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Somali American member of Congress Ilhan Omar faces repeat primary challenge

Minneapolis, Minnesota — Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, one of the progressive House members known as the “Squad” and a sharp critic of how Israel has conducted the war in Gaza, is trying to avoid the fate of two of her closest allies when Minnesota holds its primary elections Tuesday.

Omar is defending her Minneapolis-area 5th District seat against a repeat challenge from former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, a more centrist liberal whom she only narrowly defeated in the 2022 primary.

In the main statewide race on the ballot, conservative populist and former NBA player Royce White is facing a more conventional Republican candidate, Navy veteran Joe Fraser, for the right to challenge Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Meanwhile, two newcomers are in a bitter fight for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Representative Angie Craig in November in the mostly suburban 2nd District.

Omar’s fellow Squad member Representative Cori Bush lost the Democratic nomination in Missouri last week. Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York lost his primary in June. The only charter member not facing a primary challenge is Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

Both Bush and Bowman faced well-funded challengers and millions of dollars in spending by the United Democracy Project, a super political action committee affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which appears to be sitting out the Minnesota race.

But Omar isn’t taking victory for granted. Omar reported spending $2.3 million before the 2022 primary. In the same period this year, she reported raising about $6.2 million. Samuels has raised about $1.4 million.

Omar — a Somali American and Muslim — came under fire from the Jamaican-born Samuels and others in her first term for comments that were widely criticized for invoking antisemitic tropes and suggesting Jewish Americans have divided loyalties. This time, Samuels has criticized her condemnation of the Israeli government’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

While Omar has also criticized Hamas for attacking Israel and taking hostages, Samuels says she’s one-sided and divisive.

The winner in the overwhelmingly Democratic district will face Republican Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American journalist and self-described secular Muslim who calls Omar pro-Hamas and a terrorist sympathizer.

In the U.S. Senate race, White — an ally of imprisoned former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones — shocked many political observers when he defeated Fraser at the party convention for the Republican endorsement.

White’s social media comments have been denounced as misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic and profane. His legal and financial problems include unpaid child support and questionable campaign spending, including $1,200 spent at a Florida strip club after he lost his primary challenge to Omar in 2022. He argues that, as a Black man, he can broaden the party’s base by appealing to voters of color in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and others disillusioned with establishment politics.

Fraser has said White’s confrontational style and message won’t attract the moderates and independents needed for a competitive challenge to Klobuchar, who’s seeking a fourth term. He said he offers a more mainstream approach, stressing fiscal conservativism, a strong defense, world leadership and small government. Fraser has also highlighted his 26 years in the Navy, where he was an intelligence officer and served a combat tour in Iraq.

Neither has anywhere near the resources that Klobuchar has. White last reported raising $133,000, while Fraser has taken in $68,000. Klobuchar, meanwhile, has collected about $19 million this cycle and has more than $6 million available to spend on the general election campaign.

Craig is preparing for what’s expected to be Minnesota’s most competitive House race in November. Vying to challenge her are former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab and defense attorney Tayler Rahm. Teirab has the support of Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the National Republican Congressional Committee. He was better funded than Rahm, who won the endorsement at the district convention with support from grassroots conservatives.

While Rahm announced in July that he was suspending his campaign and would instead serve as a senior adviser for Trump’s Minnesota campaign, he will still be on the ballot and didn’t fully pull the plug on his campaign.
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Democrats are energized, but can Harris win?

WASHINGTON — Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris has quickly consolidated power and energized a campaign that many Democrat leaders had worried about.

Meeting no meaningful challenge from other Democrats, Harris secured votes to be the nominee from 4,567 delegates — 99% of the participating delegates — in a virtual call earlier this month. 

The campaign, together with the Democratic National Committee and other joint fundraising committees, raised a historic $310 million in July, dwarfing the tally for the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, in the same month. More than $200 million of Harris’ haul came during the first week of her candidacy. 

“We’ve seen a groundswell of support. The type of grassroots support — organizing and fundraising — that wins elections,” said Kevin Munoz, a Harris campaign spokesperson.

The campaign’s optimism is reflected in the polls. After another series of very strong surveys in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Harris now has a 55% chance of winning, said election data analyst Nate Silver.

Silver gave Biden a 27% chance of winning when he was the Democratic nominee.

However, the Trump campaign insists that the fundamentals of the race have not changed.

“The Democrats deposing one Nominee for another does NOT change voters discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing costs not to mention concern over two foreign wars,” Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio said in a memo.

Harris’ “honeymoon” will soon end, he said. “While the public polls may change in the short run and she may consolidate a bit more of the Democrat base, Harris can’t change who she is or what she’s done.”

While the fundamentals have not changed, they were “being obstructed by concern about Biden’s age and cognitive abilities,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

“Donald Trump is as unpopular as ever, and now he has an opponent who is much more appealing,” he told VOA. “Democrats are back in the game.”

Battleground states

In the United States, elections are not determined by winning the popular vote but by winning Electoral College votes, which are allotted to each state roughly in proportion to its population. In all but two states, the candidate getting the most votes in a state gets all its Electoral College votes.

Harris’ team has been investing heavily in campaign infrastructure, opening offices, recruiting new staff and enlisting tens of thousands of volunteers in what is considered battleground or swing states that could help determine the 2024 electoral victory — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. 

In 2020, those seven states were won by a margin of 3 percentage points or less. Currently, Harris is polling slightly ahead but still within the polling margin of error in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump is ahead in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina. He is leading by more than the polling error margin in Georgia.

Both Trump and Harris will be hard-pressed to win without Pennsylvania, said Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky. Pennsylvania has 19 Electoral College votes, the most of any swing state.  

“They can each afford to lose it but would have to run the table in most, if not all, of the other swing states, which include Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina,” Roginsky told VOA. 

A candidate needs to secure at least 270 out of the 538 electoral college votes to win. Ultimately, it comes down to winning more Electoral College votes than your opponent, however you make that math happen, said Kelly Dittmar, associate professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden.

“Winning swing states with a high number of Electoral College votes, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania — both states where Democrats have recently won statewide and where Biden won in 2020 — is one solid path toward [Harris] achieving success,” Dittmar told VOA. 

In Michigan, a state with a large population of Arab Americans, Harris will need to convince the more than 100,000 people, angry over the Biden administration’s staunch support for Israel, who wrote “uncommitted” on their primary ballots. Thirty members of the so-called Uncommitted National Movement have earned delegate spots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week.

Harris also inherits opposition from the “Abandon Biden” movement over the same cause.

“We are saying do not vote for those who are supporting or endorsing what’s happening currently in Gaza,” Hudhayfah Ahmad, the campaign’s media representative, told VOA. “Quite frankly, that applies to both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.” 

Inflation and immigration 

While Democrats’ enthusiasm has soared, Harris must deal with voters’ frustration over high inflation, a problem that Republicans blame on the Biden-Harris administration.

Trump previously held a commanding lead among voters on key economic issues, with various polls showing Americans think they will be better off financially under Trump than Biden. 

However, a survey conducted for the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business published this week found that 41% trust Trump to be better at handling the economy, while 42% believe Harris would be better – a figure up seven points from Biden’s numbers in July.

Immigration is another weak spot for Biden, and by extension Harris. The Trump campaign has sought to paint her as the nation’s “Border Czar” responsible for the “invasion” of Central American migrants crossing into the United States from the border with Mexico.

Her campaign is now aiming to present their candidate as someone who is pro-immigration but tough in enforcing the law, by highlighting Harris’ life story as the daughter of immigrants and experience as a former attorney general of California, the state with the largest number and share of immigrants.

“I was attorney general of a border state,” Harris said at a recent rally in Arizona, a swing state where immigration is a top concern for voters. “I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels and human traffickers. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

Will she win in November? 

In such a tight race in an ever-changing political environment, analysts have avoided saying that any candidate’s path to victory is clear.

The Harris campaign said they believe this will be a very close election, decided by a very small number of voters, in just a few states.

Even with this momentum, said Harris campaign spokesperson Munoz, “we are the underdogs in this race, and we’re taking nothing for granted.”
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Harris faces misogyny, racism in bid for White House

Critics of Vice President Kamala Harris have used her gender as a cudgel, saying subtly and overtly that a woman cannot hold the most powerful job in the free world. Gender scholars say those railing against Harris have also chosen another line of attack: her race. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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Elon Musk interview of Trump marred by technical issues

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finally got underway on Musk’s social media platform X on Monday evening, following a lengthy delay caused by technical problems that kept many users from accessing the live stream.

Musk, who has endorsed Trump, began the event at 8:42 p.m., more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. He blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not confirmed.

More than 1.3 million people were listening about 45 minutes into the conversation, according to a counter on X.

Trump sought to turn the problems into a positive, congratulating Musk on the number of people trying to tune in.

The former president sounded at times as if he had a lisp, many listeners on X pointed out. Some said it made him sound like a cartoon character, others suggested it could be due to audio compression issues.

The technical issues recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.

At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his own, social media platform, Truth Social. “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!)” Trump posted, “Yours does not.”

Ahead of Monday’s event, Musk had written: “Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation.” X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.

Musk spent much of the early part of the interview lauding Trump for his bravery during the attempt on his life on July 13, when his ear was struck by a bullet.

Musk, the world’s richest person, announced his support for Trump shortly after the shooting. He backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.

Trump said he plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the attack, for a rally in October.

As the conversation unfolded, Trump delivered his usual mix of grievances, exaggerated claims and personal attacks, with Musk offering occasional encouragement.

Trump claimed without evidence that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he were still president and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — all authoritarian strongmen — as at the “top of their game.”

He also expressed anger that Vice President Kamala Harris had been swapped in for Biden on the Democratic ticket.

“She hasn’t done an interview since this whole scam started,” Trump said, claiming falsely that Biden dropping off the ticket was a “coup.” Trump had been leading Biden in many polls of battleground states likely to be critical to the outcome of the Nov. 5 election but is now trailing Harris in some of the same states.

In an interview that was light on policy detail, Trump also appeared to praise Musk for firing workers.

“You’re the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike — I won’t mention the name of the company — but they go on strike. And you say: ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone.'”

Trump back on X

The interview provided an opportunity for Trump to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is facing new headwinds.

Harris has erased Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energized Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies since she replaced Biden as the party’s candidate three weeks ago. Her momentum could get another boost from the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a series of posts on Monday for the first time in a year, reviving an account that had served as a main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House, including his followers’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the Jan. 6 attack, citing concerns he would incite violence.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than on X.

Musk backs Trump

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla, has echoed Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and Biden’s immigration policies.

Musk has started an external super PAC spending group to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Musk’s endorsement.

“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at an early August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a “sellout.”

The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Republicans in Congress, including Trump’s running mate Senator JD Vance, have opposed those subsidies.
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Judge rules RFK Jr. not a state resident, can’t be on New York ballot

ALBANY, N.Y. — A judge ruled Monday that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name should not appear on New York’s ballot, saying that he falsely claimed a New York residence on nominating petitions despite living in California.

Kennedy’s lawyers quickly vowed to appeal ahead of the Aug. 15 deadline. If the judge’s ruling is upheld, it would not only keep Kennedy off the ballot in New York but could also lead to challenges in other states where he used an address in New York City’s suburbs to gather signatures.

The ruling came after a North Carolina judge decided earlier Monday that Kennedy can remain on that state’s ballot following a separate challenge on different grounds.

Judge Christina Ryba, in her 34-page decision, said the rented bedroom Kennedy claimed as his home in the state wasn’t a “bona fide and legitimate residence, but merely a ‘sham’ address that he assumed for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration” and furthering his political candidacy.

“Given the size and appearance of the spare bedroom as shown in the photographs admitted into evidence, the Court finds Kennedy’s testimony that he may return to that bedroom to reside with his wife, family members, multiple pets, and all of his personal belongings to be highly improbable, if not preposterous,” the judge wrote.

Ryba said evidence submitted in trial showed Kennedy had a “long-standing pattern” of borrowing addresses from friends and relatives so he could maintain his voter registration in New York State while actually residing in California.

“Using a friend’s address for political and voting purposes, while barely stepping foot on the premises, does not equate to residency under the Election Law,” the judge wrote. “To hold otherwise would establish a dangerous precedent and open the door to the fraud and political mischief that the Election Law residency rules were designed to prevent.”

Clear Choice Action, the Democrat-aligned political action committee that backed the legal challenge, said the ruling makes it clear that Kennedy “lied about his residency and provided a false address on his filing papers and candidate petitions in New York, intentionally misleading election officials and betraying voters’ trust.”

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of several voters in the state, claims Kennedy’s state nominating petition falsely listed a residence in well-to-do Katonah while actually living in the Los Angeles area since 2014, when he married “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines.

Kennedy, who led a New York-based environmental group for decades and whose namesake father was a New York senator, argued during the trial that he has lifelong ties to New York and intends to move back.

During the trial, which ran for less than four days, Kennedy said he currently rents a room in a friend’s home in Katonah, about 65 kilometers north of midtown Manhattan, though has only slept in that room once due to his constant campaign travel.

The 70-year-old candidate testified that his move to California a decade ago was so he could be with his wife, and that he always planned to return to New York.

Barbara Moss, who rents the room to Kennedy, testified that he pays her $500 a month. But she acknowledged there is no written lease and that Kennedy’s first payment wasn’t made until after the New York Post published a story casting doubt on Kennedy’s claim that he lived at that address.

The judge also heard from a longtime friend of Kennedy’s who said the candidate had regularly been an overnight guest at his own Westchester home from 2014 through 2017, but was not a tenant there as Kennedy had claimed.

Attorneys representing several New York voters grilled Kennedy in often heated exchanges as they sought to make their case, pointing to government documents including a federal statement of candidacy with a California address, and even a social media video in which Kennedy talks about training ravens at his Los Angeles home.

“Kennedy’s testimony that none of the furniture, bedding and other decorative items in the spare bedroom belonged to him, as well as his testimony that his wife and family, his extensive book collection, and his wide assortment of domestic and exotic pets all remained in California, was further compelling evidence that Kennedy lacks the necessary physical presence and intent to remain” at the Katonah address, the judge wrote in her ruling.

Kennedy has the potential to do better than any independent presidential candidate in decades thanks to his famous name and a loyal base. Both Democrat and Republican strategists have expressed concerns that he could affect their candidate’s chances.

Kennedy’s campaign has said he has enough signatures to qualify in a majority of states, but his ballot drive has faced challenges and lawsuits in several.

Kennedy has told reporters that getting knocked off the ballot in New York could lead to lawsuits in other states where his campaign listed the same address.

After the trial ended Thursday, Kennedy argued that people who signed his petitions deserve a chance to vote for him.

“Those Americans want to see me on the ballot. They want to have a choice,” he said.
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FBI investigating after Trump campaign says it was hacked by Iran

WASHINGTON — The U.S. FBI said on Monday it was investigating after Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said its internal communications were hacked and the campaign blamed the Iranian government.

The former president said on Saturday that Microsoft had informed his campaign that Iran had hacked one of its websites. Trump said Iran was “only able to get publicly available information.”

The FBI is also investigating an alleged hack targeting advisers to the campaign of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

The FBI began the investigation in June, when Biden was still running for president, suspecting that Iran was behind the attempts to steal data from two U.S. presidential campaigns, the newspaper said, citing sources.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden withdrew his bid last month.

The Iranian government has denied that it hacked the Trump campaign.

Trump’s campaign has pointed to a report on Friday by Microsoft researchers that indicated that Iranian government-linked hackers tried breaking into the account of a “high-ranking official” on a U.S. presidential campaign in June.

The report added that the hackers took over an account belonging to a former political adviser and then used it to target the official. It did not provide further details on the targets’ identities.
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Elon Musk to interview Trump on X social media network

washington — Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is due to interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the X social media network on Monday in an event that could inject more surprises into the turbulent U.S. presidential election.

The interview, scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern Time (0000 Tuesday GMT), could provide the former president an opportunity to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is seen as sagging.

His Democratic rival for the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energized Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies.

The interview on Musk’s social media platform could allow Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News. However, similar events on the platform have been plagued by technical problems.

“Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation,” Musk wrote on the platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The interview will be hosted live using Trump’s official X account, his campaign said on Sunday. Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social social media platform, which was launched in February 2022. On Monday morning, Trump returned to X for the first time in a year, posting an ad that highlighted his claim that the four criminal prosecutions he faces are politically motivated.

His last X post before Monday was one in August 2023 appealing for donations and showing a mug shot after he was booked at an Atlanta jail in relation to felony charges tied to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

Musk could prove to be an unusual interviewer. The world’s richest person backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since and endorsed the Republican following the attempted assassination of Trump in July.

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla, also started a fundraising organization to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Musk’s endorsement.

“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at an early August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a “sellout.”

The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Republicans in Congress have opposed those subsidies. Senator JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, said the Biden policy merely subsidizes rich people who purchase the cars.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought it in 2022 and subsequently reduced content moderation that has resulted in a dramatic increase in hate speech, civil rights groups have said.

In the meantime, the entrepreneur has been involved in a swirl of additional controversies. He has falsely accused Biden and the Democratic Party of opening U.S. borders to undocumented immigrants in a ploy to boost the number of potential Democratic voters. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections.

Musk in November 2023 endorsed an antisemitic post on X that said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people. He defended himself, saying the user was speaking “the actual truth.” Musk has also attacked the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that works to fight antisemitism, accusing it, without evidence, of being responsible for a drop in advertising on X.
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Harris talks immigration and leans into her record as prosecutor while Trump still promises mass deportations

Immigration is one of the top issues in the upcoming U.S. election. Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning on her achievements as a prosecutor, while former President Donald Trump blasts the current administration’s record and promises mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more.
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Harris is pushing joy. Trump paints a darker picture. Will moods matter?

WASHINGTON — At the top of his first speech as her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz turned to Vice President Kamala Harris and declared, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.” The next day, Harris took the theme a step further, branding the Democratic ticket “joyful warriors.”

Contrast that with former President Donald Trump, who opened a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida a few days later by saying, “We have a lot of bad things coming up,” and predicting the U.S. could fall into an economic depression unseen since the dark days of 1929 or even another world war.

“I think that our country is, right now, in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in, from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint,” Trump said Thursday.

Democrats are playing up their sunnier outlook, promoting the idea that voters can be inspired to support someone and not just cast their ballot against the other side. The Trump campaign argues their candidate is reflecting the dour mood of the country and dismisses the idea that a growing contrast in tone and upbeat attitude will decide the presidency.

Two-thirds of Americans reported feeling very or somewhat pessimistic about the state of politics, according to polling by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research from last month. Roughly 7 in 10 said things in the country are heading in the wrong direction.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the former president, said people don’t care about “vibe checks.”

“That’s not making gas or food or housing less expensive,” Miller said.

Walz promotes positivity

Still, just how hard Harris is betting on the opposite approach is evident in her decision to pick Walz, whose personal story includes being on the coaching staff of a high school football team that had gone winless just a few years earlier to clinching a state championship in 1999.

The Minnesota governor’s relentless positivity is meant to give supporters a jolt of new energy and keep the momentum that Harris has built after President Joe Biden — facing mounting pressure from within his own party and increasingly pessimistic views about his chances in November — stepped aside and endorsed his vice president.

Walz spent his first week as Harris’ running mate traveling to swing states with Harris and underscored the point during a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, celebrating what he said was “the ability to talk about what can be good.”

“This idea of caring for our neighbor and kindness, and a hand up when somebody needs it. And just the sense that people go through things and to be able to be there when they need it, that’s who we are,” he said. “It’s not about mocking. It’s not name-calling.”

Biden often ended his speeches saying he’d never been more optimistic. But he built his now-shuttered reelection bid around branding Trump an existential threat to democracy. The president offered dire predictions about the former president, suggesting he’d dismantle the nation’s founding principles should he retake the White House.

Harris’ campaign still relies on many of the same themes, decrying Trump as a threat to democracy, warning that he’ll impose draconian limits to abortion and voting and that he will follow Project 2025, a plan championed by top conservatives to remake large swaths of the federal government.

And despite Walz insisting that smiles were more powerful than insults, he and Harris have continued their share of denunciations, decrying Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 felony counts in a hush-money case and his being found liable for fraudulent business practices and sexual abuse in civil court.

Still, even before she named Walz her running mate, Harris was suggesting that she could help make politics fun again.

“We love our country. And I believe it is the highest form of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country,” Harris declared in campaign speeches before picking Walz. She now tells crowds that she and her running mate “both believe in lifting people up, not knocking them down.”

Paula Montagna, who went to see Harris and Walz at a rally outside Detroit last week, highlighted the shift in messaging since Harris took over from Biden.

“Kamala is so positive, and it’s nice to hear positive instead of negative,” Montagna said.

Trump team says their candidate is reflecting reality

Trump’s senior campaign advisers counter that the mood of the country right now is sour over the economy, the state of the U.S.-Mexico border and turmoil in the Middle East and beyond. They see their candidate as reflecting that reality rather than what they believe is a temporary exuberance igniting the Democratic base after months of discouragement over their ticket.

Trump has tried to harness that with his repeated predictions of stock market crashes and war. His campaign appearances have included a long list of other warnings that have veered into the apocalyptic, saying that if he’s not elected, “we’re not going to have a country anymore,” that “the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” and that under a Harris administration, “Social Security will buckle and collapse” and “the suburbs will be overrun with violent crime and savage foreign gangs.”

During his Republican National Convention speech last month, where his advisers said Trump would seem changed and more personal after surviving an attempted assassination, the former president did strike a different tone — at least to start.

He said early on that he had “a message of confidence, strength and hope” and sought to “launch a new era of safety, prosperity and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed.”

But by the end, Trump had returned to predictions of doom, twice warning, “Bad things are going to happen.”

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has drawn a sharp contrast with Walz. Vance has been cheered on the right for being an aggressive fighter on behalf of the former president, particularly when engaging with reporters.

“Right now, I am angry about what Kamala Harris has done to this country and done to the American southern border,” Vance said at a campaign stop in Michigan. “And I think most people in our country, they can be happy-go-lucky sometimes, they can enjoy things sometimes, and they can turn on the news and recognize that what’s going on in this country is a disgrace.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, not himself known for a sunny disposition, offered much the same assessment Friday at a conservative conference in Atlanta hosted by radio host Erick Erickson.

“The country is obviously in a bad mood,” McConnell said.

Trump supporters waiting to see him at a rally in Bozeman, Montana, said they felt the former president’s campaign made them feel positive — even if his message often isn’t.

“Just looking at the state of the country now, I don’t think Kamala Harris’ campaign is one of joy and hope. I think that’s Trump’s campaign,” said Alex Lustig, a 23-year-old from Billings, Montana.

Fred Scarlett, a 63-year-old retiree from Condon, Montana, said that “everyone understands that we need to be here to support Trump because he has never let us down.”

“They shoot at him,” Scarlett said, “and he still keeps firing back.”
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Trump campaign deals with hack; Harris pledges to eliminate tip taxes

Former President Donald Trump announced that one of his campaign websites was hacked. While details are still coming in, Trump’s VP pick JD Vance granted several news interviews Sunday in which he attacked the Democratic presidential ticket. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz continue rallying supporters on the campaign trail with a focus on the economy. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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Harris campaign: Walz ‘misspoke’ in 2018 reference to ‘weapons of war’ video

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Poll: Harris leads Trump by 4 points in 3 battleground states

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Trump campaign says it was hacked, blames Iran

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Youth engagement reaches new heights this election cycle

Will the youth vote send Kamala Harris or Donald Trump to the White House? Organizers on both sides have seen a swell of voter enthusiasm and support, particularly among young people. But the younger demographic has had a historically low turnout at the polls. VOA’s Tina Trinh explores whether that could change come November.
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In fight for West, Harris campaigns in Arizona, Trump in Montana

GLENDALE, Arizona — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in a packed arena in Arizona on Friday, hoping to put Republican candidate Donald Trump on the back foot in the West, while Trump held his own rally in Montana to support a Republican candidate for Senate.

The Democratic presidential candidate, less than a month into her bid for the White House, has been on a weeklong tour after naming her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a focus on building excitement for her campaign in seven states that could tip the November 5 election.

That tour on Friday brought her to the Phoenix area, where she was visiting with volunteers at a campaign office and speaking to voters.

While traveling, Harris won the endorsement of LULAC Adelante, the political action committee for the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization. It was the group’s first-ever presidential endorsement.

In Glendale, a crowd estimated at more than 15,000 greeted Harris, including some pro-Palestinian demonstrators who interrupted the remarks. Harris has faced anger from liberal voters who disagree with her support for Israel in its war in Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas attack.

“The president and I are working around the clock every day to get that cease-fire deal done and bring the hostages home,” Harris said, adding: “So, I respect your voices, but we are here to now talk about the race in 2024.”

Earlier in the week when some protested during her rally in Michigan and interrupted her speech, she had said: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

Also in the West, Trump held a rally in Bozeman, Montana, a state that Republicans have carried in every presidential race since 1996. He again attacked Harris in personal terms — calling her “crazy,” “dumb” and “low IQ” — and criticized her for not doing interviews or major press conferences since she became the Democratic candidate.

Crowd size, ‘weird’ attacks

Trump on Thursday had mocked the size of Harris’ campaign crowds, even though they have matched his of late.

He falsely compared the size of the gathering on January 6, 2021 — the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol — to that who heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 in Washington.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Walz quipped during a speech introducing Harris.

While Montana is not a battleground state in the presidential race, it will host a competitive race that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025.

Republican Tim Sheehy, who will be facing Democratic Senator John Tester, spoke at the rally. Trump began his speech around an hour and a half later than planned, after his plane was reportedly diverted to a different Montana airport due to a mechanical problem.

Before taking the stage, Trump shared posts on Truth Social insisting that he was in a near-fatal helicopter ride with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, although Brown said the incident never happened and another politician said he had been on a similar flight with Trump decades earlier.

In a speech running nearly an hour and 45 minutes, Trump again portrayed Democrats as left-wing extremists, dubbing the party’s ticket “comrade Walz and comrade Harris.”

Trump also responded to a new Democratic attack line, popularized by Walz, that Republicans were weird. “I think we’re the opposite of weird,” Trump said. “They’re weird.”

When the crowd at the Democrats’ Arizona rally chanted, of Trump, “Lock him up,” Walz discouraged them. “No, better than that, beat the hell out of him at the ballot box.”

Harris, responding to the same chant later, said: “Yeah, the courts will deal with that. We gonna win in November. We’re gonna win in November. We’ll handle that, too.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on the comment.

Pro-Trump crowds have often chanted that his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be locked up, and Trump called for her to be behind bars.

Democrats hope to take two Western states that are closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters in November: Nevada and Arizona, both of which Democrat Joe Biden carried narrowly over Trump in 2020.

Both are nearly one-third Latino, a demographic group of key focus for both parties. Recent polls taken in both states point to an exceptionally close race.

Harris was due to head to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday. The powerful Culinary Union Local 226, which represents casino and hospitality workers there, also endorsed her on Friday.

Trump showed new focus on another competitive state on Friday, Georgia.

His campaign placed $37.2 million in television advertising, its biggest such purchase in a single day this election cycle, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising.

The ads will air in seven battleground states. Trump’s campaign is pouring the most advertising money into Georgia, spending $23.8 million in the Southern state, where polls have tightened since Harris’ ascent.

Trump lamented that he had debated erstwhile Democratic candidate Biden in June. Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate led to Democratic calls for him to drop his presidential bid, which Biden did last month.

“Why the hell did I debate him?” Trump said.
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Military service of VP hopefuls Walz, Vance scrutinized

pentagon — For the first time in 20 years, both Republicans and Democrats have a military veteran on their presidential ticket. The last time this occurred was when President George W. Bush faced Senator John Kerry in 2004.

While Democratic vice presidential hopeful Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Senator JD Vance have different political views, both share a history of military service.

Walz served 24 years as a member of the Army National Guard after voluntarily enlisting at age 17. According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz served in Nebraska as a senior sergeant and an administrative specialist before transferring to Minnesota as a cannon crewmember and a field artillery senior sergeant.

For eight months in 2003-04, Walz deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to assist with security missions at various locations in Europe. He did not fight in combat.

Walz culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion but “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s state public affairs officer, told VOA.

Vance, then named James David Hamel, served four years as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps after he voluntarily enlisted when he was 19. According to the Marine Corps, he was deployed to Iraq for six months in 2005-06 as a military journalist during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Like Walz, he did not see combat and has said he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.”

“Veterans bring a unique level of leadership and experience to government,” Carl Bedell, chair of the Virginia Board of Veterans Services, told VOA. “That the next vice president will bring military experience to the administration is a good thing for our country.”

‘Stolen valor’ controversy

Vance on Wednesday criticized Walz for “stolen valor garbage” and claimed the Democratic vice presidential candidate had “abandoned” his unit “right before they went into Iraq.”

Walz chose to leave the Guard in 2005 to run for Congress. Federal Election Commission records show that Walz filed to run for Congress in February 2005, and National Guard records show he officially retired in May, about two months before his unit received an alert for deployment to Iraq and about a year before the unit deployed to the country in March 2006.

“Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery received an alert order for mobilization to Iraq on July 14, 2005. The official Department of the Army mobilization order was received on August 14, 2005, and the unit mobilized [for pre-deployment training] on October 12, 2005,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Rossman, the Minnesota National Guard director of operations, said.

Walz went on to flip a U.S. House seat in a 2006 election, igniting his political career and leading him to be elected governor of Minnesota in 2018 and now the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Walz’s Guard colleagues have publicly criticized his decision to leave their unit that year because, while no official orders had been given, some soldiers had started to suspect that they would be deployed to a war zone soon.

Doug Julin, a retired National Guard soldier who worked with Walz, said in an interview with The Washington Post that “the big frustration was that he let his troops down.”

Another veteran who served with Walz, Tom Schilling, told Fox News that Walz “ditched” his team.

Minnesota National Guard veteran Al Bonnifield, however, told NewsNation that at the time, Walz talked to him for more than half an hour about how to move forward, weighing whether he could be a better person for his soldiers and his country by staying in the Guard or running for Congress.

“I know that wasn’t a cowardly move. I know that wasn’t, from the bottom of my heart,” Bonnifield said.

Retired Command Sergeant Major Joe Eustice, who served with Walz for several years, told CNN Friday that while he disagreed with many of his colleagues’ political views, accusations that Walz ran out on his battalion were “baseless” and an “unfair assessment of what took place.”

Unofficial alerts given prior to an alert order for mobilization, known today as the Army’s “Notification of Sourcing,” did not begin until 2009, according to the National Guard.

“Any communication prior to the official order in 2005 would be considered an unofficial notice, for a possible deployment, and would be subject to change until an official mobilization order was received,” the Guard added.

Some veterans have now called out Vance for criticizing Walz’s record. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman compared Vance’s four years of service in public affairs to Walz’s 24 years and eight promotions.

“I do not think you want to compare records,” he wrote on X.

Bedell of the Virginia Board of Veterans Services said that citizens “deserve leaders that are who they say and who did what they say they did, especially in regard to their military service.” He warned, however, that any scrutiny should be an “honest assessment — politics tend to skew that.”

Not ‘in war’

Vance also called Walz “dishonest” for a claim that he made in 2018 while speaking to a group about gun control during his first campaign for governor.

In the video, Walz was discussing his transition away from the National Rifle Association and said, “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”

Eustice, who disagrees with Vance’s attack on Walz’s retirement, told CNN that Walz “didn’t carry a weapon in war. That statement is untrue.”

In a 2009 interview, Walz explained that his fellow soldiers had expected to “shoot artillery in Afghanistan” as they had trained to do, but that didn’t happen.

“I think in the beginning, many of my troops were disappointed,” Walz said in the interview. “I think they felt a little guilty, many of them, that they weren’t in the fight up front as this was happening.”

After Vance’s comments, the Harris campaign said in a statement that Walz had “fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times” in his 24 years of service.
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Harris, Walz campaign in Arizona, where every vote will be critical

phoenix — Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate held a rally in Arizona Friday as part of their tour of electoral battlegrounds, visiting a state with a Democratic U.S. senator she passed over in favor of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and gun control advocate, had been a top contender for running mate. He’s won two tough races in politically divided Arizona.

In passing over Kelly, Harris may have lost the chance to win over people like Gonzalo Leyva, 49, a landscaper in Phoenix. Leyva plans to vote for former President Donald Trump, a Republican, but said he would have backed a Harris-Kelly ticket.

“I prefer Kelly like 100 times,” said Leyva, a lifelong Democrat who became an independent at the beginning of Trump’s term in office. “I don’t think he’s that extreme like the other guys.”

In Arizona, every vote will be critical. The state is no stranger to nail-biter races, including in 2020 when President Joe Biden bested Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes. Both parties are bracing for a similar photo finish this year.

“These last few months are going to feel like years, and it is tough to see anyone winning by a large margin,” said Constantine Querard, a veteran Republican strategist in the state.

Harris acknowledged how tough the race will be, as she and Walz toured a campaign office in North Phoenix Friday afternoon and thanked volunteers, who were making signs with sayings such as “This Mamala is Voting for Kamala” and “Kamala and the Coach.” (Walz has been a high school football coach.)

“It’s gonna be a lot of work,” Harris told volunteers, referring to winning in November.

Democrats profess confidence that Harris is in solid shape in the state even without Kelly on the ticket. The senator is expected to remain a strong advocate for Harris and is already mentioned for possible Cabinet posts or other prominent roles should the vice president ascend to the Oval Office.

“Not picking Kelly hasn’t put the brakes on support for Harris,” said Stacy Pearson, a Democratic strategist in Phoenix. She said she feels the same enthusiasm for the new ticket that has led to giant crowds greeting Harris and Walz at prior stops on their tour, including the home of another running mate also-ran, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Arizona is something of a magnet for Midwesterners seeking to escape the cold. So, several observers say, Walz may still play well there.

Arizona was reliably Republican until Trump’s combative approach to politics went national.

In 2016, Trump won Arizona, then quickly started feuding with the late Republican Senator John McCain, a political icon in the state. That sparked a steady exodus of educated, moderate Republicans from the GOP and toward Democrats in top-of-the-ticket contests.

In 2018, Democrats won an open Senate race in the state, foreshadowing Kelly’s 2020 win and Biden’s victory there as well. In 2022, Kelly won again, and Democrats swept the top three statewide races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, defeating Republican candidates who hewed to Trump’s style and his lies about fraud costing him the 2020 presidential election.

Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist and former McCain staffer, said the same voters who tipped the state to Democrats in the past few cycles remain lukewarm, at best, on Trump.

“Trump’s not doing anything to embrace that segment of the electorate,” he said.

The campaign is already being fought over familiar turf in Arizona — its border with Mexico. Trump and his allies have been hammering Biden over the influx of migrants during his term and are shifting their attacks to Harris.

“It’s very easy for us to segue and switch our sights and focus on her,” said Dave Smith, Pima County’s Republican Party chairman.

Kari Lake, who is running against Democratic Republican Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat in Arizona, unveiled an ad late last week bashing Gallego for supporting what the ad calls Biden’s and Harris’ “radical border agenda,” featuring repeated clips of the vice president chortling.

Meanwhile, Harris is targeting the state’s fast-growing Latino population with her own ad highlighting how Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, rose to the highest echelons of American politics.
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Trump heads to Montana rally after plane was diverted but landed safely

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Former President Donald Trump headed to Montana for a Friday night rally in hopes of ousting the state’s Democratic senator, but his plane first had to divert to an airport on the other side of the Rocky Mountains because of a mechanical issue, according to airport staff.

Trump’s plane was en route to Bozeman, Montana, when it was diverted Friday afternoon to Billings, 142 miles to the east, according to Jenny Mockel, administrative assistant at Billings Logan International Airport. Mockel said the former president was continuing to Bozeman via private jet.

Trump’s campaign posted a video of him upon landing in which he said he was glad to be in Montana but did not mention anything about the landing.

The former president came to Montana hoping to remedy some unfinished business from 2018, when he campaigned repeatedly in Big Sky Country in a failed bid to oust incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester.

Tester has tried to convince voters he’s aligned with Trump on many issues, mirroring his successful strategy from six years ago. While that worked in a nonpresidential election year, it faces a more critical test this fall with Tester’s opponent, former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, trying to link the three-term incumbent to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Harris has benefited nationally from a burst of enthusiasm among core Democratic constituencies, who coalesced quickly around her after President Joe Biden withdrew from the campaign last month. She’s drawn big crowds in swing states, touring this week with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her choice to be her vice presidential nominee.

Trump’s only rally this week, meanwhile, will be in a state he won by 16 percentage points four years ago rather than a November battleground. Facing new pressure in the race from a candidate with surging enthusiasm, Trump on Thursday called questions about his lack of swing state stops “stupid.”

“I don’t have to go there because I’m leading those states,” he said. “I’m going because I want to help senators and congressmen get elected.”

He will add fundraising stops in Wyoming and Colorado.

Trump could be decisive in Montana’s Senate race.

Friday’s rally at Montana State University, which is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. Mountain time, is expected to draw thousands of GOP supporters. Yet the former president’s bigger impact could be simply having his name above Sheehy’s on the ballot in November, said University of Montana political analyst Rob Saldin.

“There is a segment of the electorate that will turn out when Trump is on the ticket,” Saldin said. And that could benefit Sheehy, a Trump supporter and newcomer to politics who made a fortune off an aerial firefighting business.

Republicans have been on a roll in Montana for more than a decade and now hold every statewide office except for Tester’s.

Tester won each of his previous Senate contests by a narrow margin, casting himself as a plainspoken farmer who builds personal connections with people in Montana and is willing to break with his party on issues that matter to them. He’s also become a prolific fundraiser.

The race has drawn national attention with Democrats clinging to a razor-thin majority in the Senate and defending far more seats than the GOP this year. Tester is considered among the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

For him to win, large numbers of Trump supporters would have to vote a split ticket and get behind the Democratic senator.

Trump’s drive to oust Tester traces back to the lawmaker’s work in 2018 as chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Tester revealed past misconduct by Trump’s personal physician, Ronny Jackson, that sank Jackson’s nomination to lead the Veterans Affairs Department.

Then-President Trump took the matter personally and came to Montana four times to campaign for Republican Matt Rosendale, who was then the state auditor. Rosendale lost by 3 percentage points.
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Biden set to share a legacy with LBJ  

U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to pass the Democratic Party’s torch to Vice President Kamala Harris makes him a lame-duck president – one who remains in office without any hope of an additional term. VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman at the White House looks at how Biden’s legacy may eventually compare to the previous one-term president who did not run for reelection.
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