The Latest: With the debate behind them, Harris and Trump jockey for swing states
Sep 12, 2024, 5:53 AM
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump visits the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company in Shanksville, Pa., Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are heading to swing states they hope to win, both of them trying to expand their narrow paths to victory in a closely fought presidential campaign.
Harris has her sights set on North Carolina, where she’s scheduled to hold rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro on Thursday.
Trump is heading west to Tucson, Arizona, as he looks to stabilize his campaign, which continues to struggle to recalibrate nearly two months after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.
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Here’s the latest:
People began betting on which political party would win control of Congress in the November elections within minutes of a judge’s ruling Thursday allowing the bets — the only ones to be legally approved by a U.S. jurisdiction.
New York startup company Kalshi began taking what amounts to bets on the outcome of the November congressional elections after a judge refused to block them from doing so.
The ruling enabled the company, at least temporarily, to offer prediction contracts — essentially yes-or-no bets — on which party will win control of the Senate and the House in November.
It’s not clear how long such betting might last; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which last year prohibited the company from offering them, said it would appeal the ruling as quickly as possible.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is warning of the dangers of Project 2025 on Black workers and is using it to mobilize its members ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Speaking to reporters, Lee Saunders, president of the AFSCME, said the authors of the nearly 1,000-page handbook don’t believe public sector unions should exist. Saunders also said Republican nominee Donald Trump, if elected, would eliminate those unions, stripping them of rights like the ability to negotiate wages, working conditions and benefits.
Trump has said Project 2025 is not related to his campaign and has denied knowing about the Heritage Foundation.
“I’d be willing to make a bet that he would eliminate the right for public sector workers to have the ability to organize,” Saunders said. “Can you imagine that happening in every state across the country? That’s just one example of how that plan will impact unions. Imagine everyone else?”
In response, the union has been mobilizing members, knocking on doors, hosting events and engaging digitally through its AFSCME Strong program, intended to drum up excitement at the polls for their members, family and friends.
While Saunders said they never tell members how to vote, the union has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is releasing a new ad highlighting her criticism of former President Donald Trump on abortion during Tuesday’s presidential debate.
The ad spotlights Trump taking credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 which had guaranteed a national right to abortion for five decades, instead turning the issue over to states — many of which have instituted restrictions or outright bans since.
“I did a great service in doing it,” Trump said on stage. “It took courage to do it, and the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it.”
The 60-second ad features Harris’ impassioned response, referencing cases where women who had miscarriages have faced life-or-death situations are a result of health providers fearing criminal liability if they provide abortions.
“I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, should not be made by the government,” Harris said in the debate, words set to dramatic music in the spot.
It comes as Democrats are hoping abortion will be a motivator for voters in November as it was during the 2022 midterms, and as Harris has promised to sign a national right to abortion if elected — though it would have to pass Congress first.
Alberto Gonzales, a Republican who served as White House counsel and attorney general under President George W. Bush, announced Thursday that he’ll be supporting Kamala Harris in this year’s election.
He disclosed his support for the Democratic vice president in a Politico opinion column, where he described Donald Trump as “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”
Gonzales’ decision follows similar announcements by former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney.
Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to participate in a discussion this month with the journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists, and will do more interviews particularly focused on battleground states as she campaigns for the presidency.
Harris didn’t attend the NABJ annual convention in July because of scheduling issues that prevented an in-person appearance. Republican nominee Donald Trump did attend, and he falsely suggested Harris had misled voters about her race, and claimed she “happened to turn Black.” He has repeated the falsehood several times since.
Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both immigrants to the U.S. As an undergraduate, Harris attended Howard University, one of the nation’s most prominent historically Black colleges and universities, where she also pledged the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. As a U.S. senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting legislation to strengthen voting rights and to reform policing.
In response to Trump’s comments, Harris said: “It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect,” and she added: “And let me just say, the American people deserve better.”
“60 Minutes” is scheduling its quadrennial interview special with the presidential candidates to air in less than a month, hoping for the best even after its session with former President Donald Trump went off the rails in 2020.
With no other debates between Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, currently scheduled after Tuesday’s event in Philadelphia, a “60 Minutes” sitdown would represent one of the few times left for voters to evaluate the two candidates back to back.
The Sunday newsmagazine wants to do it on Monday, Oct. 7, since CBS is airing the American Music Awards the night before.
Neither candidate has yet agreed to appear but their campaigns have been talking to CBS, said Bill Owens, executive producer of “60 Minutes.” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said “stay tuned” when asked about his candidate’s plans. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press.
Young women are more liberal than they have been in decades, according to a Gallup analysis of more than 20 years of polling data.
Over the past few years, about 4 in 10 young women between the ages of 18 and 29 have described their political views as liberal, compared with two decades ago when about 3 in 10 identified that way.
For many young women, their liberal identity is not just a new label. The share of young women who hold liberal views on the environment, abortion, race relations and gun laws has also jumped by double digits, Gallup found.
Young women “aren’t just identifying as liberal because they like the term or they’re more comfortable with the term, or someone they respect uses the term,” said Lydia Saad, the director of U.S. social research at Gallup. “They have actually become much more liberal in their actual viewpoints.”
Former Michigan governors and elected officials from both parties are joining a wider effort to combat misinformation and attacks on voting and ballot-counting in several swing states ahead of the fast-approaching presidential election.
The Democracy Defense Project also includes former officials from a number of states where then-President Donald Trump tried to overturn his election loss in 2020, including Georgia. Their goal is to build trust in elections through radio and TV ads, media outreach and local engagement.
“We’re going to jointly, wherever necessary, speak out when people try to call into question the integrity or the accuracy of our voting. We believe in our system and we don’t appreciate people making up stories that are self-serving,” former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard told The Associated Press ahead of the formal Thursday launch of the Michigan chapter.
Blanchard, a Democrat who served as governor from 1983 to 1991, is joined on the Michigan team by former Republican Gov. John Engler, former Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry and former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop.
Florida Democrats made bold claims last week about their chances in a state that has steadily grown more conservative in recent years. But so far they have not matched their words with the kind of money it will take to win there.
“Florida is in play,” proclaimed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former representative from Miami, at the start of a bus tour in defense of women’s reproductive rights in Boynton Beach. Mucarsel-Powell is the choice of Florida Democrats to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott for one of a handful of Senate seats the GOP is defending this election cycle.
According to data from AdImpact, which tracks spending on advertising by political campaigns and their surrogates, Republicans have outspent Democrats on Florida’s U.S. Senate race by roughly a 4-to-1 margin through Sept. 11, $12.7 million to $3.2 million. Based on ad spots currently reserved through the general election, that margin is expected to grow.
