The Latest: Trump and Harris court Latino voters as early voting starts in key battleground states

By The Associated Press

With just over two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are hitting the campaign trail in strategic battleground states.

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

Here’s the latest:

Biden urges people to vote, saying ‘so much at stake’

Biden veered into talking about the election as he closed his prescription speech in New Hampshire.

“Folks, there’s so much at stake so please call your neighbors, get your friends, get your relatives,” the president said, urging people to vote in the presidential election.

Biden made veiled references to Trump when he said that every world leader he meets pulls him aside to tell him they don’t want Trump to win.

“If America walks away, who leads the world? Who?” Biden asked his audience.

Biden goes after Trump on health care policies

Biden is criticizing Trump on the issue of health care, specifically the former president’s attempts to unravel the Affordable Care Act.

The president is in Concord, New Hampshire, to talk about prescription drug savings under the Inflation Reduction Act he signed into law.

Biden noted that Trump recently said he has “concepts of a plan” when he was asked about his plans for health care in the United States.

Said Biden of Trump, “He has no concept of anything. No plan.”

Pastors launc

h voter safety initiative ahead of Election Day

Florida-based voter advocacy group Equal Ground launched its Pastors at the Polls community initiative intended to ensure voter safety throughout the final leg of this year’s election season.

Community pastors in Florida will receive various training sessions including poll monitoring and de-escalation training. Then, over the final two weekends of early voting, they’ll be deployed and stationed at precincts across the state with higher voter intimidation risks.

The 2024 election marks the first presidential since three major voter suppression laws have gone into effect. Florida is one of several states where Republicans have enacted voting restrictions that created or enhanced criminal penalties and fines for those who assist voters. A federal judge blocked portions of a Florida measure earlier this year, including the one targeting felons and those who are not citizens.

Even so, the law initially had a direct effect on the operations of Equal Ground and other voter advocacy organizations in the state before the ruling.

Obama needles Trump at Wisconsin rally

Former President Barack Obama tells a Wisconsin audience “you’d be worried if grandpa was acting like” Donald Trump.

Campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, Obama honed in on Trump’s actions at some of his rallies as well as calling himself the “father of IVF,” or in vitro fertilization.

“I have no idea what that means. You don’t either,” Obama said.

Obama said to the crowd when it comes to Trump that they would call up their brother or cousin, and ask ’have you noticed?”

“This is coming from somebody who wants unchecked power,” Obama said. “So, Wisconsin, we do not need to see what an older, loonier Donald Trump looks like with no guardrails. America is ready to turn the page.”

Walz calls Elon Musk a dips——t at rally

Tim Walz campaigning in Wisconsin is mocking billionaire Elon Musk for his appearance at a campaign rally for Donald Trump, saying “Elon’s on that stage jumping around, skipping like a dipsh——t on the stage. You know it.”

The Madison audience roared its approval in response.

Walz said Musk is “literally the richest man in the world, spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election.”

He asserts that Musk is doing so because Trump has “already promised that he would put Elon in charge of government regulation that oversees the businesses that Elon runs.” Trump has said he would create a government efficiency commission to audit the entire federal government, an idea suggested by Musk, who would lead it

Obama said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin that his plane was leaking oil in Chicago just before he was to fly to Madison

“We had a nice road trip instead,” Obama said to laughs from the crowd.

The drive from Chicago to Madison takes around three hours. Obama took the stage about two hours after the rally started.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz preceded Obama, along with a host of Wisconsin candidates and officeholders.

Trump will tape an interview with Joe Rogan for his popular podcast Friday

That’s according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the taping.

Trump and Rogan have a complicated history. While the two shook hands and spoke briefly at a UFC fight, Trump criticized Rogan after he said that then-candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. was the only one running who made sense to him.

“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring??? MAGA2024,” Trump wrote on his social media site in August.

Both Trump and Harris have appeared on a slew of popular podcasts — with Trump’s typically aimed at young men.

— Jill Colvin

Justice Department launches a webpage to help ensure residents affected by Helene and Milton are able to vote

The webpage provides information for voters in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, who may be confronting lost identification, relocated polling places or other disruptions because of the hurricanes.

The Justice Department has compiled information about changes states have made to aid those affected by the storms. The page answers questions such as how people who’ve been displaced can get a ballot mailed to their new location and how residents can check to see if the place where they usually cast their ballot is open for voting.

Russia is behind viral disinformation targeting Walz, intelligence official says

Groups in Russia created and helped spread viral disinformation targeting Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday.

The content, which includes baseless accusations about the Minnesota governor’s time as a teacher, contains several indications that it was manipulated, said the official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Analysts identified clues that linked the content to Russian disinformation operations, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the office of the director.

Digital researchers had already linked the video to Russia, but Tuesday’s announcement is the first time federal authorities have confirmed the connection.

The disinformation targeting Walz is consistent with Russian disinformation seeking to undermine the Democratic campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, her running mate. Russia also has spread disinformation aimed at stoking discord and division ahead of voting, officials said, and may seek to encourage violent protests after Election Day.

▶ Read more about Russian disinformation.

Trump’s roundtable with Latino leaders ended with a prayer

The participants gathered around Trump with their hands on his shoulders. Trump remained seated and had his eyes closed.

They asked God to continue to protect Trump and give him strength. And to “make America godly again.”

Trump again rails against green power sources

He claimed that switching to all-electric trucks would require rebuilding every one of the country’s bridges and that solar fields kill rabbits.

He says he recently saw a solar field “that looked like it took up half the desert.”

“It’s all steel and glass and wires. And it looks like hell,” he said. “You see rabbits, they get caught in it.”

Trump often rails against wind power, saying the turbines “kill all the birds” and confuse whales. He’s been more complimentary of electric cars since he received the backing of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

But he is criticizing their range and weight at an event with Latino supporters Tuesday, claiming the nation would need to rebuild every one of its bridges if truck fleets swap diesel for electric vehicles to handle the extra weight.

Trump criticized the Biden administration for the leak of secret documents detailing Israel’s preparation for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran

He called it a “bad thing.”

“Can you imagine somebody doing that? That’s the enemy. I guess that maybe is the enemy from within,” he said, repeating the phrase he’s used in recent speeches to refer to Democratic lawmakers such as U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.

“We just can’t stand for this incompetence anymore.”

The FBI said Tuesday that it’s investigating the unauthorized release of these documents.

At his event, Trump compliments Goya, the largest, Hispanic-owned food company in the country

The company’s CEO, Bob Unanue, is a vocal supporter.

“It’s actually quite good out of the can,” Trump says of the company known for its beans and other products.

“I eat it whenever I can,” he claims.

Bruce Springsteen is holding campaign concerts for Kamala Harris starting Thursday in Atlanta

Former President Barack Obama will also be there.

Springsteen will hold another concert with Obama on Monday in Philadelphia.

A senior campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said more concerts will be announced in the coming days.

— Chris Megerian

Trump is using the roundtable with Latin American leaders to complain about negative ads against him and criticize Harris’ intellect

At the event, Trump said Harris is “slow” and has a “low IQ.”

“We don’t need another low IQ person,” he said.

Trump criticized Harris for her schedule Tuesday, which includes meetings in Washington and interviews with Telemundo and NBC, but no public events

“She’s sleeping right now,” he said. “This is not what you want.”

Trump’s jabs come after Harris tried to cast him as “exhausted” after he pulled out of several interviews — though Trump has had a busy schedule of interviews with conservative outlets and podcasts.

Trump will be speaking to Hispanic voters and leaders in a smaller gathering at Trump National Doral Miami

In the opening remarks, notable Florida Republicans including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott proclaimed Trump’s record in supporting the Hispanic community during his previous term.

Suarez was one of three Florida Republicans running for president in the earlier campaign cycle, but despite running against Trump, the mayor endorsed the former president in March. Suarez said that under Trump’s term, Hispanics experienced the lowest unemployment and the biggest reduction in poverty.

Scott, who’s running for reelection, emphasized Trump would be the best to handle Latin American conflicts and fight against dictatorial regimes, where the families of many voters in the crowd escaped from.

Miami is home to one of the largest Hispanic communities in the country, with about 70% of Miami-Dade County’s population identifying as Hispanic according to 2023 Census data.

Trump is starting his day at a roundtable with Latino leaders at his Doral golf club in Florida

It’s a beautiful day in Miami, with blue skies framing the property’s many palm trees.

US Sen. Rick Scott spoke to a crowd of about 100 Hispanic voters at the Trump National Doral Miami

Scott’s main message to Hispanic voters was that under Trump’s presidency, Hispanic voters were better off, because the border was more secure and inflation was lower.

Scott is saying Harris’ policy will institute price controls, which is socialism. He said her administration would raise taxes.

“The Hispanic vote is the deciding factor. If you want someone to fight for Latin America, Trump’s going to do it,” Scott said.

Those early Zoom meetings got people fired up for Harris. Now they’re trying to get them to vote

When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Kamala Harris jumped in, a cascade of Zoom meetings with hundreds of thousands of participants popped up seemingly out of nowhere and helped propel her to the Democratic nomination.

Now organizers are trying to turn that burst of digital enthusiasm into traditional get-out-the-vote efforts like phone banking and door knocking. They’ve created a loose constellation of volunteer networks operating independently of the Harris campaign, all geared toward marshaling local or online communities behind the vice president.

People are sending postcards, texting friends, canvassing battleground states, making friendship bracelets with campaign messages, and sometimes surprising themselves by getting involved in ways they’ve never done before.

The question is whether the Zoom meetings that drew so much attention during the summer — for Black women, Black men, white women, white dudes, cat ladies, Taylor Swift fans and more — will turn out to be a short-lived phenomenon or a powerful catalyst for Harris to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump.

▶ Read more about Zoom organizing by Democrats.

With less than two weeks before Election Day, Kamala Harris is heading Friday to the reliably red state of Texas

But she’s not necessarily trying to sway voters there. She’s trying to highlight a make-or-break issue for Democrats: abortion rights.

Harris will seek to show how Texas’ restrictive abortion ban is creating increasing medical distress for women. During her campaign, the Democratic presidential nominee has often highlighted the increasingly perilous landscape for women since the fall of Roe, and she links it to Donald Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark abortion rights ruling.

But it’s unusual for her to do it from a state she’s highly unlikely to win. Campaign officials say the plan is a nontraditional way to capture the attention of voters in battleground states who are inundated with campaign ads and run-of-the-mill campaign events.

But Harris also thinks the issue is resonating with Republican voters, too, particularly women.

In hard-fought Pennsylvania, fast-growing Hispanic communities present a test for Harris and Trump

Pennsylvania is arguably the hardest fought of the battleground states and happens to have one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the country, in what is known as the 222 Corridor, after the highway that connects small cities and towns west and north of Philadelphia.

It’s fertile ground for both Democrats and Republicans to test their strength among Latinos in a state where small margins decide who gets 20 electoral votes. It’s a place where Democratic nominee Kamala Harris can prove that her party still commands a large share of the demographic’s support, and where Republican Donald Trump’s campaign has been working to gain ground.

“This is the epicenter for Latino voters in Pennsylvania,” said Victor Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican descent and lives in and broadcasts his show from Allentown. “I like the fact that Kamala Harris has to keep sending people over here to listen to us and talk to us. I like it. I like the fact that JD Vance has to keep coming back. I like it, because that means that they have to pay attention to us.”

Pennsylvania’s Latino-eligible voter population has more than doubled since 2000 from 208,000 to 579,000, according to the Latino Data Hub from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Latino Policy & Politics Institute. The population in cities like Allentown and Reading is now more than half Hispanic, with a majority being of Puerto Rican descent and a sizable portion of Dominican origin.

▶ Read more about the Latino vote in this election.

Biden administration awards $428M to help hard-hit coal communities transition to clean energy

The Biden-Harris administration is awarding $428 million for 14 clean-energy manufacturing projects in Pennsylvania and other states hit hard by the decline of the U.S. coal industry.

One of the larger grants, $87 million, will go to a Pennsylvania company to make state-of-the-art linear generators at a plant outside Pittsburgh, a key battleground in the presidential election.

Linear generators can use any fuel source to produce low-carbon power for utilities, data centers and industry. Mainspring Energy plans to use Energy Department funds to create enough electricity annually to power more than 40,000 homes. Harris, like Biden, has pledged to help workers displaced by the transition to clean energy, a key issue in energy-rich Pennsylvania.

Mideast conflict looms over US presidential race as Harris and Trump jostle for an edge

Two weeks out from Election Day, the crisis in the Middle East is looming over the race for the White House, with one candidate struggling to find just the right words to navigate its difficult cross-currents and the other making bold pronouncements that the age-old conflict can quickly be set right.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been painstakingly — and not always successfully — trying to balance talk of strong support for Israel with harsh condemnations of civilian casualties among Palestinians and others caught up in Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Former President Donald Trump, for his part, insists that none of this would have happened on his watch and that he can make it all go away if elected.

Both of them are bidding for the votes of Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, particularly in extremely tight races in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

▶ Read more about the Mideast conflict’s role in the election.

How Project 2025’s rightward vision became a flashpoint in this year’s election

For the past year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election, its far-right proposals deployed by Democrats as shorthand for what Donald Trump would potentially do with a second term at the White House.

Even though the former president’s campaign has vigorously distanced itself from Project 2025, the sweeping Heritage Foundation’s proposal to gut the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies aligns closely with his vision. Project 2025’s architects come from the ranks of Trump’s administration and top Heritage officials have briefed Trump’s team about it.

It’s rare for a complex 900-page policy book to figure so dominantly in a political campaign. But from its early start at a think tank, to its viral spread on social media, the rise and fall and potential rise again of Project 2025 shows the unexpected staying power of policy to light up an election year and threaten not only Trump atop the ticket but down-ballot Republicans in races for Congress.

Through it all, Project 2025 hasn't gone away. It exists not only as a policy blueprint for the next administration, but as a database of some 20,000 job-seekers who could staff a Trump White House and administration and a still unreleased “180-day playbook” of actions a new president could employ on Day One.

▶ Read more about Project 2025.

Early voting kicks off in battleground Wisconsin with push from Obama and Walz

In-person early voting kicks off Tuesday across battleground Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosting a rally in liberal Madison and Republicans holding events to encourage casting a ballot for Donald Trump before Election Day.

Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.

Trump was highly critical of voting by mail in past elections, falsely claiming it was rife with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person. Trump himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.

▶ Read more about early voting in Wisconsin.

Harris’ campaign says her ‘opportunity agenda’ will expand opportunities for Latino men

Harris is set to discuss how her plan will lower costs, increase their chances for homeownership and expand job opportunities for Latino men in an interview she’s taping Tuesday in Washington with Telemundo, the Spanish-language TV network.

The campaign says Harris, running mate Tim Walz and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are giving interviews to several Hispanic media outlets this week in a bid to get her message across to Latino men.

Harris’ Telemundo interview is set to air Wednesday night.