Vance campaigns behind bulletproof glass at Michigan outdoor remarks, hits Harris for DNC comments
(BIG RAPIDS, Mich.) — Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance stepped on stage in Big Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday and spoke behind a bulletproof glass during his remarks outside — the first time he’s done so at his own campaign event.
It’s similar to the new safety measures in place for former President Donald Trump’s outdoor rallies following his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
Vance did have bulletproof glass in Asheboro, North Carolina, last week, but that was a joint event with the former president.
Speaking on the economy and jobs at a farm in Michigan, Vance began speaking about the Labor Department overstating its monthly job growth and then accused the Biden-Harris administration of inflating its job numbers to cover up the economy’s problems.
“Now, last week, the biggest heist in American history happened right under Kamala Harris’ nose,” Vance claimed. “Somebody stole 818,000 jobs that she and Tim Walz had been bragging about. Did y’all see that? Where did they go?”
He accused the administration of “cooking the books to hide how bad the economy really is under Kamala Harris.”
When discussing Harris’ record, Vance claimed that Harris doesn’t know what she believes.
“In some ways, I feel bad for Kamala Harris,” he said. “… But I’m not sure that this is a woman who knows what she actually believes.”
Harris, who laid out her economic agenda earlier this month, is still working to define her stances on several key voter issues. The vice president has already distanced herself from some of her former positions laid out in her 2020 presidential bid.
Vance referred back to Harris’ remarks at the Democratic National Convention last week, where she said there would be “consequences” putting Trump back into the Oval Office, asking “is she the vice president or the vice principal?”
Later, speaking to reporters, Vance said those Harris comments don’t resonate with Americans.
“I don’t think that’s persuasive to most Americans and warning them about voting for the wrong person is just, I think it’s ridiculous,” Vance said.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris has enough Democratic Party delegate votes in a virtual roll call to officially earn the party’s nomination when the roll call ends Monday, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday.
“I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of the Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday,” Harrison said during a campaign update video call on Friday.
“You returned your nomination petitions at lightning speed. You made your voices heard. And what you said was clear: We are not going back. We have to send Kamala Harris to the White House,” Harrison said to the delegates in a call plagued by audio issues. “You demonstrated your dedication and your commitment to this process.”
Convention delegates have been virtually voting by email or phone since 9 a.m. ET on Thursday in a virtual roll call set up by the Democratic National Committee. Delegates still have until Monday at 6 p.m. ET to vote in the nomination process, and Harris — who joined the call — highlighted that she would officially accept her nomination then, after the voting period is closed.
“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” said Harris, who the DNC deemed the presumptive nominee on Tuesday after she emerged from a process, laid out by the party’s Rules Committee, as the only qualified candidate.
“As your future president, I know we are up to this fight, and when we fight, everyone will say, we win,” she later added.
The nomination is a historic one — if she wins the general election in November against former President Donald Trump, she would be the first woman to serve as president. Harris is already the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to be vice president.
Friday’s announcement marks a major milestone of Harris’ rapid ascension to the top of the ticket, which comes just 12 days after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection on July 21 — a remarkable show of unity for a party that just weeks ago stood deeply divided over what to do about the president’s candidacy.
With Biden endorsing Harris to succeed him shortly after he announced that he would step aside, support from Democratic donors and elected officials quickly coalesced around the vice president. In the end, Harris was the only competitive candidate that launched a campaign to succeed Biden and the only candidate that received enough delegate signatures to progress to the virtual roll call.
Harris is the first candidate to become the nominee for either major party without winning a single party primary since Hubert Humphrey in 1968. (That year’s convention precipitated reforms that led to the modern primary process.)
The DNC initially decided in May to hold a virtual roll call because of uncertainty over deadlines to get on the ballot in Ohio. The state legislature eventually rectified the issue, but the DNC has argued that Republican lawmakers in Ohio are acting in bad faith and that the Democratic candidate needs to be nominated earlier than the convention to avoid legal issues. Ohio leaders have denied this allegation.
ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, Will McDuffie and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ post-debate campaign visits to North Carolina and Pennsylvania on Thursday and Friday, respectively, represents the start of a “more aggressive” campaigning stage, her campaign said.
Harris is set to hold two rallies in North Carolina and one in Pennsylvania as part of the kickoff for her “New Way Forward Tour,” which her campaign said is an effort to “capitalize on her decisive victory” against former President Donald Trump at the ABC News debate.
The campaign said that Harris had such a “commanding debate performance” that it spent Wednesday going through the footage to pinpoint moments they can use in upcoming ads in the coming days.
This phase will also see the vice president do more media engagements primarily targeting battleground states and other important constituencies, the campaign said, with local media interviews set for the coming days. She will also participate in a discussion with the National Association of Black Journalists next week.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Gov. Tim Walz and Gwen Walz will each hit the road as part of the tour as well.
Emhoff will be in Arizona and Nevada on Thursday; Gov. Walz will be in Michigan on Thursday and Wisconsin on Friday; and Mrs. Walz will be in New Hampshire on Thursday.
The campaign’s new tour will also feature surrogate events, including a Republicans for Harris function in Phoenix, Arizona, an HBCU student event in Savannah, Georgia, and a veterans and military families event in Columbus, Georgia.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is enjoying a bounce in her favorability rating among Americans just days after President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and endorsed her, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday.
The vice president’s favorability rating has jumped to 43%, with an unfavorability rating of 42%, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll released a week ago, Harris’ favorability rating was 35%, while 46% viewed her unfavorability.
Following Biden’s July 20 announcement that he would end his reelection campaign, most major Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, endorsed Harris’ run and she hit the campaign trail.
The vice president, who has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitments when voting, according to ABC News reporting, saw a major jump in her favorability rating among the politically crucial group, independents.
Forty-four percent of independents have a favorable view of Harris, up from only 28% a week ago. Her unfavorability rating among independents is now 40%, which is a slight drop from 47% last week.
There have been no discussions of another Democrat challenging Harris for the nomination and a slight majority of Americans, 52%, say she should be the Democratic nominee, the poll found. This number jumps to 86% among Democrats, compared to 51% of independents and only 20% of Republicans.
Harris has an edge over former President Donald Trump when it comes to how much enthusiasm Americans feel for them as nominees. Forty-eight percent of Americans say they would feel enthusiastic if Harris becomes the Democratic nominee. Fewer, 39%, say they are enthusiastic about Trump being the Republican nominee.
Enthusiasm for Harris as the Democratic nominee peaks among Democrats (88%) and Black Americans (70%). Forty-nine percent of independents express enthusiasm for Harris, whereas only 31% of independents are enthusiastic about Trump.
Trump’s favorability rating dropped slightly from 40%, measured in the week following the attempted assassination and the Republican National Convention, to 36% in the most recent poll.
Trump’s favorability rating among independents also saw a drop in the last week. Twenty-seven percent of independents have a favorable of Trump, which is down from 35% last week.
Political professionals have also been paying a significant amount of attention to a potential swing group of “double haters,” those Americans who have unfavorable views of both Biden and Trump.
In the ABC News/Ipsos poll last week, 15% of Americans held unfavorable views of both Trump and Biden.
Driven largely by an increase in Harris’ favorability, the proportion of Americans who dislike both nominees, Harris and Trump, now has been cut in half to 7%.
Turnout will be crucial in the Fall contest for the presidency and, compared to an ABC News/Washington Post Poll conducted in early July, there has been an increase in the proportion of Democrats saying they are absolutely certain to vote – going from 70% to 76%. This is now about equal to the 78% of Republicans who say they are certain to vote in the November contest.
Trump repeatedly bashed Harris and Democrats on the campaign trail this week and refused to stay committed to the second presidential debate, which would be hosted by ABC News, in September. He also lashed out against Biden for ending his campaign.
Biden vowed to focus on the final months of his presidency as he “passed the torch” to Harris during a speech to the nation Wednesday night. The president’s poor debate performance and declining polling numbers pushed many Democrats to call on Biden to end his race.
Following his sudden announcement of exiting the presidential race, Biden’s favorability though still low, has improved to 37%, a five percentage point increase from the prior week, with an unfavorability rating of 50%, a five percentage point decline from last week, the poll found.
Trump’s running mate JD Vance saw no change in his favorability rating in the last week, but the proportion of Americans viewing him unfavorably has increased.
The Ohio senator’s favorability rating is 24%, similar to his 23% rating in last week’s poll. But the proportion viewing him unfavorably has increased from 31% last week to 39% now, according to the poll.
When it comes to potential Democratic vice presidential candidates, the majority of Americans had no opinion or not enough knowledge to make one when it came to several names who have been floated in the last week, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelley, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the poll found.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® July 26-27, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,200 U.S. adults with oversamples of Black and Hispanic respondents weighted to their correct proportions in the general population. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.0 points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls. Partisan divisions are 31-29-29 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
ABC News’ Dan Merkle and Ken Goldstein contributed to this report.