WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rick Scott 's bid for renomination for a second Senate term tops the list of races that Florida voters will decide in Tuesday's primary.
Scott is heavily favored against challengers John Columbus, an actor and former Walt Disney World performer, and Keith Gross, an attorney who twice ran for Georgia’s state House as a Democrat but now supports Donald Trump.
Gross said in a 2023 interview that he was prepared to spend $20 million to $30 million of his own money to unseat Scott. Federal campaign finance records indicate that Gross loaned or donated his campaign $2.4 million and had about $13,000 in the bank as of July 31. Scott had nearly $3.9 million in the bank and raised more than $30 million over the course of the campaign. Columbus trailed far behind both candidates in campaign funding.
In the Democratic primary, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell leads a field of four candidates in fundraising. Powell’s main opponent was Phil Ehr, a retired Navy commander, but he withdrew from the race in October. Ehr is now running for the House seat that Mucarsel-Powell lost to Republican Carlos Gimenez in 2020.
Mucarsel-Powell has raised $14.4 million and began the month with $4.4 million in the bank, far ahead of any of her remaining primary opponents.
Democrats face a daunting Senate electoral map in a year when they’ ae defending vulnerable seats across the country.
If Trump wins the White House, Republicans would need a net gain of only one seat to retake control of the chamber, and they would almost certainly get in West Virginia, where Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring. The Florida race gives Democrats one of their only chances to go on the offense against a Republican incumbent.
Scott is not only looking beyond the primary to his expected contest with Mucarsel-Powell, but he also is strategizing for a new role in the next Senate. In May, he said he would run for Senate Republican leader to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Florida voters will also decide 30 contested House primaries.
In the 8th Congressional District, three Republicans and two Democrats running to replace Republican Bill Posey, who is retiring after eight terms. Former state Senate President Mike Haridopolos is the best-known and best-funded candidate in the Republican field. He faces Joe Babits, an attorney and former Security and Exchange Commission official, and John Hearton, a former technology company executive.
The Democratic nominee will be either attorney Sandy Kennedy or Daniel McDown, a member of the West Melbourne city council. Trump carried the heavily Republican district twice with 58% of the vote.
Democrats and Republicans each will hold five contested state Senate primaries. Thirty-five state House primaries are contested. Half of Florida’s 40 state Senate seats and all 120 state House seats are up for election. Republicans hold more than 2-to-1 majorities in both chambers.
A look at what to expect on Tuesday:
The last polls close at 8 p.m. EDT, although polls in most of the state close at 7 p.m EDT.
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, state Senate, state House, and several state attorney and public defender positions.
Only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may not participate in either primary.
Once the nation’s preeminent battleground state in national elections, Florida has tilted to the right since the 2000 presidential election. Registered Democrats had outnumbered registered Republicans in Florida for at least 50 years dating back to the early 1970s. Republicans overtook Democrats in registration after the 2020 election, and that advantage grew to a lead of about 1 million voters as of August.
Although Democrat Joe Biden received 48% of Florida’s vote in 2020, his then-reelection campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said in a podcast interview in June that Florida was not a battleground state, even though an April campaign memo described an “opening in Florida.” She's now with Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
Key areas in statewide elections are the Gold Coast counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, as well as the counties along the so-called I-4 Corridor, including Hillsborough and Orange counties, home to Tampa and Orlando, respectively.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
Machine recounts in Florida are automatic if the vote margin is 0.5% of the total vote or less. If the machine recount results in a vote margin of 0.25% of the total vote or less, a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes is required. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
As of Wednesday, there were about 13.6 million registered voters in Florida. Of those, 32% were Democrats, 39% were Republicans and 26% were independents not affiliated with any party.
In the 2022 midterm elections, turnout was about 11% of registered voters in the Democratic primaries. About 72% of votes in that election were cast before primary day. Republicans did not have contested statewide primaries that year.
As of Thursday, more than 347,000 ballots had been cast before primary day, about 40% in the Democratic primary and 47% in the Republican primary. About three-quarters of the pre-primary day vote was cast by mail, with the remainder cast early in-person. Slightly more Democrats cast their votes by mail than Republicans, while Republicans cast roughly two-thirds of the early in-person vote. The early voting period began Aug. 10 and concludes Saturday.
In the 2022 midterm primary, the AP first reported results at 7:01 p.m. EDT, or one minute after the first polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 1:14 a.m. ET with about 99.9% of total votes counted.
As of Tuesday, there will be 77 days until the November general election.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
FILE - Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., speaks during the second day of the Republican National Convention July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump on Tuesday in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly goading him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy.
Less than two months from Election Day and hours before the first early ballots will begin to be mailed Wednesday in Alabama, the debate offered the clearest look yet at a presidential race that has been repeatedly upended.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
President Biden, in what was apparently meant to be a lighthearted gesture, briefly donned a Trump 2024 baseball cap while visiting the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department earlier this afternoon.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said Biden was speaking to a crowd of volunteer firefighters and families and friends of Flight 93 victims about the need to get back to the bipartisan unity the country showed in the aftermath of 9/11.
Bates said as a gesture he gave a hat to a Trump supporter in the crowd. The Trump backer urged Biden, in the spirit of bipartisanship, to put on a Trump cap, Bates says.
Biden briefly donned the red hat.
The White House spoke to the moment after photos of the president wearing the Trump cap spread on social media.
Trump appears to have been on a phone call with House Speaker Mike Johnson while the GOP nominee was attending events in New York City commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A photo snapped by an Associated Press journalist at 8:19 a.m. on Wednesday showed Trump holding a cellphone bearing the name “Mike Johnson” while the former president attended the 9/11 Memorial ceremony.
Neither Johnson’s office nor Trump’s campaign immediately responded to messages seeking more detail on the phone call.
Johnson is a supporter of Trump’s, and the two speak regularly.
Several hours after the photograph was taken, Johnson told reporters in Washington that he had pulled a vote on a temporary spending bill that would keep federal agencies and programs funded for six months, as it became increasingly clear the measure lacked the support to pass as a potential partial government shutdown looms.
The legislation to continue government funding when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1 includes a requirement that people registering to vote must provide proof of citizenship. Johnson signaled that he was not backing off linking the two main pillars of the bill.
In brief remarks to reporters, Trump said he had a great debate and enjoyed it, but didn’t commit to a second with Harris.
“When you don’t win, it’s like a fighter. And when a fighter has a bad fight, gets knocked out or loses the fight, the first thing he says is, ‘We want a rematch,’” Trump said. “We won the debate according to every poll. Every single poll, I think. Are we going to do a rematch? I just don’t know.”
Many cities have been reshaped by immigrants in the last few years without attracting much notice. Not Springfield, Ohio.
Its story of economic renewal and related growing pains has been thrust into the national conversation in a presidential election year — and maliciously distorted by false rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating their neighbors’ pets. Donald Trump amplified those lies during Tuesday’s nationally televised debate, exacerbating some residents’ fears about growing divisiveness in the predominantly white, blue-collar city of about 60,000.
At the city’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center on Wednesday, Rose-Thamar Joseph said many of the immigrants that arrived in the past few years were drawn by good jobs and the city’s relative affordability. But a rising sense of unease has crept in as longtime residents increasingly bristle at newcomers taking jobs at factories, driving up housing costs and straining city services.
▶ Read more about Haitian immigrants in Ohio
It was part of the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance held in more than over 20 cities across the county that organizers expected would draw around 30,000 volunteers nationwide to pack over 8 million meals.
Around 3,000 volunteers from Americorps and local companies were expected to package around 230,000 meals for Minnesotans in need.
Speaking in St. Paul, Walz said the 9/11 attacks were a “defining moment” for those old enough to remember them. He recalled how he was teaching at Mankato West High School the morning when the planes struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. And on the following mornings, he said, he saw American flags flying from places he hadn’t seen them before, and people who hadn’t talked much before started talking together.
“It may not have lasted as long as we would like, but there was a moment of unity around shared values,” Walz told the volunteers. “There was a moment of unity of caring for one another. There was a moment of unity that we’re all in this together.”
It was Walz’s first public event in his official capacity as governor of Minnesota since Vice President Kamala Harris picked him to be her running mate.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump said as much with their faces as they did with their words during Tuesday’s debate.
With their microphones muted unless it was their turn to speak, according to the debate rules, body language took on outsized importance for Harris and Trump.
Harris in particular leaned into the nonverbal communication, keenly aware that her every reaction was being broadcast to the world, “speaking” to the audience even while Trump ostensibly had the floor. Networks showed a split screen with both candidates for most of the debate.
At various points she looked amused or befuddled by whatever Trump was saying, as if wordlessly saying he was lying. A few times, she dramatically put her fingers under her chin, eyes wide, head tilted. Other times she laughed.
Trump sometimes scowled, sometimes smiled curtly. His eyes flashed anger or annoyance, perhaps even boredom at times. He rarely looked at Harris while she spoke, instead pointing his face forward toward the cameras or ABC News moderators.
▶ Read more about how the candidates used facial expressions during the debate
Inside the volunteer fire department garage, Trump addressed dozens of family members of Flight 93 victims sitting at fold out tables, cheering when he walked in and again while he spoke. He waded through the crowd, taking photos with them and talking.
Biden and Harris had visited the fire department earlier in the day after leaving the Flight 93 memorial.
It’s not the typical way the president and vice president commemorate the solemn anniversary.
Last year, the president marked the anniversary at a military base in Alaska as he made his way back to Washington from a trip to Asia. Harris attended the New York ceremony. And Biden made solo visits to the memorial sites in New York, Shanksville, and at the Pentagon in 2022.
Asked about this year’s decision to jointly appear at all three memorial sites, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president and vice president wanted to honor the 2,977 lives lost and support the families grieving their loved ones.
She declined to comment when asked if the joint appearances had anything to do with the fact that Harris is now in the thick of a heated presidential race.
Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, also visited New York and Shanksville on Wednesday and will visit the Pentagon later in the day.
His campaign says the former president laid two wreaths. He placed one at the Wall of Names, where the names of Flight 93’s 40 victims are inscribed on white marble panels, and another at a sandstone boulder that marks the general location of the impact site where the flight crashed.
“Great day. Incredible place. And they’ve done a fantastic job,” Trump said in brief remarks from afar to reporters gathered at the site.
Biden and Harris are paying their respects at the Flight 93 National Memorial to honor the 40 passengers and crew that died in the rural swath of Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
The president and vice president laid a white and red wreath at the memorial. They then strolled the fields of the expansive memorial, which includes a long granite walk that marks the path of the flight with large concrete walls framing the distant view of the sky. The times of the crashes of the other hijacked flights are inscribed on the flight path walkway.
Both spoke with Flight 93 families in attendance.
One attendee spotted in the crowd of about 200 was wearing a t-shirt that included vulgar anti-Harris sentiments. The man sporting the t-shirt said he wasn’t related to any of those who died in Shanksville.
Top U.S. election officials are asking the federal government for more funding to improve election security, replace aging machines, hire personnel and upgrade voter registration systems.
But they say even without consistent funding, they’re confident they’ve done everything they can to make this fall’s elections fair and secure in their states.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, both Democrats, made the appeals in a hearing of the House Administration Committee on Wednesday. Fontes called elections “critical infrastructure” and said they need funding to maintain, just like highways, dams and railroads.
“We implore you, please consider, if this is such a big deal and if it is so important that we continue to have free, fair and secure elections, fund them,” he said.
The Republican chair of the committee, Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, responded to the funding calls by promoting the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship mandate for voters passed by the House and being debated in the Senate.
He told Benson the legislation would give election administrators free access to a federal database to help them check for noncitizen voters on the rolls — though she noted her state thoroughly verifies voter citizenship already.
In addition to testimony from Benson and Fontes, the hearing featured New Mexico’s Democratic secretary of state and the Republican secretaries of state from Florida, Ohio and West Virginia.
On his social media site Wednesday, Trump seemed to brush aside the idea of a second debate and professed success, likening Harris to a fighter “who gets knocked out.”
“In the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!’ Well, it’s no different with a Debate,” he said.
Trump said Harris “was beaten badly last night” and asked “so why would I do a Rematch?”
State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the U.S. Postal Service that it hasn’t fixed persistent deficiencies.
In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot.
The officials also said that repeated outreach to the Postal Service to resolve the issues had failed and the widespread nature of the problems made it clear these were “not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”
▶ Read more about problems with the postal service
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc., a traditionally Black sorority, called Donald Trump’s comment that Vice President Kamala Harris attended a “sorority party” instead of attending a joint address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “disheartening” and “disrespectful” to the organization.
Harris attended the group’s “Boulé,” or membership meeting, in July just days after being endorsed by President Joe Biden to lead the Democratic ticket. She met separately with Netanyahu.
The sorority also noted that it “has joined forces with all Divine Nine organizations on an unprecedented voter mobilization effort.”
Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance briefly visited the trading floor of a brokerage company affiliated with Cantor Fitzgerald that raises funds in a one-day event in honor of 9/11 victims. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees in the World Trade Center attacks.
Vance jokingly said he watched the speech given by Jordan Belfort, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” to prepare for this visit.
“I know what you all are doing,” he said. “And I know you’re working your asses off to make sure that you support the families of the people who died in these terrible attacks.”
The members of the firehouse bowed their heads to observe a moment of silence.
The former president posed for pictures with fire department staff in uniform standing before a sign a large Fire Department New York sign that said “Never Forget. Heroes.” He did his signature thumbs up and said “thank you.”
Among the people accompanying Trump in his visit were advisers Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles, far-right activist Laura Loomer, who also traveled to Philadelphia with Trump for the debate and is known for promoting conspiracy theories. His sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. also joined the visit.
In a morning news briefing Wednesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador didn’t comment on a number of false claims made by Trump about migrants, or calls for greater border security by both presidential candidates.
Rather, the populist leader, a friend of Trump, applauded the candidates for respecting Mexico in their debate.
“I was very pleased that Mrs. Kamala and President Trump both treated Mexico with respect and we are moving forward, respecting other sister nations and that they respect us as an independent and sovereign country,” López Obrador said.
It comes after López Obrador said he was putting relations with the U.S. Embassy “on pause” after Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar expressed democratic concerns about a judicial overhaul the Mexican leader’s party has jammed through.
With Biden, Trump, Harris and Vance all on hand for the New York Sept. 11 commemoration, aides had their work cut out to keep things running smoothly.
Biden’s team ran into one minor blip — keeping track of which motorcade belonged to which of the current, former and would-be presidents and vice presidents.
At one point, the small group of journalists traveling with Biden were led to Harris’ motorcade instead of the president’s. It took a few minutes, but White House aides were able to straighten things out and find their ride.
The German Foreign Office fired back at Trump’s allegation during Tuesday’s debate that the European country is now building “normal power plants.” The former president contended that Germany’s planned exit from fossil fuels had failed.
“Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables,” the foreign office wrote on social media platform X. “And we are shutting down – not building – coal & nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest. PS: We also don’t eat cats and dogs. #Debate2024”
Data released in March showed Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped by one-tenth last year as the use of coal and gas diminished. Germany aims to cut its emissions to net zero by 2045 and is working to ramp up the use of solar and wind power and other renewable sources.
The tweet’s post-script referenced a debunked rumor that Trump and his allies have spread online in recent days, alleging Haitian immigrants in an Ohio town are hunting and eating pets. Officials in Springfield, Ohio, say they have no evidence of that happening.
About 6 in 10 debate-watchers said Harris outperformed Trump in Tuesday’s presidential debate, while about 4 in 10 said Trump did a better job, according to a flash poll conducted by CNN, with Harris exceeding debate-watchers’ expectations. Before the debate, the same voters were evenly split on whether Trump or Harris would win.
The vast majority of debate watchers — who, importantly, do not reflect the views of the full voting public — also said, though, that the debate wouldn’t affect their vote. And perceptions of the two candidates remain largely unchanged. Views of Trump — whether positive or negative — didn’t shift meaningfully before and after the debate, while Harris received a slight bump in the share of people who view her favorably after the debate.
Similar to pre-debate polling, the poll found that Harris left the debate with higher trust in her ability to handle abortion and protecting democracy, while Trump maintained an advantage on the economy and immigration.
Officials including President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are gathered to mark the 23rd anniversary of the attacks in New York, Washington, and rural Pennsylvania.
It happened while they were standing near President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance at the site of the 9/11 memorial where leaders are meeting to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of 9/11.
Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, walked across the stage to shake Trump’s hand before the presidential campaign debate began Tuesday evening in Philadelphia.
When President Joe Biden gave bumbling remarks about abortion on the debate stage this summer, it was widely viewed as a missed opportunity — a failure, even — on a powerful and motivating issue for Democrats at the ballot box.
The difference was stark, then, on Tuesday night, when Vice President Kamala Harris gave a forceful defense of abortion rights during her presidential debate with Republican Donald Trump.
Harris conveyed the dire medical situations women have found themselves in since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022. Harris quickly placed blamed directly on Trump, who recalibrated the Supreme Court to the conservative majority that issued the landmark ruling during his term.
Women, Harris told the national audience, have been denied care as a result.
“You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?” Harris said.
The moment was a reminder that Harris is uniquely positioned to talk about the hot-button, national topic in a way that Biden, an 81-year-old Catholic who had long opposed abortion, never felt comfortable doing.
▶ Read more about Harris’ debate comments on abortion rights
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets, repeating during a televised debate the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he has promoted throughout his campaigns.
There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio community are doing that, officials say. But during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, the town at the center of the claims, saying that immigrants were taking over the city.
“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.
Harris called Trump “extreme” and laughed after his comment. Debate moderators pointed out that city officials have said the claims are not true.
Trump’s comments echoed claims made by his campaign, including his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and other Republicans. The claims attracted attention this week when Vance posted on social media that his office has “received many inquiries” about Haitian migrants abducting pets. Vance acknowledged Tuesday it was possible “all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
Officials have said there have been no credible or detailed reports about the claims, even as Trump and his allies use them to amplify racist stereotypes about Black and brown immigrants.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on Ohio immigrants
Taylor Swift, one of the music industry’s biggest stars, endorsed Kamala Harris for president shortly after the debate ended on Tuesday night.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post, which included a link to a voter registration website.
Swift has a dedicated following among young women, a key demographic in the November election, and her latest tour has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales. In a half hour, the post received more than 2.3 million likes.
She included a picture of herself holding her cat Benjamin Button, and she signed the message “Childless Cat Lady.” The remark is a reference to three-year-old comments made by JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, about women without children not having an equal stake in the country’s future.
▶ Read more about Swift’s endorsement
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
This combination of photos shows Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
People watch the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at the Gipsy Las Vegas in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
