The day so far
Donald Trump hit his favorite talking points in a rally held in Pennsylvania Friday afternoon, as he scolded the media, reiterated his call for death sentences for drug dealers, and spouted derogatory nicknames he’s assigned to opponents. The event was one of two on his schedule this afternoon as the former president heads back to Washington DC to speak at the national summit of Moms for Liberty, a conservative organization pushing for the removal of LGBTQ+ mentions and structural racism from schools.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is looking to keep her momentum with voters going, after yesterday conducting the first interview of her presidential bid with CNN, alongside her running mate Tim Walz. Her campaign has announced plans for an abortion-focused bus tour that will crisscross swing states, while Georgia is reportedly seeing a surge in registrations by new voters, particularly among the groups most likely to vote for Democrats.
Here’s what else happened today:
Kamala Harris’s campaign has responded to Donald Trump’s statement yesterday that he would support requiring the government or private insurances to back IVF care by saying he ‘lies as much if not more than he breathes’.
Trump addressed the recent altercation at Arlington cemetery, claiming he only posed for pictures because families asked him to. Arlington officials said in a statement that members of his campaign staff were reported for their behavior during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican candidate.
After receiving backlash for breaking with his base this week after he criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban, Trump clarified he will vote against an amendment that would strike it down.
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The Defend Democracy Project, an organization formed to combat misinformation about the results of the 2020 election, condemned the Trump’s attempt to move his election interference case from Manhattan to federal court on Friday.
After being convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in relation to hush-money he paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2020 election, Trump was scheduled to be sentenced next month in state court. Trump’s lawyers have been pushing to delay sentencing until after the November election.
“Trump already tried to move this case to federal court under the exact same statute in 2023 and was denied. This time, he is trying to use the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity to bolster his argument,” Ambassador Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee majority during the first impeachment and trial of President Trump and Michael Podhorzer, the chair of the Defend Democracy Project said in a joint statement issued Friday.
“Trump knows this argument is a dead-end on the merits, but he’s clearly hoping to quickly force this up the ladder to the complicit MAGA justices on the Supreme Court to once again save him from facing accountability for his repeated attempts to interfere in our elections.”
A man was tackled to the ground by officers at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally today, after he tried to climb over a fence and into the press area and then onto another piece of infrastructure at the event. Additional security has been added since the assassination attempt last month.
Videos taken by reporters of the altercation and posted online show several officers pulling the man down before pushing him to the ground, handcuffing him, and leading him out of the event, as Trump talks about the shooting incident in the background.
Video of the incident. Security in the press pen grabbed him first before he was taken down by law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/Xdw1CZ9dE0
— Taurean Small (@taureansmall) August 30, 2024
Trump defends himself from rambling accusations with wordy explanation
Donald Trump has defended himself from accusations that he rambles nonsensically at his rallies by claiming that he is in fact weaving together complex thoughts.
“You know, I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about like nine different things, that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say” ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen’,” he told a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
“But the fake news, you know what they say: ‘He rambled’. It’s not rambling.”
Updated
In her first solo campaign event, Gwen Walz, the wife of vice presidential candidate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, said she didn’t “take kindly” to remarks from JD Vance about family planning.
Vance has recently said childless citizens have less of a stake in the future of the US, but Walz responded to resurfaced remarks he made back in 2021 about childless teachers:
JD Vance said he was ‘really disturbed’ by teachers who don’t have biological children. For a long time, Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility. We were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments. We do not take kindly to folks like JD Vance telling us when or how to start our families. So let me use my teacher voice. Mr. Vance, how about you mind your own business?”
.@GwenWalz: JD Vance said he was 'really disturbed' by teachers who don't have biological children. For a long time, Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility. We were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments. We do not take kindly to folks like JD… pic.twitter.com/XrrepJRAOX
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 30, 2024
Trump tells Fox News he will vote against Florida's six-week abortion amendment
On Friday, in comments to Fox News, Trump also clarified his position on a Florida amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution and overturn the six-week abortion ban, saying he would vote against it. The Republican candidate had previously told NBC News that the six-week window is “too short”, sparking confusion about his stance.
“I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks,” Trump said Friday, but added: “At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month … So I’ll be voting no for that reason.”
The amendment would ensure access to abortion care before fetal viability around the 24th week, and add exceptions when the mother’s health is in danger.
Trump says he will vote to uphold Florida’s 6-week abortion ban pic.twitter.com/zf4RbhvN4B
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 30, 2024
Updated
Trump says gold star families asked him for picture at Arlington as he again addresses controversy
Trump addressed the recent controversy at Arlington cemetery, when members of his campaign staff were reported for their behavior during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican candidate. Trump was there participating in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US service personnel killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan, and he told supporters at his rally that he was asked by families there to take photos.
Blaming Biden and Harris (whose name mispronounces frequently) for the deaths of these soldiers, Trump said it was a “beautiful ceremony”:
“After the ceremony they said, could you come to the graves?” he said, insisting he didn’t want any publicity.
“I am the only guy who would hire a public relations agency to get less publicity,” he said, but added he wanted to do so for these families. “I am so happy they took pictures of me and them and the tombstone and their lovely son or daughter – there was a daughter too, an incredible daughter, frankly.”
But as Richard Luscombe reported:
In a statement, Arlington acknowledged one of its representatives became involved in the altercation with two Trump staffers, telling them that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in section 60, an area where recent US casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the statement said, adding that “a report was filed” over the incident.
“Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants,” the statement said.
The staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside” as the person attempted to prevent them from accompanying Trump into the section, according to NPR, which first published the allegation on Tuesday night.
Updated
Here are some of the latest pictures from the Trump rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania:
Trump hits favorite talking points of immigration and media attacks
Trump has already hit many of his favorite talking points in this speech, opening by scolding journalists present at the event, using derogatory nicknames for his opponents, and talking about his patriotism. He claimed he would push for prison time for anyone who burns an American flag, even though the action is protected by the constitution, and that he agrees with death sentences for drug dealers. He also repeated claims about immigration.
From the Guardian’s Chris McGreal:
Donald Trump has attacked foreign governments for allegedly emptying their prisons and shipping criminals to the US illegally. But then said that if he was in charge of the same countries he would be more effective at the same thing.
‘If I was running one of those countries, I’d be doing better than them at getting them out,’ he told a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Trump was hitting a favoured theme even though he has yet to produce evidence for his claim. But he did make reference to the release of video of Venezuelan gangs operating in Aurora, Colorado including shootouts. Trump has previously alleged that the Venezuelan government is one of those sending known criminals across the Mexican border.
Updated
Trump holds rally in Pennsylvania
Donald Trump’s supporters have gathered and are waiting for him to speak in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The former president is expected to take the stage at about 4.45pm ET, before heading to a national summit in Washington of Moms for Liberty, a conservative organization pushing for the removal of LGBTQ+ mentions and structural racism from schools.
Updated
Responding to Trump's IVF policy, Harris campaign says former president 'lies as much if not more than he breathes'
Kamala Harris’s campaign has responded to Donald Trump’s statement yesterday that he would support requiring the government or private insurances to back IVF care:
Our statement on Trump lying about IVF pic.twitter.com/IVd6Tl3XOk
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 29, 2024
It’s worth noting that Democrats in the Senate have proposed legislation that would protect access to IVF, in response to the Alabama supreme court’s decision earlier this year that essentially banned the care in the state.
However, Republican lawmakers have stopped that bill from passing:
If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard much about Joe Biden these past few days …
It’s because the president has been on vacation ever since giving the keynote speech on the first night of last week’s Democratic convention. Photographers saw him on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday:
Here’s a look back at his speech to the Democratic convention, where he made good on his pledge to pass the torch to Kamala Harris:
Gwen Walz says Trump 'put access to IVF at risk' after former president tries to pitch himself as IVF champion
The Harris campaign clearly wants to keep reproductive rights at the top of voters’ minds in the weeks that remain before the 5 November election.
Here’s Gwen Walz, the wife of vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, in Virginia:
"Donald Trump is the one who took down Roe and put access to IVF at risk. That's a fact."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 30, 2024
Gwen Walz slams Trump on reproductive rights at campaign event. pic.twitter.com/B2KOcT0iBr
Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would support requiring the government or private insurances to pay for IVF care.
Updated
Patrick T Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who opposes abortion, called Donald Trump’s statement of support for a Florida ballot measure that would expand abortion access “another middle finger towards pro-lifers.”
Though Trump played a major role in overturning Roe v Wade by appointing three of the conservative justices who approved the ruling, Brown’s piece underscore how uneasy his relationship is with advocates for limiting abortion. Here’s more, from Brown’s Substack:
Florida is faced with a ballot amendment that would wipe nearly all restrictions on abortion off the books this fall. It needs 60% of votes to pass, so pro-lifers had been modestly hopefully they could keep the “yes” vote under the threshold. But their cause will not be helped by Trump suggesting that he is “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks” (though his campaign later “clarified” that he “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative.”) This, of course, comes after Trump has repeatedly stressed how “everyone” should be happy that the Dobbs returns abortion regulation to the states. Apparently his version of federalism only goes one direction, as his sandbagging of the efforts of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other pro-life Florida Republicans could push the “yes” side over the finish line in November - a catastrophe for the pro-life cause in the Sunshine State and nationwide.
But wait - there’s more. At a rally that night, he outlined a proposal for covering IVF either through an Obamacare insurance mandate or paying for it with public money. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the cost per successful IVF outcome ranges somewhere around $61,000, and over 90,000 babies were born via IVF in 2022 (2.5% of all births nationwide.) That’s a static estimate of $50 billion over a ten-year budget window, putting aside what universally available free IVF would do to increase demand. For those who remember the contraceptive mandate fight of 2012, this would be that — on steroids.
Kamala Harris’s response to a question during her CNN interview last night about her views on Israel’s invasion of Gaza was not well received by the Uncommitted movement, which has called for the Democratic party to stop supporting the incursion.
“Israel has a right to defend itself – we would,” Harris said, while adding, “How it does so matters,” and “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
She reiterated her support for the Biden administration’s long-running efforts to secure a ceasefire in the enclave, saying, “We have got to get a deal done. This war must end.”
In response, the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founders, Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, said:
The Vice President’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted as the lack of American consequences for Netanyahu’s horrific assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has emboldened Israel to now invade the West Bank. Vice President Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time by aligning with the American majority that opposes sending weapons to Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The controversy over the Trump campaign’s visit to Arlington does not appear to be going away – and some Democrats are weighing in on what they see as the latest example of the former president’s lack of respect for fallen soldiers and active servicemen and women.
New Jersey congresswoman and former Navy pilot Mikie Sherill wrote on X earlier this week: “Arlington National Cemetery isn’t a place for campaign photo-ops. It’s a sacred resting place for American patriots.
“But for Donald Trump, disrespecting military veterans is just par for the course. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
Arlington National Cemetery isn't a place for campaign photo-ops. It's a sacred resting place for American patriots.
— Mikie Sherrill (@MikieSherrill) August 28, 2024
But for Donald Trump, disrespecting military veterans is just par for the course.
It's an absolute disgrace.
We're not going back.https://t.co/MRgU95xx0u
And the Hill reports Virginia congressman Gerry Connolly and Maine representative Jared Golden – a former Marine – also criticized Trump’s use of the military cemetery for campaign purposes.
Connolly said it was “sad but all too expected that Donald Trump would desecrate this hallowed ground and put campaign politics ahead of honoring our heroes”.
Golden reportedly said “all visitors should take the time to learn the rules of decorum that ensure the proper respect is given to the fallen and their families”.
Updated
In her interview with CNN, Kamala Harris made herself out to be a centrist leader who was not interested in discussing how her election would break longstanding racial and gender barriers in US politics, the Guardian’s Gabrielle Canon reports:
In a primetime spot on CNN Thursday evening, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sat for their first interview together as the Democratic ticket, taking questions from the anchor Dana Bash on a range of important issues, including their plans for day one if they win the race, the approach to the war in Gaza, and how Joe Biden passed the baton.
With just over two months until voters will head to the polls on 5 November – and even less time before some will mail in their ballots – the Democratic candidates for president and vice-president made good on a promise to speak more candidly about how they will tackle the US’s most pressing problems.
But this interview was about more than just policies and priorities.
For weeks, Republicans and members of the media have called for the nominees to open themselves up to questions, especially the vice-president, who has for the most part sidestepped unscripted moments in the six weeks since the president ended his bid for re-election and endorsed her. Analysts and opponents were watching Thursday’s interview closely for new insights into how a Harris administration would approach the presidency, how the candidates interact with one another, and how she would respond in more candid moments.
Here’s what we learned:
Kamala Harris finally sat down for an interview yesterday, alongside her running mate Tim Walz. The encounter with CNN quelled weeks of growing pressure for her to interact with the press, though expect it to amp back up again if she doesn’t keep the outreach going. Here’s more on what the vice-president had to say, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:
Democrats lauded it as the perfect pitch; Donald Trump dismissed it as “boring”, while fellow Republicans invoked derogatory terms like “gobbledygook”.
Between the two extremes, Kamala Harris appeared to have achieved what she wanted from Thursday’s groundbreaking CNN interview, given along with her running mate, Tim Walz – her first since become the Democratic presidential nominee.
Under fierce scrutiny after nearly six weeks of interview radio silence, the vice-president earned lavish praise from the Democratic base while denying Republicans a clear line of attack simply by avoiding major missteps of the type that undid Joe Biden’s candidacy in June’s climactic debate.
The performance is also unlikely to shake up a race that has reversed itself since Harris entered it and replaced Biden, flipping a narrow but solid Trump lead into a contest in which she is now firmly ahead.
A commentator with AZCentral.com – a news site in the key swing state of Arizona – called the performance “too sane to be great TV”, an implicit comparison with Trump’s frequently ostentatious media appearances.
Commenting on her championing of Biden’s record in office, the New York Times noted that “it turns out, Ms Harris is a better salesperson for Mr Biden’s accomplishments and defender of his record than he ever was”.
But the highest praise came from Harris’s party supporters.
“This interview with Dana Bash is a moment to recognize that it is absolutely under-appreciated that Vice President Harris is running a perfect campaign,” Bill Burton, a former deputy press secretary in Barack Obama’s presidency, posted on X.
For Donald Trump’s niece, his political ascension has been so devastating that it pushed her to seek ketamine treatment, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
In a new memoir, Mary L Trump, niece of Donald Trump, writes of being pushed to despair, and ketamine therapy, by her uncle’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, his chaotic, far-right administration and his refusal to leave national politics despite his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020.
“I’m here because five years ago, I lost control of my life,” Mary Trump writes, describing ketamine treatment undertaken in December 2021. “I’m here because the world has fallen away and I don’t know how to find my way back.
“I’m here because Donald Trump is my uncle.”
Her doctor, she says, answered: “I’m sorry. That must be very difficult for you.”
Now 59, Mary Trump is a trained psychologist and bestselling author. Her new book, Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir, will be published in the US on 10 September. The Guardian obtained a copy.
The day so far
Kamala Harris is looking to keep her momentum with voters going, after yesterday conducting the first interview of her presidential bid with CNN, alongside her running mate Tim Walz. Her campaign has announced plans for an abortion-focused bus tour that will crisscross swing states, while Georgia is reportedly seeing a surge in registrations by new voters, particularly among the groups most likely to vote for Democrats. Speaking of abortion, Donald Trump yesterday said he supported a ballot initiative to overturn Florida’s six-week ban on the procedure, but both his campaign and running mate JD Vance are trying to walk back the comment, underscoring the perils of the GOP’s position on the issue.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump also broke with years of Republican orthodoxy by saying he wouldn’t move to block abortion access in Washington DC, and told supporters he wanted the government or private insurance to pay for IVF care.
Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, apologized after his campaign used images of Trump’s visit to Arlington national cemetery this week – which the former president has refused to do.
House Republicans will travel to southern California for a judiciary committee hearing that will likely be aimed at Harris and her stance on undocumented migration.
House Republicans, who have spent much of their nearly two years in control of Congress’s lower chamber investigating the Biden administration with mixed results, will next week hold a judiciary committee hearing on the effects of undocumented migrants in California.
That is, of course, Kamala Harris’s home state, which she represented in the Senate from 2017 to 2021. The hearing, titled “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: California Perspectives” will take place next Friday in Santee, California, a San Diego suburb in a Republican-leaning House district.
Donald Trump and his allies have campaigned on cracking down on undocumented migrants, and have accused Harris of changing her answers over whether or not she supports building a wall along the border with Mexico.
The vice-president’s stated policy on the matter is a little more complicated than they make it out to be:
Updated
Trump again tries to play down Arlington controversy and claims he knew nothing of the rules
NBC News asked Donald Trump about his campaign’s decision to use images of his visit to Arlington national cemetery in communications to supporters, including on TikTok.
He downplayed the controversial decision, saying, essentially, that they were just pictures and that he did not know “what the rules and regulations are”:
Trump claims without evidence that his Arlington National Cemetery photo-op controversy “was a setup by the people in the administration.”
— The Recount (@therecount) August 30, 2024
“All I do is, I stood there and I said, if you'd like to have a picture, we can have a picture.” pic.twitter.com/duK4yO3oyj
Updated
Utah governor who joined Trump at Arlington says visit was not meant to be campaign event
Meanwhile, outrage continues over Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington national cemetery on Monday, during which one of his staffers pushed aside a cemetery employee who tried to prevent them from shooting pictures and video in an area where doing so was prohibited.
While the former president’s campaign has forcefully rejected criticism of their conduct, their indignation was not shared by Utah governor Spencer Cox, who joined Trump during the visit.
In a post on X, he apologized for using images of the cemetery, where American war dead are buried, in a campaign email:
You are correct Alan. This was not a campaign event and was never intended to be used by the campaign. It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent. My campaign will be sending out an apology.
— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) August 28, 2024
Updated
In an interview with CNN today, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance was asked about the former president’s stated opposition to Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
The Ohio senator also tried to clean Trump’s remarks up:
The president is simply saying he doesn’t like six weeks. He obviously has said he doesn’t like late-term abortion, and I think he will make an announcement on what he actually wants to do on the Florida law in particular. But again, President Trump has been extremely consistent that he’s going to make this decision as a citizen of Florida.
Trump speaks out against Florida abortion restrictions - then campaign walks it back
In further evidence that Donald Trump isn’t quite sure how to balance his party’s longstanding opposition to abortion with concerns that many voters favor continued access to the procedure, the former president yesterday spoke out against Florida’s abortion ban, leaving his campaign to clean up his comments.
Florida, where Trump lives, bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and voters in November will decide whether to pass a measure guaranteeing a right to the procedure until fetal viability, which is usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. NBC News yesterday asked Trump how he’d vote on the measure. He replied:
I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.
That didn’t sit well with his campaign, who quickly moved to walk back the former president’s comments, the Associated Press reports:
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement after the rally Thursday that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida” known as Amendment 4 and that he “simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.”
His comments nonetheless drew immediate reaction from those who oppose abortion rights, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who said she had spoken with Trump after his speech.
“He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position,” she said, adding that, “anyone who believes in drawing a different line” still “must vote against Amendment 4, unless they don’t want a line at all.”
Updated
Kamala Harris spent the last two days in Georgia on a bus tour (her campaign seems to like bus tours) that culminated with a rally in Savannah yesterday evening. From the Guardian’s Justin Glawe, here’s what the vice-president told supporters, as she hopes for a repeat of the luck Joe Biden had in the state four years ago:
After two days on a bus tour through south-east Georgia with her running mate, Tim Walz, Kamala Harris arrived at an arena in Savannah to a boisterous crowd and told them that despite the state being a stretch, it is still winnable in November.
“Don’t pay attention to polls – we are underdogs,” the vice-president said, telling the roughly 9,500 attendees that they had “work to do” in order to secure victory. “We don’t mind hard work. Hard work is for workers.”
Thousands waited outside for hours as a spitting rain became a steady drizzle, which turned into an outright downpour, on a hot and characteristically humid Savannah afternoon. Inside, thousands of supporters filled out an arena usually reserved for minor league hockey games and concerts – taking up every last seat.
“It’s good to be back in Savannah,” she said, jumping right into a stump speech that, while familiar, nonetheless kept the crowd’s attention for the entirety of her remarks.
Recent polling has Harris and Donald Trump nearly tied in Georgia, an indication of how close the race is likely to be in the state that Joe Biden won in 2020 by just 11,779 votes.
During her brief remarks that lasted just under 20 minutes, Harris contrasted her campaign with that of Trump, who she criticized with her regular campaign line of moving the country backward, not forward. She touted policy plans such as affordable childcare and healthcare, paid family leave, expanding Medicaid and other aspects of what she called “an opportunity economy” focused on “building inter-generational wealth”.
New voter registrations surged in swing state Georgia after Harris launched campaign - report
There’s been a sharp increase in people registering to vote in Georgia in the weeks since Kamala Harris launched her campaign, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, with groups that tend to back Democrats making up a large part of the new registrants.
It could be a good sign for the vice-president’s campaign in a state where Democrats reversed years of election losses in 2020, when Joe Biden won its electoral votes and the party’s candidates captured both of its Senate seats.
Here’s more from the Journal-Constitution on the registration trends:
Black women led the surge, with a 75% jump in registrations compared with the same 3 1/2 week period in 2020, according to the most recent voter registration data available from the Georgia secretary of state’s office, stretching from July 21 to Aug. 13.
Sign-ups by Hispanic voters grew by an even larger percentage, 114% over the 2020 period, though the raw number of new registrations was lower than other racial groups because there are fewer Hispanic voters overall in the state.
And new voters under 30 years old spiked by 76%. Overall, 50% more voters have registered since July 21 than in the same period four years ago.
“It’s shocking. I did not expect to see something of this scope,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic strategist and CEO of the data company TARA Group. “This has the potential to be a game changer in terms of the presidential race.”
Bonier’s research also found similar leaps in 13 other states since Harris joined the race, and he said Georgia’s growth in registrations reinforces an emerging national trend.
More than 46,000 people have registered since July 21, bringing Georgia’s total number of voters to 8.1 million. So far this year, 226,000 new voters have registered.
Kamala Harris’s climb in recent polls has been driven by a surge in enthusiasm among Democratic voters, and the traditional bounce in support seen after party conventions, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports:
Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race has given a shot in the arm to Democratic voters, who are now expressing near-record enthusiasm levels, fresh polling data shows.
While the figures from Gallup indicate rising enthusiasm among all voters – including Republicans – over the past five months, comparative figures show a much steeper increase among Democrats – indicating that Harris’s replacement of Joe Biden as presidential candidate is the likely driving factor.
The surging enthusiasm coincides with an improved general polling performance from Harris compared with Biden, who dropped out of the race last month after a poor debate performance that threatened to further depress his already stagnant numbers in survey match-ups against Donald Trump.
A fresh Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday showed Harris leading Trump nationwide by 45% to 41% – a margin consistent with other surveys since last week’s boisterous Democratic national convention in Chicago that confirmed the US vice-president’s status as the nominee.
Harris’s figures since then have generally enhanced the small leads that she had accrued since her elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket in July, suggesting that her standing has been further boosted by the traditional post-convention bounce that presidential candidates customarily receive.
The Harris-Walz campaign’s “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour will begin on Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida – Donald Trump’s backyard.
Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, TV personality Ana Navarro, who had a prominent spot at the Democratic convention and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez will be among those onboard for what is expected to be 50 stops in swing states. Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, Tim Walz’s wife, will also make appearances along the way.
“This election is about freedom – and the American people want and deserve the freedom to make their own health care decisions,” Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.
“Our campaign is hitting the road to meet voters in their communities, underscore the stakes of this election for reproductive freedom, and present them with the Harris-Walz ticket’s vision to move our country forward, which stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to drag us back. As we crisscross the country, we’ll be driving that contrast home to red and blue voters and independents.”
Donald Trump continued his attempted pivot on reproductive rights yesterday while campaigning in Wisconsin alongside former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who recounted her experience with IVF. The Guardian’s Alice Herman was there, and has this report:
At a town hall event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Thursday night, Donald Trump and the former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, now a Trump campaign surrogate, attempted to pitch themselves to the crowd as supporters of reproductive rights.
Gabbard, who moderated the event after endorsing the former president earlier this week, opened the town hall with emotional remarks about her experience with in vitro fertilization. The comments came shortly after Trump said in an NBC interview that he would make the government or insurance companies pay for IVF if he is elected, although it is unclear how he would accomplish that or if he is serious about the proposal given the pivotal role he played in overturning Roe v Wade.
“We were not successful in trying to get pregnant. For us, IVF seemed to be the only option and the last resort,” said Gabbard, who described to a quiet audience the costly and at times painful fertility treatment process she said she underwent 10 years ago.
Following Gabbard’s comments on IVF, Trump reiterated his promise from earlier in the day.
“We wanna produce babies in this country, right?” he said.
By stating his support for IVF and claiming that he would leave abortion laws to the states if elected, Trump is hoping to retain the support of women who count reproductive rights as a top issue – but risks alienating his supporters on the religious right.
Trump indicates support for abortion access in Washington DC, IVF care in attempt to pivot on vulnerable issues
Reproductive rights has been a major vulnerability for Republicans nationwide ever since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago and allowed states to ban the procedure. As the president who appointed three of the justices who supported that ruling, Donald Trump has been no exception, and he’s lately tried to execute something of a pivot on the issue.
Politico reports that the former president has signaled support for abortion access in Washington DC, going against years of attempts by the GOP to use Congress’s unique oversight of the capital to restrict the procedure in its city limits.
And, yesterday, he told NBC News that he would support requiring the government or private insurers to pay for IVF for families. He also said that he would not back restrictions on the care – which Democrats have accused the GOP of wanting to do, after Alabama’s supreme court earlier this year handed down a ruling that cut off access.
Here’s more on what Trump said, from NBC:
“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump said before adding, “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”
Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance companies would do so, Trump reiterated that one option would be to have insurance companies pay “under a mandate, yes.”
Abortion and IVF have been political liabilities for the GOP this year. Democrats have blasted Republicans over IVF in recent months, saying GOP-led restrictions on abortion could lead to restrictions on IVF, as well.
In a statement, Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, said that “Donald Trump’s own platform could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide” and that “because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country. There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Harris campaign launches abortion-focused bus tour as polls continue to indicate momentum against Trump
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz yesterday sat for their first joint interview since launching their campaign, and outlined some of the policies they’d bring to the White House, if elected. Now, they’re looking to press the advantage over Donald Trump and JD Vance that polls continue to indicate they may have, particularly on issues of reproductive health. Their campaign this morning announced a bus tour through swing states that will focus on promoting her policies towards IVF access and abortion, and feature prominent surrogates including Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
We continue to see signs that Harris and Walz are posing a much stiffer challenge to Trump than Joe Biden did. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll published yesterday shows Harris with the advantage in all seven swing states it surveyed, even North Carolina, which hasn’t supported a Democrat since 2008. That said, it’s only one poll, and others have shown her in a weaker position with voters in these states, most notably Pennsylvania, which is viewed as perhaps the deciding state this election.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
Despite his role in the overturning of Roe v Wade and his party’s pursuit of abortion restrictions nationwide, Trump tried to remake himself into a supporter of reproductive rights at a rally yesterday.
We will hear more from Trump today, who will campaign in Johnstown, Pennsylvania at 4.30pm ET, and speak at a conference of conservative group Moms for Liberty at 8pm.
Harris is back in Washington DC, and has no public events scheduled today. Expect speculation to grow in the coming days over when she will sit for her next interview.
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