2024 election updates: Trump to meet with Zelenskyy as Ukraine becomes campaign issue

(WASHINGTON) — 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.

Elon Musk’s PAC pays out 3rd $1 million check to voter

Elon Musk’s America PAC said late Monday that it handed out a third $1 million check to a voter who has signed its petition backing the Constitution.

The PAC said in a post to X that the check was given to Shannon Tomei from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, posting a photograph of Tomei holding the check.

“Every day until Election Day, a person who signs the petition will be selected to earn $1M as a spokesperson for America PAC,” it added.

Musk shared the announcement and congratulated Tomei. In other posts, he has been urging people to register to vote in Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground state in next month’s presidential election.

The first two winners were announced during a town hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over the weekend, with Musk handing over the checks to the winners on stage. It’s unclear how the third check was delivered.

Musk has thrown his weight behind former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, describing Trump as the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.”

-ABC News’ Soorin Kim

Harris takes jabs at Trump’s dance moves, calls him ‘increasingly unstable’

Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney capped off their battleground tour in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in their bid to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.

During the final event on Monday, Harris continued to draw a contrast between herself and former President Trump and even poked fun at his dance moves during his campaign rally last week.

Harris, who called Trump’s onstage dancing a “solo dance,” said that it was proof that the former president is “increasingly unstable.”

“What we see about him in public, whether it be his rallies or, as you said, the — what would it be called? — just a solo dance? I don’t know,” said Harris, drawing laughter from the crowd.

“I think it does lead us, and it should lead us, to observe that he is increasingly unstable,” Harris said.

Harris was referencing Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, last week where two medical emergencies in the crowd interrupted the event, which eventually turned into what his campaign at the time called an “impromptu concert.”

-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim

Tim Walz reacts to ‘Daily Show’ appearance with Jon Stewart while fundraising in NYC

Fresh off his taping of the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Gov. Tim Walz told a crowd at the Standard Hotel in New York City on Monday night that the experience was “great” but that the comedian’s monologue at the start of the show was filled with what he considered “doom.”

“I’m like, ‘Quit with the doom.’ You know?” Walz said.

“Yes, Donald Trump is horrible, and the stakes are incredibly high, and women’s lives are at risk, and they demonize immigrants. And then he goes to McDonald’s to try and distract us, even though, the day before that, he said, you know, ‘We need to do something against the enemy from within,’” he went on.

“But there’s an antidote to this,” he concluded, explaining that there was more than enough positivity in the support he has been receiving as he campaigns in battleground states.

At the fundraising event, Walz was introduced by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Hochul told the crowd that she got to know Walz when they were both representing red districts as Democrats in Congress.

She said that she gives Vice President Kamala Harris “a lot of credit” for choosing Walz as a running mate, whom she called “a genuine human being.”

-ABC News’ Isabella Murray

Trump recalls assassination attempt while courting religious voters in North Carolina

At a Believers and Ballots event in North Carolina Monday, former President Donald Trump worked to court religious voters.

Trump talked about his spiritual journey with the crowd as he emphasized a faith background we don’t often hear him talk about.

“But as I look back at my life’s journey and events, I now recognize that it’s been the hand of God leading me to where I am today,” said Trump.

The former president reflected on the assassination attempt made against him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania over the summer.

“My faith took on new meaning on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I was knocked to the ground, essentially by what seemed like a supernatural hand,” Trump said.

“I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that’s to make our country greater than ever before,” he added.

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa

Judges in Michigan and North Carolina reject challenges to overseas votes

Judges in Michigan and North Carolina on Monday ruled against legal challenges that attempted to disqualify votes cast by eligible American voters overseas.

Republican plaintiffs claimed that election offices in those two states, as well as in Pennsylvania, had created loopholes that would allow ineligible people to vote through overseas absentee ballots.

In Michigan, the judge dismissed one of three suits filed, calling it in his opinion “an 11th-hour attempt to disenfranchise these electors.”

In North Carolina, the judge denied a request by plaintiffs to set aside the ballots of overseas voters until a time at which their individual eligibility could be verified. Superior Court Judge John Smith wrote in that instance that there was “absolutely no evidence that any person has ever fraudulently claimed that exemption and actually voted in any North Carolina election.”

His ruling also stated conclusively that, “This court has weighed the hypothetical possibility of harm to plaintiffs against the rights of the defendants and finds that on balance the equitable discretion of this court should not be invoked to treat an entire group of citizens differently based upon unsupported and speculative allegations for which there is not even a scintilla of substantive evidence.”

A ruling on a similar lawsuit in Pennsylvania is expected soon.

-ABC News’ T. Michelle Murphy and Ivan Pereira

Trump spends millions on anti-trans ads despite lack of voter interest

Donald Trump and his Republicans allies are aggressively pushing anti-trans messaging in the final stretch of his campaign — despite the fact that transgender issues are among the least important issues motivating voters to head to the ballot box, according to a Gallup poll.

The Trump campaign and Republican groups have spent more than $21 million on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ television ads as of Oct. 9.

Additionally, in recent months, Trump-aligned political groups have flooded the airwaves with ads disparaging policies that support the transgender community.

Despite the small size of the transgender population in the U.S., these issues have played a key role in many Republican campaigns on both the state and federal levels.

Trump’s own political agenda, titled Agenda 47, is laden with transgender-based proposals, including a ban on transgender participation in women’s sports, an end to gender-affirming care funded by federal or state dollars, and more.

ABC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on his ad spending.

-ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca and Soo Rin Kim

Walz to travel to Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania later this week

After Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz campaigns in Wisconsin on Tuesday (where he’ll be joined by former President Barack Obama for a rally in Madison), he’ll remain out on the trail this week.

On Wednesday, Walz will speak at an evening fundraiser in Louisville, Kentucky.

On Thursday, he will spend the morning making political stops in Durham, North Carolina — just a week after he visited the city with former President Bill Clinton. He’ll then make local stops in Greenville, North Carolina, in the afternoon and hold a rally in Wilmington that night.

On Friday, Walz will campaign in Philadelphia, where he’ll speak at a fundraiser in the city around noon.

-ABC News’ Isabella Murray

Harris says she wakes up in middle of night from election stress

Harris said she finds herself waking up in the middle of the night from the stress of the final days of the election, when asked how she handles stress and anxiety during a discussion in Michigan on Monday.

“You know, I wake up in the middle of the night, usually these days. Just to be honest with you,” Harris told Maria Shriver, who moderated the discussion between the vice president and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in Royal Oak. “But I work out every morning. I think that’s really important to just kind of, you know, mind, body and spirit.”

“Say more about that,” Shriver pressed Harris.

“I work out, I try to eat,” Harris responded. “You know, I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband every day.”

“My family grounds me in every way,” she added.

The exchange started with Harris making something clear: She’s not taking edibles.

“Everybody I talked to says, you know, I have to turn off the news, I can’t read anything, I’m meditating, I’m doing yoga. I’m so anxious. I just don’t even know. I’m eating gummies, all kinds of things, you know?” Shriver said to Harris, asking, “What are you doing?”

“Not eating gummies,” Harris said to laughs from the crowd.

-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie

Liz Cheney makes a case for conservatives to back Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a series of moderated conversations with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday.

In those appearances, Cheney made a case for conservatives to vote Democrat in the upcoming election and support Harris’ bid for the White House.

“What I would say is that if people are uncertain, if people are thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’m a conservative, I don’t know that I can support Vice President Harris,’ I would say, I don’t know if anybody is more conservative than I am,” said Cheney, who was the third-ranking member of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021.

Cheney also warned Republicans considering voting for Trump that Congress would not be a check on him.

“For anybody who is a Republican who is thinking that, you know, they might vote for Donald Trump because of national security policy, I ask you, please, please study his national security policy,” Cheney said. “Not only is it not Republican — it’s dangerous. And without allies, America will find our very freedom and security challenged and threatened.”

“And one final point on this: Don’t think that Congress can stop him,” Cheney added.

In Malvern, Pennsylvania, Cheney said she thought there would be Republican voters who would cast their ballots for Harris — even if they did not reveal it publicly.

In Michigan, she went further, encouraging voters to do just that, saying, “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 Nov. 5, vote for Vice President Harris.”

-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Will McDuffie and T. Michelle Murphy

Trump pushes false claims that Democrats are trying to cheat in election

Rallying in Greenville, North Carolina, on Monday, Trump launched baseless claims about possible fraud in the 2024 election — despite earlier in the day saying he hadn’t seen evidence of it.

At one point during the rally, Trump turned to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to ask him about election security.

“He’ll stop the cheating. He’s going to stop the cheating,” Trump said to Whatley. “Are they cheating? Michael, they’re trying, but are they? They’re not going to get away with it, right? … They got away with it in plenty of places.”

Earlier in Asheville, North Carolina, Trump told his supporters that he hasn’t seen any evidence of cheating in the election thus far, but added, “I know the other side and they are not good.”

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soo Rin Kim

More than 1.5M have voted early in battleground Georgia

The office of the Georgia Secretary of State announced Monday that more than 1.5 million voters have voted early in person in Georgia as of Monday afternoon.

“Georgia voters know we’ve made it easy to cast a ballot. It’s really that simple,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.

In-person early voting started in the key battleground state on Tuesday, Oct. 15.

As of Monday afternoon, more than 15 million early votes have been cast nationally, including almost 5 million in-person early votes, according to an analysis by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim

Harris reiterates she worked at McDonald’s after Trump stunt

On her way to her moderated conversation in Michigan, Harris was asked if she had worked at a McDonald’s while deplaning Air Force 2.

“Did I? I did,” she said.

Her past experience at McDonald’s has become a fixation of Trump’s, who over the weekend worked the fryer at one of the chain’s restaurants in the Philadelphia area.

Trump has claimed Harris never worked at the fast food giant. Harris, in introducing herself to voters this campaign, has told the story of working there between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University in an effort to contrast her working-class roots with Trump’s background.

-ABC News’ Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim

Cheney gives Harris backup on abortion

Harris got backup on a hot-button cultural issue from an unlikely source Monday — conservative former Rep. Liz Cheney.

Cheney — who has broken with Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot — still boasts a conservative record. But Monday, she waded into an issue that Democrats hope will help them win over voters on Election Day.

“I think there are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need,” Cheney said, referencing the Supreme Court decision that scrapped federal abortion protections.

“In places like Texas, for example, the attorney general is talking about suing, is suing, to get access to women’s medical records. That’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”

The remarks, made in a Philadelphia suburb, were notable as Harris looks to cement support among suburban female voters.

Harris works to earn Pennsylvania’s Republican votes alongside Liz Cheney

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.

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.

“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.”

Read more about Harris and Cheney’s events here.

-ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Fritz Farrow

Trump appears on The Undertaker’s podcast

Trump continued his alternative media outreach effort by sitting down for a podcast interview with retired pro wrestler Mark Calaway, also known as “The Undertaker.”

During the podcast, Trump repeated his anti-trans rhetoric, promising to not allow “men playing in women’s sports” as Calaway brought up his teenage quarterback daughter.

“You don’t want to go and wrestle a guy like if you were doing that, because people do that — like your father — right? He’s a little too much to handle,” Trump said to Calaway’s daughter, who was present for the interview, after Calaway asked him about Title IX..

“I will get rid of it fast. Men playing in women’s sports is insane,” Trump said.

Republicans have invested heavily in ads targeting the transgender community this cycle.

-ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh

Walz on what he’d do differently from the Biden admin and appealing to voters

Tim Walz joined ABC’s “The View” on Monday, where he discussed what he would have done differently than the Biden-Harris administration — a questioned that Harris herself struggled with in her own appearance on the talk show.

The governor said that he wished one of their ticket’s proposals — an expansion on Medicare — “would have been proposed sooner.” He argued their campaign is focusing heavily on things like the care economy and child care affordability.

Walz also discussed how they can appeal to men and Black voters, two voting blocks where Trump is having success.

“As as vice president says, we have a responsibility to earn the votes from everyone and not make the assumption that men or women are going to be with us. I hear oftentimes about the Black community. Why would we assume that they were with us, unless we’re putting out proposals that positively impact their life?” Walz said.

He argued that they are trying to make voters aware of their proposals on housing, child care, small businesses and more.

Read more about Walz on “The View” here.

Trump won’t denounce violence against FEMA workers during North Carolina stop

Trump toured devastation caused by Hurricane Helene just outside Asheville, North Carolina, and later delivered remarks to the press where he began by slamming the job from the White House for their hurricane response, continuing to push false claims about FEMA assistance in the wake of violence against FEMA workers.

“The power of nature. Nothing you can do about it, but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House. It’s been not good. Not good. I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you, and the American people are with you all the way,” Trump said.

Later, he pushed false claims about the allocation of FEMA assistance, once again falsely saying that money dedicated to hurricane relief was going to offer assistance to migrants unaffected by the storm.

“FEMA has done a very poor job … They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing other things, things that I don’t think bear any relationship to this money, there was, they were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election. Because that’s what a lot of people are saying. That’s why they’re doing it,” Trump falsely said.

-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh and Soorin Kim

Sen. Bernie Sanders to join Biden in New Hampshire

In a strategic visit to boost Democrats’ presence in the purple state ahead of the election, President Joe Biden will be joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Tuesday in New Hampshire to talk about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, a senior administration official told ABC News.

The president is also expected to stop by a New Hampshire Democratic Party campaign office to support Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the official said.

The economy and costs are a top issue to voters in New Hampshire, polling shows, and Sanders, who made the high price of U.S. health care a central point of both his presidential campaigns, is a popular figure in the state, which neighbors his own.

Sanders and Biden will discuss new data on savings brought about by the administration’s hallmark Inflation Reduction Act, the senior official said. The act implemented significant price caps for Medicare enrollees, including a $35 cap on insulin already in effect and a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs that kicks in in 2025. The White House estimates the caps will bring about cost savings of $400 per year for nearly 19 million seniors.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett

Tim Walz to join ABC’s ‘The View’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Harris’ running mate, will join ABC’s “The View” on Monday.

His interview comes after Harris herself appeared on the show as part of a media blitz earlier this month.

Walz recently quipped on Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s on Sunday as part of his mockery of Harris’ past employment there. Walz said he took “full responsibility” for the campaign stop after he once joked he couldn’t imagine the former president working a McFlurry machine.

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%.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday denied former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ request to have the Arizona “fake elector” case against him moved to federal court from Arizona state court.

Meadows, along with 17 others, was charged in Arizona with forgery and conspiracy over alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state. He has pleaded not guilty.

In August, Meadows’ attorneys argued the case should be moved to federal court because the indictment “squarely relates to Mr. Meadows’s conduct as Chief of Staff to the President.” The argument is similar to the one Meadows has made for months in his Fulton County, Georgia, case, citing a law that calls for the removal of criminal proceedings when someone is charged for actions they allegedly took as a federal official.

U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tuchi said the state charges — nine felony counts for his role in the effort to overturn former President Donald Trump’s Arizona election loss — is “unrelated” to Meadows’ official duties.

“Although the Court credits Mr. Meadows’s theory that the Chief of Staff is responsible for acting as the President’s gatekeeper, that conclusion does not create a causal nexus between Mr. Meadows’s official authority and the charged conduct,” Tuchi said.

“The Court finds that Mr. Meadows fails to present good cause for his untimely filing of his Notice of Removal, and that in any event, an evaluation on the merits yields that he fails to demonstrate that the conduct charged in the state’s prosecution relates to his former color of office as Chief of Staff to the President,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement in response to the ruling. “The Court therefore will remand this matter to the state court.”

Earlier this summer, charges were dropped against former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis in exchange for cooperation in the case.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris forcibly panned the recent “harmful” attacks on Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian migrants during a National Association of Black Journalists panel in Philadelphia on Tuesday where she delivered her most extensive comments on those attacks and on race more largely, a topic she has shied away from focusing on — a stark contrast from her 2019 run for president.

“It’s a crying shame,” Harris said when asked about former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, spreading the unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating neighbors’ pets. “I mean, my heart breaks for this community.”

A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”

A rash of bomb threats have targeted schools, government buildings and elected officials’ homes in Springfield, forcing evacuations and closures. Harris noted that some children in Springfield had to evacuate their schools because of bomb threats on what was picture day for them.

“Children. Children. A whole community put in fear,” she said.

The vice president said those in power should understand the weight of their words and be measured in what they say. She argued that Trump’s comments about the migrants in Springfield have lost him the public’s trust.

“When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that, that is an extension of what should not be lost in this moment, this concept of the public trust to then understand what the public trust means,” she said. “It means that you have been invested with trust to be responsible in the way you use your words, much less how you conduct yourself, and especially when you have been and then seek to be again, president of the United States of America.”

She called on the rhetoric to stop and for Americans to “turn the page.”

“I know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s got to stop,” Harris told the panel. “And we’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, is designed to have people pointing fingers at each other.”

Harris called the former president’s comments about migrants in Springfield “exhausting” and “harmful.”

“I think most people in our country, regardless of their race, are starting to see through this nonsense and to say, ‘You know what, let’s turn the page on this,'” she said. “This is exhausting and it’s harmful and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for.”

Harris’ comments on Tuesday marked her harshest rebuke of the unfounded claims about Springfield’s Haitian migrants. Despite being asked multiple times by reporters about them, Harris had previously declined to comment.

The panel comes just days after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club. The White House said Harris had a “cordial” call with the former president on Tuesday.

“I checked on to see if he was OK, and I told him what I have said publicly, ‘there is no place for political violence in our country,'” Harris said of the call. “I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy and in a democracy, there is no place for political violence. We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements, but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.”

Asked if she felt Secret Service could keep her and her family safe, Harris said, “I do.”

“But I mean, you can go back to Ohio, not everybody has Secret Service, and there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe.”

The panel discussion also featured Harris’s most extensive remarks on race since launching her presidential bid over the summer.

She tied many of her economic proposals to the Black community, including her small business tax credit, saying “part of what I also know is that our young Black men, our Black men, just like any group of people … are really the backbone of our economy overall. And when they do better economically, we all do better.”

But in the time since she got into the race, at a similar NABJ panel interview in July, Trump got into a fiery back-and-forth with reporters and falsely questioned Harris’ race.

“So I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly, very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said during that heated exchange. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

Harris — the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, both immigrants to the United States — has not directly responded to Trump’s comments. In an August interview with CNN, after being asked to comment on the personal attacks Trump has lobbied at the vice president surrounding her racial identity, Harris dodged.

“Same old, tired playbook,” she told the network. “Next question, please.”

And when asked to comment on the same attacks during ABC News’ debate last week, instead of speaking about her own racial identity, Harris chose a more generic answer.

“I think it’s a — a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people,” she told ABC News’ David Muir.

Harris is not new to people falsely questioning her “Blackness.” During her presidential run in 2019, Harris faced questions about whether she was Black enough to identify as a Black candidate.

“I’m Black, and I’m proud of being Black,” Harris said on “The Breakfast Club” radio show in February of that year. “I was born Black. I will die Black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”

Harris’ 2019 campaign also put a larger focus on race compared to her current run for president.

At the NBC debate in 2019, Harris strong-armed her way into the opportunity to take on then-Vice President Joe Biden on efforts to desegregate public schools, specifically school busing programs.

“As the only Black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said, interjecting as the moderators were moving on to someone else.

During that debate, Biden brought up his ability to work with politicians across the aisle, fondly recounting his relationship with segregationist Sens. James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia. Harris, who directly benefited from busing programs, jumped in to respond.

“It was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris continued. “And you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

In another departure from her time as a candidate in 2019, as vice president, and as Biden’s running mate during his bid for reelection, Harris hardly mentions one of her top issues: Black maternal mortality.

In 2020, Harris had a section on her website’s issues page devoted to “Health Justice For Black Communities,” with a commitment to “fight to end the Black maternal mortality crisis.” Now, her website only says she’ll “combat maternal mortality” more generally. She introduced the Maternal CARE Act to tackle the issue while in the Senate. The bill mentioned “Black women” 10 times.

ABC News has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the shift between her two presidential campaigns, and whether this is part of political calculation ahead of the general election. They did not respond by the time of publication.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.