JD Vance takes the stage in swing state Michigan
Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance is now onstage in Michigan.
The Ohio senator arrived with his wife, Usha Vance, and is speaking on a stage that appears to be set up in front of a row of tractor trucks.
“You now I love Byron Center. I’ve been here just about a couple hours, but Byron Center has been cast aside, and a lot of places in this country have been cast aside by America’s ruling class in Washington DC,” Vance began.
“Now, politicians come into places like Michigan. They say nice things, but they crush our industries. They offshore our jobs, and they undercut American wages with illegal labor. You, my friends, have been betrayed, and the people who have been doing the betraying have gotten rich off of this country’s decline, and it’s time to call them out, and it’s time to kick them out of office.”
We’re now waiting for JD Vance to take the stage at his campaign event in Byron Center, Michigan, one of three in Great Lakes states that could prove pivotal to either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris’s hopes of becoming the next president.
Byron Center is in western Michigan, one of the swingiest parts of the state. It’s a traditionally Republican region, and the county the town is located in voted for the former president in 2016, then backed Joe Biden narrowly in 2020.
We’ll let you know more about Vance’s messages to voters there.
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Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former Republican presidential candidate, said Donald Trump and Republicans need to change their approach “quit whining” about Kamala Harris.
Haley, in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, said she had anticipated the switch from Joe Biden to Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee:
Republicans should not be surprised that we are now running against Kamala Harris. It was her all the time.
Haley added:
There was no way Joe Biden, in the condition that we saw him, could take on the stresses of a presidential election. So that was something I believed in then. It’s why I constantly referred back to her, because I knew that Kamala Harris was the person that we had. And the one thing Republicans have to stop doing: quit whining about her. We knew it was going to be her.
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The Harris-Walz campaign has reiterated that Kamala Harris will participate in an interview before the end of the month, but did not commit to the vice-president holding a press conference by the end of August.
“She’s the vice-president,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler told CNN. “She can handle the questions.”
Arguing that Harris has spent her time “communicating directly with the voters” at campaign events instead of in the media, he said:
You hear her take questions as she’s out on the stump, and she said last week, we’re going to be having a sit-down interview here before the end of the month.
Reporters would have the opportunity to “have a deep-dive conversation” with Harris “by the end of the month and during the rest of the campaign”, he said.
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Hunter Biden lobbied the US government for help in securing a lucrative energy contract in Italy while his father, Joe Biden, was vice-president, newly released documents show.
A tranche of previously undisclosed documents now made public under a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request reveals that the president’s son wrote to the then US ambassador to Rome, John Phillips, in 2016 seeking assistance on behalf of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, of which he was a board member.
While there is no evidence that the government met Hunter Biden’s request for help or that his father knew of it, the revelation is likely to fuel Republican claims that Joe Biden’s political position was used to help his son’s business activities.
The revelations come as Hunter Biden prepares to stand trial in California next month on charges of tax evasion on his income from Burisma and other foreign businesses.
They follow his conviction in June on charges of illegal gun ownership during a time when he was using crack cocaine.
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Donald Trump arrived at the Palm Beach county supervisor of elections office to cast an early vote in the state’s primary election.
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The day so far
We’re going to hear from both Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance and Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, this afternoon, when they speak in Michigan and Colorado, respectively. You can expect the Ohio senator Vance to hit out at Democrats over inflation – which new data shows continues to decrease – and also promise to stop undocumented people from getting into the country. But all signs point to Harris and Walz having the momentum at present. Recently released polls show that the vice-president is the preferred choice of voters in several battleground states, and has fired up both the young voters that often make the difference for Democrats, and the electorate at large. We’ll see if Walz presses the case for that enthusiasm this afternoon.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump raged on Truth Social, after the judge who presided over the trial that convicted him on felony business fraud charges again declined to recuse himself.
We will hear even more from Trump tomorrow, when he holds a press conference at his golf club in New Jersey, one week after his last encounter with journalists.
The Harris campaign has deployed its financial firepower with a barrage of new advertisements aimed at midwestern swing states.
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Walz, Vance set for dueling events this afternoon
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s running mates are scheduled to hold campaign events at nearly the same time this afternoon, albeit in different parts of the country.
Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance will speak at 2pm ET in Byron Center, Michigan, one of the swing states seen as crucial to either candidates’ chances of victory. The Trump-Vance campaign did not say exactly what the Ohio senator would talk about, but did note the candidates’ pledges to curb inflation and the flow of migrants entering from Mexico.
Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor running alongside Harris, will hold a campaign reception at 2.20pm ET in Denver, Colorado, a state that generally supports Democrats. The campaign did not say what he would talk about.
Yesterday, Walz held his first solo event as Harris’s running mate, with an address to union members in Los Angeles. Here’s more on that:
This post has been corrected to note that Walz’s event is a campaign reception, not a rally.
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Kamala Harris’ campaign has hit back at Donald Trump’s attacks on her economic policies.
“Inflation is at its lowest in over three years and our economy is strong. Donald Trump’s agenda would take us backwards, giving tax handouts to the same big corporations that are price gouging Americans, while raising prices on the middle class by $2,500 and driving our economy into a recession,” campaign spokesman Joseph Costello said.
“Vice-President Harris will make building up the middle class the defining goal of her presidency. She will lower costs by taking on greedy corporations that are overcharging consumers, ban hidden fees, and cap unfair rent increases and prescription drug costs.”
The former president is set to make the economy the centerpiece of his speech to voters in North Carolina this afternoon.
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Poll shows voters more enthusiastic about election since Harris announced candidacy
Monmouth University just released a new poll showing that Kamala Harris is the preferred candidate in the presidential race, and that voters are generally more enthusiastic about the election since the vice-president replaced Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket:
NATIONAL VOTER POLL: Support for 2024 presidential candidates.
— MonmouthPoll (@MonmouthPoll) August 14, 2024
KAMALA HARRIS:
38% definitely / 10% probably
44% definitely not / 6% probably not
DONALD TRUMP:
33% definitely / 10% probably
49% definitely not / 6% probably nothttps://t.co/TExGkkSpzG pic.twitter.com/LWfjKSzaJZ
Enthusiasm for the rematch between Biden and Donald Trump never topped 50%, Monmouth notes, but now that Harris will be on ballots, it has risen to 68%, powered by Democrats and some independents. The university also found that voters were much more enthusiastic about Harris than they were about Biden, while perceptions of Trump remained steady.
In the words of Monmouth University Polling Institute’s director, Patrick Murray: “This is clearly a different ballgame. The nominee change has raised the ceiling for potential Democratic support in the presidential contest by a small but crucial amount, at least for now.”
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Donald Trump seems mighty peeved by New York Judge Juan Merchan’s decision earlier today not to recuse himself from the business fraud case that resulted in the former president’s felony conviction earlier this year.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “Can you believe this? The New York Courts refuse to act. This is happening right before the voting begins on September 6th. Suppression and manipulation of the vote. Voter interference. This is the real Fascist ‘stuff,’ the old Soviet Union! So much to say, and I’m not allowed to say it. Must get U.S. Supreme Court involved. New York is trying to steal the Election!”
Quite a lot to unpack there. First of all is the date he mentioned. While the presidential election is 5 November, he appears to be referencing when the first state, in this case, North Carolina, begins its mail-in voting period on 6 September.
Trump also alleges that he is being prevented from speaking. Elsewhere in the post, he says, “I AM NOT ALLOWED TO ANSWER REPORTERS QUESTIONS.”
That’s not true – the former president took questions from reporters last week. He is, however, under a gag order in the hush money case that prevents him from commenting on prosecutors, court staff, or their families.
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Trump announces yet another press conference
Donald Trump will hold a press conference tomorrow at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, one week after last taking questions from reporters, his campaign announced.
They did not give a particular reason why Trump is convening the press conference, but he did the same thing last Thursday, holding an hour-long event where he told several whoppers, including that “nobody was killed on January 6”.
Read more about that here:
Meanwhile, Donald Trump just received word of yet another setback in his efforts to disrupt his felony conviction on hush money charges in New York, Reuters reports:
A New York judge declined for a third time to step aside from the case in which Donald Trump was convicted of charges involving hush money paid to an adult film star, dismissing the former US president’s claim of conflict of interest related to political consultancy work by the judge’s daughter.
As he did last April and in August 2023, Juan Merchan in a decision released on Wednesday denied a request by Trump’s lawyers that the acting justice of the New York supreme court recuse himself from the first case involving criminal charges against a former US president. Merchan is scheduled to sentence Trump on 18 September.
“Defendant has provided nothing new for this court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts” and were “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims”, Merchan wrote in the ruling dated 13 August.
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Donald Trump rarely stays on topic, but his campaign says his economic policies will be the subject of his speech this afternoon in Asheville, North Carolina.
“Hard-working Americans are suffering because of the Harris-Biden administration’s dangerously liberal policies. Prices are excruciatingly high, and the cost of living has soared – leaving those on a fixed-income, unsure of how they are going to afford a basic standard of living in the future,” his campaign said in announcing the address.
“President Trump wants to ban tax on Social Security for seniors and he will Make America Great Again by reintroducing common-sense economic policies, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and reversing the effects of failed Democrat induced inflation – putting money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans across the country!”
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Biden cheers settling of US inflation, but political damage may already be done
US inflation has dipped to a level not seen in more than three years, according to the labor department’s latest consumer price data released this morning, giving Joe Biden yet another opportunity to argue that his economic policies are working.
“Today’s report shows that we continue to make progress fighting inflation and lowering costs for American households. Inflation has fallen below 3% and core inflation has fallen to the lowest level since April 2021. We have more work to do to lower costs for hardworking Americans, but we are making real progress, with wages rising faster than prices for 17 months in a row,” the president said after the data was released.
Inflation became one of the biggest challenges Biden faced in his presidency, after prices shot up at rates not seen since the 1980s, driven by factors including Covid-19’s impact on global supply chains, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The president’s approval ratings fell as inflation rose, and though Biden has declined to seek re-election, his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, appears to have the same problem.
Polls of voters have shown her less trusted than Donald Trump when it comes to handling the economy, even though she is generally viewed as having the edge in overall popularity. We’ll see if she can turn that perception around in the months to come.
Here’s more about what the latest inflation numbers mean:
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Speaking of polls, the Associated Press just released a new one finding that Donald Trump has the advantage over Kamala Harris on handling the economy and immigration, while the vice-president bests him on issues like abortion and racial inequality.
Here’s more from the survey, which was conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago:
When it comes to comparing the candidates on the issues, the public is more likely to trust Trump to do a better job handling the economy and immigration. Harris is more trusted to handle racial inequality, abortion, and heath care. The public is closely divided on which candidate would do a better job of handling crime or the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
In March, when Trump and Biden were their party’s presumptive nominees, 54% of Republicans said they would be excited if Trump is re-elected in November and 40% of Democrats said they would be excited with another Biden administration. At the time, Democrats were more likely to be fearful or angry about the prospect of a Trump re-election than Republicans were about a Biden re-election.
In the latest poll, a similar share of Republicans remain excited about a Trump victory in the 2024 general election. But Harris is seeing a roughly 20 percentage point boost in excitement among Democrats. Two-thirds of Democrats are excited about a Harris victory, compared with the 40% in March who felt that way about Biden prevailing. And Democrats remain more fearful or angry thinking about another Trump administration than Republicans are about a Harris victory.
Forty-seven percent of Black adults report they would be excited if Harris became president compared with 31% of white adults or 30% of Hispanic adults.
Harris campaign to spend $90m on television ads through August
Ever since jumping into the presidential race, Kamala Harris has been raking in donations. Now, her campaign is putting that money to use, with an announcement this morning of $90m in television ads targeted at media markets in the midwest where they say Donald Trump is “ceding the airwaves”.
Here’s more, from Harris’s deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks:
On the heels of our historic launch, we know that the more voters hear during the month of August about the differences between Vice-President Harris’ long-standing history of delivering common-sense solutions for the American people – from her early days as a prosecutor to the present – and Donald Trump’s dangerous, extreme and out-of-touch Project 2025 agenda, the more they will know that Vice-President Harris is the only candidate fit to lead our country over the next four years. It is precisely through efforts like this that we will break through a crowded media environment early and make clear the choice and stakes of this election for the voters who will decide it.
In addition to airing in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the ads will air in Ohio, which is expected to vote for Trump in November, but where its Democratic senator Sherrod Brown is running for another term. His victory is essential to Democrats’ hopes of maintaining the chamber.
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New poll shows Harris besting Trump in most battleground states as signs of vice-president's edge mount
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Ever since she took over as the Democratic presidential nominee late last month, it has been apparent that Kamala Harris has the sort of momentum with voters that Joe Biden never had during his abandoned bid for a second term. This morning, the Cook Political Report released polling showing the vice-president ahead of Donald Trump or tied with him in six of the seven battleground states. It was a reversal from when they last surveyed voters in May, and found that the former president led Biden in each one. Progressive youth voter group NextGen America also found yesterday that Harris is beating Trump among voters under 35, and by a much larger margin than when Biden was in the race.
The vice-president has no campaign events scheduled for today, though her running mate Tim Walz is making speeches in Colorado and Massachusetts. Both are undoubtedly preparing for next week’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, when they’ll have a chance to reintroduce themselves to an even bigger swath of voters.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
Primaries last night put progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar on the path to continue representing her Minnesota district, and saw voters in Wisconsin reject yet another effort by the GOP to undermine the power of the swing state’s Democratic governor.
Inflation has continued to fall, reaching a level not seen since early 2021, according to just-released consumer price data from the US government.
Trump will speak about his economic plans at 4pm ET in Asheville, North Carolina – a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, but where the Cook poll says Harris has a small lead.
