2024 election updates: Trump heads to Pennsylvania with boost in new Sun Belt poll
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(WASHINGTON) — With about six weeks until Election Day, former President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail with stops in battleground Pennsylvania on Monday.
Vice President Kamala Harris is in Washington to meet with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Trump slightly leads in Arizona, about even in North Carolina: Polls
A set of New York Times/Siena College polls found Trump slightly leads Harris in Arizona and they are about evenly matched in North Carolina.
Among likely voters in Arizona, Trump leads Harris 50% to 45% in a head-to-head matchup. In a six-way matchup with other candidates, Trump still leads Harris 48% to 43%.
In North Carolina, Trump also leads Harris among likely voters 49% to 47%. He also leads by 2 percentage points in a six-way matchup. The lead, however, is within the poll’s margin of error.
Arizona and North Carolina are considered crucial battlegrounds this election, along with Georgia. According to 538’s polling average, Trump is ahead slightly in each of the three Sun Belt states.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris shakes hands with Donald Trump, as former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and President Joe Biden look on, during a remembrance ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero, in New York City on September 11, 2024. (Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump shook hands again Wednesday morning as they arrived at the 9/11 anniversary ceremony in downtown Manhattan.
Harris, who was standing between New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden, reached over the president to shake hands with Trump, who was standing next to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The greeting came less than 12 hours after Harris and Trump met for the first time at a presidential debate in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s efforts to appeal to New York, a blue state, continue with a large-scale rally in Long Island on Wednesday — Trump’s second rally in the state on top of the multiple campaign stops he did in between his court appearances for his New York civil fraud trial.
Trump is set to speak Wednesday evening at the Nassau Coliseum — a venue that holds 16,000 spectators, but the campaign alleges 60,000 tickets were requested, which would make it one of Trump’s largest rallies this campaign cycle.
Outside the Coliseum ahead of Trump’s event, vendors lined up selling various Trump merchandise. The celebration, which included music blaring through speakers, featured golden cars with Trump’s face on the front and bedazzled Trump jackets.
The line for attendees stretched around the building hours before doors opened.
Trump’s rally is set for the same day he was initially scheduled to be sentenced in his New York civil fraud trial. The judge in the case delayed his sentencing from Sept. 18 until Nov. 26 — after the presidential election.
Ahead of his Wednesday rally, Trump has worked to court New Yorkers by promising to reverse a tax policy he signed into law in 2017. In a post on his social media platform, Trump claimed he would “get SALT back,” suggesting the elimination of the cap on state and local tax deductions. In his 2017 tax law, Trump capped deductions at $10,000.
A majority of New York’s congressional Republican delegation have been pushing to reverse the SALT deduction cap on Capitol Hill, spearheading the ongoing debate around the issue.
However, while many local Republicans have celebrated Trump’s posture change, it also comes as he has recently rolled out a series of tax breaks, raising concerns about significant increases to the deficit.
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE? VOTE FOR TRUMP! I will turn it around, get SALT back, lower your Taxes, and so much more,” the former president posted on his social media network ahead of his Wednesday rally.
In May, Trump pledged to turn New York red during a campaign rally in deep-blue South Bronx, New York, attempting to court the Hispanic and Black voters that make up a majority of the area’s population.
“We have levels of support that nobody’s seen before … Don’t assume it doesn’t matter just because you live in a blue city. You live in a blue city, but it’s going red very, very quickly,” Trump said at the time.
The Trump campaign has worked to court New Yorkers this campaign cycle, attempting to at least pull enthusiasm away from Democrats and help make down-ballot races more competitive.
This is also his first large-scale campaign rally after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump while he was golfing in West Palm Beach on Sunday. The day prior, Trump held a town hall where nearly 4,000 Michigan voters attended; the Nassau rally is expected to be four times the size.
Trump had also made multiple smaller campaign stops in New York City before and after his mandated court appearance throughout his seven-week hush money payment criminal trial earlier this year to highlight several campaign messaging at each stop.
In mid-April, he visited a small bodega in Harlem that was the scene of a fatal stabbing two years earlier to highlight what he claimed was the failure of Democratic prosecutors in New York to ensure public safety as they prosecute him. Later that month, he visited a construction site in midtown Manhattan to boast support from union workers and working class voters.
(NEW YORK) — Vice President Kamala Harris raised more than triple the amount of funds that former President Donald Trump did in August, giving her team a massive financial advantage as the presidential race enters its final weeks, according to the latest disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee entered the final two full months of the 2024 election cycle with $286 million in the bank, compared to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee’s $214 million, according to the filings.
This comes after the Harris campaign and the DNC raised $257 million in the month of August, while the Trump campaign and the RNC raised $85 million the same month, filings show.
Earlier this month, both campaigns voluntarily released their total August fundraising figures that included the total figures from their joint fundraising operation with state party committees, revealing a major money edge Harris had maintained for the Democratic Party.
The Harris campaign and the DNC spent $258 million in August, almost exactly the amount they raised, and the Trump campaign and the RNC spent $121 million despite raising $85 million, the latest filings show.
Last month, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk made his largest federal political contribution to date, giving a total of $289,100 to the NRCC, the committee dedicated to supporting House GOP candidates. He did not make any contribution to the RNC or the NRSC, which focuses on Senate campaigns.
Musk had in the past given $50,000 to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s joint fundraising committee for House GOP, and $36,000 to Obama’s 2012 campaign.
Some top Republican donors who had supported former Gov. Nikki Haley during the Republican primary season are apparently finally coming around in support of Trump, writing big checks to the main super PAC supporting Trump.
Hedge fund manager Paul E. Singer gave $5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., after serving as a vocal supporter of Haley earlier this year, according to filings. Investment banker Warren Stephens, who had given $1 million to a pro-Haley super PAC last year, gave the same amount to the pro-Trump super PAC, according to filings.
Trump’s Save America PAC’s new filing also shows that it spent nearly $2 million on legal bills in August, with one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, receiving more than $1 million of that sum. Other top firms paid by Save America include James Otis Law Group LLC, Habba Madaio & Associates LLP, Rober & Robert PLLC and Richard C. Klugh PA.
Notably, the Trump campaign reported a handful of small security services expenditures paid to Apocalypse Arms and Military Surplus in late July, after an assassination attempt against the former president, the latest report shows. The total amounts to $555.
