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The Bucks County Republican Party celebrated a turning point Monday.

For the first time in a decade and a half, Republicans outpaced Democrats in voter registration in the key purple county, and Bucks County became the only Republican-majority county in the Philadelphia area.

The county party enthusiastically celebrated the win on social media, and National Republican Congressional Committee touted the change as proof that GOP messaging was working.

But the reality is more complicated. Voter registration lags behind voting behavior, meaning that people who made the switch to the Republican Party were likely already voting for Republican candidates. And even the local GOP leader cast doubt on how meaningful the shift would be when voters go to the polls

Its a morale booster, its something weve been targeting for years, county GOP chair Pat Poprik said. Though she felt the change may boost GOP turnout, she didnt put too much stock in the figure as a prediction for November.

The shift does, however, underscore that Bucks County is very divided, and will be an essential battleground in this years presidential election. Former President Donald Trump lost the county in 2016 and 2020, but by narrower margins than in Philadelphias other collar counties. And the county has gone red in down-ballot races.

Voters have kept Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in office while voting for Democrats in statewide races. And Democrats seized control of county government in 2019, were swept by Republicans in 2021, then won again last year.

The county is certain to once again draw national attention and become a key area for both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the coming months.

The exact reason for the shift in voter registration can vary. Presidential election years tend to have an increase in voter registrations

Last week, Department of State data showed that Democrats held a 112-voter lead over Republicans on registration in the county. On Monday, Republicans had a 264-voter lead as a result of both new Republican voters and fewer Democratic voters. Meanwhile, the number of unaffiliated voters in Bucks County had also grown.

This has been a competitive county for years, and whether the Democrats have a small advantage in registration or the Republicans do, its still going to be a competitive place, said Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin and Marshall College.

Poprik said Bucks County Republicans had been urging voters to turn out in November and change their party affiliation.

So many people are so unhappy with the Democratic policies and performance, Poprik said, noting that shes had people walk into the GOP office asking how to change their registration.

Republican registrations saw a particular surge last week, which Poprik attributes primarily to the Republican National Convention. However, registration data tends to lag behind major events because of the time it takes for counties to process that data so its unclear whether this is any correlation to the recent events in this years presidential race.

Bucks County Democratic Party Chair State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, on the other hand, predicted the registration lead would flip back again as Democrats capitalize on a growing energy in the party following President Joe Bidens exit from the race this week. Bucks County Democrats, he said, have their own voter registration activities planned.

I think within the next few months, and certainly within the year, youre going to see a change, he said.

But Republicans in the county had been narrowing Democrats edge for years, and that hasnt always corresponded to a change in election outcomes.

Registration numbers are unlikely to be a clear signal of who will win an election in November, especially because registration tends to lag behind voting behavior.

If I were they, I would not be celebrating because they still keep losing elections, Santarsiero said.

Bucks County, referred to by some as the key to the keystone is a consistently hotly contested area.

I think that there are more traditional Republican voters who may have, or at least in the past had, less comfort with the kind of politics that say a President Trump practices, Yost said, noting that concern about losing voter in places like Bucks County may have been a motivating factor as Democrats pressured Biden to end his reelection campaign.

Bucks County voters are known for ticket splitting, or voting for both Republican and Democratic candidates on the same ballot. And the countys more than 61,000 unaffiliated voters will also play a role in determining the outcome in November.

I think that if you want to succeed, Santarsiero said, you really do have to speak to those folks.

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Bucks County is now the only Republican majority county in the area. What does that mean for November? - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Elon Musk, the worlds richest man, has waded into one of the thorniest issues facing U.S. politics: deepfake videos.

On Friday night, Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, reposted an edited campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris that appears to have been digitally manipulated to change the spots voice-over in a deceptive manner.

The video mimics Ms. Harriss voice, but instead of using her words from the original ad, it has the vice president saying that President Biden is senile, that she does not know the first thing about running the country and that, as a woman and a person of color, she is the ultimate diversity hire.

In addition, the clip was edited to remove images of former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, and to add images of Mr. Biden. The original, unaltered ad, which the Harris campaign released on Thursday, is titled We Choose Freedom.

The version posted on X does not contain a disclaimer, though the account that first uploaded it Friday morning, @MrReaganUSA, noted in its post that the video was a parody. When Mr. Musk reposted the video on his own account eight hours later, he made no such disclosure, stating only, This is amazing, followed by a laughing emoji.

Mr. Musks post, which has since been viewed 98 million times, would seem to run afoul of Xs policies, which prohibit sharing synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.

Some observers quickly called out the post. This is a violation of @Xs policies on synthetic media & misleading identities, Alex Howard, a digital governance expert and the director of the Digital Democracy Project at the Demand Progress Education Fund, posted on the site on Saturday. Are you going to retroactively change them to allow violations in an election year?

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. The owner of the @MrReaganUSA account, who appears to be a conservative podcast host named Chris Kohls, also did not reply to a query. In a statement, the Harris campaign said, The American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

Pro-democracy groups have raised increasingly urgent alarms about deepfakes, a broad term for digital content that employs artificial intelligence and other technology to create audio, video or images that spread false information and could influence voter behavior.

In January, ahead of the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a robocall using A.I. technology to mimic Mr. Bidens voice instructed voters not to participate in the election. The political consultant who orchestrated the calls was later indicted on state charges of impersonating a candidate and voter suppression. During this years Republican primary, deepfake videos depicting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, or announcing his early withdrawal from the race, were rampant.

In March, the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, an academic research initiative, said the technology was already having a corrosive effect on the democratic process, and the Brennan Center for Justice said the most significant new threat to elections was the impact of generative A.I. on the information ecosystem.

The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits fraudulent misrepresentation of federal candidates or political parties, but the law, written in 1971, is ambiguous when it comes to modern technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Last August, the Federal Election Commission approved a rule-making petition from the watchdog group Public Citizen calling for the law to be amended to clarify that it applies to deliberately deceptive Artificial Intelligence (AI) campaign advertisements. That amendment was supported by the Democratic National Committee, as well as 52 Democratic members of Congress, but it was opposed by the Republican National Committee, which said that it was not a proper vehicle for addressing this complex issue and argued that it could violate the First Amendment.

The commission, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and is often split on matters of policy, has not yet voted on the proposal.

Social media platforms, for their part, are more decided.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, requires that manipulated media be labeled as such and that context be appended to the post. In March, Google, which owns YouTube, announced a policy requiring users posting videos to disclose when content a viewer could easily mistake for a real person, place, scene or event is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative A.I.

Xs current policy was instituted in April 2023, well after Mr. Musk took over. It defines misleading media as content that is significantly and deceptively altered, manipulated or fabricated and that is likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues. Such content, the policy states, must either be labeled or removed.

In the past, Mr. Musk has said that Xs Community Notes feature should be used to alert the public to possible misleading information. On Friday night, Community Notes users, a select group that proposes and votes on such notices, debated whether to add one to Mr. Musks post.

This is an AI generated video of Vice President Kamala Harris using audio of clips that were never actually stated by the VP, read one suggested Community Note. Videos like this are dangerous to those who can not decipher AI generated content from reality.

At least seven notes were proposed, but none had been added by Saturday evening to Mr. Musks post or the original post, and neither post has been removed from the site. Though there have been numerous posts on X by third parties questioning his amplification of a deepfake video, Mr. Musk, who frequently replies directly to critics on the site, has so far remained silent on the issue.

With 191 million followers, Mr. Musk is the most influential voice on the platform and, arguably, on all of social media, and he is able to make almost any content go viral simply by reposting it.

Two weeks ago, he endorsed Mr. Trump in a post on X shortly after the presumptive Republican nominee was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. That post has been viewed 218 million times.

In a post on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Musk used his account to boost a post by an anonymous user that said wokeness is a threat to civilization. Within six minutes, it had already been viewed 481,000 times.

Ryan Mac contributed reporting.

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Democrats Embrace Weird Messaging on Trump - The New York Times

Largest political cover-up

Gaslighting and lying to each of us

Coup

Border Czar

Far Left Democrats

Unfit to serve

Proof of life

All the best

Who is running the show?

Rigging

Less competent

Where is Joe Biden?

Best interest

25th Amendment

Wood chipper to democracy

Resign

While elected Democrats have been quick to rally around Vice President Kamala Harris after President Bidens announcement that he would leave the 2024 presidential race, a vast majority of prominent Republicans have treated the development with suspicion or scorn.

A New York Times analysis of statements by Republican senators, representatives and governors found that their reactions to Ms. Harriss presumptive candidacy and Mr. Bidens withdrawal clustered around several themes, including the opinions that Mr. Biden must resign or that the events of the past few days amounted to election subversion or a bloodless coup. Recent polling suggests nearly 9 in 10 Americans believe Mr. Bidens decision to step aside was the right one.

Several officials also suggested that Mr. Biden who had been in Delaware recovering from Covid-19 but returned to the White House on Tuesday had gone missing. A greater number made statements attacking Ms. Harriss record, while a small handful posted positive or supportive comments. Emphasis in these quotations was added by The Times to highlight common themes in the statements.

This is a coup of a puppet regime.

Thomas Massie

While President Trump took a bullet for our democracy, the progressive democrats are taking a wood chipper to democracy by shredding the will of 14 million primary voters.

Mark Alford

Now the Democrats are rigging their *own* elections.

These statements have tended to argue that Mr. Bidens decision to end his candidacy was not his own, was not democratic or both. Many have mocked Democrats for positioning themselves as defenders of democracy in contrast to Republicans, following attempts by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Some of this language began to bubble up among Republicans even before Mr. Biden announced that he would drop out. During the Republican National Convention last week, Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to Mr. Trumps campaign, described the pressure on Mr. Biden to withdraw as an attempted coup.

Today Im demanding the Biden Harris cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment. If Biden isnt capable of being a candidate, hes not capable of being President.

Eric Schmitt

If Joe Biden is unable to serve another term, then he must resign right now. If hes unfit to campaign, he should not have the nuclear codes its that simple.

Roger Marshall

If Joe Biden is unfit to run for re-election then hes unfit to serve the remainder of his term.

Kat Cammack

Statements along these lines have primarily argued that if Mr. Biden is not able to run for a second term, then he is unfit to continue to serve now. Many said he should step down from the presidency. Some have gone further, suggesting that the 25th Amendment should be invoked to remove Mr. Biden from office.

Kamala Harris was complicit in a massive coverup to hide and deny the fact that Joe Biden was not capable of discharging the duties of the office.

Ron DeSantis

The American people should fire every single politician that has been gaslighting and lying to each of us about Bidens capability to lead our Nation. Kamala Harris is as culpable as Bidens senior staff and family in this scheme to subvert democracy.

Jack Bergman

Democrats have been complicit in the largest political cover-up in history.

Mike Johnson

These comments have, without providing evidence, accused Ms. Harris and other top Democrats of a cover-up to hide the state of Mr. Bidens physical and mental fitness.

Where is Joe Biden? Who is running the show?

Nancy Mace

Americans are asking: Where is Joe Biden?

Markwayne Mullin

For the third time today, Im asking Joe Biden to provide the American people with proof of life.

Lauren Boebert

Mr. Biden was self-isolating with Covid-19 at his familys Delaware beach house when he made the announcement that he would step aside from the 2024 presidential race. These comments drew attention to his lack of recent public appearances, in some cases even calling for a demonstration that Mr. Biden was still alive. Mr. Biden returned to Washington Tuesday afternoon and is set to give a televised address this evening.

Border Czar Harris has NOT done her job to secure the border.

Greg Abbott

Kamala Harris leads the Far Left Democrats pro-crime, anti-victim agenda.

Elise Stefanik

Cackling Kamala is widely considered less competent than dementia-impaired Joe Biden.

Warren Davidson

Dozens of Republican officials made more typically political statements, including criticizing Ms. Harris as a candidate. One common line of attack, positing that Ms. Harris failed as a border czar, is misleading. (Some Republican candidates have already begun to run ads like this one, drawing attention to some of the more liberal positions Ms. Harris has taken in the past, particularly during her failed 2020 presidential primary campaign.)

Fran and I wish President Biden and the First Lady all the best as he serves out the remainder of his term and in the years ahead.

Mike DeWine

I understand and respect President Bidens decision not to seek reelection. While we have political differences, I appreciate his lifelong service to our nation, which he dearly loves.

Lindsey Graham

I respect President Bidens decision to act in the best interest of the country by stepping aside in the 2024 presidential election.

Lisa Murkowski

A few Republican officials wrote kindly about their relationships with Mr. Biden or sent him well wishes.

In the table below, see which Republican elected officials made which types of statements, as of Tuesday night.

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Coup and Cover-Up: How the G.O.P. Is Reacting to the Harris Candidacy - The New York Times

Wisconsin Republicans are asking voters to take away the governor's power to unilaterally spend federal money, a reaction to the billions of dollars that flowed into the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was free to spend most of that money as he pleased, directing most of it toward small businesses and economic development, angering Republicans who argued the Legislature should have oversight.

That's what would happen under a pair of related constitutional amendments up for voter approval in the Aug. 13 primary election. The changes would apply to Evers and all future governors and cover any federal money to the state that comes without specific spending requirements, often in response to disasters or other emergencies.

Democrats and other opponents are mobilizing against the amendments, calling them a legislative power grab that would hamstring governors' ability to quickly respond to a future natural disaster, economic crisis or health emergency.

If the amendments pass, Wisconsins government will become even more dysfunctional, said Julie Keown-Bomar, executive director of Wisconsin Farmers Union.

Wisconsinites are so weary of riding the partisan crazy train, but it is crucial that we show up at the polls and vote no on these changes as they will only make us go further off the rails, she said in a statement.

But Republicans and other backers say it's a necessary check on the governor's current power, which they say is too broad.

The changes increase accountability, efficiency, and transparency, Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein, a co-sponsor of the initiative, said at a legislative hearing.

The two questions, which were proposed as a single amendment and then separated on the ballot, passed the GOP-controlled Legislature twice as required by law. Voter approval is needed before they would be added to the state constitution. The governor has no veto power over constitutional amendments.

Early, in-person absentee voting for the Aug. 13 election begins Tuesday across the state and goes through Aug. 11. Locations and times for early voting vary.

Wisconsin Republicans have increasingly turned to voters to approve constitutional amendments as a way to get around Evers' vetoes. Midway through his second term, Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in Wisconsin history.

In April, voters approved amendments to bar the use of private money to run elections and reaffirm that only election officials can work the polls. In November, an amendment on the ballot seeks to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in local elections.

Republicans put this question on the August primary ballot, the first time a constitutional amendment has been placed in that election where turnout is much lower than in November.

The effort to curb the governor's spending power also comes amid ongoing fights between Republicans and Evers over the extent of legislative authority. Evers in July won a case in the Wisconsin Supreme Court that challenged the power the GOP-controlled Legislature's budget committee had over conservation program spending.

Wisconsin governors were given the power to decide how to spend federal money by the Legislature in 1931, during the Great Depression, according to a report from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Times have changed and the influx of federal dollars calls for a different approach, Republican Rep. Robert Wittke, who sponsored the amendment, said at a public hearing.

It was a power that was questioned during the Great Recession in 2008, another time when the state received a large influx of federal aid.

But calls for change intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government handed Wisconsin $5.7 billion in aid between March 2020 and June 2022 in federal coronavirus relief. Only $1.1 billion came with restrictions on how it could be spent.

Most of the money was used for small business and local government recovery grants, buying emergency health supplies and paying health care providers to offset the costs of the pandemic.

Republicans pushed for more oversight, but Evers vetoed a GOP bill in 2021 that would have required the governor to submit a plan to the Legislatures budget committee for approval.

Republican increased the pressure for change following the release of a nonpartisan audit in 2022 that found Evers wasnt transparent about how he decided where to direct the money.

One amendment specifies the Legislature cant delegate its power to decide how money is spent. The second prohibits the governor from spending federal money without legislative approval.

If approved, the Legislature could pass rules governing how federal money would be handled. That would give them the ability to change the rules based on who is serving as governor or the purpose of the federal money.

For example, the Legislature could allow governors to spend disaster relief money with no approval, but require that other money go before lawmakers first.

Opposing the measures are voting rights groups, the Wisconsin Democratic Party and a host of other liberal organizations, including those who fought to overturn Republican-drawn legislative maps, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state's largest business lobbying group, and the Badger Institute, a conservative think tank, were the only groups that registered in support in the Legislature.

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Wisconsin Republicans ask voters to take away governor's power to spend federal money - Yahoo! Voices

Were testing using AI-powered tools to provide an audio version of this story. While this audio recording is machine-generated, the story was written by human journalists. Read more on our AI policy.

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HOUSTON Gena Coston summed up the experience of being a teacher over the last four years with two words: very stressful.

Texas teachers have reported feeling burned out, underresourced and underappreciated in the last few years as theyve dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, classroom changes spearheaded by Republican officials and unsuccessful calls for more state funding toward raises.

For those gathered at the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris message of appreciation was a welcome change.

It is you who have taken on the most noble of work, which is to concern yourself with the well-being of the children of America, Harris said.

Harris remarks came on the last day of AFTs national convention, three days after the labor group of more than 1.7 million members became the first union to endorse her presidential run.

I'm excited because I know that she cares, said Coston, who teaches eighth grade English Language Arts in the Aldine Independent School District.

Harris message was on par with what some educators said they hoped to hear from her in recent days a message of solidarity. They acknowledged that while the president cannot control everything that happens in schools, their influence and support while shaping the national agenda is meaningful, particularly at this time in Texas.

In the last few years, teachers had to adapt to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment declined. People left the profession. Officials, districts and parents fought over mask mandates. New state laws limited how they could teach about race, gender and sexual orientation and expanded the influence of Christianity. School boards banned books. A school mass shooting happened. The state ousted the democratically elected school board and superintendent of its largest district. Gov. Greg Abbott used his power to push for a program that would allow families to use tax dollars to pay for their childrens private education. And through it all, their calls for raises were largely unheeded.

One teacher at the convention, Tiffany Spurlock, who teaches second grade math and science in Cy Fair ISD, said she is concerned about school districts budget woes, accentuated by inflation and the Texas Legislatures failure to approve significant funding increases amid the fight for vouchers last year.

Spurlock also worries about her colleagues in Houston ISD, which is currently under state oversight. She and her three children previously attended school in the district, and she said current students, parents and teachers are being held to an unfair standard.

Spurlock said Harris has the perfect chance to advocate for a system that serves all families.

We have to make sure we're doing things thats best for kids, Spurlock said. Not just processes wise, not just systematically, but also morally.

Harris, who arrived in Houston a day earlier to receive a briefing on Hurricane Beryl recovery efforts, said Thursday she would fight for the rights of children and educators to have adequate resources to thrive in and out of the classroom.

She said she would also push back against a conservative-backed plan for a second Donald Trump presidency known as Project 2025, which calls for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, phasing out billions of dollars in assistance to schools serving low-income families and rolling back protections for students on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Project 2025 is a plan to return America to a dark past, Harris said. But we are not going back. No, we will move forward.

Prior to Harris arrival, some advocacy organizations criticized her for being out of touch with Texas values.

The people of Texas made it clear that it wants parents in charge of their children's education not government, said Genevieve Collins, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Texas.

Coston saw Harris visit as an opportunity for the vice president to hear teachers out. She said Texas teachers are quitting their jobs because the pay and school funding are inadequate. She worries about the rise in teachers without formal training. She is also concerned about student and teacher safety, particularly as it relates to gun violence.

We gotta feed our teachers and get them motivated, Coston said. So in turn, they'll get the kids motivated.

Going into Harris speech, Costons expectation was for the vice president to show awareness of whats going on in schools. She said she was encouraged by what she heard.

Now we just gotta see it happen, Coston said.

Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 57 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!

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Texas teachers stand behind Kamala Harris after years of feeling targeted, neglected by Republicans - The Texas Tribune