WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will head to reliably Republican Texas just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.
Her campaign says Harris will visit Houston for an event Friday with women who have been affected by the state's restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She'll be going there after spending time in Georgia, another state with a restrictive law.
Since that 2022 high court decision, most Republican-controlled states have new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban the procedure at every stage of pregnancy. Harris has argued that Trump — who nominated three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who later voted to overturn Roe v. Wade — is responsible for worsening medical care for women and that he would seek further restrictions.
Campaign officials cast Harris' plan to visit Texas as a nontraditional way to capture the attention of voters in battleground states who are inundated with campaign ads and run-of-the-mill campaign events. The most recent non-battleground visit Harris made was to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in early September to tout her small business tax plan. Since then, she’s traveled to the seven battleground states.
“Texas is the stage for this event,” said senior campaign adviser David Plouffe. “But for us, the most important audience are folks in the battlegrounds.”
Plouffe said the vice president is making the trip “to really tell a story about Donald Trump’s role in eliminating Roe v. Wade, what that’s meant for people in a state like Texas, and the stakes — if you live in a state currently without an abortion ban — that could be coming your way if Donald Trump wins.”
In 2016, Democrats, feeling sure of their chances against Trump in his first run for the White House, sent their nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Texas, Iowa and Ohio in hopes of running up the Electoral College score, while missing signs of trouble in Democratic-leaning states that flipped and sent Trump to the Oval Office.
“We’re not doing that,” Plouffe said, dismissing the notion that the campaign was trying to compete in Texas. “We’re diverting out of the battlegrounds because we think it’ll help us in battlegrounds.”
He said it “makes a lot of strategic sense” to go somewhere like Texas, “where you have the most horrific and tragic stories about what’s happening, and then directly link that to the threat that voters in these states without current bans should feel about Donald Trump’s potential next term.”
Women affected by abortion bans have been out campaigning for Harris, including Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who went into premature labor, developed sepsis and nearly died after doctors said they could not intervene to provide an abortion because Zurawski wasn’t in enough medical danger to allow the procedure. Harris has also highlighted the story of Amber Thurman, a Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill.
Harris will be joined Friday by Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. She is also scheduled tape a podcast interview with Brené Brown.
Trump, too, has tried events outside of battlegrounds to energize his supporters. He has a rally planned this weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York and last week had one at the site of the Coachella music festival in California.
Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before. As a result women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care in part because doctors cannot intervene unless she is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.” The state also has become a battleground for litigation; the U.S. Supreme Court weighed on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago, leaving a lower court's ruling in place.
Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion. Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.
Trump has constantly shifted his stances and offered vague and contradictory answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election. He recently said he would vote against a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot that is aimed at overturning the state’s six-week abortion ban.
About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.
In his first year as president, Trump said he was “pro-life with exceptions” but also said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions — a position he quickly reversed.
At the 2018 annual March for Life, Trump voiced support for a federal ban on abortion on or after 20 weeks of pregnancy. More recently, Trump suggested in March that he might support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks before announcing that he instead would leave the matter to the states.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Concord, N.C., Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a town hall at The People's Light in Malvern, Pa., Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
With just over two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are hitting the campaign trail in strategic battleground states.
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That’s according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the taping.
Trump and Rogan have a complicated history. While the two shook hands and spoke briefly at a UFC fight, Trump criticized Rogan after he said that then-candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only one running who made sense to him.
“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024,” Trump wrote on his social media site in August.
Both Trump and Harris have appeared on a slew of popular podcast — with Trump’s typically aimed at young men.
— Jill Colvin
The webpage provides information for voters in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, who may be confronting lost identification, relocated polling places or other disruptions because of the hurricanes.
The Justice Department has compiled information about changes states have made to aid those affected by the storms. The page answers questions such as how people who’ve been displaced can get a ballot mailed to their new location and how residents can check to see if the place where they usually cast their ballot is open for voting.
Groups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.
The content, which includes baseless accusations about the Minnesota governor’s time as a teacher, contains several indications that it was manipulated, said the official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Analysts identified clues that linked the content to Russian disinformation operations, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.
Digital researchers had already linked the video to Russia, but Tuesday’s announcement is the first time federal authorities have confirmed the connection.
The disinformation targeting Walz is consistent with Russian disinformation seeking to undermine the Democratic campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, her running mate. Russia also has spread disinformation aimed at stoking discord and division ahead of voting, officials said, and may seek to encourage violent protests after Election Day.
▶ Read more about Russian disinformation.
The participants gathered around Trump with their hands on his shoulders. Trump remained seated and had his eyes closed.
They asked God to continue to protect Trump and give him strength. And to “make America godly again.”
He claimed that switching to all-electric trucks would require rebuilding every one of the country’s bridges and that solar fields kill rabbits.
He says he recently saw a a solar field “that looked like it took up half the desert.”
“It’s all steel and glass and wires. And it looks like hell,” he said. “You see rabbits, they get caught in it.”
Trump often rails against wind power, saying the turbines “kill all the birds” and confuse whales. He’s been more complimentary of electric cars since he received the backing of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
But he is criticizing their range and weight at an event with Latino supporters Tuesday, claiming the nation would need to rebuild every one of its bridges if truck fleets swap diesel for electric vehicles to handle the extra weight.
He called it a “bad thing.”
“Can you imagine somebody doing that? That’s the enemy. I guess that maybe is the enemy from within,” he said, repeating the phrase he’s used in recent speeches to refer to Democratic lawmakers such as U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
“We just can’t stand for this incompetence anymore.”
The FBI said Tuesday that it’s investigating the unauthorized release of these documents.
The company’s CEO, Bob Unanue, is a vocal supporter.
“It’s actually quite good out of the can,” Trump says of the company known for its beans and other products.
“I eat it whenever I can,” he claims.
Former President Barack Obama will also be there.
Springsteen will hold another concert with Obama on Monday in Philadelphia.
A senior campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said more concerts will be announced in the coming days.
— Chris Megerian
At the event, Trump said Harris is “slow” and has a “low IQ.”
“We don’t need another low IQ person,” he said.
“She’s sleeping right now,” he said. “This is not what you want.”
Trump’s jabs come after Harris tried to cast him as “exhausted” after he pulled out of several interviews — though Trump has had a busy schedule of interviews with conservative outlets and podcasts.
In the opening remarks, notable Florida Republicans including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott proclaimed Trump’s record in supporting the Hispanic community during his previous term.
Suarez was one of three Florida Republicans running for president in the earlier campaign cycle, but despite running against Trump, the mayor endorsed the former president in March. Suarez said that under Trump’s term, Hispanics experienced the lowest unemployment and the biggest reduction in poverty.
Scott, who’s running for reelection, emphasized Trump would be the best to handle Latin American conflicts and fight against dictatorial regimes, where the families of many voters in the crowd escaped from.
Miami is home to one of the largest Hispanic communities in the country, with about 70% of Miami-Dade County’s population identifying as Hispanic according to 2023 Census data.
It’s a beautiful day in Miami, with blue skies framing the property’s many palm trees.
Scott’s main message to Hispanic voters was that under Trump’s presidency, Hispanic voters were better off, because the border was more secure and inflation was lower.
Scott is saying Harris’ policy will institute price controls, which is socialism. He said her administration would raise taxes.
“The Hispanic vote is the deciding factor. If you want someone to fight for Latin America, Trump’s going to do it,” Scott said.
When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris jumped in, a cascade of Zoom meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants popped up seemingly out of nowhere and helped propel her to the Democratic nomination.
Now organizers are trying to turn that burst of digital enthusiasm into traditional get-out-the-vote efforts like phone banking and door knocking. They’ve created a loose constellation of volunteer networks operating independently of the Harris campaign, all geared toward marshaling local or online communities behind the vice president.
People are sending postcards, texting friends, canvassing battleground states, making friendship bracelets with campaign messages, and sometimes surprising themselves by getting involved in ways they’ve never done before.
The question is whether the Zoom meetings that drew so much attention during the summer — for Black women, Black men, white women, white dudes, cat ladies, Taylor Swift fans and more — will turn out to be a short-lived phenomenon or a powerful catalyst for Harris to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump.
▶ Read more about Zoom organizing by Democrats.
But she’s not necessarily trying to sway voters there. She’s trying to highlight a make-or-break issue for Democrats: abortion rights.
Harris will seek to show how Texas’ restrictive abortion ban is creating increasing medical distress for women. During her campaign, the Democratic presidential nominee has often highlighted the increasingly perilous landscape for women since the fall of Roe, and she links it to Donald Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark abortion rights ruling.
But it’s unusual for her to do it from a state she’s highly unlikely to win. Campaign officials say the plan is a nontraditional way to capture the attention of voters in battleground states who are inundated with campaign ads and run-of-the-mill campaign events.
But Harris also thinks the issue is resonating for Republican voters, too, particularly women.
Pennsylvania is arguably the hardest fought of the battleground states and happens to have one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the country, in what is known as the 222 Corridor, after the highway that connects small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia.
It’s fertile ground for both Democrats and Republicans to test their strength among Latinos in a state where small margins decide who gets 20 electoral votes. It’s a place where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris can prove that her party still commands a large share of the demographic’s support, and where Republican Donald Trump’s campaign has been working to gain ground.
“This is the epicenter for Latino voters in Pennsylvania,” said Victor Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican descent and lives in and broadcasts his show from Allentown. “I like the fact that Kamala Harris has to keep sending people over here to listen to us and talk to us. I like it. I like the fact that JD Vance has to keep coming back. I like it, because that means that they have to pay attention to us.”
Pennsylvania’s Latino eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000 from 208,000 to 579,000, according to the Latino Data Hub from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Latino Policy & Politics Institute. The population in cities like Allentown and Reading is now more than half Hispanic, with a majority being of Puerto Rican descent and a sizable portion of Dominican origin.
▶ Read more about the Latino vote in this election.
The Biden-Harris administration is awarding $428 million for 14 clean-energy manufacturing projects in Pennsylvania and other states hit hard by the decline of the U.S. coal industry.
One of the larger grants, $87 million, will go to a Pennsylvania company to make state-of-the-art linear generators at a plant outside Pittsburgh, a key battleground in the presidential election.
Linear generators can use any fuel source to produce low-carbon power for utilities, data centers and industry. Mainspring Energy plans to use Energy Department funds to create enough electricity annually to power more than 40,000 homes. Harris, like Biden, has pledged to help workers displaced by the transition to clean energy, a key-issue in energy-rich Pennsylvania.
Two weeks out from Election Day, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House, with one candidate struggling to find just the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents and the other making bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Former President Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.
Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.
▶ Read more about the Mideast conflict’s role in the election.
For the past year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election, its far-right proposals deployed by Democrats as shorthand for what Donald Trump would potentially do with a second term at the White House.
Even though the former president’s campaign has vigorously distanced itself from Project 2025, the sweeping Heritage Foundation’s proposal to gut the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies aligns closely with his vision. Project 2025’s architects come from the ranks of Trump’s administration and top Heritage officials have briefed Trump’s team about it.
It’s rare for a complex 900-page policy book to figure so dominantly in a political campaign. But from its early start at a think tank, to its viral spread on social media, the rise and fall and potential rise again of Project 2025 shows the unexpected staying power of policy to light up an election year and threaten not only Trump atop the ticket but down-ballot Republicans in races for Congress.
Through it all, Project 2025 hasn't gone away. It exists not only as a policy blueprint for the next administration, but as a database of some 20,000 job-seekers who could staff a Trump White House and administration and a still unreleased “180-day playbook” of actions a new president could employ on Day One.
▶ Read more about Project 2025.
In-person early voting kicks off Tuesday across battleground Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosting a rally in liberal Madison and Republicans holding events to encourage casting a ballot for Donald Trump before Election Day.
Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.
Trump was highly critical of voting by mail in past elections, falsely claiming it was rife with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person. Trump himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.
▶ Read more about early voting in Wisconsin.
Harris is set to discuss how her plan will lower costs, increase their chances for homeownership and expand job opportunities for Latino men in an interview she’s taping Tuesday in Washington with Telemundo, the Spanish-language TV network.
The campaign says Harris, running mate Tim Walz and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are giving interviews to several Hispanic media outlets this week in a bid to get her message across to Latino men.
Harris’ Telemundo interview is set to air Wednesday night.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., attend a campaign event Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Brookfield, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a faith event at the Concord Convention Center, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Concord, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
