DNC virtual roll call kicks off, teeing up Harris’ nomination
(WASHINGTON) — A virtual voting process kicks off on Thursday morning to formally designate Vice President Kamala Harris the official presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
Harris was already deemed the presumptive nominee by the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday after she emerged from a process, laid out by the party’s Rules Committee, as the only qualified candidate.
The results of the virtual roll call — opening at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday — will be announced after 6 p.m. ET on Monday, which is the deadline for convention delegates to virtually submit votes. Delegates will get a secure ballot to cast a vote “on a rolling basis.”
Thus, Harris’ official nomination will come two weeks ahead of Democrats’ in-person convention starting in Chicago on Aug. 19.
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.
The virtual process is expected to mimic the nominating and voting that is held at the Democratic National Convention every four years, with a ceremonial roll call still slated to be held in-person in Chicago.
“Democratic delegates from across the nation made their voices heard, overwhelmingly backing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee,” a statement from DNC Chair Jamie Harrison and DNCC Chair Minyon Moore released on Tuesday night said.
“We move to this final stage of our nomination process with unprecedented momentum and unity across our party. We stand united in our mission to elect a Democratic nominee who has the experience, the wisdom, and the bold determination to lead our country, and we stand united in our mission to defeat Donald Trump once again … We look forward to celebrating together with all of our delegates in Chicago,” they added.
In order to have been qualified for the presidential nomination, candidates needed to submit a declaration of candidacy and to get 300 delegates to send in virtual signatures supporting them. That window to submit materials concluded on Tuesday.
Three other Democrats who are not Harris had indicated their interest to run for the top of the ticket: Robert C. “Robby” Wells, Jr., Gibran Nicholas and Ralph Robbie Hoffman.
The DNC said on Tuesday that these three individuals did not make the threshold of 300 delegate signatures to qualify for the ballot.
According to the party, “3,923 delegates from across the country petitioned to put Vice President Harris on the ballot for the Democratic nomination, and Vice President Harris secured the support of 99% of participating delegates, with 84% of total delegates submitting a signature during the petitioning phase.”
The process received more scrutiny after President Joe Biden’s debate performance in late June, which sparked a contentious debate within the party over if he should continue running for president and accusations that the virtual roll call process would shuttle him to the nomination regardless. (The DNC at the time emphasized that the process had been greenlit before the debate.)
Once Biden stepped out of the race and endorsed Harris, the debate around the virtual roll call mostly receded, although some still called for a less complicated nominating process. It took only about two days into her new candidacy for Harris to secure enough non-binding commitments from delegates around the country who said that they’d vote for her to assure she’d clinch the nomination.
“I don’t like doing a virtual roll call vote on principle, but I understand the need for one this year,” Will Thompson, a delegate from North Dakota who has said he is supporting Harris, told ABC News.
He hopes future party conventions could be scheduled earlier in order to not run into deadline and timing issues with getting on state ballots.
“I trust the security of the virtual roll call process, but as someone who was unable to go to the 2020 DNC in person because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was looking forward to doing everything in person this year … it won’t dampen my extremely high enthusiasm for the event and election writ large,” Thompson said.
(LEWISBURG, Pa.) — If elections are about “the economy, stupid,” Ben McDuffee has not had the kind of confidence-boosting year that would make him feel good about keeping Democrats at the top of the ticket for four more years. And he is a Democrat.
The Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, resident lost his job late last year. He worked in financing for the auto industry and was unemployed for three months. During that time, he applied to more than 200 jobs. In March, he accepted a position at a local credit union — and a $30,000 pay cut.
That income hit, combined with higher prices at the grocery store and a recent increase in their monthly rent, meant tightening the budget. He and his wife put plans on hold to buy a home for themselves and their 11-year-old son, as interest rates rose, too.
“You know, ultimately, the question that voters ask when they go to the polls every four years is, am I in a better spot than I was four years ago? And when we’re swiping our card for groceries every week, we are absolutely not in a better spot than we were four years ago,” McDuffee said in an interview with ABC News at his home.
“So, we have to balance that with — what do we think will happen with the country if we pick the other guy?”
From what he sees everyday in his rural Pennsylvania town — a sliver of one of the most critical swing states in the country — dislike of “the other guy,” former President Donald Trump, might not be enough for Vice President Kamala Harris to overcome what he sees as a major liability: the economy.
It’s the reality of this election, and it rings especially true in his battleground state: despite a strong recovery from the global pandemic — including record-low unemployment, increased wage growth and consistently sturdy consumer spending — the economy is still a top concern for voters.
According to an ABC News-Washington Post/Ipsos poll, more than 85% of adults rank the economy and inflation as highly important for their vote for president, by far the two highest-ranking issues. And voters trusted Trump over Harris on both issues by 9 points.
“There’s a disconnect between these macroeconomic numbers that are coming out and then what we’re hearing people are reporting about how they feel about the economy,” Heidi Shierholz, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist for the Department of Labor during the Obama administration.
A major reason it’s such a steep political challenge, she says, is that high prices are more obvious to people on a daily basis than national statistics or even their own pay raise.
“People’s living standards are actually growing despite the higher price level. So what’s going on now is actually what we want to see,” Shierholz said. “But it still is frustrating when you go to the grocery store or wherever and you see these high prices. You don’t always think in the back of your head, ‘Well, I also got that big wage increase, I can cover this and still be okay’.”
Since the peak of the pandemic recession, the U.S. has seen an increase in overall consumer prices by 20%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the inflation-adjusted wages have also risen, on average, by about 25%.
That leaves some people feeling worse off than they actually are — and for people like McDuffee, who have seen their income fall or stay flat, the squeeze of higher prices is particularly sharp.
“I don’t doubt the numbers. But it all comes down to what you can do with the money that you have for your family. And you don’t feel all of all these great numbers,” McDuffee said.
It’s a perception Harris knows she will need to reverse to win over voters in critical battleground states like Pennsylvania, which could be key to winning her the presidency.
“Today, by virtually every measure, our economy is the strongest in the world,” Harris said in a recent campaign rally focused on the economy in North Carolina. But she was also careful to try not to alienate voters who don’t feel those impacts.
“We know that many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives. Costs are still too high. And on a deeper level, for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,” Harris added.
To address this concern, Harris and President Joe Biden have pushed a “lowering costs” campaign, a handful of policies aimed at bringing down daily prices for people.
Efforts like negotiating down the price of drugs covered by Medicare, so seniors pay less for their prescriptions, and passing regulations that require companies to disclose “junk fees” on products like hotel rooms or concert tickets. For nearly 4.8 million people, the administration has canceled student loans.
For McDuffee, these policies aren’t cutting through.
He will reluctantly vote for Harris, he says, but he knows that many voters will prioritize their bank accounts in November.
“The only thing that I think a lot of consumers feel is when they swipe their card at the gas pump, at the grocery store, you know, buying back-to-school clothes, all of those items are more expensive than they were four years ago,” McDuffee said. “And I think that’s what resonates.”
Three hours southeast, though, Philadelphia City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson says she’s an example of why the Biden administration’s piecemeal policies are working — and have exponentially changed her family’s economic trajectory.
“No hesitation at all. I’m better off than I was four years ago. My family is better off because of the work of the Biden-Harris administration. And my children will be better off because of the Biden-Harris administration, if nothing more,” she said in an interview at her home in West Philadelphia.
Richardson, who has worked for the city for over 20 years, had her student debt canceled as part of major reforms to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or PSLF, which allows peoples’ remaining debts to be forgiven after they’ve worked in public service and made loan payments for 10 years.
She has since helped her husband and her sister, who both work in non-profits and social work, respectively, to have their debts canceled, as well.
Through her family’s savings on student debt payments, Richardson, a mother of three, enrolled her two youngest children in one-on-one reading camp this summer.
Yet Richardson knows that receiving debt relief is a unique reason to feel good about the economy. Of the 43 million Americans with student loan debt, roughly one in 10 have so far had loans canceled by the Biden-Harris administration.
“I do hear from my constituents who have a number of concerns regarding the economy and their ability to be able to afford good quality housing to, you know, for food costs and to be able to take care of their families,” Richardson acknowledged.
Still, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and a big fan of both Biden and Harris, Richardson says she believes her story reflects ongoing efforts to reduce financial burdens and a reason to re-elect the Democrats.
“I think we have to do a better job of telling that story and talking about the work that they’re seeking to do,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is back in Washington and is preparing to roll out her economic plan on the road in North Carolina on Friday, which will mark her first major policy rollout since becoming the Democratic nominee. As Donald Trump looks for a campaign reset, he spoke with Elon Musk live on Tuesday and will deliver remarks on the economy in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Harris to roll out economic plan on Friday
Harris will outline her economic policy in a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday, her campaign announced, making it her first major policy rollout since jumping into the race.
Harris’ speech will detail her plan to “lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price-gouging,” a campaign official said.
The vice president has heavily focused her stump speech on the economy while on the campaign trail in recent weeks, saying over the weekend she would look to eliminate taxes on tips earned by service workers — a proposal Trump announced earlier this summer.
Harris’ college sorority creates PAC
The historically Black Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., of which Vice President Kamala Harris counts herself a member, started its own political PAC last week, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission posted Monday.
The committee is named Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority PAC, Inc., or AKA 1908 PAC, the filing shows.
Harris has been an AKA since her days as a student at the historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C. Harris on Monday visited the campus, her office confirmed to ABC News, but it’s not clear why she was there.
In July, before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Harris spoke at the AKA’s annual Boulé in Dallas, Texas. Since then, as a candidate, she’s also addressed similar national gatherings of two other historically Black sororities, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho.
Trump says he will return to Butler, Pennsylvania after assassination attempt
After discussing the assassination attempt made against him in Pennsylvania in July, former President Donald Trump said he’s planning a trip back to Butler in October.
“We’re going back to Butler; we’re gonna go back in October,” Trump said, adding, “Butler is a big, great area.”
Addressing what he’ll say when he returns, Trump told Musk, “I think I’ll probably start by saying I was so horribly interrupted.”
Trump discusses assassination attempt with Musk, says he turned head at ‘perfect angle’
During his conversation with Musk, former President Donald Trump addressed the assassination attempt made against him during a campaign rally in July.
“It was amazing that I happened to be turned just at that perfect angle,” Trump said of the bullet, which grazed his right ear while his head was turned.
During the discussion, Trump mentioned the man who was killed in the shooting, saying, it was a “very sad situation.”
“We lost somebody that was firefighter, a great Trumper,” Trump said of Corey Comperatore, adding, “He was a just a fantastic family [man] and a fantastic man.”
Trump and Musk’s conversation on X appears to be delayed
The conversation between former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk appears to be delayed, with many X users reporting they cannot access the Spaces conversation.
“This Space is not available,” appeared for some users on X.
The conversation was scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Judge orders RFK Jr. off New York ballot
A New York judge ruled Monday that the thousands of signatures gathered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign in the state were “invalidated” after a Democrat-aligned group argued he misled voters by listing as his home an address he rarely visits.
The judge, Christina Ryba, ordered the New York Board of Elections to not include Kennedy’s name on the ballot this fall.
A lawyer representing Kennedy told reporters last week they would appeal any ruling that went against them.
The ruling could prompt Democrats to bring similar lawsuits against Kennedy in other states where he gathered signatures from registered voters to appear on the ballot.
The FBI is investigating alleged attempts by Iran to target the then-Biden-Harris campaign, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
The alleged targeting via spear-fishing emails occurred before Biden announced he would exit the 2024 presidential race, the sources said.
While the campaign was targeted, the alleged hack was not successful, sources added.
The FBI is investigating a purported hack of the Trump campaign, according to a brief statement from the agency earlier Monday.
The FBI did not attribute the hack to anyone in its statement.
A source familiar with the matter told ABC News that Trump adviser Roger Stone has also been informed that his email accounts have been compromised, and that he’s cooperating with any investigation into the matter.
The Washington Post first reported the news.
-ABC News’ Luke Barr, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Will Steakin and Katherine Faulders
Biden, Obama, Clintons tentatively slated to speak at DNC: Sources
President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are all tentatively slated to speak at the Democratic National Convention next week, sources familiar said.
The working speaking schedule, which can always change, is as follows, according to the sources:
Monday: President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday: Former President Barack Obama Wednesday: Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, former President Bill Clinton Thursday: Vice President Kamala Harris
-ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks and Fritz Farrow
Trump posts on X ahead of Musk interview
Trump posted on X for the first time in nearly a year ahead of his conversation with Elon Musk scheduled for Monday night.
The video posted is a previously released campaign ad referencing his multiple indictments and telling supporters, “They are not coming after me, they are coming after you.”
The last time Trump posted on X was Aug. 24, 2023. It was a picture of his mugshot from Fulton County, when he turned himself in to authorities following his election interference indictment in Georgia.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Kelsey Walsh, Soorin Kim
Trump to be interviewed by Elon Musk tonight
Trump, in a post to his conservative social media site Truth Social, announced he will be interviewed live by Musk on X at 8 p.m. ET.
It will mark a major return for Trump to X, formerly known as Twitter, since he was banned from the site following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was reinstated in late 2022 but declined to become active on the site again, despite boasting 88 million followers.
Musk endorsed Trump following the July 13 assassination attempt against the former president. Recently, Musk has amplified misinformation about voting and elections on his X feed.
Walz discusses ‘whirlwind’ 1st week on the campaign trail
In a video posted on his X account, the Minnesota governor discussed what he called “not a normal week” since being named as Harris’ running mate.
Walz confirmed some details reported previously by ABC News and others, including that he informed Harris’ vetting team that he had not used a teleprompter before.
“Not a normal week, which is a good thing. Started by missing a call from the Vice President, pretty important one. And then got that call and honored to join the ticket with Kamala Harris to take us in a great direction,” Walz said.
“After that, it has been a whirlwind. We got on a plane and we flew to Philly, and they told me that in an hour I’d be giving a speech and there would be a teleprompter, something I had never used in my life, so certainly terrified, but was lifted up by the folks in Philly.”
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris wraps battleground state blitz, Vance makes rounds on Sunday shows
Over the weekend, Harris closed out a cross-country tour that included stops in battleground states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona, as well as North Carolina and Nevada.
New polling released Saturday showed Harris taking the lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin among likely voters. The New York Times/Siena College polls showed Harris at 50% among likely voters in each state, while Trump polled at 46%.
Vance, too, campaigned in key 2024 states and made the rounds on the Sunday shows. During his cable news appearances, Vance reiterated campaign talking points on immigration and repeatedly hit Harris for not sitting down for extensive media interviews and laying out her agenda. Harris has done brief gaggles with reporters and said she’d unveil an economic policy platform this week.
Vance responds to mass deportation plan: ‘Let’s start with one million’
Sen. JD Vance told ABC News he blamed Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration’s policies, such as ending “Remain in Mexico,” for the ongoing migrant crisis.
When asked how he and Trump would accomplish their stated goal of mass deporting as many as 20 million immigrants — a proposal experts previously told ABC News would be a “nightmare” — Vance said they would take a “sequential approach.”
“I mean do you go knock on doors and ask people for their papers? What do you do,” Karl asked.
“You start with what’s achievable,” Vance said. “I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.”
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with one million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” Vance said.
Harris cautions donors to ‘not take anything for granted’
Vice President Kamala Harris attended a fundraiser in San Francisco Sunday where she maintained her campaign “will win this election,” but cautioned donors to “not take anything for granted.”
“I know there’s a lot of enthusiasm out there,” Harris said, adding, “And you know, I’ve never been one to really believe in the polls — whether they’re up or they’re down.”
“What we know is the stakes are so high and we can take nothing for granted in this critical moment,” she continued. “So we will fuel our campaign as we have, with enthusiasm and optimism, but also with a deep commitment to the hard work it’s going to take, and to campaign.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi introduced Harris at the event, touting the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration and the background of vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, several times calling the Harris-Walz ticket “the freedom ticket.”
“[Harris] makes us all so proud. She brings us so much joy. She gives us so much hope,” Pelosi said, calling the vice president “politically very astute.”
(TUCSON, Ariz.) — Former President Donald Trump unveiled a new economic policy on Thursday before a crowd in Tucson, Arizona, saying he would end taxing overtime pay.
“Today, I’m also announcing that as part of our additional tax cuts, we will end all taxes on overtime,” Trump said to loud cheers, “That gives people more of an incentive to work; it gives the companies a lot. It’s a lot easier to get the people.”
“The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them. … It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Trump has previously proposed ending taxes on tips and on Social Security benefits.
Trump offered no specifics on his new proposal, spending much of the speech airing his grievances about this week’s ABC News-hosted debate and again declaring he would not participate in any more, as he had earlier in the day, and attacking his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.
“So, because we’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate,” said Trump to cheers in Tucson. “It’s too late anyway, the voting has already begun. You got to go out and vote. We got to vote.”
He continued to also launch personal attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, mimicking her speaking style and expressions and mocking her name by saying nobody knows what her last name is.
“Now, Kamala is a very different kind of a word, nice name, very nice name,” Trump said. “You don’t know her as Harris. When you say Harris, everyone says, ‘Who the hell is that?’ right?”
Before unveiling his new economic proposal, the former president attempted to link immigration to the high cost of housing, arguing that a surge in undocumented migrants were driving up costs and creating dangerous neighborhoods.
Despite the fact that there were bomb threats reported in the town earlier Thursday and city officials vehemently and repeatedly denying the assertions, Trump again claimed that Haitian migrants were abducting animals in Springfield, Ohio – though not going as far on Thursday as to claim that they were eating them as he did in the debate and on his Truth Social platform.
In an anti-immigrant rant, Trump declared that the United States was being conquered by “foreign elements.” He ticked through stories of different cities and towns that he argued were being hurt by an influx of people crossing the border. In some instances, the former president didn’t name specific places, instead opting for general fear mongering rhetoric.
“There are hundreds and hundreds or thousands of stories. They’re coming in from all over the world, from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums and many tourists at numbers that we have never seen before. You’ve never seen these numbers before,” he said.
Despite Trump’s claims, a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed U.S.-born citizens “are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes” than undocumented immigrants.
And overall, both murder and rape rates are down 26% compared to the same time frame last year, according to the latest FBI statistics, which are released quarterly.
As with many of Trump’s economic policy rollouts, he offered little specifics over how the proposal would work and be paid for — which would likely fall on taxpayers. However, he did claim that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was “unfair” to people who paid off their loans.
“You know, he kept saying to these students, no more loans, no more loans, which was very unfair to the millions of people that actually paid off their loans over the years. Some of them took 20 years to pay them off, but, but that’s a dead deal.”
When it came to his affordable housing proposal, in an attempt to court suburban women, Trump highlighted his promise to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued could lead to discriminatory practices.
He also promised to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued is a form of exclusionary zoning to push minorities out of suburban communities.
“The Radical Left wants to abolish the suburbs by forcing apartment complexes and low-income housing into the suburbs right next to your beautiful house,” said Trump, who then turned to make his appeal to suburban women.
“The suburbs were safe. That’s why, when they say suburban women maybe don’t like Trump. I think they’re wrong. I think they love me. I do. I never had problems with women. I never had any problems,” he said.