Harris campaign deploying Walz in new push for male voters in swing states
(WASHINGTON) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday kicks off new push to reach male voters in swing states, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign confirmed to ABC News.
As part of the push, the campaign is highlighting ABC’s Michael Strahan exclusive interview with Walz that aired on “Good Morning America” Friday morning.
Walz travels to Michigan, where he will deliver remarks on “protecting workers and investing in manufacturing, and then join a political engagement with Black male voters,” the campaign said.
Walz will do a round of local TV interviews in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that will be taped on Friday — focused on hunting and high school football.
Later in the day, Walz will return to Mankato West — the Minnesota high school where he taught and also coached football.
He will attend the school’s homecoming game and deliver a pep talk before the team takes on rival Mankato East.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Mankato West’s state championship win, according to the campaign.
The campaign will also release a video on Walz’s social media channels featuring what it says is never-before-aired footage from the state championship game and interviews with Tim and Gwen Walz’s former students and players.
Saturday marks the Pheasant Opener in Minnesota and a group of outdoors digital creators will join Walz for an early morning hunt in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.
(WASHINGTON) — GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance on Monday magnified a false claim that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
In a post on X, Vance published a video of himself at a July Senate Banking Committee hearing, reading a letter from Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck about the city’s challenges in keeping up with housing for the growing Haitian immigrant population.
In the post, Vance pushed the false claim that Haitian immigrants are kidnapping and eating people’s pets in Springfield.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” Vance wrote on X. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he asked, a term that Republicans have attempted to tag Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris with, although she has denied holding that role.
But Heck debunked those claims about Springfield in a statement to ABC News.
“In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Heck said in his statement.
“Additionally, there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes. Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic,” Heck said.
According to the Springfield News-Sun, the Springfield Police Department has not received any reports of pets being stolen and eaten.
The false claim that immigrants are targeting people’s pets stemmed from a social media posting originally from a Springfield Facebook group that went viral, where the poster wrote that their neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat. The poster went on to make an unsubstantiated claim of Haitians allegedly taking the cat for food.
The post was picked up by people on social media, including rightwing activist Turning Points’ Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk.
Springfield, Ohio, has been at the center of several rumors concerning Haitian immigrants. The city even created a webpage debunking some claims.
Migrants have been drawn to the region because of low cost of living and work opportunities, the city says on its site. The city estimates there are around 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living in the county, and that the rapid rise in population has strained housing, health care, and school resources. But the city also says that the migrants are in the country legally and that many are recipients of Temporary Protected Status from the federal government.
On Monday, Ohio Attorney General David Yost said the population in Springfield has grown by more than a third. In a statement, he announced he’s directing his office to “research legal avenues to stop the federal government from sending an unlimited number of migrants to Ohio communities.”
“The problem is not migrants, it is way, way too many migrants in a short period of time,” Yost said in his statement. “The problem is a massive increase in the population without any communication or assistance from the federal government.”
A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump says he has agreed to an offer from ABC News to debate Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10.
Trump said so during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago Club on Thursday.
“I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight,” he said.
Harris also confirmed her participation in the debate and told reporters Thursday evening that she’s looking forward to the matchup.
“Well, I’m glad that he finally agreed to a debate on Sept. 10. I’m looking forward to it and I hope he shows up,” she told reporters on a tarmac in Detroit.
Trump previously said he had been willing to go toe-to-toe with President Joe Biden and agreed to ABC’s first invitation issued in May.
However, after Biden dropped out of the race last month and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Trump had implied he would not debate Harris on ABC.
Harris has accused Trump of “running scared” and trying to back out of the debate.
(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.