
“There is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain. That is the lesson of history — and it is today’s reality too,” Starmer was to say.
The UK government announced on Friday that Britain will spend more than £400 million this financial year on hypersonic and long-range weapons, including through joint projects with France, Germany and Italy.
Starmer, whose center-left Labour party is being squeezed on opposite ends of the political spectrum by the anti-immigrant Reform UK group and the more leftwing Greens, was to say leaders “must level with the public” about the defense costs they face.
He was due to hit out at “peddlers of easy answers on the extreme left and the extreme right,” according to the excerpts.
“The future they offer is one of division and then capitulation. The lamps would go out across Europe once again. But we will not let that happen,” Starmer was expected to say.