The Latest: Trump targets his base and Harris goes after moderates as early voting numbers rise

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are embracing wildly different strategies to energize the coalitions they need to win as the campaigns enter their final sprint.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Harris calls Trump ‘increasingly unstable’

Harris says she believes Trump is “increasingly unstable and unfit to serve in office.”

She said that in response to the first question, which was about what she would say to voters to convince them as to why they should not support Trump.

Harris characterized remarks from Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, as a “911 call to the people” as to why the former chief of staff felt Trump should not return to the White House.

Harris said, “Yes, I do” when asked if she believes Trump is a fascist.

Adding to her comments, Harris said Trump “demeans people who have taken an oath to sacrifice their life for our country,” referring to Trump’s previous characterizations of members of the military.

Harris cited a “legitimate fear” among former members of Republican administrations that Trump “will not obey an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Harris takes stage for CNN town hall

Harris has taken the stage for tonight’s CNN town hall, hosted by Anderson Cooper in Pennsylvania and with 32 registered voters who self-identify as undecided or persuadable.

Among the battlegrounds, Harris and Trump have visited Pennsylvania the most during the general election campaign.

Top election official in Nevada’s Washoe County says she was forced out

The top election official in one of the nation’s most politically important counties says she was forced out of her role just weeks before the November presidential election.

The abrupt departure of Cari-Ann Burgess as the interim registrar of voters in northern Nevada’s Washoe County one month ago is the latest sign of turmoil in a county that has been roiled for four years by people pushing election conspiracy theories.

Washoe, which includes Reno, is a swing county in a state where this year’s presidential contest is expected to be narrowly decided.

Burgess, in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, disputed the county’s statement that she asked for a leave after experiencing “stress issues.” In a meeting with county staff, including representatives of the district attorney’s office, Burgess said she was forced to put a request for leave in writing despite her desire to stay.

“I feel like I was absolutely forced out, but I have no idea how we got to this point,” Burgess said in her first public remarks since her departure.

George Guthrie, a spokesman for the county election office, on Wednesday reiterated the county’s previous statement that Burgess had requested a leave and that the county was committed to “running a smooth and fair election.”

Trump to travel to Texas to talk immigration

Donald Trump will travel to Austin, Texas, on Friday to make remarks focused on border security and migrant crime, his campaign says.

The announcement follows news that Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Texas on the same day to refocus her campaign on the issue of reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.

The Trump campaign announcement says “the only leader who will secure our borders and put Americans first is President Donald J. Trump.”

The Republican-leaning state is not viewed as one of the premier battleground races in this year’s election, though Democrats say they are making gains. Harris will be joined Friday by Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Trump at odds with Georgia governor on electric vehicles

Trump got a big cheer from this Georgia crowd when he promised to do away with all “mandates” for electric vehicles.

Trump’s emphasis on fossil fuel markets puts him at odds with Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The governor has championed Georgia as a home base for the burgeoning electric battery and electric vehicle manufacturing sector in the U.S.

Kemp does not talk openly about climate change but touts the shifting markets as a boon to Georgia’s and the nation’s economy.

Trump and Kemp have been at odds over the years because the governor did not help Trump overturn his 2020 election defeat. Kemp recently endorsed Trump anyway. But he is not part of Wednesday’s rally.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules on counting rejected mail-in ballots

Pennsylvania’s highest court says people whose mail ballots are rejected for not following technical procedures in state law can cast provisional ballots. The 5-2 decision state Supreme Court decision issued Wednesday is sure to affect some of the thousands of mail-in votes likely to be rejected this fall.

Pennsylvania’s status as the swing state with the most electoral votes in the close presidential election, now in its final two weeks, puts the court decision under heightened scrutiny as the parties scrape for votes.

Charlie Kirk imposes Christian frame on election

Conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk is the latest speaker at his Turning Point “Georgia for Trump” rally to frame the 2024 election as a Christian battle between good and evil.

Trump’s rise and continued place in U.S. politics is the work of a “divine” author, he said. Democrats, meanwhile, support “everything God hates.” He called the Trump vs. Harris choice “a spiritual battle” and encouraged attendees to pressure their pastors to speak out on Trump’s behalf.“

“This state is a Christian state,” Kirk argued. “I’d like to see it stay that way.”

Georgia does actually have a Christian pastor holding statewide federal office. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is the senior minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. once led. Warnock is a Democrat.

Tucker Carlson frames Trump as America’s ‘Dad’

Tucker Carlson put a clear patriarchal frame on the 2024 presidential election.

He called Democrats “the party of weak men and unhappy women.”And he said a Trump victory over Kamala Harris would mean: “Dad’s home! And he’s pissed!”

Bill Clinton stumps for Harris, says she’s better on the economy

Former President Bill Clinton made the case that Harris is a stronger candidate to tackle inflation than Trump, taking on an issue that has bedeviled the Democratic ticket during a speech to Black Democrats in Phoenix.

Trump complains about rising prices but only Harris has come forward with realistic plans to rein in costs for food, housing and energy, he said. He touted her proposals to crack down on price gouging, increase housing supply and support domestic production of both renewable energy and fossil fuels.

“What did she say? ‘Let’s solve the problem.’ What did he say? ‘Let’s lay the blame,’” Clinton said. “I’m telling you, if you want a president to do a real job, you have to find somebody who will take responsibility and find a better way.”

Clinton called Trump “mister brand and blame,” portraying him as a person at home attacking his rivals but not solving problems.

Harris is “extremely vulnerable, more vulnerable than she deserves to be” because of Republican attacks on her character, but she can win if her supporters work hard enough to counter them, Clinton said.

“The Republicans are geniuses at sewing doubt and division,” Clinton told an audience of Black Democrats in Phoenix. “‘This woman’s an alien.’ Trump’s called her every name in the book.”

Black voters make up a smaller share of Arizona’s electorate than they do in most of the other battleground states, but they can still help sway the election in a state where recent top races have been decided by a fraction of a percentage point.

“You know this race is tight as a tic,” Clinton said. “You know you can win. It depends on how bad you want it. I’m telling you, she’s worth the effort, and you’ll be proud of this for the rest of your life if you do it.”

Tucker Carlson defends MAGA and Trump

Tucker Carlson says Donald Trump will defeat Kamala Harris in a result that “will be a big middle finger wagging” at “the worst people in the English-speaking world.”

At the Turning Point rally in Georgia, Carlson is adding a spirited defense of Trump supporters, arguing that they have been caricatured as “bizarre” and marginalized by the political elite and national media crowd in which Carlson has long existed.

“They’re not some weird subculture of MAGA — they’re America itself,” he said. “The only people who are denying it … are themselves a tiny, bizarre minority.” He added that “none of the normal people are supporting the Democratic machine.”

23 million people have voted early so far, busting records

Nationally, more than 23 million people have voted early in the 2024 election.

That’s busting records in states across the country and is partly driven by Republicans embracing early voting at the directive of their nominee, former President Donald Trump, who told them to avoid it the past two elections.

Political types scour early voting data but it doesn’t tell you who will win, only who’s voting. You won’t find out who those early voters cast their ballots for until polls close on Election Day.

Find the early vote totals for your state

RFK Jr. criticizes John Kelly at Trump rally

Robert F Kennedy Jr. is criticizing former Trump Cabinet member and White House chief of staff John Kelly for saying the former president meets the definition of a fascist.

And he’s arguing Kelly made up the claim, recently published in the New York Times, that Trump once mused he wanted “generals like Hitler.”

Kennedy insists Trump would be a president “who brings America together.” (Trump is the only modern U.S. president who lost the national popular vote twice.)

This crowd at the Turning Point “Georgia for Trump” loves the former Democrats who have crossed over to back Trump. RFK and Tulsi Gabbard have drawn loud, sustained roars.

Harris plans to use Capitol riot site as backdrop for campaign’s closing argument

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to lay out her campaign’s closing argument by returning to the site near the White House where Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.

Her campaign hopes it will crystallize for voters the fight between defending democracy and sowing political chaos. Harris will give a speech on Tuesday — one week before Election Day — where she will urge the nation to “turn the page” toward a new era away from Trump.

The site is symbolic since it’s where Trump delivered a speech on Jan. 6, 2021, lying about widespread election fraud that did not occur and urging supporters to fight — helping incite a mob that launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Ben Carson says ‘leftists and Marxists’ are trying to ‘change America’

Ben Carson says at the Turning Point USA rally in Georgia that “leftists and Marxists” are determined to “change America,” and that only conservative voters stand in the way.

“They’re so close to pushing us over the edge,” he said. “But that’s also the reason they’re so afraid of Donald Trump. … God put him here for a purpose.”

He did not identify any leftists or Marxists or any specific policies.

Carson praised “the founders” for “giving us the right to vote” and redeem the country. Carson, because he is Black, would not have had a constitutional right to vote until the 15th Amendment was adopted after the Civil War. And he would not have had a practical guarantee until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law.

A new chant at Trump event: ‘Christ is King!’

Conservative provocateur Benny Johnson is rousing the Turning Point USA crowd with the argument that Donald Trump has God on his side. He led the at-capacity crowd in a chant not usually heard at Trump rallies: “Christ is King! Christ is King! Christ is King!” Minutes later, after Johnson mocked Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the crowd went in a different direction. That chant: “Tampon Tim! Tampon Tim! Tampon Tim!”

Trump greets more supporters at Georgia rally

After he took questions inside, Trump headed out of the church, where several hundred supporters were gathered in an overflow space outside the parking lot. To get from the stage outside he had to walk from the front to the back of the room, and Trump greeted supporters as he walked by, with a gaggle of press in tow. Trump joked about how they wouldn’t let him be a pastor. Trump is wistful again. “In many ways it’s sad. We’ve been doing this together for nine years and it’s coming down to 12 days.”

Trump talks faith at Georgia rally

Trump at a town hall in Georgia has answered a question about how he leans into faith and family to deal with being vilified.

“When you have faith, when you believe in God, it’s a big advantage over people that don’t have that.,” Trump said to applause.

He then went on to praise his family and claimed that he had been investigated more than Al Capone.

Trump took a handful of questions at the event. The final one from a young man asking what he should know before he went to vote. Trump said he wanted to go outside and talk. Several hundred people gathered outside the church showed their excitement as Trump exited the event. They shouted “USA, USA.”

A man who threatened to kill Democratic election officials pleads guilty

A Colorado man repeatedly made online threats about killing the top elections officials in his state and Arizona, as well as a judge and law enforcement agents, according to a guilty plea he entered Wednesday.

Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, acknowledged his comments were made “out of fear, hate and anger” to a federal judge in Denver as he sat dressed in a khaki jail uniform, before pleading guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats. He faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced Feb. 3.

Brockbank’s case is the 16th conviction secured by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland formed in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting the election community. The task force has opened more than 100 investigations since its launch, prosecutor John Keller, who leads the task force, said in a recent interview.

▶ Read more about the threats

Trump began his faith-focused town hall in Georgia by asking attendees if they had already voted

“It’s going to be a big one,” Trump said. “I think it’s the most important election in the history of our country.”

Trump is looking to energize evangelical Christian voters in the key swing state. He noted a rally the previous day in Miami with Latino pastors.

“We had pastors and we had a lot of Hispanics, and we’re setting every record with Hispanics,” Trump said.

Harris stopped by a Philadelphia deli perhaps more famous for its political scene than its pastrami

She’s in the city for an evening CNN town hall, but first hit Famous 4th Street Deli, a homey eatery that opened in 1923.

It’s been a tradition since the 1970s for politicians to gather there on Election Day to talk shop with supporters and reporters, while perhaps having lunch or a black and white cookie.

Harris met with “super volunteers” and took selfies with some and with Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker.

When one man cried out, “We’re gonna win” Harris responded, “We are.”

She grabbed a to-go order of a pastrami sandwich on rye and a slice of German chocolate cake.

Trump has arrived at a faith-focused town hall in Zebulon,about a one-hour drive south of Atlanta

As he was heading to his first campaign event of the day, his motorcade drove by a woman riding on horseback while wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a large American flag.

Supporters could be seen a few miles from the event. Some had Trump-Vance signs, others American flags. They waved as the motorcade passed.

Several hundred people were gathered in the church for what’s being billed as a “Believers and ballots faith town hall.”

Georgia played a key role in the 2020 race when Joe Biden carried the state by less than a quarter of a percentage point. Trump is looking to energize evangelical Christian voters in the key swing state.

Flyaway metal from Missouri Democratic Senate candidate’s rifle grazes reporter at campaign event

A Missouri reporter was injured slightly Tuesday when a rifle fired by a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate during a campaign event caused metal fragments to hit the journalist in the arm.

The KSHB-TV reporter was hit in the arm by flyaway metal as Lucas Kunce, a Marine, fired an AR-15-style rifle at targets at an exurban Kansas City home.

Kunce provided first aid to the reporter, who continued covering the event. The Kansas City TV station reported the journalist later was treated for a minor injury at a local hospital.

“We had four first aid kits, so we were able to take care of the situation,” Kunce on Tuesday posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. He added that he’s glad the reporter is OK.

Kunce is trying to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley next month.

▶ Read more about the Missouri Senate race

Election officials are fighting a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories

Voting machines reversing votes. More voters registered than people eligible. Large numbers of noncitizens voting.

With less than two weeks before Election Day, a resurgence in conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting is forcing state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumors and explaining how elections are run at the same time they’re overseeing early voting and preparing for Nov. 5.

“Truth is boring, facts are boring, and outrage is really interesting,” says Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with truth. But what we try to do is just get as much information out there as possible.”

This year’s election is the first presidential contest since former President Donald Trump began spreading lies about widespread voter fraud costing him reelection in 2020. The false claims, which he continues to repeat, have undermined public confidence in elections and in the people who oversee them among a broad swath of Republican voters . Investigations have found no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of the battlegrounds states where Trump disputed his loss has affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.

▶ Read more about voting misinformation

The White House agrees with John Kelly that Trump is a fascist

The White House agrees with former Trump chief of staff, John Kelly, calling the former president a “fascist,” according to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Jean-Pierre also during her regular briefing expressed outrage that Trump, according to Kelly, praised the loyalty of Adolf Hitler’s generals.

“To be praising Adolf Hitler is dangerous and disgusting,” Jean-Pierre said.

Jean-Pierre also defended Biden’s sharp comments during a Wednesday visit to New Hampshire, “We’ve got to lock him up” before adding, “Politically lock him up. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”

“He made very clear that he was referring to defeating Donald Trump,” Jean-Pierre said.

Iowa finds several dozen instances of noncitizens voting in a past election

Several dozen people who identified themselves as noncitizens voted in a past election or registered to vote despite being ineligible to do so, Iowa’s top election official said with just two weeks to go until 2024 ballots will be tallied.

Elections officials compared the state’s 2.3 million registered voters to a list of people who self-reported as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation, according to Ashley Hunt Esquivel, spokesperson for Secretary of State Paul Pate.

Pate released a statement Tuesday detailing that his office found 87 people who identified themselves to the DOT as noncitizens but previously voted. An additional 67 people said they aren’t citizens but previously registered to vote.

“For those groups, we have pretty clear evidence … that they voted or registered to vote when they are not citizens, which is, of course, a Class D felony,” Hunt Esquivel said.

Additionally, 2,022 people had told the DOT they aren’t citizens but subsequently registered to vote or voted. It’s possible they became naturalized citizens in the lapsed time, so “we need clarification on what their citizenship status was when they registered or voted,” she said.

▶ Read more about voting in Iowa

Suspect arrested in shootings of Democratic National Committee office in Arizona

A suspect has been arrested in connection with three separate shootings in 20 days that damaged a Democratic National Committee campaign office in suburban Phoenix, authorities said Wednesday.

Tempe police say Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, also is accused of hanging several political signs lined with razor blades on Tuesday in Ahwatukee, an affluent suburb of Phoenix where most voters have chosen Democrats in recent elections.

Authorities said the hand-painted signs were attached to palm trees and appeared to criticize Democrats and their presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Kelly was being held on three felony counts of acts of terrorism and four other counts related to the shootings, according to police.

▶ Read more about the shootings

Suspected drunken driver arrested after passing Harris’ motorcade the wrong way in Wisconsin

A suspected drunken driver heading the wrong way passed within feet of Vice President Kamala Harris’ motorcade following a campaign stop this week in Wisconsin.

Harris had just wrapped up a rally in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield on Monday evening when her motorcade passed a car heading the wrong way on Interstate 94 in Milwaukee.

Sheriff’s deputies trailing the motorcade stopped the vehicle and took the driver, a 55-year-old Milwaukee man, into custody after he performed poorly on field sobriety tests and deputies found an open container of alcohol in the vehicle, Milwaukee County Sheriff’s spokesperson James Burnett told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The man allegedly told deputies he was headed home after a night out and had no idea he was driving the wrong way on the freeway, Burnett said.

▶ Read more about the arrest

In Virginia, more than 1,600 have had their voter registrations canceled

More than 1,600 Virginians have had their voter registrations canceled since August under a state program the Justice Department and advocacy groups contend is illegal.

The scope of the removals was revealed for the first time this week after a federal magistrate ordered the state to disclose the figure as part of a federal lawsuit.

The Justice Department alleges Virginia is violating federal law by systematically removing alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls during a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of the November election. The quiet period is designed to ensure that mistakes don’t accidentally disenfranchise voters ahead of an election without an opportunity to rectify the error.

Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin contends the removals are triggered when voters voluntarily disclose their noncitizen status to the Department of Motor Vehicles and properly prevent noncitizens from voting.

The US Postal Service has reopened all of its mail processing centers in areas of Florida and North Carolina

And it can deliver mail to all but about 5,200 households in those states, a top postal official says.

Steven Monteith, a Postal Service executive vice president and its chief marketing officer, told reporters during a Zoom webinar Wednesday that all of the processing centers in the two states were back in operation as of Tuesday. He said mail that couldn’t be delivered because of hurricane damage is being moved to local post offices, but he said it may be “some time” before a return to the full, pre-hurricane mail service.

The Postal Service had the webinar to reassure voters and election and public officials that it believes it’s ready to handle a crush of mail ballots for the Nov. 5 election. Monteith said that during the first three weeks of October, 99.9% of ballot-related mail was delivered within seven days.

The Postal Service is advising voters using mail ballots to mail them at least seven days ahead of their state’s deadlines for them to arrive. He said mail still couldn’t be delivered to about 4,600 addresses in North Carolina and 600 in Florida.

Georgia citizenship audit finds few noncitizens on voter rolls

Georgia’s top elections official said Wednesday that a check of voter rolls found that 20 of the 8.2 million people registered to vote in the state aren’t U.S. citizens.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference that the voter registrations for those people had been canceled and they will be referred to local prosecutors for potential criminal charges. His office said none of those people has cast a ballot in November’s general election, but nine of the 20 had voted in previous elections and the other 11 had no record of voting.

Additionally, there are 156 people whose citizenship status requires additional investigation and his office has opened case files for those individuals, Raffensperger said.

While the potential for noncitizens to register or vote has gotten a lot of attention as a Republican talking point in this election year, data indicates that voting by noncitizens is rare.

▶ Read more about Georgia voter rolls

Historic hurricane destruction hasn’t stopped early voting in North Carolina

About three weeks after Hurricane Helene pummeled western North Carolina, the Hot Springs Community Center was still caked in mud. A paper sign hung on the door warning visitors to use “extreme caution” until the building could be inspected. The reason for the damage was scribbled at the top of the page: water inundation.

Like many other buildings in the town of about 500 people, flood waters left the center in ruin. That was one of many problems for election officials in Madison County, who had been planning to use the center as one of their three locations for early voting.

Finding a new place to set up voting machines was among the countless hurdles elections officials, poll workers and voters have had to manage since Helene brought widespread death and destruction to the region.

Officials settled on the Hot Springs Senior Meal Site as the town’s new early voting location. It has been a big adjustment for Dean Benfield, who has been a poll worker for more than 20 years. She and her colleagues had a routine at the community center that was now disrupted.

Still, the voters came when the polls opened, on time, for early voting last week. Benfield, who leads the polling place, described it as a “big day,” with more than 50 voters eventually casting ballots.

▶ Read more about voting in North Carolina

Harris warns that anyone who doesn’t cow to Trump could face punishment if he were elected

Her comments outside the vice president’s residence come as Trump complained again about the “enemy within.”

“Let’s be clear about who he considers to be the enemy within,” Harris said. “Anyone who refuses to bend a knee or dares to criticize him would qualify in his mind as the enemy within. Like judges, like journalists, like non-partisan election officials.”

Harris says Trump wants a military that would be loyal to him above all, not to the American people

Her comments Wednesday come after Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly said Trump wanted military generals like Adolf Hilter’s.

“Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump in an interview in The Atlantic. To which the former president responded, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”

Harris said the comments were shocking unacceptable and were a window “into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best, the people who have worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and situation room.”

Trump will be heading back to Georgia as he tries to lock down support in the battleground state

Trump has two events Wednesday including a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” with the state’s Lt. Gov. Burt Jones at Christ Chapel in Zebulon, Georgia. He’ll then hold a rally in Duluth on Wednesday evening.

Last month, a special prosecutor announced he decided not to pursue charges against Jones over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss in the state.

Jones was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 to sign a certificate stating Trump had won Georgia and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors even though Democrat Joe Biden had been declared the state’s winner.

Efforts by Russia, Iran and China to sway US voters may escalate, new Microsoft report says

Foreign adversaries have shown continued determination to influence the U.S. election –- and there are signs their activity will intensify as Election Day nears, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.

Russian operatives are doubling down on fake videos to smear Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, while Chinese-linked social media campaigns are maligning down-ballot candidates who are critical of China, the company’s threat intelligence arm says.

Meanwhile, Iranian actors who allegedly sent emails aimed at intimidating U.S. voters in 2020 have been surveying election-related websites and major media outlets, raising concerns they could be preparing for another scheme this year, the tech giant said.

The report serves as a warning – building on others from U.S. intelligence officials – that as the nation enters this critical final stretch and begins counting ballots, the worst influence efforts may be yet to come. U.S. officials say they remain confident that election infrastructure is secure enough to withstand any attacks from American adversaries. Still, in a tight election, foreign efforts to influence voters are raising concern.

▶ Read more about foreign influence in the election

Biden’s national security adviser mum on interest in serving Harris

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is keeping his cards close to the vest on whether he’d be up for serving in a potential Kamala Harris administration.

“I really, unfortunately, have no comment on my future,” said Sullivan, a key architect of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, when asked about the prospects of him serving in a future Democratic administration at a Brookings Institution forum in Washington on Wednesday.

Sullivan, 47, has served as a key adviser to Biden, Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. His wife is Maggie Goodlander, a former Justice Department official in the Biden administration. Goodlander is running for the House seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster.

Wisconsin sees high turnout on the first day of in-person absentee voting

At least 97,000 people in Wisconsin cast absentee ballots in person on the first day they could, leading to long waits at some polling sites that were made worse by an overwhelmed computer system that clerks use to process ballots.

Republicans and Democrats have been pushing voters to cast ballots early, leading to the surge and reports of people waiting in line for hours at clerks’ offices and other polling places around the state Tuesday.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission reported Wednesday that 97,436 people voted in-person on Tuesday. That is up from 79,774 who cast ballots on opening day of in-person voting in 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that year, in-person voting numbers were down while absentee voting by mail was higher.

▶ Read more about voting in Wisconsin

Trump says he plans to vote early in this year’s presidential election

The former president has long denigrated early voting and vote-by-mail as part of his longstanding practice of casting doubt on the security of elections. He told Fox News Radio on Wednesday that he’s “very mixed on it.”

But he also says he’s pleased by reports that large numbers of Republicans are submitting their ballots before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Trump is registered to vote in Florida.

Donald Trump is making more false claims that Kamala Harris isn’t campaigning

Speaking on Fox News Radio on Wednesday, Trump claimed the Democratic vice president is taking Wednesday and Thursday off.

She isn’t. Harris is visiting a Philadelphia deli Wednesday to thank supporters before attending a CNN town hall in the evening. On Thursday, she goes to Atlanta to hold a rally with former President Barack Obama and rock star Bruce Springsteen.

Trump this week called Harris “lazy as hell” and claims he’s campaigning harder than she is.

Harris’ town hall Wednesday night takes the place of a second debate she offered to do with Trump. The former president and Republican nominee rejected that offer. He’ll be in the Atlanta area this evening at an event hosted by the pro-Trump Turning Point Action group.

Gov. Tim Walz, his wife Gwen and son Gus went to a polling place in St. Paul to cast their ballots early

It’s the first time voting for Gus, who just turned 18.

“I’m excited about it,” Walz told reporters Wednesday on his way in to the Ramsey County Elections office.

Minnesota started early in-person voting Sept. 20 but the governor has been on the campaign trail most of the time since Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate.

Tim and Gwen Walz also voted early at the same office in 2022.

Kamala Harris will visit a Philadelphia deli to thank volunteers on Wednesday

Driving up turnout in the city is critical for her chances in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state.

Harris is visiting Pennsylvania for a CNN town hall in nearby Delaware County, where she’ll take questions from undecided voters. Her campaign said the town hall was arranged when Donald Trump declined to participate in a second debate with the vice president.

Harris ad shows a Texas woman who lost baby and nearly died from sepsis amid strict abortion ban

A new series of Kamala Harris campaign ads seek to highlight increasingly perilous medical care for women since the fall of Roe v. Wade by telling the story of a Texas woman who got a life-threatening infection when she couldn’t get proper treatment after she miscarried and how she may no longer be able to have children.

In one ad, the woman identified only as Ondrea details how excited she was to have a girl only to find out that the baby wouldn’t survive after her water broke too early. She was denied an abortion and eventually went into labor.

“Immediately after her birth, I was in the worst pain of my life,” she says, as she and her husband are pictured in her living room near a framed photo of the baby’s ultrasound. She then developed sepsis, a life-threatening pregnancy complication.

The ad is part of a final push by the Democratic nominee to highlight how medical care has grown increasingly unstable for pregnant woman — including for those who never intended to end a pregnancy — since three justices appointed to the Supreme Court by then-President Donald Trump helped overturned abortion rights.

Ondrea blames Trump for her situation.

“It almost cost me my life, and it will affect me for the rest of my life,” she says in the ad.

▶ Read more about Harris’ new ads on abortion

Housing on the ballot: Harris, Trump push different plans for tackling housing affordability crisis

Millions of Americans can’t afford to buy a home or rent a suitable apartment, making housing a central issue for voters in the upcoming presidential election.

The biggest single reason homeownership is out of reach for many is there aren’t nearly enough homes for sale to balance out the market between buyers and sellers.

The shortfall, which some economists say ranges from 1 million to around 4 million homes, has for the better part of the last decade fueled bidding wars that boosted the median sales price of a previously occupied U.S. home to an all-time high of $426,900 in June.

Higher mortgage rates have also kept many home shoppers on the sidelines.

Against this backdrop, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have put out proposals they contend will make the American Dream accessible to more Americans.

Harris’ campaign has laid out a detailed roadmap of policies aimed at expanding access to affordable housing both for homebuyers and renters that includes offering first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 in down payment assistance and tax incentives for builders and federal funds for cities to speed up construction.

Trump says he’ll create tax incentives for homebuyers, cut “unnecessary” regulations on home construction and make some federal land available for residential construction, though the campaign’s platform doesn’t include any details.

▶ Read more about the housing issue in this election

Trump wanted generals like Hitler’s and said Nazi leader ‘did some good things,’ John Kelly claims

Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff is warning that the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office, Trump suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”

The comments from John Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, came in interviews with both The New York Times and The Atlantic. They build on a a growing series of warnings from former top Trump officials as the election enters its final weeks.

Kelly has long been critical of Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” Still, his new warnings came just two weeks before Election Day, as Trump seeks a second term vowing to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers “enemies from within.”

“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly recalled to The Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying “nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good,” but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.

In his interview with The Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing “German generals,” Kelly would ask if he meant “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the former chancellor of the German Reich who oversaw the unification of Germany. “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”

Trump’s campaign denied these stories Tuesday, with Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, arguing Kelly has “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated.”

▶ Read more about John Kelly’s claims

A Supreme Court reshaped by Trump has a low profile in this presidential campaign

Conservatives already have a supermajority on the Supreme Court as a result of Donald Trump’s presidency. If Trump wins a second term, the right side of the court could retain control for several more decades.

Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, are the two oldest members of the court. Either, or both, could consider stepping down knowing Trump, a Republican, would nominate replacements who might be three decades younger.

“With President Trump and a Republican Senate, we could have a generation of conservative justices on the bench in the Supreme Court,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently wrote on X.

That’s exactly what worries Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive group Stand Up America. “The real key here is Trump prevention. If Trump wins again, he could solidify right-wing control of the Supreme Court for decades,” Harvey said.

Yet the nation’s highest court has a lower profile than it did in the past two presidential campaigns. That’s despite an early summer ruling on presidential immunity that insured Trump would not have to stand trial before the Nov. 5 election on charges of interference in the 2020 election and other consequential decisions on abortion, guns, affirmative action and the environment.

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Trump targets hardcore partisans, Harris goes after moderates: Inside the campaign’s final sprint

In battleground Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris warned that democracy and reproductive rights were at stake as she campaigned alongside a former Republican congresswoman.

Going to the same state the day before, Donald Trump served French fries at a closed McDonald’s.

As the 2024 presidential contest speeds to its conclusion on Nov. 5, Harris and Trump are embracing wildly different strategies to energize the coalitions they need to win. Both are making bets that will prove prescient or ill-advised.

Trump’s team has largely abandoned traditional efforts to broaden his message to target moderate voters, focusing instead on energizing his base of fiery partisans and turning out low-propensity voters — especially young men of all races — with tough talk and events aimed at getting attention online.

Harris is leaning into a more traditional all-of-the-above playbook targeting the narrow slice of undecided voters that remain, especially moderates, college-educated suburbanites, and women of all races and education. More than Trump, she’s going after Republican women who may have supported rival Nikki Haley in this year’s GOP primary and are dissatisfied with the former president.

▶ Read more about the candidates’ campaign strategies

A man accused of threatening to kill Democratic election officials will likely plead guilty

A man accused of repeatedly threatening to kill the top elections officials in Colorado and Arizona as well as judges and federal law enforcement agents is expected to plead guilty in federal court Wednesday.

Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, of Cortez, Colorado, has been jailed since his Aug. 23 arrest. Now he’s scheduled to appear in court for a change of plea hearing after previously pleading not guilty to one count of making interstate threats. His lawyer notified the court that Brockbank wanted to change his plea. In federal court, “guilty” is the only other option.

According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators he’s not a “vigilante” and that he hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.”

Investigators say Brockbank began to express the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021 and proceeded to make multiple threats against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state’s governor, and the others.

▶ Read more about the threats against officials

Trump says the Biden administration must find out who leaked Israel’s plan for attacking Iran

Trump said the Biden administration needs to find out who leaked classified documents detailing Israel’s plans for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran, implying there are “methods” that could be used to learn who was responsible.

“It’s a terrible situation,” Trump said in an interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin. “You’ve got to find out the person that did it.”

Trump said it is easy to find the leakers, “but we don’t use methods anymore where you can do that. We give the criminals such latitude. We are not allowed to find them.”

The former president also criticized the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“I thought the leaks from the Supreme Court was just a shame,” he said. “I think that’s something that also should be found out.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rejects a claim by Trump’s campaign that his Labour Party is illegally interfering in the US presidential election

A statement Tuesday night on Trump’s website announced an official complaint had been filed with the Federal Election Commission against the Labour Party and the Harris-Walz campaign for “illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference in our elections.”

The complaint referred to media reports about meetings between Labour and Democrat officials, and a now-deleted LinkedIn post in which a Labour staffer said there were “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the next few weeks” to swing states.

Starmer said any party members in the U.S. were there as volunteers.

“That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, is what they’re doing in this election,” he told reporters as he traveled to Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders.

Starmer said the kerfuffle would not jeopardize the relationship he’s tried to build with Trump.

“I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him, and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good relationship, which we did, and I was very grateful to him for making the time,” he said.

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