First-time voters discuss political issues at gathering in Washington, DC
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of first-time voters from all over the United States gathered in Washington, D.C., in July for a political experiment: a rare opportunity to discuss the 2024 presidential election’s top issues with strangers for three days straight.
The gathering, called “America in One Room: The Youth Vote,” was a collaboration between Close Up Foundation, Stanford University, the Generation Lab, global problem solving organization Helena and the University of Southern California. ABC News’ Christiane Cordero was there, talking to some of the young voters for “GMA3.”
The group of roughly 500 young adults from a variety of backgrounds spent part of their time together in one room. Otherwise, they gathered in small groups for face-to-face talks about different policy issues. Those issues range from the deeply divisive, like the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, to those with a direct impact on their lives.
For Emilea Johnson from Goodridge, Minnesota, a town with a population of around 112, that issue is health care.
“My dad is a farmer. My mom works at the church, which offers no benefits,” Johnson told Cordero. “So navigating the world of health care is extremely challenging when you have to try and figure it out on your own.”
Despite how personal the issue of health care feels, Johnson said she doesn’t have a problem hearing from someone who disagrees with her. Chardon Black from Cleveland, Ohio, expressed concern that many people in the U.S. consider others disagreeing with them to be a form of insult.
“I’ve learned that disagreements are OK and disagreements are fine, as long as you’re expressing yourself in your opinion and the things you care about,” he said.
Before and after the event, participants were asked to share how they felt about a range of issues.
“This is what polling should be,” Henry Elkus, founder and CEO of Helena, said.
The Deliberative Poll found that the weekend experience increased the participants’ satisfaction with democracy from 29% to 58%.
Opposition to a nationwide ban on abortion medication increased from 78% to 80%, the survey said, including among those who identified as Republican.
However, support for increasing the federal minimum wage dropped from 62% to 48%, according to the survey.
And while many participants said they were committed to climate action, after the event support for the U.S. achieving energy independence increased from 62% to 76%, the survey said.
Elkus highlighted a distinct lack of interest in partisan politics among participants.
“They don’t care about the candidates, they care about the issues,” he told “GMA3.” “We see this over and over and over again. They have a very grounded and felt sense that we need to fix this country.”
The ultimate goal was to reach consensus on one thing: take the lessons learned at the gathering and share them.
“Democracy is collaborative, and I hope that everyone will have access to such safe environments for us to share our stories, conversations and to deliberate,” Elaine Gombos from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said in a video diary after the event.
These young voters will be polled again closer to Election Day, to see if their views have shifted. The event’s sponsors are considering doing another event in 2025 – one that focuses on views about artificial intelligence. “This will bring potential for isolated severe thunderstorms with damaging wind gusts and localized flash flooding this afternoon into evening,” according to the NWS.
(WASHINGTON) — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the most prominent and influential unions in the country, said Wednesday it will not endorse any presidential candidate this year.
The 1.3-million-member union has historically thrown its weight around in presidential cycles and endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in recent cycles, with 1988 being the last time it supported a Republican, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. However, hours before the union was set to announce its highly coveted endorsement on Wednesday, the Teamsters released polling of union members showing a nearly two-to-one preference for former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The Teamsters thank all candidates for meeting with members face-to-face during our unprecedented roundtables. Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who took on the role in 2022, said in a statement.
“Democrats, Republicans, and Independents proudly call our union home, and we have a duty to represent and respect every one of them. We strongly encourage all our members to vote in the upcoming election, and to remain engaged in the political process,” he added. “But this year, no candidate for President has earned the endorsement of the Teamsters’ International Union.”
Blue-collar union workers have been a mainstay of Democratic support for several cycles, but Trump has made inroads with voters without a college degree, a key demographic that helped eat away at Democrats’ union advantage.
Most of the country’s largest unions, including the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers union, endorsed President Joe Biden before he dropped out, and that support was reiterated for Harris after she took over as Democrats’ nominee. The Teamsters, however, stayed out of the fray.
The union sought to hold meetings with Biden and Trump, and it met with Harris earlier this week before making any decision.
O’Brien ruffled Democrats’ feathers when he addressed the Republican National Convention earlier this summer — a move that was fiercely criticized by some of his counterparts — and praised Trump, though he accused the former president of backing “economic terrorism” when he expressed support for firing striking workers, which is illegal under federal law.
“I want to be clear. At the end of the day, the Teamsters are not interested if you have a ‘D,’ ‘R,’ or an ‘I’ next to your name,” O’Brien said on the stage in Milwaukee. “We want to know one thing: ‘What are you doing to help American workers?’ As a negotiator, I know that no window or door should ever be permanently shut.”
The union’s decision Wednesday marks a blow for both candidates.
Trump had wooed the union, inviting O’Brien to Mar-a-Lago and culminating in O’Brien’s primetime RNC speech.
Harris, meanwhile, has sought to shore up support among non-college educated voters, particularly in the industrial Midwest, a key region in this year’s election where the Teamsters hold sway. The Biden administration has also repeatedly touted its pro-union bona fides, and Biden himself became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line. However, unions were peeved at the role the administration played in averting a rail strike in late 2022.
After the union’s announcement, the Harris campaign said she has “stood strong with organized labor for her entire career.”
“As the Vice President told the Teamsters on Monday, when she is elected president, she will look out for the Teamsters rank-and-file no matter what – because they always have been and always will be the people she fights for,” Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
Trump’s campaign said while the Teamsters didn’t endorse a candidate, “they want President Trump back in the White House.”
“These hardworking men and women are the backbone of America and President Trump will strongly stand up for them when he’s back in the White House,” Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The internal polling the Teamsters released earlier Wednesday showed that straw polls of members supported Biden over Trump by an 8-point margin, 44-36%.
In explaining its decision, the Teamsters union cited the lack of “majority support” for Harris and “no universal support among the membership” for Trump. However, it did note that Harris had pledged to sign pro-union federal legislation and that Trump would not commit to vetoing national “right to work” legislation, which would allow workers to opt in or out of unions in unionized workplaces — laws that are enacted in several states that national groups like the Teamsters say weakens collective bargaining power.
Still, the Teamsters’ National Black Caucus and several Teamsters’ local chapters got out in front of the national organization and endorsed Harris on their own in recent weeks, including Local 623 in Philadelphia, which pointed to work done during the Biden administration, Harris’ pledge to “expand union rights” and challenge “any anti-union ‘right to work’ legislation,” and the “threat posed by Donald Trump.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Oren Oppenheim, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to drop out of the presidential race by the end of this week, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News.
Sources tell ABC News that Kennedy plans to endorse Donald Trump — but when asked directly by ABC News if he will be endorsing the former president, Kennedy said, “I will not confirm or deny that.”
“We are not talking about any of that,” he said.
Sources cautioned the decision is not yet finalized and could still change, with one source adding that Kennedy’s hope is, in part, to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the Democratic National Convention.
One possible scenario being discussed is for Kennedy to appear on stage with Trump at an event in Phoenix on Friday, though the sources cautioned that Kennedy’s thinking could always change and sources close to Trump say no plan for Friday is finalized.
Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox, emailed senior staff on Wednesday morning thanking them for their hard work — but indicated a decision on the way forward had not been made, a source familiar with the email told ABC News.
“There are a couple potential paths forward, not only two, and I can bear witness to the care, examination that Bobby has invested in the consideration of each,” Fox wrote, according to the source.
A spokesperson for Kennedy posted on X that Kennedy will “address the nation” live on Friday to discuss his “path forward,” but offered no specifics.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy told ABC News regarding the Democratic convention and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, “I think it was a coronation, it’s not democracy. Nobody voted. Who chose Kamala It wasn’t voters.”
He also complained about the way his campaign has been treated.
“She went in four weeks from being the worst liability for Democratic Party to the second coming of Christ without giving one interview, without showing up for a debate, without a single policy that anyone thinks isn’t ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not democracy.”
(WASHINGTON) — America has no shortage of big donors or political fundraisers, but five years ago, a relatively small group of people looked at the crowded Democratic field in U.S. presidential election and came to the same conclusion – they would use their money and influence to support a young senator with little national recognition at the time: Kamala Harris.
Some are familiar names to those who follow campaign finance, media titans with known eyes for plucking promising talent out of large pools: superstar Hollywood talent agent Bryan Lourd, Emmy-winning “Glee” producer Ryan Murphy, filmmaker J.J. Abrams, Jeff Shell – now the president of Paramount Global – and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
But like most campaigns, other early supporters were less well known or moneyed but just as vital: grassroots activists who energized neighbors and posted on social media to drive donations for the woman they wanted to see one day shatter the highest and hardest glass ceiling in America.
“She was not focused on how much money did somebody raise. She was focused on ‘we’re building a community, a network, and a family that believes in my message and wants to help get it to the rest of the country,’ Harris’ 2019 National Finance Chair Jon Henes told ABC News, noting that they raised over 40 million dollars during her primary campaign.
He added, “If you just leave it up to people who can write a big check, you’re not going to be able to build a real movement.”
ABC News spoke to over 25 people from Harris’ 2019 national finance committee, a group in charge of raising money and galvanizing communities to support their candidate. Some of them were known to Harris as a part of her “Ride or Die” crew.
“The finance committee was so diverse – racially, geographically, professionally. It laid the groundwork for this moment,” Henes said. “So what we’re seeing now with these Zoom calls to raise money and the rallies shows the excitement and diversity coming to play.”
The presidential campaign they invested in then fizzled out two months before the 2020 Iowa caucus. Now, however, it has come roaring back – no surprise to many supporters who had watched Harris’ ascent long before the world knew her name.
The prescient early supporters
Neil Makhija, commissioner of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, first met Harris in 2010 when she was running for California attorney general. “I walked up to her and said I had not been that inspired since I heard Barack Obama,” he told ABC News, adding that he further told Harris she would be president one day.
Multiple “bundlers,” as they’re called – people who collect donations from multiple contributors for a candidate and deliver them as a single, large donation – said they saw the same quality in Harris.
Kimberly Marteau Emerson, the regional co-chair of the Southern California Harris Victory Fund PAC, said she also first met Harris in 2010 when she was running for California attorney general. Nearly a decade later, shortly before Harris launched her presidential campaign in 2019, Emerson watched her at an event publicizing her book.
“She communicates like Barack Obama. She is that good. She is a great storyteller,” Emerson says she told her husband, John B. Emerson, also a Harris PAC regional co-chair as well as a Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegate. “She spoke in a way that helped us relate to her and each other. There was a common humanity.”
Emerson said she and her husband knew many candidates who were running in 2020. But the day Harris announced, Emerson texted her: “I’m in.”
Many of Harris’ supporters point to her ability to connect with people. “I thought she had a great people’s touch. And an interest in people in all walks of life,” Wells Fargo Vice Chairman of Investment Banking Frederick Terrell told ABC News. “She was intellectually curious, our conversations were engaging … She will make a fabulous president.”
Yet some people stressed that winning wasn’t the only factor in their decision to invest in Harris.
“I’m a values-based supporter. I’m not a frontrunner supporter,” said Jill Louis, who was one of Harris’ 38 line sisters at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Alpha Chapter at Howard University. “We came up in a time when we believed this country stood for freedom and equality … that’s what we’re so steeped in.”
Jubilation over the new likely Democratic nominee
Many donors with whom ABC News spoke for this story said they have been playing the long game in supporting her. And now, with fewer than 100 days remaining before Election Day, many said they’ve never before experienced this level of excitement in politics.
Just an hour after Biden announced on July 21 that he was no longer seeking reelection, top donor and bundler Alex Heckler was in the audience of the Broadway musical “Suffs,” based on the women’s suffrage movement a century ago and co-produced by Hillary Clinton. As the curtain opened and before the lead actress delivered her first line, Heckler recalls, something unexpected happened.
“Before she can say a word, there was an outrageous applause. People started chanting ‘Kamala’ for a minute,” Heckler told ABC News. “I had chills. People in the crowd were crying.”
Wanda James, a DNC delegate from Colorado, said realizing that Harris would likely be the Democratic presidential nominee took her back to former President Obama’s first campaign.
“I feel all 2008 … You could hear the Beatles singing ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ James said. “My phone was ringing and buzzing so much, my phone was hot.”
Others told ABC News that while they were initially relieved and excited by the news that Biden had stepped down and endorsed Harris for the Oval Office, they are also facing a blunt reality.
“Donors recognize it’s more difficult electing a Black woman – [a] double whammy in this world of misogyny and sexism,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Democratic donor and activist who’s also a close friend of Hillary Clinton’s, for whom she also was a campaign bundler. Yet Buell also feels Harris is the clear pick to support.
“It’s so obvious. She has the aura. She’s tenacious. She has it all,” Buell declared, but added that supporters “need to understand the reality of this process … This is uncharted territory for all of us.”
Harris’ VP pick
Should Harris secure the Democratic presidential nomination, one of her first tasks will be to select a vice presidential running mate, a process that has already begun.
Areva Martin, a California at-large Democratic delegate who has known Harris since they were both college freshmen, says she’s comforted by the fact that that Harris is supported by strong Democratic leaders.
“I like that she picked Eric Holder to do the vetting,” Martin said, referring to Barack Obama’s former attorney general. “I think he’s brilliant. Bringing Holder in is bringing the Obama coalition.”
ABC News has confirmed the two frontrunners for Harris’ VP pick remain Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Mark Shapiro. Nearly every donor with whom ABC News spoke said they supported both.
Yet a few donors had different ideas. Takeila Hannah, who held the first large fundraiser for Harris in North Carolina during her 2019 campaign, said prior to state Gov. Roy Cooper announcing on July 29 that he was withdrawing from consideration for the position that she would also strongly support him for the job.
“What they have in common is they’ve both been [attorneys general] of states. That’s a language they can speak … they both come from the law,” said Hannah.
Dr. Manan Trivedi, a Democratic donor and former candidate for Pennsylvania’s 6th congressional district, echoed several others with whom ABC News spoke in saying he hoped Harris would make a more unconventional pick to continue shaking up the race. His choice is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“I know it’s not going to happen. But as a dad of two daughters and a successful wife, I think we’re overdue,” Trivedi said. “And I think Gretchen Whitmer is a dominant force and we need Michigan; it’s not just because she’s female. She has a great record and it brings the race into stark contrast.”
Looking ahead
Since President Biden withdrew from the presidential race just over one week ago, the Harris campaign said it has so far raised over $200 million, including the record-shattering $81 million in donations it received in the 24 hours immediately following Biden’s announcement. That enthusiasm, some donors believe, demonstrates high-level support for the candidate.
Asif Mahmood was deputy national finance chair for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, as well as the financial point person for Asian outreach for Harris’ 2019 campaign. He notes that there are “stark differences” between 2016 and now that work in Harris’ favor, one of which is the major boost Harris has received due to the presidential race focusing on Biden’s age and other perceived weaknesses for as long as it did.
“In 25 years, I haven’t seen the energy Kamala is enjoying right now,” Asif told ABC News. “This is more than Obama energy.”
Even so, Asif said, the campaign cannot afford to be complacent, particularly regarding the swing states that Clinton lost to Trump in 2016. He expects campaign workers to visit those states to bolster efforts there.
Fundraiser Tina Duryea, who’s also a Connecticut delegate to the Democratic National Convention, said it’s not just the big checks that are significant in this moment. Duryea says she raised a respectable amount of money for Harris from grassroots supporters in the 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal.
“I did TikToks, Facebook posts, Threads, Instagram, and raised 30 thousand from small-donor donations,” Duryea told ABC News.
Michael Kempner, founder and CEO of the global PR film MikeWorldWide, who’s accustomed to collecting high-dollar donations for Democratic candidates, said the Harris candidacy is generating renewed interest from potential supporters.
“I’ve received close to a 100 texts, emails and calls from people who want to be more involved who previously were not enthusiastic,” Kempner said. “The level of excitement feels Obama-esque. There’s a level of enthusiasm [that] in my 40 years I have never experienced.”