Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump face off at the ballot box on Tuesday with control of the U.S. Senate and House up for grabs.
This election cycle has featured unusual alliances and demographic shifts not seen in recent elections.
Billionaire Elon Musk joined former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to endorse Trump this time around.
Meanwhile, Harris has taken to the campaign trail with former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, meaning the iconic Kennedy and Cheney brands are opposing one another yet again, but from the opposite sides this time around.
Those changes come alongside unusual demographic inroads for Trump while men shift more Republican and women favor Democrats, an apparently widening gap for the two sexes.
Union workers, Hispanic voters, and Black voters are traditionally Democratic-favoring demographics that Trump has managed to curry favor with this election.
“He’s changed the makeup of the Republican coalition, and some of them are formerly Democratic,” campaign veteran and former Mitt Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams told The Center Square. “And if you are in a tight race in a purple state, you want to appeal to those voters and try to get them to split their ticket.”
Polling shows that Harris has about 80% support among Black voters nationally. Former President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Joe Biden all managed to get between 90% and 95% support from Black voters.
Trump has marginally increased his support among Black voters and made even better strides among Hispanic voters.
As The Center Square previously reported, Noble Predictive Insights published new polling Tuesday reporting that Harris leads Trump with Black voters 78% to 20% and with Hispanic voters 50% to 45%.
“He’s reminiscent of Bush 2004 numbers,” said Williams, now at Targeted Victory, referring to when former President George W. Bush got 40-44% of the Hispanic vote, depending on which survey or analysis you cite.
“Trump can reach out and connect to these voters in a way that my old boss, Mitt Romney, couldn’t,” Williams continued. “That’s not to say that Republicans are going to win these groups, but they are going to lessen the margin which is why I think that this race is so close at this point.
“You are essentially heading into a dead heat in so many states because Trump has managed to slice into traditionally Democratic constituencies and narrow the margins,” he added.
The demographic realignment has a big impact in down-ballot U.S. House and Senate races with 33 Senate seats in the balance. All 435 House seats are up for reelection every two years.
In the Senate, Democrats are defending about twice as many seats as Republicans, painting a tough picture for the party. Republicans are also considered slight favorites to take the U.S. House, according to betting markets.
Democrats have been working hard to resurrect their relationship with Black voters, with Harris rolling out new policies and even Obama chiding Black men about not voting for Harris.
Last month, Obama told a gathering of Black men to vote for Harris and suggested they would not support her because she was a woman, a comment that sparked pushback and criticism for Democrats.
“Respectfully, President Obama, what you said is not acceptable,” ESPN’s most famous host, Stephen A Smith, who is Black, said on one of his shows after the remarks. “Is it possible that the reason some Black folks may not be inclined to vote or may be a bit disenchanted or dare I say may go as far as voting for Trump, is it possible that it’s policy as opposed to misogyny?
“Inflation, the cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of groceries, that don’t matter?” he continued. “Immigration and our borders and this belief that there’s an elevated level of sensitivity toward them as opposed to Black folks struggling if not starving in this country? Yes that plays a role too.”
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As part of a custody battle, a Tennessee judge ordered a family to vaccinate all three of their children, all of whom had never been vaccinated. Five-year-old Isaac immediately became ill and was eventually diagnosed with severe regressive autism.
In 2016, David Ihben moved his wife and three children from Chicago to Jamestown, in rural Tennessee, with high hopes for a new and calmer life.
But the dream turned into a nightmare for David and his children in December 2019, when divorce proceedings and a subsequent custody battle resulted in the forced vaccination of the children – and changed the family’s fortunes forever.
Ihben said his ex-wife decided “this wasn’t the life she wanted.” So they were attempting to develop a parenting plan in family court – when Tennessee judge Todd Burnett “pulled up the vaccine issue” after discovering the couple’s children were unvaccinated – and forced the parents to vaccinate their children.
Ihben’s two oldest children – daughter Hannah and son Joseph – were spared significant adverse events following their vaccination.
But his youngest son, Isaac, wasn’t so fortunate. After receiving 18 vaccines in one day, Isaac developed severe regressive autism. Today, he requires around-the-clock care.
The children’s mother soon abandoned the children, leaving Ihben to raise them as a single parent – even though he is still obliged to pay child support.
Ihben shared his story with Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Vax-Unvax bus. In a subsequent interview with The Defender, he detailed the challenges he faces in caring for Isaac and the harassment he endured from officials in his community. Ihben shared documentation with The Defender verifying his story.
‘How can a judge force medical care without a doctor’s input?’
Ihben told The Defender his entire family was unvaccinated. “I’ve never had any. My dad was drafted by the Army in 1961, and he didn’t get any either. We’ve never vaccinated,” he said. “Our children had to sign religious exemptions for school.”
During divorce proceedings though, his wife’s attorney used the vaccination issue to drive a wedge between the parents.
“When we went to court, I guess her attorney knew that [Burnett] was a pro-vaccine judge and that’s something that they could get me on,” Ihben said.
According to Ihben, Burnett told the couple that it was his “personal opinion that not vaccinating your children is child abuse.” He then told the couple that whichever parent would be willing to vaccinate the children that same day would leave the courthouse with custody.
“I said, ‘Your Honor, we have rights. It’s between the mom and their father,’” Ihben recalled. “Her attorney whispered to her, and she goes, ‘I’ll take them down and vaccinate them today.’”
“I was so surprised, because me and my ex-wife didn’t agree on much, but we did agree on that,” Ihben said, referring to their views on vaccination.
After the hearing, Ihben and his wife were granted joint custody of the children, with their mother as their primary guardian. Later that day, the children received their childhood vaccines – and Isaac immediately became sick.
“My daughter had previous allergies … so the doctor refused to give her all in one day. They split those … She didn’t have any side effects from what I can see,” Ihben said. “[Joseph] was in the ICU for a couple of days but seems to be okay. But [Isaac] spent 12 days in the ICU, eight days with a 106-degree fever.”
Isaac, who was 5 years old at the time, was “just a normal happy kid,” Ihben said.
Today, Isaac has severe regressive autism. Ihben told The Defender:
“He doesn’t talk. He wears a diaper. He eats out of a baby bottle 20-30 times a day, he has speech therapy and will require 24-hour care and supervision for the rest of his life.
“I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in four years. He has to be changed every two hours, or he will have an accident. If you have a child with regressive autism or know someone, you will understand what our days are like.”
Ihben didn’t learn about Isaac’s injuries right away, because the court initially slapped him with a six-month restraining order. When the six months were up, he finally made plans to pick up his children for “two-hour supervised visitation” at a local McDonald’s.
“My youngest comes walking out and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” He said his oldest children then told him about what happened to Isaac. “My children told me everything that’s going on. Basically, nobody’s given me information. I had to go off what 10- and 11-year-olds were telling me,” Ihben said.
Ihben tried to find out what happened to Isaac – but encountered more obstacles at Cookeville Regional Medical Center, his local hospital. “The judge had sealed the hospital records. I still cannot get them,” he said.
It wasn’t until he enrolled his daughter in high school that, while obtaining her records from the local health department, he had a chance to view Isaac’s records. That’s when he saw that Isaac had received 18 vaccines in one day.
“How can a judge force medical care without a doctor’s input?” Ihben asked. “I don’t think judges should be dictating medical treatment from the bench.”
According to Ihben, doctors at Vanderbilt University in Nashville said Isaac’s injuries “are a direct result from forced vaccination,” with one doctor telling Ihben that “she’s seen only one other kid that acts like Isaac does.”
Required to continue paying child support, despite mother’s disappearance
Soon after seeing his children for the first time after the custody battle, another surprise was in store for Ihben and his family: Ihben’s ex-wife called to say she and the children had been evicted.
After he kept the children for a week, their mother “got a free house, everything furnished and paid,” and the children were returned to her.
“Then she got evicted from there” in May 2020, Ihben said. He again picked up the children – but that was the last they saw of their mother. According to Ihben, after her second eviction, she left town without a trace.
“We haven’t heard from her or seen her,” Ihben said. “It’ll be five years in May.”
Ihben still pays child support to the state, even though he alone takes care of the children. He said the child support money, which remains uncollected, goes to a state fund – and, if it remains unclaimed, will be confiscated by the state when the children reach adulthood.
Ihben said that though he has gone to court to request full custody of his children or a reduction of his child support payments, he has faced a catch-22 situation.
“The judge said, I can’t do anything unless you get her here in front of me,” Ihben said. “I was like, ‘I’ve served her. Nobody knows where she is.’”
Ihben said he believes the children’s mother didn’t realize Isaac was going to be hurt so badly, and “she just can’t face it.” He added, “I just don’t understand, if she’s been gone almost five years, why she still has full custody, why I still have to pay child support.”
Tennessee laws, local officials pose challenges for raising Isaac
Ihben described the day-to-day realities of caring for Isaac, who will turn 11 next month and just started the fifth grade in a special education program. He said:
“Our lives have changed forever. I can’t have a regular job. I pick up stuff here and there … I have an alarm that goes off every two hours to change Isaac. He eats in the middle of the night … We live out in the country. There’s no bus, so I take him to school back and forth.
“He doesn’t talk, so you don’t know if he’s sick, if he’s upset, if he’s hungry, if he’s cold, if he has a stomach ache … I’ve got a mental list, and I just check it off and hopefully I hit the one that calms him and provides what he needs.”
State rules also pose obstacles. “You’re not allowed to have home healthcare for a disabled child unless you have no other children in the home under 18,” Ihben said.
“Our local school district has restraint chairs for autistic children. They are allowed to put Isaac in a chair, to pepper spray him, to tase him. Police departments have no training for dealing with autistic children,” Ihben said.
Ihben said state, county and town officials have attempted to intimidate him and his family.
According to Ihben, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) showed up at his home on Dec. 5, 2023. “Somebody starts beating on the door … there’s a truck at the end of the road, a truck at the end of the other road and two trucks in the driveway. They had assault weapons.”
Ihben said the officers claimed that a social worker wanted to speak with him, but that he refused to open his door for them. He submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the state to find out why his home was raided, but was told there are “no records of anything.”
The TBI raid took a toll on him. “I had a heart attack that night,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe.” He said the incident still affects him today. “I’m sure I have PTSD from it. I’m still under treatment,” Ihben said.
In June 2023, Ihben said he went to his county commission meeting to tell them about what happened to his family. The county commissioner, Jimmy Johnson, left him a voicemail warning him not to hold any rally or protest.
“The commissioner called the sheriff,” Ihben said, but ultimately “they backed off.”
In another incident, Ihben said he was banned from his local Walmart store after a store manager called the police because Isaac “was causing a disturbance.” This obliged Ihben to shop at another Walmart, an hour away from his home.
Ihben said it’s also difficult to find a lawyer to represent him and his family. “No attorney is willing to take on the judge.”
Local officials ‘tried to scare us’ into not doing Vax-Unvax bus interview
Ihben credited CHD and its Tennessee Chapter for helping him and his family. “We wouldn’t be here without CHD helping us out,” Ihben said. “The Tennessee Chapter has helped us out a lot.”
Ihben said he recently saw “Vaxxed 3” with members of the state’s CHD chapter. “What we have to live through every day is horrible, but it could be worse,” Ihben said, citing stories in the film of children who died post-vaccination.
According to Ihben, his efforts to promote CHD initiatives in his community, such as the visit of the Vax-Unvax bus earlier this year, have also been met with intimidation.
“We put a little flyer together [for the Vax-Unvax bus] and we started passing it out,” Ihben said. But on Feb. 1, the day of his bus interview, Ihben said his wife’s attorney, her husband – who is the attorney for the local school board – and Burnett, who mobilized the TBI, “tried to scare us into not doing the bus interview.”
Getting the word out, spreading the message is ‘the only weapon we have’
Isaac has recently shown some improvement, according to Ihben. “He’s doing better slowly … He’s in a lot of therapy. He’s starting to write some numbers and letters on his own. Teachers think he’s reading, but he’s still never said a word.”
Ihben said this has been a learning experience for his oldest children, who will “have to take care of Isaac every day” after his death. “That’s a lifetime commitment.”
Another silver lining, according to Ihben, is that Isaac’s story has become a learning experience for his family and many members of his local community.
“This hasn’t just got me learning. My kids are learning. Hannah and Joseph are learning about their government and their food and their environment. They’re teaching their friends about this.”
For Ihben, getting the word out and spreading the message is “the only weapon we have.” He said, “It’s powerful that my kids’ friends come up and say ‘we’re sorry for what happened to you, we’ve seen the [Vax-Unvax] interview.’”
Ihben said he hopes the message will help other children avoid Isaac’s fate. “I hope Isaac will be the last,” he said.
Congressman Matt Rosendale’s new bill would make colleges that mandated the experimental, COVID shots financially liable for injuries caused by them, such as myocarditis and pericarditis.
Universities that required students to take COVID-19 shots would be held liable for the medical suffering caused by them, under proposed federal legislation.
Republican congressman Matt Rosendale introduced the “University Forced Vaccination Student Injury Mitigation Act of 2024” recently, along with Reps. Eli Crane and Bill Posey.
Universities would be required to pay the medical costs for students who suffered at least one jab injury, specifically listing myocarditis, pericarditis, thrombosis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and “[a]ny other disease with a positive association with the COVID–19 vaccine which the Secretary of Education determines to be warranted.”
The abortion-tainted COVID jabs have been linked to a variety of medical consequences, including those listed in the legislation.
“If you are not prepared to face the consequences, you should have never committed the act,” Rosendale stated in a news release. “Colleges and universities forced students to inject themselves with an experimental vaccine knowing it was not going to prevent COVID-19 while potentially simultaneously causing life-threatening health defects like Guillian-Barre Syndrome and myocarditis.
“It is now time for schools to be held accountable for their brazen disregard for students’ health and pay for the issues they are responsible for causing,” he stated.
The legislation could impact hundreds of colleges – the New York Times reported in 2021 that more than 400 higher education institutions had COVID jab mandates.
Only 17 colleges still require the COVID jab, according to No College Mandates, which supports the legislation.
“College students were never at risk of severe injury or death from any variant of the COVID-19 virus and institutions of higher education had this data well in advance of mandating COVID-19 vaccines,” the group’s co-founder Lucie Sinatra stated in a news release. “Yet in the spring of 2021, college students were stripped of their fundamental right to bodily autonomy and informed consent when colleges imposed some of the most coercive and restrictive vaccination policies.”
The group is “grateful” for the legislation and said it will “hold colleges accountable for the injuries their unnecessary, unethical and unscientific policies have caused for without such legislation, these students and their families would have no other recourse.”
The problems with the COVID shots have been extensively documented by LifeSiteNews and elsewhere. Documented adverse reactions include death, stroke, myocarditis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, among others.
The documented problems with the COVID shots and myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, led a vaccine advisor for the Food and Drug Administration to warn against young men taking the jabs.
Dr. Doran Fink convinced the agency in June 2021 to add a warning about myocarditis and pericarditis to the Pfizer and Moderna shots. Fink reiterated his concerns during a September 17, 2021, FDA meeting on the safety of the jabs. He said that adults 40 years old and younger are at a greater risk of severe reactions from the jabs than they are from COVID itself.
College students specifically have been harmed by the COVID-19 shots, including one who died after the injection.
“If it wasn’t for the vaccine … He wouldn’t have, he wouldn’t more than likely have passed away now,” Bradford County Coroner Timothy Cahill concluded in 2021, based on his autopsy of George Watts. The 24-year-old male student took the jab as required by Corning Community College in the state of New York.
Northwestern University student Simone Scott also appeared to have died due to heart inflammation linked to the COVID jab, though she received it prior to the school’s mandate.
A Johns Hopkins University medical school professor also endorsed the legislation.
“I had to make efforts to prevent my own high school and college age children from receiving COVID-19 booster shots that they did not want or need,” Dr. Joseph Marine stated. “It seems reasonable to me that institutions that implemented such policies without a sound medical or scientific rationale should take responsibility for any proven medical harm that they caused.”
