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

Actress and film producer Marsai Martin delivers remarks during a brunch held to celebrate Black Excellence on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. President Biden hosted the brunch during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual Legislative Conference this week to recognize achievements in the Black community. At right is Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, in the last months of his four-year term, detailed his administration’s efforts in seeking to advance opportunities and equity for Black communities on Friday during the White House’s first-ever brunch in celebration of Black Excellence.

The event came as the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hosted its annual legislative conference this week in Washington, D.C.

“Today, we honor this simple truth: Black history is American history, Black excellence is American excellence, and folks, we don’t erase history like others are trying to — we make history,” Biden said to a crowd on the South Lawn that included members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Black leaders.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; Trell Thomas, founder of Black Excellence Brunch; Marsai Martin, an actress and producer; and Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, gave brief remarks ahead of Biden.

“I know it because I’ve seen it. I’ve been vice president to the first Black president in American history, a president to the first Black vice president — and God willing, to the first female Black president in American history,” Biden added.

Biden — who originally sought a second term — passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in mid-July following his disastrous debate performance in June against the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, now has the chance to become the first woman to serve as president, the first Black woman president, and the first president of South Asian descent.

Biden also underscored some of the administration’s key efforts in regard to Black communities, such as achieving the lowest Black unemployment rate on record. As of August, the administration has created 2.4 million jobs for Black workers, according to a White House fact sheet.

He also emphasized the administration’s efforts to ensure that more Black Americans have health care than ever before. The White House says it’s done so by “lowering premium costs by an average of $800 for millions of Americans, increasing Black enrollment in Affordable Care Act coverage by 95%, or over 1.7 million people since 2020,” per the fact sheet.

Biden added that “on this very lawn, in front of the White House built by enslaved people, we hosted the first-ever Juneteenth concert after I made Juneteenth a federal holiday, and on this lawn, we celebrated the first Black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, the best decision I made: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.”

He also condemned racism toward Haitian migrants to the U.S., saying the community is “under attack in our country right now” and calling it “simply wrong.” Conspiracy theories about migrants and bomb threats continue to rock Springfield, Ohio.

Trump at Tuesday’s presidential debate hosted by ABC News amplified false claims about Haitian migrants there, saying: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” adding that “they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Appearing to allude to Trump, Biden added that “there’s no place in America. This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop.”

Meanwhile, Biden and Harris are both slated to speak at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Phoenix Awards Dinner Saturday in Washington, D.C.

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The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, greets the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, as they joined other officials at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2024, honoring the lives of those lost in the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. The handshake came the day after a fiery debate between the candidates. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump intensified in the days following their first, and likely only, debate, as both hit swing states with just over 50 days until the election.

The Harris campaign rode a wave of momentum to the week’s end, cutting ads featuring debate clips and kicking off an “aggressive” blitz of battleground states that it dubbed the “New Way Forward” tour.

Trump and Republican Party officials meanwhile filed what they described as “election integrity” lawsuits this week targeting voter registration and absentee ballots in Nevada and Michigan.

While numerous polls showed Harris outperformed the former president at Tuesday’s debate, Trump continued to tout his performance at a press conference Friday and chastised a reporter for suggesting some Republicans thought he gave a poor showing.

“We’ve gotten great praise for the debate,” he said, adding “You know, look, you come from Fox (News), you shouldn’t play the same game as everybody else.”

He has refused to debate Harris again.

Trump repeats lies about migrants

Trump spoke for roughly an hour and took a dozen questions at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles where he promised, if elected, “to start with Springfield and Aurora” when he carries out the “largest deportation in the history of our country.”

Trump has repeated baseless rumors that Venezuelan gangs overtook an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. In an unforgettable moment during Tuesday’s debate he claimed Haitian migrants are eating domesticated pets in Springfield, Ohio — a lie that circulated among the right on social media, including from his running mate, Ohio’s junior U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians live in the U.S. legally under temporary protected status after the nearby Caribbean nation was rocked by a violent government collapse this spring.

When asked by a reporter Friday if he felt any concern for the Ohio community that has been thrust into the national spotlight and is now the target of bomb threats, Trump said no.

“The real threat is what’s happening at our borders,” he snapped back.

Trump also lobbed similar attacks at a Thursday night rally in Tucson, Arizona, describing a small western Pennsylvania town of Charleroi as “not so beautiful now” because Haitian migrants moved in.

In reality, Charleroi has suffered population loss and blight for decades following the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s.

Harris campaigns in North Carolina, Pennsylvania

Prior to the debate, a national New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump with a slight edge over Harris.

“We are the underdog, let’s be clear about that,” Harris told a roaring crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina Thursday night. “And so we have hard work ahead of us, but we like hard work.”

Harris held back-to-back campaign rallies Thursday night in North Carolina’s Raleigh and Greensboro that together drew 25,000, according to campaign figures.

The vice president headed to the battleground state of Pennsylvania Friday, where she first visited Classic Elements, a bookshop and cafe in the ruby-red Johnstown area before a nighttime rally in Wilkes-Barre.

The commonwealth’s junior U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and wife Gisele accompanied Harris to the small business, where she told about a dozen patrons, “You’ve created a space that is a safe space, where people are welcome and know that they’re encouraged to be with each other and feel a sense of belonging,” according to reporters traveling with her.

“I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking,” Harris said. “And ultimately I feel very strongly that you’ve got to earn every vote and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live. And so that’s why I’m here and we’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.”

Harris garnered the coveted endorsement from mega pop star and Pennsylvania native Taylor Swift immediately after the debate.

Both Trump and Harris at 9/11 ceremony

By week’s end the vice president added to her list of Republican endorsements, when the Bush-era Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced his support. Gonzalez, who served under former president George W. Bush, wrote Thursday in Politico that Trump poses “perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation.”

Tuesday’s debate was immediately followed by the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Harris joined President Joe Biden at multiple ceremonies.

Trump also attended events in New York City and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, accompanied by far-right activist and 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. He defended her at his press conference Friday, calling her a “free spirit.”

Several Republicans have criticized Loomer in recent days.

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