Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are courting key constituencies just two weeks before Election Day 鈥 and they鈥檙e hoping popular public figures will help them make the case.
Follow the AP鈥檚 Election 2024 coverage at: .
Here鈥檚 the latest:
Biden鈥檚 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鈥檇 be up for serving in a potential Kamala Harris administration.
鈥淚 really, unfortunately, have no comment on my future,鈥 said Sullivan, a key architect of President Joe Biden鈥檚 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 , leading to long waits at some polling sites that were made worse by an overwhelmed computer system that clerks use to process ballots.
have been pushing voters to cast ballots early, leading to the surge and reports of people waiting in line for hours at clerks鈥 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.
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Trump says he plans to vote early in this year鈥檚 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鈥檚 鈥渧ery mixed on it.鈥
But he also says he鈥檚 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鈥檛 campaigning
Speaking on Fox News Radio on Wednesday, Trump claimed the Democratic vice president is taking Wednesday and Thursday off.
She isn鈥檛. 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 鈥渓azy as hell鈥 and claims he鈥檚 campaigning harder than she is.
Harris鈥 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鈥檒l 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鈥檚 the first time voting for Gus, who just turned 18.
鈥淚鈥檓 excited about it,鈥 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鈥檒l 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 survive after her water broke too early. She was denied an abortion and eventually went into labor.
鈥淚mmediately after her birth, I was in the worst pain of my life,鈥 she says, as she and her husband are pictured in her living room near a framed photo of the baby鈥檚 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 鈥 including for those who never intended to end a pregnancy 鈥 since three justices appointed to the abortion rights.
Ondrea blames Trump for her situation.
鈥淚t almost cost me my life, and it will affect me for the rest of my life,鈥 she says in the ad.
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Housing on the ballot: Harris, Trump push different plans for tackling housing affordability crisis
Millions of Americans can鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥 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鈥檒l create tax incentives for homebuyers, cut 鈥渦nnecessary鈥 regulations on home construction and make some federal land available for residential construction, though the campaign鈥檚 platform doesn鈥檛 include any details.
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Trump wanted generals like Hitler鈥檚 and said Nazi leader 鈥榙id some good things,鈥 John Kelly claims
Donald Trump鈥檚 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 鈥渄id some good things.鈥
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 killed in combat 鈥渟uckers鈥 and 鈥渓osers.鈥 Still, his new warnings came just two weeks before Election Day, as Trump seeks a second term vowing to at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers 鈥渆nemies from within.鈥
鈥淗e commented more than once that, 鈥榊ou know, Hitler did some good things, too,鈥欌 Kelly . Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying 鈥渘othing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good,鈥 but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.
In his , Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing 鈥淕erman generals,鈥 Kelly would ask if he meant 鈥淏ismarck鈥檚 generals,鈥 referring to Otto von Bismarck, the former chancellor of the German Reich who oversaw the unification of Germany. 鈥淪urely you can鈥檛 mean Hitler鈥檚 generals,鈥 Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, 鈥淵eah, yeah, Hitler鈥檚 generals.鈥
Trump鈥檚 campaign denied these stories Tuesday, with Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, arguing Kelly has 鈥渂eclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated.鈥
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A Supreme Court reshaped by Trump has a low profile in this presidential campaign
Conservatives already have a supermajority on the as a result of Donald Trump鈥檚 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.
鈥淲ith President Trump and a Republican Senate, we could have a generation of conservative justices on the bench in the Supreme Court,鈥 South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently wrote on X.
That鈥檚 exactly what worries Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive group Stand Up America. 鈥淭he real key here is Trump prevention. If Trump wins again, he could solidify right-wing control of the Supreme Court for decades,鈥 Harvey said.
Yet the nation鈥檚 highest court has a lower profile than it did in the past two presidential campaigns. That鈥檚 despite an early summer ruling on 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 , , and the .
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Trump targets hardcore partisans, Harris goes after moderates: Inside the campaign鈥檚 final sprint
In battleground Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris warned that democracy and reproductive rights were at stake as she campaigned .
Going to the same state the day before, Donald Trump at a closed McDonald鈥檚.
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鈥檚 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 鈥 especially young men of all races 鈥 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鈥檚 going after Republican women who may have supported rival Nikki Haley in this year鈥檚 GOP primary and are dissatisfied with the former president.
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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 . Now he鈥檚 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, 鈥済uilty鈥 is the only other option.
According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators he鈥檚 not a 鈥渧igilante鈥 and that he hoped his posts would simply 鈥渨ake people up.鈥
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 , now the state鈥檚 governor, and the others.
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Trump says the Biden administration must find out who leaked Israel鈥檚 plan for attacking Iran
Trump said the Biden administration needs to find out who leaked classified documents detailing Israel鈥檚 plans for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran, implying there are 鈥渕ethods鈥 that could be used to learn who was responsible.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a terrible situation,鈥 Trump said in an interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to find out the person that did it.鈥
Trump said it is easy to find the leakers, 鈥渂ut we don鈥檛 use methods anymore where you can do that. We give the criminals such latitude. We are not allowed to find them.鈥
The former president also criticized the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that overturned in 2022.
鈥淚 thought the leaks from the Supreme Court was just a shame,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 something that also should be found out.鈥
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rejects a claim by Trump鈥檚 campaign that his Labour Party is illegally interfering in the US presidential election
A statement Tuesday night on Trump鈥檚 website announced an official complaint had been filed with the Federal Election Commission against the Labour Party and the Harris-Walz campaign for 鈥渋llegal foreign campaign contributions and interference in our elections.鈥
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 鈥渘early 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the next few weeks鈥 to swing states.
Starmer said any party members in the U.S. were there as volunteers.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 what they鈥檝e done in previous elections, is what they鈥檙e doing in this election,鈥 he told reporters as he traveled to Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders.
Starmer said the kerfuffle would not jeopardize the relationship he鈥檚 tried to build with Trump.
鈥淚 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,鈥 he said.
