Politics
Harris and Trump make a furious final push before Election Day
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Kamala Harris and Donald Trump closed out this year’s presidential race with a fierce battle for Pennsylvania on Monday, making their final pitch to voters across a state that could prove decisive in the campaign for the White House. Harris ended her night in Philadelphia at the art museum steps made famous
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump closed out this year’s presidential race with a fierce battle for Pennsylvania on Monday, making their final pitch to voters across a state that could prove decisive in the campaign for the White House.
Harris ended her night in Philadelphia at the art museum steps made famous in the movie “Rocky,” where she said “the momentum is on our side.” She also rallied with supporters in Allentown, Scranton and Pittsburgh, and she swung through Reading to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant and do a little canvassing herself, knocking on doors alongside campaign volunteers.
“It’s the day before the election and I just wanted to come by and say I hope to earn your vote,” Harris told one woman, who said she had already cast a ballot for the Democratic nominee.
Trump started the day in North Carolina and finished it in Michigan, but he spoke in Reading and Pittsburgh in between. The former president delivered stemwinders at each stop, blending false claims about voter fraud with warnings about migrants committing crimes and promises to revitalize the United States.
AP AUDIO: Harris and Trump make a furious final push before Election Day
AP correspondent Norman Hall reports on Donald Trump’s first campaign stop of the day, in North Carolina, in his final campaign push through key states.
“With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America, and indeed the whole world, to new heights of glory,” he said.
While Harris focused on optimism about the future and never mentioned Trump by name, the Republican nominee excoriated his opponent at every turn. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, followed Trump’s lead during his own rally in Atlanta, telling the crowd that “we are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.”
In his final rally, Trump called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who led the House when it impeached him twice, a “crazy, horrible human being” and barely restrained himself from using a sexist slur.
“She’s a crooked person, she’s a bad person, evil,” Trump said. “She’s an evil, sick, crazy – oh no. It starts with a b, but I won’t say it. I want to say it.”
The last day of campaigning was an appropriately frenetic ending to a presidential race that has defied expectations at every turn.
Trump was convicted during a felony trial involving hush money payments and survived two assassination attempts. He remains under indictment for trying to overturn the last presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
Harris became Democrats’ replacement candidate this summer when Biden was pushed off the ticket and forced to abandon his reelection bid after stumbling badly in his debate with Trump.
One of the few constants in the campaign has been how close it’s remained. The election is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins, and the results may not be known for days.
Pennsylvania has the most Electoral College votes of any battleground state, making it the top prize of the campaign. A victory there would clear a path to White House for either candidate.
“You are going to make the difference in this election,” Harris said in Allentown.
About 30 miles away in Reading, Trump told supporters that “if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax.”
In Pittsburgh, Trump delivered what his campaign aides described as his closing argument after his previous attempt — a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York — was derailed by crude and racist jokes. He has also veered into invocations of violence and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he was voted out.
“Over the past four years, Americans have suffered one catastrophic failure, betrayal and humiliation after another,” Trump said. He added that “we do not have to settle for weakness, incompetence, decline, and decay.”
The crowd exploded in cheers when Trump said the country should tell Harris, “You’re fired,” his catchphrase from “The Apprentice,” the reality television show that made him a nationally recognized star.
Harris arrived in Pittsburgh while Trump’s rally was underway. By the time she finished her succinct remarks, he was still talking.
“We must finish strong,” Harris said. “Make no mistake, we will win.”
The day was further evidence of the ripple effects from Trump’s Madison Square Garden event, where the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Southeastern Pennsylvania, which was visited by both candidates on Monday, is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizable Puerto Rican population.
“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people — even many Republicans. It wasn’t right, and I feel that Trump should have apologized to Latinos.”
But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to take a photo of Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed the comments about Puerto Rico despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he will vote for Trump.
AP AUDIO: Harris and Trump are making a furious last-day push before Election Day
With one day until the election, both presidential candidates are making their final pitches to voters. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports.
“Is the border going to be safe? Are you going to keep crime down? That’s what I care about,” he said.
While in Reading, Harris visited Old San Juan Cafe with New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who has Puerto Rican heritage.
Supporters chanted “Sí se puede” and “Kamala” as the vice president’s motorcade pulled up. Once inside, Harris chatted with some diners, even mixing in “gracias” and a few Spanish words. The vice president later ordered cassava, yellow rice and pork, saying, “I’m very hungry” as she noted that she’s been too busy campaigning to find time for many meals.
“I stand here proud of my long-standing commitment to Puerto Rico and her people,” she told her crowd in Allentown. Harris promised to be “a president for all Americans.”
Trump, meanwhile, stuck to talking about his proposed crackdown on immigration while speaking in Reading. He called to the stage Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after she went missing during a trip to go hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the U.S. illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador.
About 77 million Americans have voted early. A victory by either side would be unprecedented.
Trump winning would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony. He would gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win nonconsecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.
Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming Biden’s second in command.
Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump by name, calling him instead “the other guy.” She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus.
Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a call with reporters that not saying Trump’s name was deliberate because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.”
On her final day of campaigning, Harris took a rare trip down memory lane by talking about being a longshot candidate for San Francisco district attorney in 2003, her first elected office.
“I’d walk to the front of the grocery store, outside, and I would stand up my ironing board because, you see, an ironing board makes a really great standing desk,” the vice president said, recalling how she would tape her posters to the outside of the board, fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me as they walked in and out.”
Trump seemed nostalgic as well.
“It’s sad because we’ve been doing this for nine years,” he said in Pittsburgh after inviting members of his family to join him onstage.
He held his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also concluded his campaigns in 2016 and 2020. He savored the moment, stopping every few steps as he made his way to the stage, soaking in an explosion of applause. A few in the crowd waited nearly 18 hours, at times in the rain, for a rally that finally began after midnight and ended after 2 a.m.
“It’s unbelievable,” Trump said when he started talking after standing wordless at his lectern for an extended ovation. “Think of it. This is it. This is the last one that we’ll have to do.”
___
Superville reported from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Barrow reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; Luis Andres Henao in Reading, Pennsylvania; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; and Zeke Miller, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing backlash from within his own party after using controversial rhetoric to describe the stakes of his victory in a recent donor meeting.
“You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different,” El-Sayed said, describing how his win could propel the progressive movement, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO.
On Monday, several Democrats were quick to slam his comments, which they took as direct reference to his Senate primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. El-Sayed had not explicitly mentioned Stevens in the portion of the call Blue Light News reviewed.
“Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism,” Neera Tanden, a centrist Democrat and president of the Center for American Progress, posted on X. Melissa Byrne, a former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders, called the remark an “unforced error” that is “really bad and beneath the progressive project.”
El-Sayed’s leaked comments and the reaction to them amount to another flashpoint in a tense primary that is dividing the progressive and moderate wings of the party, and at times has been defined by accusations of racism and sexism.
“Abdul continues with personal insults and making this race about his personal political ambitions and the other 49 states,” said Arik Wolk, spokesperson for the Stevens campaign. “Haley is focused on getting things done for Michigan, and only Michigan.”
Republicans also immediately jumped on the comment, and some leaned into stereotypes of El-Sayed’s religion as a Muslim. “Michigan Islamist discusses beheading his opponents,” said Steve Guest, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz, on X.
An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the backlash. A spokesperson had previously told Blue Light News that the candidate was “speaking metaphorically” about his intention to support a primary against Sen. John Fetterman in Pennsylvania.
This is not the first time El-Sayed has used — and defended — aggressive political rhetoric. “When they go low, we don’t go high,” the progressive said while speaking at a campaign rally earlier this year, riffing on a famous line from former first lady Michelle Obama. “We take them to the mud and choke them out.”
He and Stevens will face off in their final Democratic Senate debate Monday night, and the results of the Aug. 4 primary could have major consequences for the party as it grapples with its ideological tack ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
Politics
‘Figure out a way to get it done’: Scalise warns pressure is building on Senate GOP to move on reconciliation
The House Majority leader also said Senate Republicans no longer have “the excuse of the filibuster.”…
Read More
- El-Sayed comes under fire for ‘ogre on a pike’ leaked comment
- Trump tells Thune to keep Senate in session to pass SAVE America Act
- ‘Figure out a way to get it done’: Scalise warns pressure is building on Senate GOP to move on reconciliation
- Capitol agenda: Thune tries to focus as Trump fumes
- ‘Figure out a way to get it done’: Scalise warns pressure is building on Senate GOP to move on reconciliation
- Mark Sanford launches Senate bid in South Carolina special election
- ‘Figure out a way to get it done’: Scalise warns pressure is building on Senate GOP to move on reconciliation
- Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp isn’t done with EVs
- A bipartisan House duo’s final pitch for pre-midterm AI action
- DSA co-chair: ‘Establishment Democrats should be worried about the voters’
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship11 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words