2024 election updates: Harris, Trump in virtual dead heat in battleground states
ABC NEWS/MICHAEL LE BRECHT II
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — The race for the White House is heading into the final stretch with most polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck-and-neck in key states with just about two weeks to go.
Harris, Cheney to make the case to disaffected Republican voters
Harris is stumping with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The two will hold a moderated conversation in each of the “blue wall” states.
Cheney endorsed Harris in early September, warning Trump posed a threat to democracy after what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice our capitol to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name and to violate the law and the Constitution in order to seize power for himself,” Cheney said at her first joint appearance with Harris earlier this month.
“I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, that is depravity, and we must never become numb to it,” she continued. “Any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again. We must defeat Donald Trump on Nov. 5.”
Trump to survey hurricane damage before rally in North Carolina
At noon, Trump will survey devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina.
He’ll later hold a 3 p.m. rally in Greenville before a 6:30 p.m. meeting with faith leaders in Concord.
Trump has criticized the Biden-Harris response to the storm, and spread misinformation about the federal government’s recovery efforts and assistance. Such misinformation, Biden and other officials have said, is harming those who need assistance and resulting in threats against FEMA workers.
Polls show close race between Harris, Trump
The latest polling averages from 538 show the two candidates running even in key swing states Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has a slight lead over Harris in Georgia and Arizona.
Overall, 538’s national polling average shows Harris ahead by just 1.8%.
Joel Angel Juarez for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is doing a series of moderated conversations with former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in suburban cities in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday — the day before in-person voting begins in Wisconsin.
With roughly two weeks until Election Day, the effort is part of the Harris campaign’s effort to reach swing voters in the crucial battleground states. Harris is speaking with Cheney in the suburban areas of Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
The conversations were to be moderated by Bulwark publisher and longtime Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host and writer Charlie Sykes.
Both Harris and former President Donald Trump have events scheduled for battleground states this week as they work to win over voters in what’s expected to be a close contest. On Monday, Trump is spending time in in the battleground state of North Carolina.
While in Pennsylvania, Harris and Cheney worked to pick off Republicans disaffected with their party’s nominee who may vote for the vice president and focus on the dangers Trump poses to the country and to democracy — especially white suburban women who voted Republican.
“There are months in the history of our country which challenge us, each of us, to really decide when we stand for those things that we talk about, including, in particular, country over party,” Harris said.
Cheney, a staunch Trump critic who endorsed Harris in September despite their party and policy differences, said “every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part” in her supporting Harris.
“In this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know Vice President Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be in this place.”
At the Michigan event, Cheney said that she understood why some Republicans would find it difficult to publicly support Harris.
“I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, ‘I can’t be public.’ They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence. But, but they’ll do the right thing,” she said.
“And I would just remind people, if you’re at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody, and there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th, vote for Vice President Harris,” she added.
Cheney voted to impeach Trump following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and was vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. She received backlash from Trump and other Republicans for her criticism of the former president and was censured by the Republican National Committee.
Since her endorsement of Harris, Cheney has campaigned for the vice president — including in battleground Wisconsin, where she called Trump petty, vindictive and cruel.
Cheney is among a handful of prominent Republicans, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who have pledged to support Harris’ bid.
The number of actual votes these events could move, with just two weeks to go, is small — yet could be significant in states expected to be decided by slim margins, Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist, told ABC News.
Ideally, Zepecki said, the events would bring over “Republicans available to Harris who might need one last reminder, one last push in that direction.”
George Levy, a 66-year-old voter from Delaware County, outside Philadelphia, said he was an independent until Trump entered the political arena in 2015.
“I’m never going back. I’ll be a Democrat from now on,” he told ABC News as he waited in line to enter the intimate theater in Malvern, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb that was the site of the first Cheney discussion of the day.
“[Cheney] did the right thing for our country, and I’m proud of her for doing that,” he said. “I know she doesn’t agree with many Democratic policies, but she believes in our country and loves our country, and I appreciate her speaking out.”
In a social media post on Monday, Trump attacked Harris for campaigning with Cheney, claiming that the former Wyoming Republican congresswoman is going to lead the United States to go to war with “every Muslim Country known to mankind” like her father and former Vice President Dick Cheney “pushed” former President Georgia W. Bush to the war in the Middle East.
Harris’ events this week will feature more interactivity where voters see the vice president taking questions — including during her town hall with CNN on Wednesday in Pennsylvania.
ABC News’ Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has been calling Senate Republicans to push for now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be confirmed as attorney general as lawmakers continue to raise concerns over the nomination.
Gaetz was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. But his resignation from Congress after being announced as Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department placed the panel’s report in limbo.
Some Senate Republicans are standing by their calls to see the report, though many now say they will be banking on their colleagues in the Senate Judiciary Committee — known for often controversial public hearings — to do a fulsome vetting of Gaetz.
Gaetz’s nomination will come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will vote on whether to send it to the whole of the Senate. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Monday night he’ll leave it to the panel to determine what information they need to vet Gaetz, and whether or not that includes the ethics committee report.
“I’m not sure I know the answer to how that’s going to be handled,” Thune said when asked about the report. “I think that’s going to be a House issue, and then ultimately up to the Senate Judiciary Committee who is going to have the responsibility to go through the confirmation hearing and the process.”
Judiciary committee members say they believe they’ll get information on Gaetz during the committee process with or without the Ethics report. But it could be fiery.
“Whether we get the ethics report or not, the facts are going to come out one way or the other, and I would think it would be in everybody’s best interest, including the president’s not to be surprised by some information that might come out during the confirmation hearing in the background check, so we’re going to do our job and under the Constitution,” said Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Cornyn seemed to suggest that one way that information could come out is by calling those associated with the allegations to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“It’s not critical that they release the report because we know roughly who the witnesses are, and soon they’ll be called before the judiciary committee,” Cornyn said.
If Gaetz makes it before the committee it is not yet clear what witnesses would ultimately be called to testify. Republicans could call one of these women, or their attorney, before the committee if they want to hear from them. But Democrats would also have the opportunity to call witnesses, and they are not ruling out calling the women who have made allegations against Gaetz to testify.
“That’ll be a committee decision,” Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, said on Monday when asked about whether he’d support calling one of the women.
Calling such a witness has the potential to lead to a public hearing not unlike the high-profile Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearing, during which his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, testified.
Sen. Thom Tillis, who also serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, alluded to that process on Monday.
Tillis said he was inclined to “honor Speaker Johnson’s position” on the House Ethics Committee report. Johnson has said he doesn’t want the report released. But there are other ways for the committee to obtain information, Tillis said.
“You should take a look at the Kavanaugh hearing,” he said.
The belief that information contained in the report would eventually be known to the committee, either by leak, press report or FBI background check, was widespread among Republicans.
“As we all know, this place leaks like a wet paper bag, and I would not faint with surprise to find out that the ethics report at some point leaks,” Sen. John Kennedy, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said.
But when some Republicans were pressed on whether they’ll insist on an FBI background check on Gaetz being completed, there was a bit of a lack of clarity. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will likely return to chair the committee next session, said it would be up to the president to request a background check.
Gaetz has been working the phones, reaching out to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging them to consider his nomination through regular order.
“I got a phone call from Congressman Gaetz, and I congratulated him and he said,” Will I get a fair shake in the Senate?” Kennedy said. “And I said ‘Absolutely Matt, just come on over, answer all the questionnaires, tell us the truth, tell us what your plans are for the agency and I’m looking forward to it.'”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Gaetz told him he wants a hearing before the committee.
“He wants to move forward with his nomination and wants to be able to answer these things in public and have it go through the regular process, have confirmation here, which I think is good. We should do that,” Hawley said.
Hawley, however, cautioned against a Kavanaugh-style confirmation hearing, something he said was “not normal”.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who opposed Kavanaugh’s confirmation, said she, too, would be looking to the Judiciary Committee’s process. She thinks the House ethics report should be a part of it.
“I think the committee will have an opportunity to again engage in very significant vetting. It would certainly make sense to have something if the report was complete or close to completion,” she said.
Regardless of the committee process there remains skepticism among Republicans about Gaetz’s ability to be confirmed.
“He does have an uphill climb,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, said. “But I look forward to visiting with him about it.”
(PHOENIX) — President Joe Biden was in Arizona on Friday to apologize to Native Americans for the federal government forcing Indian children into boarding schools where the White House said they were abused and deprived of their cultural identity.
Departing the White House Thursday, Biden said he was going to Arizona “to do something that should have been done a long time ago.”
He said he would make “a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we treated their children for so many years.”
The White House called his trip to Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix — his first to Indian Country as president — “historic.”
Officials said he will discuss the Biden-Harris administration’s record of delivering for tribal communities, including keeping his promise to visit the swing state, which is happening close to Election Day.
“The president also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past,” the White House said.
“For over 150 years, the federal government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to boarding schools often far away. Native children at these schools endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and, as detailed in the Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report by the Department of the Interior (DOI), at least 973 children died in these schools,” the White House said.
“The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language, and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods,” it said.
