By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, COLLEEN LONG, MICHAEL BALSAMO and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI said Donald Trump was the target of “what appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the U.S. Secret Service agents fired at a man pointing an AK-style rifle with a scope as Trump was on the course. Bradshaw said the gunman also had two backpacks hanging on a fence and a GoPro camera, and that he was about 400 yards to 500 yards away from Trump and hiding in shrubbery while the former president played golf on a nearby hole. The person dropped the weapon and fled in an SUV, and was later taken into custody in a neighboring county.

The man who authorities say pointed the rifle and was arrested is Ryan Wesley Routh, three law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The officials identified the suspect to the AP but spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. Authorities are working to determine a motive.

The incident was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. It occurred roughly two months after Trump was shot during an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Only a week later, President Joe Biden withdrew from the race.

In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!”

“Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!” he said.

The golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, and agents were a few holes ahead of him when they noticed the person with the firearm, Bradshaw said. There are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump when he golfs. Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to quickly shelter Trump should a threat arise.

Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not advised Trump’s plans for Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf, before having lunch at the club, one of three he owns in the state.

He has had a stepped-up security footprint since the assassination attempt in July. When he has been at Trump Tower in New York, a lineup of dump trucks have parked in a wall outside the building. And at outdoor rallies, he now speaks from behind an enclosure of bulletproof glass.

Trump was returned Sunday to his private Mar-a-Lago club, where he resides in neighboring Palm Beach, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, had both been briefed and would be kept updated on the investigation. The White House added they were “relieved” to know Trump is safe.

Harris, in a statement said she was “glad” Trump was safe, adding that “violence has no place in America.”

In an X post, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, one of Trump’s top congressional allies, said he had spoken with Trump after the incident and that Trump was in “good spirits” and was “one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”

Martin County Sheriff William D. Snyder said the suspect was apprehended within minutes of the FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office putting out a “very urgent BOLO” — or “be on the lookout” alert” detailing the specific vehicle sought, license plate number and occupant description.

Snyder said his deputies “immediately flooded” northbound I-95, deploying to every exit between the Palm Beach County line to the south and St. Lucie County line o the north.

“One of my road patrol units saw the vehicle, matched the tag and we set up on the vehicle,” Snyder said, “We pinched in on the car, got it safely stopped and got the driver in custody.”

Snyder told WPTV that the suspect “was not armed when we took him out of the car.”

The man had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped by police, Snyder said, saying the suspect did not question why he was being pulled over.

“He never asked, ‘what is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has been briefed on the situation and is receiving regular updates about it, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.

The post by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office indicated the suspect was apprehended near Palm City, Florida, about a 45-mile drive north of Trump’s golf course. Northbound lanes of I-95 were shut down, the sheriff’s office said.

A message sent to campaign officials seeking information on the security status and location of Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was not immediately returned.

Max Egusquiza, of Palm Beach, described the emergency response outside Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course.

“From what I saw 5 black unmarked SUVs blocked in a grey Mercedes in front of the golf course. There were about 20 or more cop cars flying from nearby streets,” he said.

Trump is supposed to speak about cryptocurrency live Monday night on the social media site X for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. He’s expected to do that from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The former president is scheduled to return to the campaign trail on Tuesday for a town hall in Flint, Michigan with his former press secretary, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, followed by a campaign rally in New York on Long Island on Wednesday.

At the end of the week, he’s scheduled to attend and address the Israeli-American Council National Summit in Washington, D.C. and on Saturday hold a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Michael R. Sisak in New York, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

By ALEXA ST. JOHN and MELINA WALLING, Associated Press

Amid a barrage of climate-infused weather disasters such as flooding and hurricanes, along with the shattering of heat records,wildfires and many Americans growing concerned about the planet’s warming, climate change was barely discussed during the presidential debate.

When asked the sole debate question on climate Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “young people of America care deeply about this issue,” and added that the United States has increased domestic production of oil to historic highs, a fact that will contribute to global warming. Harris’ opponent, former President Donald Trump, didn’t answer the question, instead saying incorrectly that the administration of President Joe Biden and Harris is “building big auto plants in Mexico, in many cases owned by China.”

While climate was not front and center, statements made by both candidates — on fracking, energy policy and renewables, provided windows into major climate policy issues. What to know about key climate topics covered — and not covered — during Tuesday’s debate.

Fracking

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a drilling method used to extract oil and natural gas from deep underground bedrock using a highly pressurized liquid. The technique is part of what allowed the U.S. to become the world’s top producer of oil. As of March, the country produced more crude oil than any nation ever for the past six years, according to the Energy Information Administration.

On Tuesday, Trump falsely said about Harris: “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on Day 1,” arguing that her administration would harm the state and nation’s economy. Without a law approved by Congress, a president can only ban fracking on federal lands, which make up about 2% of the state of Pennsylvania, where the debate took place.

Harris said during her 2020 campaign for president that she opposed fracking. But lately, including during the debate, Harris said she would not ban the practice if she is elected. Though Harris said her values have not changed, the discussion of fracking was notable because the drilling method does not align with efforts to switch to clean energy, which Harris also says she champions.

Oil and natural gas are fossil fuels, the burning of which produce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that warm the planet.

Energy policy

During the debate, Harris also called for investment in “diverse” sources of energy, “so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”

After Trump pulled the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change during his first term, the Biden-Harris administration reentered the global pact aimed at reducing emissions. The administration also set a target to slash U.S. emissions 50% by 2030 and put forth policy to accelerate clean energy projects and shift away from fossil fuels.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, has provisions related to climate change, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act is the most sweeping climate law in the nation’s history, pouring billions of dollars into the clean energy workforce that has prompted a massive buildout of manufacturing facilities. It includes production tax credits for electricity produced from renewables, including wind and solar.

But these policies alone won’t be enough for the U.S. to reach its goal of cutting carbon pollution in half, nor do they stop the fossil fuel industry from having opportunities to expand on federal lands before renewables can be built.

Renewable energies

During the debate, Trump falsely claimed that under Harris there would “be no fossil fuels” and the country would “go back to windmills.” At one point, Trump called himself a “fan” of solar but then criticized solar farms that take up large plots of land.

Solar power can be generated on a large or small scale, but even the largest solar farms use a tiny fraction of the land used for agriculture in the U.S. Experts say wind and solar, both clean energies, will be key to tackling the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the climate crisis, causing substantial damages to humans and ecosystems alike.

Last year, 30% of the world’s electricity was produced with renewables and the U.S. has committed to tripling renewables by 2030 in order to do its part in addressing climate change.

Some key issues not discussed

Permitting of new energy projects in the U.S. has not gotten much attention throughout the election cycle, but it’s important because it can make or break the nation’s ability to meet clean energy targets.

Wind and solar power can contribute millions of dollars in tax revenue per year to rural communities, an Associated Press analysis found. But first those projects have to get approved in local governments, a process out of the federal government’s control. Misinformation runs rampant, and communities can turn against those projects.

For instance, wind developers told the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in a January report at least a quarter of applications to build wind projects were canceled in the last five years, with local rules and community opposition cited as some of the leading reasons.

Meanwhile, during the debate, insurance only got a brief mention by Harris, as part of a dig at Trump.

“The former president has said that climate change is a hoax,” she said. “And what we know is that it is very real. You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences, who now is either being denied home insurance or it’s being jacked up.”

Residents living in areas prone to disasters like flooding and wildfires are having a hard time getting insurance at all, and federal policies may force people to pay more, an AP review found.

Electric vehicles also got little attention Tuesday, though Trump raised the idea of all critical minerals coming from China, which would include lithium and nickel. China currently dominates global EV battery production. Though EVs can run on clean electricity, mining for their batteries is an environmental and human rights concern.

Biden has created U.S. tax credits for EV purchases. While Trump has said the current administration’s efforts have resulted in an EV “mandate,” that is not true. Automakers do have to sell some electric vehicles to meet Environmental Protection Agency standards, but those regulations can also be met with more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars.

___

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By PATRICK AFTOORA ORSAGOS, JULIE CARR SMYTH AND ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Many cities have been reshaped by immigrants in the last few years without attracting much notice. Not Springfield, Ohio.

Its story of economic renewal and related growing pains has been thrust into the national conversation in a presidential election year — and maliciously distorted by false rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating their neighbors’ pets. Donald Trump amplified those lies during Tuesday’s nationally televised debate, exacerbating some residents’ fears about growing divisiveness in the predominantly white, blue-collar city of about 60,000.

At the city’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center on Wednesday, Rose-Thamar Joseph said many of the roughly 15,000 immigrants that arrived in the past few years were drawn by good jobs and the city’s relative affordability. But a rising sense of unease has crept in as longtime residents increasingly bristle at newcomers taking jobs at factories, driving up housing costs, worsening traffic and straining city services.

“Some of them are talking about living in fear. Some of them are scared for their life. It’s tough for us,” Joseph said.

A “Welcome To Our City” sign hangs from a parking garage downtown, where a coffee shop, bakery and boutique line the main drag, North Fountain Street. A flag advertising “CultureFest,” which the city describes as an annual celebration of unity through diversity, waves from a pole nearby.

Melanie Flax Wilt, a Republican commissioner in the county that holds Springfield, said she has been pushing for community and political leaders to “stop feeding the fear.”

“After the election and everybody’s done using Springfield, Ohio, as a talking point for immigration reform, we are going to be the ones here still living through the challenges and coming up with the solutions,” she said.

Ariel Dominique, executive director of the Haitian American Foundation for Democracy, said she laughed at times in recent days at the absurdity of the false claims. But seeing the comments repeated on national television by the former president was painful.

“It is so unfair and unjust and completely contrary to what we have contributed to the world, what we have contributed to this nation for so long,” Dominique said.

The falsehoods about Springfield’s Haitian immigrants were spread online by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, on the eve of Tuesday’s debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s part of a timeworn American political tradition of casting immigrants as outsiders.

“This is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at the debate after repeating the falsehoods. When challenged by ABC News moderator David Muir over the false claims, Trump held firm, saying “people on television” said their dogs were eaten, but he offered no evidence.

Officials in Springfield have tried to tamp down the misinformation by saying there have been no credible or detailed reports of any pets being abducted or eaten. State leaders are trying to help address some of the real challenges the city faces.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said Tuesday he would add more law enforcement and health care resources to an aid package the state has already provided to Springfield.

Many Haitians have come to the U.S. to flee poverty and violence. They have embraced President Joe Biden’s new and expanded legal pathways to enter, and have shunned illegal crossings, accounting for only 92 border arrests out of more than 56,000 in July, the latest data available.

The Biden administration recently announced an estimated 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. could remain in the country at least through February 2026, with eligibility for work authorization, under a law called Temporary Protected Status. The goal is to spare people from being deported to countries in turmoil.

Springfield, about 45 miles from the state capital of Columbus, suffered a steep decline in its manufacturing sector toward the end of the last century, and its population shrank as a result. But its downtown has been revitalized in recent years as more Haitians arrived and helped meet the rising demand for labor as the economy emerged from the pandemic. Officials say Haitians now account for about 15% of the population.

The city was shaken last year when a minivan slammed into a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. The driver was a Haitian man who recently settled in the area and was driving without a valid license. During a city commission meeting on Wednesday, the boy’s parents condemned politicians’ use of their son’s death to stoke hatred.

On Sept. 6, a post surfaced on the social media platform X that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house. It was accompanied by a photo of a Black man carrying what appeared to be a goose by its feet.

On Monday, Vance posted on X “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” The next day, he posted again on X about Springfield, saying his office had received inquiries from residents who said “their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

With its rising population of immigrants, Springfield is hardly an outlier. So far this decade, immigration has accounted for almost three-quarters of U.S. population growth, with 2.5 million immigrants arriving in the United States between 2020 and 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Population growth is an important driver of economic growth.

“The Haitian immigrants who started moving to Springfield the last few years are the reason why the economy and the labor force has been revitalized there,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, which provides legal and social services to immigrants across the U.S.

She said Haitian clients in Springfield have told her that, out of fear, they are now considering leaving the city.

Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writer Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, and Noreen Nasir in New York, contributed.

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump said as much with their faces as they did with their words during Tuesday’s debate.

With their microphones muted unless it was their turn to speak, according to the debate rules, body language took on outsized importance for Harris and Trump.

Harris in particular leaned into the nonverbal communication, keenly aware that her every reaction was being broadcast to the world, “speaking” to the audience even while Trump ostensibly had the floor. Networks showed a split screen with both candidates for most of the debate.

At various points she looked amused or befuddled by whatever Trump was saying, as if w ordlessly saying he was lying. A few times she dramatically put her fingers under her chin, eyes wide, head tilted. Other times she laughed.

Trump sometimes scowled, sometimes smiled curtly. His eyes flashed anger or annoyance, perhaps even boredom at times. He rarely looked at Harris while she spoke, instead pointing his face forward toward the cameras or ABC News moderators.

When the candidates did have the floor, Trump and Harris both gesticulated with their hands, mannerisms that are by now familiar to Americans who’ve spent a lot of time watching them.

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and BILL BARROW Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump emerged Wednesday from a rocky debate against Kamala Harris looking to regain his footing with 54 days until Election Day, the first ballots already going out in Alabama and other states on the cusp of early voting.

Not even three months ago, Trump stepped off the debate stage in Atlanta having watched President Joe Biden deliver a disjointed, whispery performance that eventually led the 81-year-old Democrat to end his reelection bid and endorse Harris, his vice president. By the end of Tuesday night, it was the 78-year-old Trump on the defensive after the 59-year-old Harris controlled much of the debate, repeatedly baiting the Republican former president into agitated answers replete with exaggerations and mistruths.

“We’ll see what the polls say going forward, but I don’t know how anybody can spin this other than a pretty decisive defeat for Trump,” former Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who has long been critical of Trump, said Wednesday on CNN.

Harris’ campaign immediately pitched the idea of a second debate. Fox News has proposed an October matchup but with moderators that Trump has indicated he does not prefer. And he said via his Truth Social account Wednesday that there is no need for a second round,

“In the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, “I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!” Well, it’s no different with a Debate,” Trump wrote, as he claimed victory. “She was beaten badly last night … so why would I do a Rematch?”

Trump and Harris were together briefly Wednesday in New York, where they joined President Biden and other dignitaries to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They shook hands for the second time in 12 hours, with the first coming when Harris approached Trump on the debate stage to introduce herself in the first sign of the aggressive approach she would take during the event.

The former president, who flouted convention with a surprise appearance late Tuesday in the post-debate spin room, continued to insist he had won the night, though he also blasted ABC moderators as unfair. It was a tacit acknowledgement that he did not accomplish what he wanted against Harris.

Trump and some of his allies in online posts speculated about punishing ABC by taking away its broadcast license — the network doesn’t need a license to operate but individual stations do — or denying access to its reporters in the future.

“We had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible, a terrible network,” Trump said Wednesday on Fox News. “They should be embarrassed. I mean they kept correcting me and what I said was largely right or I hope it was right.”

Yet his framing of the debate results does not square with the broad consensus of political commentators, strategists on both sides of the political aisle and some immediate assessments by voters who watched Tuesday night. But there is also evidence that the debate did not immediately yield broad shifts among people who watched.

About 6 in 10 debate-watchers said that Harris outperformed Trump, while about 4 in 10 said that Trump did a better job, according to a flash poll conducted by CNN. Before the debate, the same voters were evenly split on whether Trump or Harris would win.

The vast majority of debate-watchers — who do not reflect the views of the full voting public — also said that the event wouldn’t affect their votes in the election. Perceptions of the two candidates remain largely unchanged.

Harris was jubilant late Tuesday, telling late-night rallygoers in Philadelphia that it was a “great night,” even as she repeated that she sees Democrats as “underdogs” against Trump. She won the endorsement of music and cultural icon Taylor Swift.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire was more charitable to Trump than some, allowing that Harris won by traditional debate standards but fell short in convincing swing voters focused on their economic conditions.

“The majority of those swing voters are still results driven,” Sununu said on CNN, adding that Trump still has opportunities to sway voters on the economy, immigration and, especially, foreign policy.

That view was certainly the Republican messaging on Capitol Hill, where the GOP is trying to maintain its fragile House majority and take advantage of a friendly slate of Senate contests to flip control of that chamber.

“Undecided voters’ biggest concern about Kamala Harris heading into the debate was the fact that they don’t know where she stands on any issues because of her constant flip flops,” said Mike Berg, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. “I don’t think she did anything to fix those concerns.”

Jack Pandol, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee handling the House races said, Harris “still refuses to tell voters what she will do as president.”

Yet even on that score, Trump handed Democrats a cudgel with his answers on health. After twice running for president on promises of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, commonly called “Obamacare,” Trump falsely insisted that he saved the 2010 law. At the same time, Trump stood by his long-standing promises to replace the law with something better but when pressed acknowledged that he still had not specific proposal.

“I have concepts of a plan,” Trump said in a remark that become quick fodder for online memes and merchandise.

Dent, the Pennsylvania Republican, said that answer tracked with how Trump approached the issue during his four years as president. “He would only say ‘we’re going to cover everybody, it’s going to cost less, and it’s going to be beautiful,’’ Dent recalled in his CNN appearance. “There was never any policy to back it up. He just didn’t care about its impact on people.”

Sununu, meanwhile, offered perhaps the most revealing assessment of where Trump stands after the debate. It was not what Sununu said about Trump himself, but about another Republican the governor originally supported in the 2024 primaries: former Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was the last GOP candidate standing against Trump and continued garnering support in primaries weeks after she dropped out of the race.

“Imagine what Nikki would have done in that debate,” Sununu said. “It would have been great.”

Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price and AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Andrew Dehan | (TNS) Bankrate.com

The housing market has an affordability problem. During the pandemic, historically low mortgage rates boosted demand, driving home prices to record highs. After decades of underbuilding, construction labor shortages and rising material costs, the supply shortage continues to push homeownership further out of reach. To afford the typical home today, Americans need at least a six-figure salary, according to a Bankrate study.

While the housing market typically isn’t moved by presidential elections, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have weighed in with varying proposals. While these would need approval in Congress to move forward, here’s what we know about their plans so far, and what the experts think.

Affordable housing

Vice President Harris has shared plans for 3 million new housing units over the next four years, spurred by a tax break incentivizing home builders to create more starter homes. She has also proposed up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for eligible first-time homebuyers, along with restrictions on how landlords determine rent increases and limits on tax breaks for institutional investors who buy single-family homes.

It’s unclear if such plans would work. The rent cap, for example, could have unintended consequences, says Mark Hamrick, Washington bureau chief and senior economic analyst for Bankrate.

“Price controls including constraints on rent can have the impact of limiting supply which, in turn, can exacerbate the problem,” Hamrick says. “Who wants to build or own if they’re constrained from setting prices?

Meanwhile, former President Trump has suggested opening tracts of federal land for housing development, removing restrictive regulations on homebuilding and addressing supply chain disruptions.

“Almost 25% of the cost of a newly constructed single-family home is embedded in regulations at all three levels of government,” says Jim Tobin, president and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), which lobbies on behalf of pro-business and pro-housing candidates. For a multifamily unit, that share is closer to 43%.

Though Trump hasn’t yet detailed how he’d reduce regulations, his past tenure could hint at what might come. In his first term, he signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which included a lower corporate tax rate and a provision creating Opportunity Zones to encourage investment in lower-income areas.

“Changes in tax policy, if significant, could have a variety of impacts on the economy and the housing market, in particular,” Hamrick says. “A lower corporate tax rate could stimulate housing activity, boost investment and potentially lead to increased housing market activity. Among the potential ripple effects could be a rise in construction, more supply and lower home prices.”

On the flip side, a higher corporate tax rate could have the inverse effect, Hamrick says. Home builders could scale back activity or pass the higher costs onto homebuyers.

“Former President Trump said he wants to lower the C corp rate,” says Bill Kilmer, senior vice president of Legislative and Political Affairs at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), which represents the housing finance industry. “I imagine that, like the Biden budget proposal, Vice President Harris would want to raise the corporate rate as a means of revenue to pay for some other priorities.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

In his first term, Trump zeroed in on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) underpinning the U.S. housing finance system. In the wake of the 2008 housing crisis, Fannie and Freddie were placed under government conservatorship to help stabilize the market.

Trump has advocated for taking the GSEs out of conservatorship, which could lead to more competition — in other words, more options — in the mortgage market and minimize taxpayer exposure, Kilmer of the MBA says.

It could also raise mortgage costs, says Chen Zhao, senior manager of Economics at real estate brokerage Redfin.

“When Fannie and Freddie were in trouble, there was this question of, ‘Is there an applied guarantee from the federal government for these mortgage-backed securities (MBS)?’ And the answer turned out to be yes, because the government basically just took them over,” Zhao says. “But once you introduce that question mark about whether or not the MBS are guaranteed, it means that rates have to trade for a little bit higher in order to account for that additional risk.”

For her part, Harris has pointed to a 2015 Moody’s study that found privatizing Fannie and Freddie would add approximately $1,200 a year to the cost of a typical mortgage. ​​

“(Harris) really wants (the GSEs) as permanent, sponsored entities with those professional charters to lean in more to the mission side of their charter and their affordable housing mandate,” Kilmer says. “Not just their goals, but also sort of what they can be doing to increase supply and affordability.”

Immigration

Trump has indicated that, if reelected, he plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants — a move his campaign has said would help lower housing costs.

Yet, approximately 20% of the construction labor force — residential and otherwise — is immigrant labor, according to Tobin of the NAHB.

“The construction industry has struggled with lack of labor supply for years,” Hamrick says.

“The thing about the recent wave of immigrants is that they don’t demand a lot of housing, actually, because they are either housed in public housing or they’re housing with relatives or friends,” Zhao says. “So, there’s not a lot of net housing demand that’s being added.”

Harris has shifted her stance on immigration — circling back to investing in the southern border wall — but continues to oppose mass deportations. During the Democratic National Convention in August, Democrats touted solutions to expanding legal entry and paths to citizenship.

“We’ve got to find a way to create a visa system for immigrants who want to work in the construction sector, to come into this country under a visa and work in our sector,” Tobin says. “We’re hopeful that the next President of the United States will lead into that and solve that problem.”

Interest rates

Trump has also suggested he would lower interest rates if reelected — but the Federal Reserve, not the president, sets monetary policy, and the Fed operates independently of who sits in the Oval Office.

“History has shown that in countries where politics infects monetary policy, it is less effective,” Hamrick says. “Translated, that means there’s a higher risk of inflation when heads of state or government try to muscle their central banks.”

Harris has said she wouldn’t interfere with the Fed, but rather focus on lowering costs.

To that end, mortgage rates have already started retreating, and forecasters expect them to continue cooling into 2025.

“Rates probably are coming down on their own anyways,” Zhao says.

Tariffs and trade

In his first term, Trump imposed a series of tariffs to restrict foreign trade, particularly with China, including on building materials like steel and aluminum. Many of these tariffs are still in place today.

Harris hasn’t said much on trade to date, but it’s unlikely the U.S. would return to the pre-Trump era of free trade.

If elected to a second term, Trump has said he’d impose further tariffs, including a 10% to 20% tax on all imports, and up to a 60% tax on imports from China. That would add to inflation, according to a recent Goldman Sachs report.

“It is well documented that if you increase tariffs, you basically increase prices. So that has a big inflationary impact,” Zhao says.

While housing costs tend to outpace inflation, higher prices overall make it harder for Americans to afford everyday expenses and set aside savings, such as for a down payment on a home.

“Abnormally high inflation does what inflation tends to do, which is to make prices go higher, robs purchasing power and would ultimately coincide with rising or higher interest rates,” Hamrick says. “Does that sound familiar? It should because that’s what we experienced in recent years. Central banks, like our own Federal Reserve, raise benchmark rates in response to high inflation. That ultimately catches up to mortgage rates and typically slows the broader economy.”

(Visit Bankrate online at bankrate.com.)

©2024 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Brendan Rascius | (TNS) McClatchy Washington Bureau

Former President Donald Trump now leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 3 points among independents, marking a dramatic shift from one month ago, according to new polling.

In the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, 49% of independent respondents said they are supporting or leaning toward Trump, while 46% said the same for Harris. Three percent said they’re backing a third-party candidate, and 2% said they’re undecided.

In an early August poll, Harris held an 11-point lead over Trump with independents — with 48% support versus his 37%.

In that poll, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was backed by 12% of independents and other third party candidates received 2% support.

Kennedy has since suspended his campaign, endorsed Trump and urged his supporters to back him.

Political experts previously told McClatchy News that his endorsement “could potentially boost support for Trump.”

In August, Harris likely also benefited from a honeymoon period with voters, having only been in the presidential race since mid-July, experts previously said.

The latest poll, conducted between Sept. 3 and 5, sampled 1,529 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points, meaning Trump’s lead is within this margin.

Other findings in the poll:

Trump has similarly seen a significant increase in his support among Latino voters since August, erasing Harris’ lead, according to the poll.

In the latest poll, 51% of Latino voters said they support the former president, while 47% said the same for Harris.

In August, Harris held a 15-point edge over Trump with Latino voters.

The latest poll also found there is a large gender gap in the support for the two candidates, with Harris leading among women by 15 points and Trump ahead among men by 12 points.

Trump is also leading with white voters, with 50% versus Harris’ 47%. However, Harris is receiving a larger share of support from this demographic than her Democratic predecessors. Biden garnered 41% support among white voters in 2020, and Hillary Clinton received 37% in 2016.

Among all registered voters, Harris is leading Trump by one point — 49% to his 48% — narrowing the race from August, when the vice president was up 48% to Trump’s 45%.

And among those who said they definitely plan on voting, Harris outpaced Trump by three points, 51% compared with his 48%.

The poll comes just hours before the two candidates are set to take part in their first — and potentially only — televised presidential debate. The debate, hosted by ABC News, will air live at 9 p.m. E.T.

The majority of respondents, 70%, said they plan to watch most or all of the debate, and 30% of registered voters said it will be an important factor in determining how they vote.

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©2024 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Visit at mcclatchydc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By DAVID BAUDER Associated Press

The ABC News moderators were great. No, actually they were a “disgraceful failure.” They cut off Kamala Harris too much. No, actually they corrected Donald Trump unfairly.

Such is the contentious tenor of the times in 2024’s campaign season. And so it went Tuesday night at Trump’s and Harris’ first — and possibly only — debate.

In an illustration of how difficult it is to conduct a presidential debate in a polarized country, ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked and corrected Trump four times Tuesday and were attacked angrily by the former president and his supporters. The moderators asked about economic policy, the war in Ukraine, abortion, the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection and changes in Harris’ stances since her 2020 presidential run.

It was the only scheduled debate between the two candidates, although Fox News Channel has proposed another one. Trump, following Tuesday’s session, said he’d be “less inclined to because we had a great night.” On social media, Trump echoed many of his supporters in criticizing ABC, saying the debate was essentially three on one.

In the end, Trump logged 43 minutes and 3 seconds of time talking, while Harris had 37 minutes and 41 seconds, according to a count by The New York Times.

Opinions on the coverage were a political litmus test

The debate’s stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate in June — between Trump and sitting President Joe Biden, whose performance was roundly panned — uncorked a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Harris stepping in.

Opinions on how ABC handled the latest debate Tuesday were, in a large sense, a Rorschach test on how supporters of both sides felt about how it went. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X that the ABC moderators were doing an “excellent” job — only to be answered by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said, “this is how you know they’re complete s—-.”

While CNN chose not to correct any misstatements by the candidates during Trump’s debate with Biden in June, ABC instead challenged statements that Trump made about abortion, immigration, the 2020 election and violent crime.

During a discussion of abortion, Trump made his oft-repeated claim that Democrats supported killing babies after they were born. Said Davis: “There is no state in the country where it is legal to kill a baby after it was born.”

Muir pointed out that Trump, after years of publicly not admitting to his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election, had recently on three separate occasions conceded he had lost. Trump replied that he had been sarcastic in making those recent statements.

“I didn’t detect the sarcasm,” Muir said.

After suggesting that crime had gone up during the Biden administration, Muir pointed out that violent crime had gone down during that period, prompting an argument with the former president. ABC also noted, after Trump had repeated a debunked report that immigrants were killing and eating pets in Ohio, that there had been no evidence that had happened.

ABC moderators did not correct any statements made by Harris.

“Could they have done more? Yes,” said Angie Drodnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said in an interview. “Did they do enough? I would say yes. The alternative was none.”

Toward the end of the debate, CNN fact checker Daniel Dale said on social media that “Trump has been staggeringly dishonest and Harris has been overwhelmingly (though not entirely) factual.”

Both candidates didn’t answer some questions

As is often the case in debates, the moderators often saw specific questions go unanswered. Harris, for example, was asked to address Trump’s criticism that the U.S. Justice Department has been weaponized against him. She did not. She also skirted questions about changes to some of her past positions on issues. Muir twice asked Trump whether he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia, and he didn’t answer.

The split screen views of both candidates onscreen told different stories. Trump often looked angry or smiled at some of Harris’ statements, while avoiding eye contact with his opponent. Harris looked over at her opponents several times, often in bemusement, sometimes in open amusement, sometimes shaking her head.

Online anger toward how ABC handled the evening began while the debate was ongoing, and quickly became a talking point.

“These moderators are a disgraceful failure, and this is one of the most biased, unfair debates I have ever seen,” conservative commentator Megyn Kelly posted on X. “Shame on ABC.”

Answering online critics who complained ABC stacked the deck in Harris’ favor, Atlantic writer James Surowiecki wrote that “the way they ‘rigged’ the debate is by letting (Trump) hang himself with his own stream of consciousness rambles.”

“It was like a 4Chan post come to life,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said.

On Fox News Channel, anchor Martha MacCallum said after the debate that Harris “was never really held to the fire.” Commentator Brit Hume agreed with her, but said something else was at play.

“Make no mistake about it,” Hume said. “Trump had a bad night.”

By CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris surprised some viewers during her debate with Donald Trump when she said that she’s a gun owner, raising the fact to counter her Republican opponent’s accusation that she wants to confiscate firearms.

“Tim Walz and I are both gun owners,” Harris said, referencing her running mate. “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”

Harris previously talked about owning a gun in 2019 during her first campaign for president.

“I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety,” Harris previously said. “I was a career prosecutor.”

At the time, her campaign said that Harris purchased a handgun years earlier and kept it locked up. A spokesperson did not provide any additional details when asked on Tuesday.

The exchange about gun ownership came as Trump tried to paint Harris, who started her political career as a San Francisco district attorney, as radically liberal.

“She is destroying our country,” he said. “She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun. She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.”

Harris rebutted each of Trump’s allegations, adding that he should “stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.”

Walz, the Minnesota governor, has also talked about gun ownership and boasted of his marksmanship.

Republicans frequently describe Democrats as a threat to the Second Amendment, while Democrats describe their proposals as common sense measures to protect public safety.

Harris has called for implementing universal background checks and expanding red flag laws to take away guns from people who are deemed dangerous or unstable. She also wants to ban so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will debate on Tuesday in what is likely to be the most significant single event in their battle for the White House.

With polls showing a tight race, the stakes are sky high because the first debate between candidates typically draws a huge audience and has the rare potential to shift opinions of millions of voters all at once.

This presidential debate is crucial for another reason: Harris and Trump have never met or interacted with one another. Americans will get to judge for themselves how they match up and which one they want to lead the country for the next four years.

The debate airs on ABC at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST. It will run for 90 minutes and be moderated by John Muir and Linsey Davis.

This is the only confirmed matchup that the candidates have agreed to after several weeks of uncertainty and wrangling. Trump had originally said he would skip the debate but later said he would do it. Since then, there have been arguments over its terms, including whether to mute their microphones.

Watch live as the debate gets underway:

New York Daily News’ Dave Goldiner and Bay Area News Groups’ Gieson Cacho contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet for the first time face-to-face Tuesday night for perhaps their only debate, a high-pressure opportunity to showcase their starkly different visions for the country after a tumultuous campaign summer.

The event, at 9 p.m. Eastern in Philadelphia, will offer Americans their most detailed look at a campaign that’s dramatically changed since the last debate in June. In rapid fashion, President Joe Biden bowed out of the race after his disastrous performance, Trump survived an assassination attempt and bothsides chose their running mates.

Harris is intent on demonstrating that she can press the Democratic case against Trump better than Biden did. Trump, in turn, is trying to paint the vice president as an out-of-touch liberal while trying to win over voters skeptical he should return to the White House.

Trump, 78, has struggled to adapt to Harris, 59, who is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. The Republican former president has at times resorted to invoking racial and gender stereotypes, frustrating allies who want Trump to focus instead on policy differences with Harris.

The vice president, for her part, will try to claim a share of credit for the Biden administration’s accomplishments while also addressing its low moments and explaining her shifts away from more liberal positions she took in the past.

The debate will subject Harris, who has sat for only a single formal interview in the past six weeks, to a rare moment of sustained questioning.

“If she performs great, it’s going to be a nice surprise for the Democrats and they’ll rejoice,” said Ari Fleischer, a Republican communications strategist and former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “If she flops, like Joe Biden did, it could break this race wide open. So there’s more riding on it.”

Tim Hogan, who led Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s debate preparations in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, said Harris, a former California attorney general, would bring a “prosecutor’s instincts to the debate stage.”

“That is a very strong quality in that setting: having someone who knows how to land a punch and how to translate it,” Hogan said.

The first early ballots of the presidential race will go out just hours after the debate, hosted by ABC News. Absentee ballots are set to be sent out beginning Wednesday in Alabama.

Trump plans to hit Harris as too liberal

Trump and his campaign have spotlighted far-left positions she took during her failed 2020 presidential bid. He’s been assisted in his informal debate prep sessions by Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate who tore into Harris during their primary debates.

Harris has sought to defend her shifts away from liberal causes to more moderate stances on fracking, expanding Medicare for all and mandatory gun buyback programs — and even backing away from her position that plastic straws should be banned — as pragmatism, insisting that her “values remain the same.” Her campaign on Monday published a page on its website listing her positions on key issues.

The former president has argued a Harris presidency is a threat to the safety of the country, highlighting that Biden tapped her to address the influx of migrants as the Republican once again makes dark warnings about immigration and those in the country illegally central to his campaign. He has sought to portray a Harris presidency as the continuation of Biden’s still-unpopular administration, particularly his economic record, as voters still feel the bite of inflation even as it has cooled in recent months.

Trump’s team insist his tone won’t be any different facing a female opponent.

“President Trump is going to be himself,” senior adviser Jason Miller told reporters during a phone call Monday.

Gabbard, who was also on the call, added that Trump “respects women and doesn’t feel the need to be patronizing or to speak to women in any other way than he would speak to a man.”

His advisers suggest Harris has a tendency to express herself in a “word salad” of meaningless phrases, prompting Trump to say last week that his debate strategy was to “let her talk.”

The former president frequently plows into rambling remarks that detour from his policy points. He regularly makes false claims about the last election, attacks a lengthy list of enemies and opponents working against him, offers praise for foreign strongmen and comments about race, like his false claim in July that Harris recently “happened to turn Black.”

Harris wants to argue Trump is unstable and unfit

The vice president, who has been the Biden administration’s most outspoken supporter of abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, is expected to focus on calling out Trump’s inconsistencies around women’s reproductive care, including his announcement that he will vote to protect Florida’s six-week abortion ban in a statewide referendum this fall.

Harris was also set to try to portray herself as a steadier hand to lead the nation and safeguard its alliances, as war rages in Ukraine more than two years after Russia’s invasion and Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza drags on with no end in sight.

She is likely to warn that Trump presents a threat to democracy, from his attempts in 2020 to overturn his loss in the presidential election, spurring his angry supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, through comments he made as recently as last weekend. Trump on social media issued yet another message of retribution, threatening that if he wins he will jail “those involved in unscrupulous behavior,” including lawyers, political operatives, donors, voters and election officials.

Harris has spent the better part of the last five days ensconced in debate preparations in Pennsylvania, where she participated in hours-long mock sessions with a Trump stand-in. Ahead of the debate, she told radio host Rickey Smiley that she was workshopping how to respond if Trump lies.

“There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go,” she said.

AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington and Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Las Vegas, Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Josh Boak in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — For Christopher Pugh, the 2020 election was a turning point.

He already distrusted the government. But as he watched Fox News coverage in the immediate aftermath of the election and read posts on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, that distrust grew. He now believes the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen and trusts few people other than former President Donald Trump to deliver him news about election results.

“I trust Donald Trump, not the government,” said the 38-year-old Republican from Gulfport, Mississippi. “That’s it.”

While most Americans trust government-certified election results at least a “moderate” amount, Republicans are more likely to trust Trump and his campaign, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts. Americans also are heading into the November election with concerns about misinformation. Many have low trust that the information they receive from presidential candidates — particularly Trump, but also Vice President Kamala Harris — is based on factual information.

Trump continues to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election, saying it was rigged against him even after dozens of his court challenges failed, reviews, recounts and audits in battleground states all affirmed President Joe Biden’s win, and Trump’s own attorney general said there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Despite no evidence of any widespread fraud, a 2023 poll found that most Republicans believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

As Trump runs as the Republican candidate for the third time, he also is signaling that he can only lose through widespread fraud. Over the weekend he threatened to prosecute those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election should he win in November.

“The only way they can beat us is to cheat,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in June.

The recent findings from the AP-NORC survey show that a significant chunk of Trump’s supporters might be more inclined to believe what he says about the upcoming election results than they are to trust government certifications of election results.

About two-thirds of Republicans trust Trump’s campaign at least a moderate amount to provide accurate information about the results of the 2024 election, while only about half say the same about the official certifications of results, the survey found. By contrast, about 9 in 10 Democrats trust the government certification at least a moderate amount, and an overwhelming majority, 82%, also have at least a moderate amount of trust in Harris and her campaign.

Most Americans — around 7 in 10 — trust the government certifications of election results at least a moderate amount, according to the survey. Majorities also trust national and local TV news networks, as well as local or national newspapers, to provide accurate information about the outcome of this year’s presidential election.

Danielle Almeida, a 45-year-old Democrat from Briarcliff Manor, New York, said she trusts government-certified election results and finds it alarming that some Americans don’t.

“In order to have a democracy, we have to trust the system and the results of our elections,” she said, adding that she thinks Trump “does not care about fact-checking because he believes his supporters don’t care, either.”

Americans are less likely to trust the campaigns overall — compared to sources such as the government and the media — but they have a higher level of trust in Harris and her campaign than in Trump and his campaign to provide accurate information about the outcome of the election. About half have at least a “moderate” amount of trust in Harris and her campaign. By contrast, about 4 in 10 have at least a moderate amount of trust in Trump and his campaign.

Some Republicans’ distrust of election results started far before the 2020 election.

Richard Baum, 60, a conservative independent from Odessa, Texas, said his suspicions began in the 2000 U.S. presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. After Bush won by a slim margin, “hanging chads” became an unlikely symbol of a disputed presidential election as small anomalies common in elections ballooned into major national controversies.

“There was some stuff there that didn’t seem right that made a lot of doubts in my mind about if you can trust the government,” Baum said.

Baum said he would trust election results only if voting took place on only a single day, early voting and mail-in ballots were banned and photo IDs were required at all polling places.

Many Americans doubt the veracity of both presidential candidates’ campaign messages, but skepticism about Trump’s campaign is higher, the USAFacts/AP-NORC survey found.

About 6 in 10 Americans believe that Trump’s campaign messages are “rarely” or “never” based on factual information, compared to 45% who say that about Harris’ campaign messages.

Many Americans also say it’s hard to discern fact from fiction when it comes to the candidates. Slightly less than half of Americans say it’s “very easy” or “somewhat easy” to find factual information about the candidates and their positions, and only about one-third say it’s easy to know if what candidates are saying is true or not.

About 6 in 10 Americans say it’s easy for them to understand the difference between fact and opinion when it comes to information about the upcoming presidential election, but only about 4 in 10 say it’s easy to know whether information is true or not.

Americans are, however, more confident about factual information related to election logistics: About 7 in 10 Americans say it’s easy to find information about how to register to vote, and about 6 in 10 say it’s easy to find information about how to cast their ballot.

Michele Martin, a 56-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat, said she is “very concerned” about misinformation from politicians but finds it much easier to access basic voter information.

“It’s online. It’s mailed to you. It’s not hard to find,” she said.

About 8 in 10 Americans say that when it comes to getting information about the government, the spread of misinformation is a “major problem.” That is essentially unchanged from when the question was asked in 2020.

Lisa Kuda, a 57-year-old Republican from Palm Harbor, Florida, said she gets most of her news from social media and friends. She said she feels alienated from most news sources other than Fox News.

“Misinformation is everywhere,” she said. “It’s really difficult to find information about candidates.”

When Americans see news about the election and want to find out whether it’s true, 40% say they turn to an internet search first. Much smaller shares — around 1 in 10 for each — say they first check cable news, national TV news or social media.

Baum, from Texas, said he finds it difficult to easily access information about candidates because he believes social media platforms “are censoring conservative ideologies.” He also doesn’t trust Google and instead turns to conservative networks and podcasts such One America News and conservative podcasters to fact-check claims he’s unsure about.

Almeida’s process looks much different. She starts with a Google search and wades through multiple articles from news outlets such as The New York Times and NBC News, making note of any differences. If multiple articles have the same information, she said, she’s more likely to trust it.

“Misinformation is a huge problem,” she said. “You have to take time to do your research.”

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report. Sanders reported from Washington.

The poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By John T. Bennett, CQ-Roll Call

Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will be face-to-face for the first time Tuesday night as they debate, aiming to keep the other out of the Oval Office.

Harris closed the polling gap on Trump after her surprise ascension to the Democratic nomination, but she still trails in some polls. She will have a chance to change that when the nominees square off in Philadelphia.

The vice president had narrow leads nationally in a list of polls released in the past few weeks, but her campaign got a surprise Sunday when a New York Times-Siena College survey put Trump up 1 percentage point — suggesting her surge after President Joe Biden dropped out has ended.

But a strong debate performance against the unpredictable, bare-knuckle debater Trump could give her White House bid a boost with less than two months until Election Day. The stakes couldn’t be higher in a race that shows ample signs of a photo finish on Nov. 5.

“If her momentum continues, Harris will probably win. But it may not. If she stumbles in the Sept. 10 debate, the momentum of the race may change,” according to William Galston of the Brookings Institution, a former White House aide under President Bill Clinton. “Trump’s campaign could regain its balance and sharpen its focus. And unforeseen events could shift the dynamic between the candidates.”

Polls suggest voters want to hear from Harris about policy, and prognosticators in Las Vegas say she has a better chance of winning the debate. “Latest odds reveal Harris has an implied probability of 57% of winning the debate, while Trump only holds a 53% chance,” according to Vegas Insider. “Kamala Harris’ past debate performance gives her a 55 percent chance of winning the debate, while Donald Trump has a 45 percent shot.”

Here are three things to watch as Harris and Trump debate.

Donald the distracted?

The nominees have taken different paths to Philadelphia, with Harris debate-prepping in Pittsburgh and Trump saying and posting more outlandish things — even threatening, if elected, to throw his opponents in the slammer.

“Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote in a post on Sunday. “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

That followed a wild Friday press appearance in New York during which Trump repeatedly insulted several women who have accused him of sexual assault at a time when women voters could decide the election.

The former president’s antics in recent weeks led one Republican pollster to question whether his heart really is in the presidential race.

“I have never seen a candidate more determined to blow an election. Instead of talking about affordability and immigration security (the top public issues), Trump is once again screaming about prosecuting his opponents,” pollster Frank Luntz wrote on X. “Message to Donald: Focus on helping voters, not yourself.”

Abortion access

Harris has been telling supporters at her rallies for more than a month that the election likely will be extremely close and that Democrats have work to do to secure enough votes to put her in the White House.

She and her campaign are banking that access to abortion will help her with women voters, especially college-educated white suburban ones who often vote Republican.

“The impact of abortion on the 2022 midterms, when Democrats did much better than expected, is undeniable. But some evidence suggests that its impact may be more muted in this year’s contest,” Galston noted.

Abortion ranked second, at 15 percent, in the Times-Siena survey when likely voters were asked what issue was most important to them. The economy was first, at 22 percent, and immigration third, at 12 percent.

But, to Galston’s point, abortion ranked eighth when registered voters in seven swing states were asked by polling firm Blueprint about their top issues. Still, more of them said they trusted Harris more on abortion than Trump by an 11-point margin. Notably, among registered independent voters in those battlegrounds, the vice president’s advantage grew to 24 percentage points.

Expect her to try to appeal to more voters in that crucial bloc on Tuesday night.

‘Old guard’

It’s doubtful anyone had this on their election-year bingo card: A Democratic presidential nominee praising Iraq War architect and staunch conservative Dick Cheney. In any other year, that might seem laughable.

After all, Democratic lawmakers and officials spent most of the super-hawkish Cheney’s run as vice president harshly criticizing him over his moves as President George W. Bush’s right-hand man on national security and foreign policy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Yet, in this campaign, which already has been defined by twist and turns, it seems fitting and could add a twist to Tuesday’s debate. Harris on Saturday told reporters she is “proud” to have Cheney’s endorsement. Her campaign also released an ad Monday showing members of Trump’s administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence, saying they would not support him again this year.

It’s an effort to win over Republicans uncomfortable with Trump that Harris began by having GOP speakers at the Democratic convention last month. But bringing up Cheney could give Trump, who has struggled to settle on an anti-Harris message, a much-needed line of attack. In fact, Trump could opt to use the Cheney endorsement to try painting Harris as too much of a wild card on national and global security matters — especially amid worries of a regional Middle East war and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Cheney has long been a proponent of using U.S. military force, even starting preemptive wars. Trump is unabashedly anti-war, often calling them “stupid” and even appearing, at times, to harshly judge those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

“Well, he’s clearly the old guard, the guard that, you know, the country club Republicans that don’t support Donald Trump,” Corey Lewandowski, a Trump campaign adviser, told Fox News on Sunday.

“And so, look, I don’t really care what Dick Cheney says. We saw what happened to Liz Cheney in her last election,” he added. Cheney’s daughter Liz was ousted from House GOP leadership for questioning Trump’s false claims about election fraud and then lost her reelection bid in the 2022 Wyoming Republican primary by a more than 2-to-1 margin after serving as vice chair of the special committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “She was absolutely destroyed. … So they’re bitter and they’re angry and they’re living in the past. It’s time to move forward.”

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©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

With Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump officially the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, they will now face off in a high-stakes debate Tuesday on ABC.

The debate will start at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST.

This is the only confirmed matchup that the candidates have agreed to after several weeks of uncertainty and wrangling. Trump had originally said he would skip the debate but later said he would do it. Since then, there have been arguments over its terms, including whether to mute their microphones.

The debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia was originally going to feature Trump and President Joe Biden, but when the latter dropped out, Harris took his spot. As for any other additional debates, the former president had proposed two additional contests on Sept. 4 on Fox News and Sept. 25 on NBC, but none of those have been confirmed. Meanwhile, Harris said that the two presidential hopefuls could be on the debate stage in October.

That could refer to the vice presidential debates that will pit Democratic running mate Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota against Trump’s pick, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. CBS will host their exchange of ideas on Oct. 1.

The only other debate so far was when Trump and Biden shared the stage on June 27. In that contest, Biden had a disastrous performance that ignited calls for him to drop out of the race.

With ABC hosting the Sept. 10 debate, the network has turned to ABC News’ Linsey Davis and David Muir as moderators.

Here’s how to watch the debate:

What time is the debate?

The debate will start at 9 p.m. EST Tuesday and is expected to last 90 minutes. It’s being moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor Muir and “Prime” anchor Davis.

What channel is the debate on?

ABC News is carrying the debate live on its broadcast network as well as its streaming platform ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Several networks have also agreed to carry the event live.

Where is the debate?

The second general election debate of this cycle is taking place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. As was the case for the June debate, there will be no audience present.

Pennsylvania is perhaps the nation’s premier swing state, and both candidates have spent significant time campaigning across Pennsylvania. Trump was holding a rally in Butler, in western Pennsylvania, in mid-July when he was nearly assassinated by a gunman perched on a nearby rooftop. Harris chose Philadelphia as the spot where she unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in August.

In 2020, it was Pennsylvania’s electoral votes that put Biden over the top and propelled him into the White House, four years after Trump won the state. Biden’s victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots, and the Trump campaign mounted several legal challenges.

Which candidates will be on stage?

Two candidates — Harris and Trump — will be on stage, and it’ll be the first time that they’ve ever met. It’s also Harris’ first debate since 2020, when she and Trump’s running mate — then-Vice President Mike Pence — debated through plexiglass shields during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the presidential debate rules?

The current ABC framework for the second debate has the same rules for mic muting, no live audience or written notes.

Bay Area News Group’s Gieson Cacho and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With most states reliably red or blue, the path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency runs through seven states where the contest is expected to be narrowly decided.

Those are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All together, they are home to only 18.3% of the country’s population.

The Associated Press has been tracking the campaign appearances of the Democratic and Republican tickets since March.

Since then, Pennsylvania has been getting the most love from both campaigns, with a total of 21 visits, including one planned this coming weekend. Wisconsin and Michigan are close behind with 17 and 16, respectively.

Most states haven’t been visited at all, and a handful with clusters of wealth, such as California, get attention not for their voters but when the campaigns want to tap the wallets of the rich.

Matt Vasilogambros | (TNS) Stateline.org

PORT AUSTIN, Mich. — Deep in the thumb of Michigan’s mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula, Republican election officials are outcasts in their rural communities.

Michigan cities already were familiar with the consequences of election conspiracy theories. In 2020, Republicans flooded Detroit’s ballot counting center looking for fraud. Democratic and Republican election officials faced an onslaught of threats. And conservative activists attempted to tamper with election equipment.

But the clerks who serve tiny conservative townships around Lake Huron never thought the hatred would be directed toward them.

“I’m telling you — I’ve heard about everything I could hear,” said Theresa Mazure, the clerk for the 700 residents of Hume Township in Huron County. “I just shake my head. And when you try to explain, all I hear is, ‘Well, that’s just the Democrats talking.’ No, it’s the democratic process.”

The misinformation is rampant, she said. Voters mistakenly believe election equipment is connected to the internet, or that voters are receiving multiple ballots in the mail, or that officials are stuffing ballot tabulators with fake ballots at the end of the day.

She knows her voters. They’re her neighbors. But the level of distrust of elections has gotten to a point where they won’t listen to her anymore. The fact that she’s a Republican doesn’t matter — only that she’s the clerk.

Sitting in the Hume Township Hall, about three hours north of Detroit and surrounded by miles of flat cornfields, Mazure leaned on agricultural metaphors to describe the scenario.

“The mistrust was there, the seed was planted, and then it was fertilized and grew,” she said. “I’m very angry about this, because we’re honest people. All we’re trying to do is our job.”

Mazure didn’t feel comfortable talking about politics. But former President Donald Trump, who lost this state four years ago by 154,000 votes, planted the seed of election denialism and helped it grow.

Once again, Michigan is one of the handful of states that could decide who wins the presidency, and the pressure on the people who run elections is enormous. The state’s part-time clerks, who are trained every four years and have limited resources in running elections, are at a breaking point.

“I’m concerned about November,” Mazure said. “People think we’re the enemy. What do we do? How do we combat this?”

‘I was scared’

Irvin Kanaski succeeded his father as Lincoln Township clerk, first serving as a deputy and then winning election to the top job in 1988, after his father had moved into a nursing home.

For much of his tenure as clerk, Kanaski was a full-time farmer, growing corn, beans and wheat. He’s now retired from farming, but still digs graves at the local cemetery. He has served this community of roughly 600 voters for nearly 40 years, but he feels like they’ve turned against him.

“I feel accused of this fraud stuff that’s been thrown around,” said Kanaski, his hands clasped in his lap. “And I just — I take offense to that.”

Throughout the United States, elections are typically administered at the county level, though there are exceptions. In the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, town clerks run elections. And in Michigan and Wisconsin, municipal and county clerks have varying election duties.

Under Michigan’s hyper-decentralized system, more than 1,500 township and city clerks are responsible for election assignments, such as distributing and collecting mail-in ballots, along with non-election tasks, including maintaining township records, compiling meeting minutes and preparing financial statements.

Michigan township populations range from as low as 15 in Pointe Aux Barques Township in Huron County to a little over 100,000 people in Clinton Charter Township in Macomb County, just north of Detroit. Many of the state’s townships, roughly half of which have populations under 2,000, don’t have websites.

For the small townships with hundreds of voters, the clerk job is part time and pays less than $20,000 a year. When a clerk retires or can no longer do the job, the torch gets passed on to a trusted member of the community — a position almost always sealed with an unopposed election. Ballot drop boxes are sometimes stationed at their homes, where clerks usually conduct their duties.

It’s an old system that doesn’t necessarily consider the financial and professional requirements of running elections in the modern age, said Melinda Billingsley, communications manager for Voters Not Politicians, a Lansing, Michigan-based advocacy group that has successfully pushed against gerrymandered maps and more ways to cast a ballot.

“We need to make sure that clerks are being supported so that they can administer elections effectively,” she said.

During the 2020 presidential election, a voter in Lincoln Township used his own pen to mark a ballot. But it was the wrong kind of pen, and the ink caused the ballot-counting device to malfunction. When Kanaski set the machine aside to be cleaned, the voter was so irate that one of the poll workers, who happened to be a retired police officer, had to escort him out.

“I was scared,” Kanaski said. “You don’t know what they’re going to do.”

This will be Kanaski’s last term in office, but he doesn’t know who in the community would replace him. If no one runs for clerk, the township board appoints someone.

Nearly a tenth of township clerk positions that are up for election this year do not have a candidate, according to a recent article by the Michigan Advance, Stateline’s sibling publication within States Newsroom. The story noted that increased demands and abuse are dampening interest in the job.

Taking a job no one wants

Far from the interstate, down gravel roads lined by corn stalks and Trump signs, Robert Vinande runs Flynn Township’s elections out of his Brown City home, 90 minutes north of Detroit. The red, white and blue township ballot drop box sits in front of one of the three buildings on his property, not far from the driveway.

Sitting at his kitchen table, as chickadees, finches and jays ate from a bird feeder just outside a nearby window, Vinande said he has not yet faced the level of vitriol seen by neighboring clerks. He took over the position in 2022, and suspects that his predecessor left her role because of that pressure.

A neighbor once asked him if the election was safe. Vinande didn’t hesitate in saying it was. If voters call him concerned about their absentee ballots or any other election process, he will walk them through it, step by step. He always reminds voters that he has a strong, bipartisan team of veteran poll workers who help run local elections.

“Generally, people say, ‘Well, if you’re comfortable, I’m comfortable,’” he said.

Flynn Township residents mostly suspect voting irregularities occurred down in the Detroit area — a classic rural-urban divide, he said. He never suspected any widespread voter fraud in 2020.

“I don’t buy it, knowing the checks and balances that are in place,” he said.

When he retired as internal auditor for Dow Chemical Company, specializing in data analytics at its Midland, Michigan, headquarters, he and his wife moved here, into their vacation cabin. Local leaders who knew him thought he’d be suited for the clerk role. There was nobody rushing to take the job.

He’s not one to go to Florida in the winter, and he likes to stay busy. He suspects he’ll stay in the role for the foreseeable future. When working in his wood-paneled den, he’s just happy to be surrounded by a plethora of presidential souvenirs he’s collected over the years. And when he’s not doing his part-time gig, he’s able to pursue his blacksmithing hobby.

Vinande — whose father ran the one-room school in his rural town in Michigan — said this is his way of giving back to the community. But to continue to do this job, he’s going to have to tell his voters the truth, he added, even if they disagree.

“I just want to dispel some of the myths,” he said.

‘We hunker down’

Around 5 in the afternoon on the Thursday before Michigan’s August primary, Mazure walked into the Hume Township Hall, where she’s led elections since 2008, closing the door quickly behind her to prevent the stifling summer heat from getting into the air-conditioned room.

Four election workers were breaking down election equipment at the end of a day of early voting. Six voting booths dotted the small room — more booths than the four voters who cast a ballot that day. Along the walls were three old maps of the township and black-and-white photos of local men who fought in the Civil War.

“Rip that sucker like a Band-Aid,” she told one of the poll workers, pointing to the tape that printed out of the ballot tabulator with the day’s vote totals.

Mazure used a small key to open the tabulator, snagging the four ballots and confirming the machine’s accuracy. The two observers — a Democrat and a Republican — signed forms validating the numbers. It’s checks and balances, she said.

Many local voters falsely believe that the tabulators that count ballots are connected to the internet, Mazure said. But when she ran her legally required public testing of equipment prior to the election, no one showed up to see that the machines were running properly and not flipping votes.

“How do you educate someone who doesn’t want to be educated?” she asked. “They only want to believe the unbelievable. They want to believe that somebody should have won, and it didn’t happen. So, therefore, it’s fraud.”

When she’s not running local elections out of her home, she’s in her garden, tending to tomatoes and green beans and canning for the winter. She loves polka dancing, refinishing furniture and sewing — a relief from the stresses of her position.

“I’m supposed to be retired,” she laughed.

Mazure is up for reelection in November. She wanted to find a replacement in the community and train them before retiring. She never got that kind of training when she started, and the job was as difficult to navigate as it is to drive in a snowstorm, she said. But she hasn’t found a replacement and doesn’t think she will.

Though she’s worn down by the abuse she never thought possible in elections, she leans on a steadfast resiliency, familiar to Midwesterners who have braved long winters.

“We hunker down,” she said. “We try to do the best job we can, hoping that at some point this stigma will go away. We don’t know if it will.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

(TNS) KFF Health News 

“We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border. We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been.”

— Former President Donald Trump at a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

____

Former President Donald Trump claimed at a recent campaign rally that more than 300,000 Americans are dying each year from the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, and that the number of fentanyl overdoses was the “lowest” during his administration and has skyrocketed since.

“We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border,” Trump told his supporters at a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been,” he said.

Trump’s figures appear to have no basis in fact. Government statistics show the number of drug overdose deaths per year is hovering around 100,000 to 110,000, with opioid-related deaths at about 81,000. That’s enough that the government has labeled opioid-related overdoses an “epidemic,” but nowhere close to the number Trump cited.

Moreover, though the number of opioid deaths has risen since Trump left office, it’s incorrect to claim they were the “lowest” while he was president.

Numbers Are High, but Nowhere Near Trump’s Claim

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t comment specifically on the source for Trump’s statistics. She instead sent KFF Health News an email with several bullet points about the opioid crisis under the heading: “DRUGS ARE POURING OVER HARRIS’ OPEN BORDER INTO OUR COMMUNITIES.”

One such bullet noted that there were “112,000 fatal drug overdoses” last year and linked to a story from NPR reporting that fact — directly rebutting Trump’s own claim of 300,000 fentanyl deaths. Additionally, the number NPR reported is an overall figure, not for fentanyl-related deaths only.

More recent government figures estimated that there were 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023, with an estimated 74,702 of those involving fentanyl. Those figures were in line with what experts on the topic told KFF Health News.

“The number of actual deaths is probably significantly higher,” said Andrew Kolodny, medical director for the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, noting that many such overdose deaths go uncounted by government researchers.

“But I don’t know where one would get that number of 300,000,” Kolodny added.

Trump’s claim that fentanyl deaths were the “lowest” during his administration and are now worse than ever is also off the mark.

Overdose deaths — specifically those from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl — started climbing steadily in the 1990s. When Trump took office in January 2017, the number of overdose deaths related to synthetic opioids was about 21,000. By January 2021, when he left the White House, that tally was nearing 60,000, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System shows. Deaths involving synthetic opioids continued to increase after Trump left office.

“There’s some truth to saying that there are more Americans dying [of opioids] than ever before,” Kolodny said. “But again, if you were to look at trends during the Trump administration, deaths just pretty much kept getting worse.”

In the last year, though, statistics show that overdose numbers have plateaued or fallen slightly, though it’s too soon to say whether that trend will hold.

Given that Trump’s claims about fentanyl came when discussing the southern border “invasion,” it’s worth noting that, according to the U.S. government, the vast majority of fentanyl caught being smuggled into the country illegally comes via legal ports of entry. Moreover, nearly 90% of people convicted of fentanyl drug trafficking in 2022 were U.S. citizens, an analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, showed. That year, U.S. citizens received 12 times as many fentanyl trafficking convictions as did immigrants who were in the U.S. without authorization, the analysis showed.

Our Ruling

Trump said, “We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border. We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been.”

Annual U.S. fentanyl deaths have increased since he left office, but Trump’s claim about 300,000 deaths has no basis in fact and is contradicted by figures his press secretary shared.

Trump is wrong to assert that overdoses were the lowest when he was president. Moreover, Trump continues to link fentanyl trafficking to illegal immigration — a claim statistics do not support.

We rate Trump’s claim Pants on Fire!

___

(KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Kevin Hardy | (TNS) Stateline.org

The presidential race gets the hype, but the nearly 6,000 state legislative races across the country in November’s elections could reshape power dynamics in some states.

While Republicans are primed to maintain their national advantage in statehouse control, several legislative chambers could flip, said Ben Williams, associate director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The GOP currently controls 57 legislative chambers, while Democrats control 41 (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is nonpartisan). But, with narrow majorities in some chambers, Williams is eyeing several where a different party could take over. And divided government in more legislatures could result in more moderate policymaking on a host of controversial issues.

Only one state — Pennsylvania — currently has a split legislature.

“If you are at a historic low for divided government nationwide, it’s a generally pretty safe bet to assume it’s going to go up,” Williams said. He laid out his predictions for the fall elections at the organization’s annual summit earlier this month.

He pointed to 10 competitive chambers to watch: the Arizona House, Arizona Senate, Michigan House, Minnesota House, New Hampshire House, New Hampshire Senate, Pennsylvania House, Pennsylvania Senate, Wisconsin House and the Wisconsin Senate.

Only three governor’s races — in New Hampshire, North Carolina and Washington — are characterized as competitive by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes state and federal races.

Voter concerns

Nationally, the issues of inflation, abortion, immigration and foreign policy are at the forefront for voters, Williams said. But voters often have different concerns in state elections.

“Just because you see these national trends does not mean that that always reflects down to the state level,” he said. “There are local dynamics that are always at play that can make a difference.”

Republicans and Democrats are working to break apart trifectas (when a single party controls both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office) or veto-proof majorities in several states.

That’s true in Kansas, where Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

In the state Senate, Democrats would need to flip three seats to break the supermajority of Republicans, who currently holds 29 of the chamber’s 40 seats. Erasing a veto-proof majority would give more policymaking influence to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, said state Sen. Dinah Sykes, the state Senate minority leader.

If Democrats weren’t facing veto-proof majorities, Sykes said the state’s recent $2 billion tax cut probably would have been more favorable to low-income earners. And breaking supermajorities would give the governor a better shot at getting a vote on Medicaid expansion — a long-standing Democratic priority. Kansas is among the 10 states not to have expanded the safety net program.

“I don’t think by any means it’s going to be super-progressive, but I think we can get kind of more middle of the road, which is what Kansans actually like,” she said.

Divided government

For Republicans, winning one or both chambers in Maine would force more compromise from Democrats, said state Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, a Republican and the House minority leader.

With a trifecta, Maine Democrats have been able to circumvent GOP lawmakers, Faulkingham said.

Last year, Democrats passed a two-year, nearly $10 billion budget in a legislative maneuver that one Republican described as the “tyranny of the majority.” The move allowed Democrats to pass the budget with a simple majority — rather than the two-thirds majority that is usually required.

Faulkingham said gaining control of even one chamber will result in more moderate policymaking.

“I think that all of a sudden, you would see people actually come to the table and negotiate, which you haven’t seen for the last six years,” he said. “If people are being honest, probably the best form of government is a divided government.”

If the elections turn out to be a red wave, with Republicans making significant gains across the board, NCSL expects the Democratic-controlled House and Senate chambers in Delaware, Maine, Nevada and Oregon to be in play.

Conversely, if Democrats do well nationally, the GOP-controlled chambers in Alaska and Georgia could be competitive.

“These states are not as red as some might believe,” Williams told Stateline in an interview. “In Alaska’s House, the Republicans have a bare majority in each chamber. And in Georgia, Democrats only need to flip around 10 seats. So, it’s not an insurmountable task.”

The Alaska legislature is governed by bipartisan majority coalitions, even though voters send more Republicans to Juneau.

State Sen. Gary Stevens, a Republican who leads the Senate majority, said he doesn’t expect November’s election results to disrupt the majority coalition, even if Democrats or more conservative Republicans pick up seats.

Alaska has the nation’s smallest state Senate, with 20 members. The 17-member Senate majority currently shares power between parties and is largely focused on more moderate issues, Stevens said.

“It means we can’t deal with extreme issues — either far left or far right,” he said. “It simply means that we need to concentrate on those things in the middle that need to be done.”

After years of planning, Minnesota Democrats seized the trifecta in 2022, when they flipped the Senate and maintained control of the House and governorship.

Since then, the legislature has approved bills that guarantee the right to abortion, provide free meals for kids at school, restore voting rights to felons released from prison and make the state a “trans refuge” for children seeking gender-affirming care. Those were all signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz, who is now Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential election.

Those were hard-won progressive achievements, Democratic state Rep. Leigh Finke said. With only a one-seat advantage in the Senate, policy negotiations were fierce, as the majority worked to get all of their fellow Democrats on board.

“It may seem frustrating at times, but I think it really made our policy better because we knew we were going to have to fight for it,” she said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and JOSH KELETY Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — A hearing on whether to dismiss charges against Republicans accused of scheming to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential race in Arizona will stretch into a second day Tuesday.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen, who is presiding over the case, is considering requests from at least a dozen defendants who were indicted in April on charges of forgery, fraud and conspiracy.

In all, an Arizona grand jury indicted 18 Republicans. They include 11 people who submitted a document falsely claiming former President Donald Trump won Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to the former president, including Rudy Giuliani.

Those seeking to dismiss their cases have cited an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics. The law had long offered protections in civil cases but was amended in 2022 by the Republican-led Legislature to cover people facing most criminal charges.

The defendants appearing in person and virtually in court this week argue Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes tried to use the charges to silence them for their constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to the outcome of the presidential race. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

They say Mayes campaigned on investigating fake electors and had shown a bias toward Trump and his supporters.

John Eastman, one of the defendants who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election, said outside of court Monday that Cohen is grappling with difficult issues.

“I think he’s relishing the opportunity to be on the front line in deciding what this statue actually accomplished, and we look forward to his rulings on it,” Eastman said.

Prosecutors say the defendants don’t have evidence to back up their retaliation claim and they crossed the line from protected speech to fraud. Mayes’ office also has said the grand jury that brought the indictment wanted to consider charging Trump but prosecutors urged them not to.

Trump ultimately wasn’t charged. The indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, the indictment alleged Giuliani pressured Maricopa County officials and state legislators to change the outcome of Arizona’s results and encouraged Republican electors in the state to vote for Trump in mid-December 2020. The indictment said Giuliani spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona after the 2020 election and presided over a downtown Phoenix gathering where he claimed officials made no effort to determine the accuracy of presidential election results.

Mark Williams, Giuliani’s attorney, said Monday that the charges against his client should be thrown out because he did nothing criminal. Williams said Giuliani was exercising his rights to free speech and to petition the government.

“How is Mr. Giuliani to know that, oh my gosh, he presided over a meeting in downtown Phoenix,” Williams asked sarcastically. “How is he to know that that’s a crime?”

Dennis Wilenchik, an attorney for defendant James Lamon, who had signed a statement claiming Trump had won Arizona, argued his client signed the document only as a contingency in case a lawsuit would eventually turn the outcome of the presidential race in Trump’s favor in Arizona.

“My client, Jim Lamon, never did anything to overthrow the government,” Wilenchik said.

Prosecutor Nicholas Klingerman said the defendants’ actions don’t back up their claims that they signed the document as a contingency.

One defendant, attorney Christina Bobb, was working with Giuliani to get Congress to accept the fake electors, while another defendant, Anthony Kern, gave a media interview in which he said then-Vice President Mike Pence would decide which of the two slates of electors to choose from, Klingerman said.

“That doesn’t sound like a contingency,” Klingerman said. “That sounds like a plan to cause turmoil to change the outcome of the election.”

So far, two defendants have resolved their cases.

Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their trial is scheduled to start Jan. 5, 2026.

Former Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows is trying to move his charges to federal court, where his lawyers say they will seek a dismissal of the charges.

Associated Press writer Sejal Govindarao contributed to this story.