Absentee ballots are prepared to be mailed at the Wake County Board of Elections on Sept. 17, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. North Carolina will send out absentee ballots to military and overseas citizens by Sept. 20. Other absentee ballots will be sent by Sept. 24 to voters who requested ballots by mail. Early voting begins Oct. 17. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — With seven weeks until Election Day, the campaign machines for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump appealed to coveted voters in the battleground states with events and rallies targeting the Black and Gen Z populations, rural voters and conservative Christians.

The Trump campaign set its eyes on Michigan Tuesday, as the former president geared up for an evening town hall in Flint — his first event since a second apparent assassination attempt on his life Sunday, this time at his Florida golf course.

Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, spoke Tuesday afternoon at a rally in a barn in Sparta, just north of Grand Rapids, where he once again talked about a population of migrants from Haiti who live in Springfield, Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are living legally in the U.S. under temporary protected status.

The migrants “primarily from Hatia have been dropped into Springfield,” Vance said, mispronouncing the name of the Caribbean nation.

Trump and Vance continue to face severe scrutiny for peddling lies that Haitian migrants in the town had been eating pet cats and dogs. Trump hurled the accusation during last Tuesday’s ABC News debate hosted that drew 67 million viewers.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday ordered state police to sweep Springfield schools that have been repeated targets of bomb threats since the town was thrust into the national spotlight.

Campaigns seek media attention

Vance took several questions from local Michigan reporters Tuesday and said he did so to distinguish himself from Harris, whom he accused of fearing the “friendly American press corps.”

Vance made the comment less than an hour before Harris sat down for a public discussion with a three-member panel from the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. Trump’s interview with the association in July became notorious after he said Harris “happened to turn Black” during her political career.

Both campaigns have been seeking news media exposure.

Harris sat for a one-on-one with Philadelphia’s ABC affiliate Friday. That same day, Trump hosted a press conference at his Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, hit central Georgia Tuesday, where he recorded an interview with a local news anchor in Macon for WMAZ-TV and spoke to staff at one of the campaign’s field offices.

The Harris-Walz operation in Georgia includes 28 offices and over 200 staff, according to the campaign.

Fried chicken biscuit and tax breaks

Walz stopped at the long-established H&H Soul Food Restaurant in Macon, where he ordered a biscuit with fried chicken, bacon jam and pimento cheese, according to reporters traveling with him.

Walz took the opportunity at the eatery to plug Harris’ platform to simplify taxes for small businesses and give a $50,000 tax deduction for start-up costs.

He also attended campaign events in Atlanta before traveling to a rally Tuesday night in Asheville, North Carolina.

Earlier Tuesday, the Harris campaign released a statement in reaction to a ProPublica report about 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, who died in Georgia because she was denied urgent care under the state’s strict abortion ban.

“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Harris said in the statement. “This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down.”

When asked earlier Tuesday about the ProPublica report, Vance said he’d “like to learn a little bit more” about Thurman’s death.

“I’ve never spoken to a single pro-life person who doesn’t believe in exceptions to cover this exact scenario,” Vance told a local Michigan reporter.

Six states have abortion bans in effect that have no health exceptions, according to KFF Health News’ abortion law tracker.

On Monday evening, Vance told an audience at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Victory Dinner in Atlanta that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 decision to overturn Roe, which established federal abortion rights, was a “victory.”

“I stand here as the vice presidential nominee saying the Republican Party is proud to be the pro-life and the pro-family party,” Vance said before promising that a second Trump presidency would usher in investments in fertility treatments, prenatal care, maternal health and newborn expenses.

Trump spent Monday night plugging his new cryptocurrency venture alongside his sons in an interview on the social media platform X. The Trump family unveiled a crypto business Monday under the name World Liberty Financial.

Youth voters

The Harris campaign marked National Voter Registration Day Tuesday with what it’s calling an “all-hands-on-deck mobilization” to reach young voters.

The campaign plans to deputize celebrities, influencers and organizers to college campuses, basketball tournaments and “bracelet-making events” — in an apparent nod to Swiftie friendship bracelets following the pop star’s Harris endorsement last week.

Organizers anticipate a “targeted presence” at Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

Pop star Billie Eilish and her songwriter brother Fineas O’Connell endorsed the vice president Tuesday on social media and urged their followers to visit the Democratic Party’s IWillVote.com platform.

Among the other celebrities being deployed by the campaign to reach university students: actress Jane Fonda and celebrity scientist Bill Nye.

East Coast stops

The campaigns continue at full speed Wednesday, and the candidates and their surrogates will make stops up and down the eastern U.S.

• Harris will deliver remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Leadership conference in Washington, D.C.
• Trump will host an evening rally in Uniondale, New York
• Vance will deliver remarks during the afternoon in Raleigh, North Carolina
• Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will deliver remarks at campaign events in New York City