(SAN DIEGO) — During a visit to the southern border shared with California and Mexico on Thursday, Speaker Mike Johnson ramped up attacks on the Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her a “San Francisco radical” who “bears responsibility for this disaster” as “border czar.”
The visit included a press conference along a border fence called “Whiskey 8” in San Ysidro, California — south of San Diego — with California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa as well as a tour of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and Imperial Beach locations, Johnson’s office told ABC News.
“We’ve had a very interesting tour here at the San Diego sector. This has become in many ways the epicenter of the Biden-Harris border catastrophe. And now we’re very concerned in Congress that this illegal immigrant invasion is threatening even the integrity of our elections,” Johnson said at a press conference held along a border fence.
Johnson claimed the situation in San Diego has worsened.
In recent weeks, San Diego has had the highest number of encounters of any border region in the U.S., according to a senior CBP official. But those numbers have declined by 60 percent since the new asylum restrictions from the Biden administration were put in place earlier this summer.
“[Biden’s] executive order was too weak, too little too late, and it’s not solving the problem,” Johnson said Thursday.
Johnson said human trafficking and illegal narcotics are concerns at the border, specifically in San Diego.
Johnson’s visit came hours after the House approved a resolution to condemn Harris’ border policies. Six Democrats in vulnerable House races — Reps. Mary Peltola, Don Davis, Henry Cuellar, Yadira Caraveo, Gluesenkamp Perez and Jared Golden — voted with Republicans to pass the measure.
Ahead of the vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the resolution “fake and fraudulent” during his weekly press conference.
“[Kamala Harris] was never assigned border czar. [Republicans] are making that up,” Jeffries said.
Johnson last visited the border in January 2024 when the speaker led a delegation of 64 Republicans to tour the Eagle Pass, Texas, port of entry.
The House has passed its own border bill called the Secure the Border Act, but rejected the bipartisan Senate border bill after Trump pressured Republicans to kill the deal.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ emergence as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination is a historic moment for the United States, as she seems poised to become the first Black woman and Asian American to lead a major party ticket.
The 2024 general election will be the first since 1976 that does not include someone named Bush, Clinton or Biden on the ticket.
Harris quickly garnered support from influential Democrats and raised a record $81 million within 24 hours of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. From Sunday to Tuesday evening, Team Harris raised $126 million since the endorsement.
She is preparing for her most significant moment yet, as she hits the ground running and makes the case for why voters should elect her the next president.
Her story began in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a first-generation American, born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who divorced when she was 6 years old.
She attended law school at UC Law San Francisco. She worked her way up the political chain, first as deputy district attorney in Oakland in the 1990s, prosecuting gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual abuse cases. In 2004, she became the first woman to serve as the district attorney in San Francisco. She later became California’s first female and person of color to be elected as attorney general before joining the U.S. Senate in 2017.
Harris gained recognition for her work on the judicial and intelligence committees. She held a strong stance on civil rights and abortion rights, which she questioned future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh about during his nomination hearing.
Harris ran for president in 2019. Although she was not elected as the Democratic nominee. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in debating Harris in 2019 criticized her, for example, saying there’s no excuse for her record as a prosecutor and she owed an apology to those who suffered under her reign.
Harris oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions in San Francisco, according to previously unreported records, which became a point of criticism. Her critics pointed to her prosecutors appearing to convict people on marijuana charges at a higher rate than her predecessor, based on city data.
After she dropped out of the race in 2019, Biden chose her as his running mate.
Five years later, she now has the opportunity to become president of the United States.
“My biggest thing is making sure that Trump doesn’t get in the White House,” David Brown, a Democratic voter, said in an AP interview. “But I would want to know what her policies are, that’s the big thing for me.”
Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting.
And now speculation is turning to who her running mate would be – with prominent figures in battleground states rising to the top, such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“Harris’ team, they’re already talking about picking someone from a potential swing state, somebody who hails from one of these critical states that Harris would need to win the presidency,” said Rachael Bade, a Politico reporter and an ABC News contributor. “They’re trying to figure out a way that she can extend her reach beyond her typical base.”
Other potential running mates for Harris are Governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Roy Cooper of North Carolina.
Though a source familiar tells ABC News’ Mary Bruce the pool is roughly 12 people being considered for Harris’ running mate. Harris is expected to make her announcement by Aug. 7.
Without wasting any time, Harris’ team is launching their first campaign ad hammering Republicans over their anti-abortion rights position.
As Harris steps into the spotlight, she will face criticisms of her past — from Republicans over issues like immigration and Democrats wary of her time as a prosecutor.
Biden had tasked Harris with leading diplomatic efforts in 2021 to address the root causes of migration in three Central American countries. The White House has praised her work, but Republicans have strongly criticized her on the immigration issue.
During her first overseas trip as vice president, she advised Guatemalan migrants not to come to the U.S., which drew criticism from immigration advocates.
With the Democratic convention just weeks away in Chicago, Republicans are taking aim at the likely nominee. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance made his first solo campaign appearance Monday and attacked Harris.
“If you want to lead this country, you should feel grateful for it,” Vance said. “You should feel a sense of gratitude and I never hear that gratitude come through when I listen to Kamala Harris.”
Vance took another jab at Harris and the Democratic Party at his rally in Virginia Monday evening.
“A couple of elite Democrats got a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard,” Vance said. “That is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy.”
Trump has expressed frustration over restarting his campaign now that Biden has exited the race. While Republicans and the Trump campaign used Biden’s age as a problem, with Biden out of the race Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.
Trump himself was once a supporter of Harris. He donated $6,000 to her campaign for reelection as California attorney general, including a $5,000 check.
Both campaigns are gearing up for a fight with only three months left before voters go to the polls.
“We have doors to knock on, we have people to talk to, we have phone calls to make, and we have an election to win,” Harris said Monday in Wilmington, Delaware.
(WASHINGTON) — As Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign gains momentum, many environmental advocacy groups say they’re “all in” to help her win the White House.
Groups like the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), Sierra Club, and NRDC Action Fund have already endorsed her campaign.
Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs for the LCV, told ABC News that her organization is eager to support the Harris campaign and said she thinks the goal now should be “building on the progress” of the current administration.
“I think it’s more about building on the progress — the progress of the Biden-Harris Administration on climate and on conservation has been truly historic, and there’s clearly more progress to make,” Sittenfeld said. “And we know that Vice President Harris is committed to doing just that.”
Other environmental organizations, like the Sunrise Movement, known for representing younger voters, are pushing Harris to take her climate policies further than President Joe Biden did during his term.
“You have an opportunity to win the youth vote by turning the page and differentiating from Biden policies that are deeply unpopular with us,” several youth groups wrote in a letter to Harris, specifically citing approvals for new oil and gas projects under the Biden-Harris Administration.
Climate groups have praised several key accomplishments, including Harris casting the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, a tentpole policy the Biden-Harris Administration calls the largest package of climate policies and spending in U.S. history. She also investigated fossil fuel companies as California attorney general, most notably Exxon Mobil over allegations they may have misled the public about the risks of climate change linked to burning fossil fuels.
As Harris considers who to select as her vice president, the climate and environmental records of the leading candidates for the VP job will surely be part of the evaluation process.
“We very much hope and expect that she will pick a running mate who shares her commitment, who will center these issues — that they will bring a whole government approach, especially to tackling the climate crisis that in the way that the Biden-Harris Administration has done over the last three and a half years,” Sittenfeld said.
Here’s where the four leading candidates to be Harris’ VP pick stand on some of the most important climate and environmental issues:
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has pushed a suite of policies in response to the negative impacts of climate change experienced by his state after it was devastated by hurricanes and severe flooding early in his tenure.
During his two terms as governor, Cooper signed executive orders establishing greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for the state — aiming for a 50% reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. He also ordered a reduction in energy consumption in state-owned buildings and increased the number of registered zero-emissions vehicles in the state.
Cooper has also made environmental justice initiatives a priority during his tenure, establishing the Governor’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council last fall.
Cooper testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Natural Resource Committee in 2019 to urge Congress to take action on climate change, noting the devastation his state experienced in the wake of Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael in 2018, in addition to periods of severe flooding over the years.
“Just like many places in our country and across the globe, we are beginning to feel the harsh effects of climate change on our communities and on our economy,” Cooper testified. “Scientists have found that climate change makes weather more erratic. It makes storms larger and more powerful. And it intensifies heavy rainfalls and drought.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has largely avoided speaking explicitly about climate change in public remarks and favors what his administration calls a “balanced” approach to energy — using a mix of fossil fuels and renewables. Some reports have speculated that Beshear’s energy strategy and his mixed record on environmental issues may be a response to Kentucky’s position as one of the largest coal-producing and coal-burning states in the nation and being a Democratic governor in a largely Republican state.
Beshear says Kentucky becoming “the electric vehicle battery capital of the United States” is one of his “signature accomplishments” as governor, noting $8 billion in investments across two battery manufacturing plants that he says have created 7,000 jobs. He also signed legislation that made $30 million in state funding available for a new natural gas pipeline in the western portion of the state in 2022, calling the project a boon for economic development in the region.
“When world-class companies look to locate here, they need world-class infrastructure to support their needs. I’m happy to be alongside these other leaders to announce that that’s exactly what we’re going to do in building this line,” Beshear said at the time in a press release.
As governor, Beshear declined to apply for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program — making his state one of just a handful, and the only with a Democratic governor, to do so — with his administration saying at the time that some of Kentucky’s larger cities were better positioned to apply.
Earlier this year, he vetoed a bill that would make it more difficult to shut down retired coal plants in the state, writing that it was “inconsistent with Kentucky’s all-of-the above energy policy” and that it would delay new energy projects and “jeopardize economic development.” His veto was overridden by the state’s Republican-led General Assembly.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Gov. Josh Shapiro has emphasized the economic benefits of expanding alternative sources of energy in a state where natural gas production plays a huge role in its economy. Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Similar to President Biden, Shapiro emphasizes the potential to create jobs in many of his climate and energy policies. He secured $400 million in federal funding from the EPA to reduce pollution from industrial sources and create clean energy jobs.
Shapiro has faced criticism from some environmental groups for working with natural gas companies to develop climate and pollution monitoring programs in the state. Shapiro has promoted developing hydrogen energy hubs in the state and capping abandoned oil and gas wells which can be a source of methane gas and other pollution. He also developed his own plan to set a price on carbon that he said would reduce the state’s emissions and customers energy bills and updated the state’s energy standards to attract more investment in renewable energy.
That standard requires the state to get 50% of its electricity from diverse energy sources including solar, wind, small nuclear reactors, fusion, and hydropower by 2035, according to the website for his proposed budget. A report by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center found that Pennsylvania was 50th when it came to new renewable energy since 2013.
Gov. Shapiro was endorsed by Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania when he ran for office in 2022, with the group citing his investigations of oil and gas companies and his work to enforce environmental laws as the state’s attorney general.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly
Sen. Mark Kelly has served on multiple committees that deal with climate and environmental issues in the Senate, including the Committee on Energy & Natural Resources and the Environment and Public Works Committee. He has been outspoken about the need to address climate issues that are impacting his home state, such as extreme heat and drought.
He claimed credit for securing $4 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to help Colorado River basin states manage drought. He and Arizona Sen. Kristen Sinema also co-sponsored the Growing Climate Solutions Act to make it easier for farmers to participate in climate programs.
Kelly has cited his experience as an astronaut as part of his motivation for tackling climate change, saying that from space he saw how fragile the Earth’s atmosphere can be.
“All seven and a half billion of us, we live on an island in our solar system. Make no mistake we’ve got no place else to go and between my first flight and my fourth one it was a decade, and I saw some changes in our planet,” he said in a 2020 appearance on “The View,” specifically mentioning deforestation in places like the Amazon.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get from fossil fuels to get from more renewable energy, I think we’ve got a decade or so to figure this out but we can’t continue to wait,” he added.
He was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters in 2020 and 2022 and has a 93% lifetime approval score from the organization.
(WASHINGTON) — As Donald Trump pivots his focus to Vice President Kamala Harris, one point of attack toward his new 2024 opponent is an old ploy: mispronouncing and mocking her name.
Earlier this week, at his first rally since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Trump bungled Harris’s name dozens of times in the span of his nearly 90-minute stump speech. He told his supporters he wasn’t going to be “nice” anymore.
For years, Harris has been referred to by Trump, Republicans and conservative media like Fox News by only her first name rather than “vice president” or even “Harris” — and they they say it incorrectly.
“It’s one thing to mispronounce someone’s name on the first try, right? But to do it repeatedly and deliberately, it feels purposeful. It’s certainly done to make a point. It is othering, a way of saying you don’t belong here,” said Jean Sinzdak, the associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutger’s University.
“I would describe it as a racist and sexist attack on her because she’s been the vice president for three and a half years,” Sinzdak said. “It’s not hard to say her name. It’s not complicated.”
Her name is a nod to her Indian heritage on her mother’s side and in her 2019 memoir, Harris wrote that she pronounced it “Comma-luh” and that it means “lotus flower.”
Before that, when she ran for Senate in 2016, her campaign produced a video with children noting all the incorrect ways of pronouncing her name before saying it correctly. The clip has resurfaced over the past weeks as her presidential campaign enters suddenly entered full swing.
Still, Trump continues to say “Kah-MAH-la.”
When asked why, the Trump campaign, in a statement to ABC News, said “race and gender have nothing to do with why Kamala Harris is the most unpopular Vice President in history.”
Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary, went on to criticize Harris’s handling of immigration and accused her of lying about Biden’s cognitive abilities. “She is weak, dishonest, and dangerously liberal, and that’s why the American people will reject her on November 5th,” Leavitt said.
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist, noted that over the years “Democrats, Republican, and even reporters, have mispronounced Kamala Harris’ first name. It’s a unique one.”
“But Trump doesn’t seem to care, and continues to do it as a demonstration of purposeful disregard for his opponent,” he said.
As Harris faces some racial and sexist attacks, including that she was a “DEI hire,” House Republican leaders privately told their conference to focus their attacks against Harris on her record, sources familiar with the conversation told ABC News.
But it seems unlikely Trump would follow such advice.
“Trump runs his own campaign and constructs his own message,” Madden said. “For him, it always devolves into the personal, so I expect it will be an element of his attack message all the way though the course of his campaign.”
Meanwhile, Harris appears to be flipping the script and leaning into the contrast of her name and identity versus Trump.
Her first campaign video featured images of supporters holding up “Kamala” signs and chanting “Kamala!” at one of her recent campaign rallies.
Her campaign’s rapid response social media page is simply called, “Kamala HQ.”
Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Hillary Clinton, said Harris and her team are “using her first name as a tool of empowerment.”
“She owns it, it is hers and proudly,” Cardona said. “The Trump-Vance MAGA folks try to use it to demean and degrade her. They think that by mispronouncing it, it strips her of her power, when in fact what they are doing only betrays just how terrified they are of her and everything she is bringing to this race.”
Sinzdak agreed it was a smart strategy to turn the insult on its head.
“During the campaign cycle, when so much was made of the fact that the two candidates for the presidency were much older white men, it did not look like change or progress,” Sinzdak said. “This is a moment for Kamala Harris and her campaign to lean into an identity that is different and bring something exciting to the ticket. A lot of voters will respond to that, especially younger voters and women voters.”
Harris’ campaign declined to comment on the name controversy.
Still, Sinzdak and Cardona said they expect these kinds of personal attacks on Harris to continue in the coming months leading up to Election Day.
Cardona warned she thinks “this will be one of the ugliest, most racist, most misogynist, sexist campaigns that we will ever see.”
“But the other flip side of that is, I don’t think that Trump will now how to maneuver with her in this race, with I think its a huge, huge opportunity for her.”
ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Rachel Scott and Gabrielle Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report
(WASHINGTON) — When Jotaka Eaddy, the founder of Black women’s leadership network Win With Black Women, heard Sunday that President Joe Biden had decided he wouldn’t run for reelection, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s first Black woman presidential nominee, her first thought was “Oh my God, what a time to be alive.”
Her second? “Oh, our Zoom call tonight — I’m gonna have to shift the agenda.”
Formed in 2020, Win With Black Women has met by Zoom most Sundays for almost four years, drawing hundreds of attendees and support from names like Oprah Winfrey and Dionne Warwick. But Eaddy said they had never had a call anything like this past Sunday’s, which drew tens of thousands of viewers, raised more than $2 million for the just-launched Harris campaign, and inspired a similar call led by Black men the next night that raised $1.3 million more for Harris’ campaign.
“We thought, ‘Well, we probably gonna hit 1,000 [people]. And so we were prepared for 1,000,” Eaddy said. “I knew something was different when at about 8 o’clock … I couldn’t get in my own Zoom because it was at capacity.”
Win With Black Women’s Zoom call this past Sunday — joined throughout the night by prominent Black woman politicians such as Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile — could herald a surge of support from Black voters and organizers, women, in particular, who could make up lost ground for Democrats in critical battleground states and down-ballot races nationwide.
Black voters helping to swing red states blue
Many Georgia Democrats are looking to the change at the top of the Democratic ticket to help keep Georgia blue.
“For all of our clients, we will need to revise our projections for turnout upward,” Georgia Democratic strategist Amy Morton told her team Tuesday after a flood of Harris endorsements early in the week. “That’s the impact Harris will have on the ticket.”
Since Biden announced on Sunday that he was leaving the 2024 race, Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting. And Morton said having Harris as the nominee “is energizing” to the party and could lead to high turnout rates with voters.
“Black women have been critical to Democratic victories in Georgia for as long as I’ve been working in local space,” Morton continued. “And I think that having Harris at the top of the ticket is energizing for all Democrats.”
“I expect to see turnout in November that approaches 2020 levels,” she added. In 2020, the voter turnout rate was the highest for any national election since 1900.
Georgia played a crucial role in Biden’s 2020 victory, going blue for the first time since 1992 due in significant part to organizing efforts from former Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams, who spent years spearheading get-out-the-vote efforts in Black communities.
In North Carolina, another Southern battleground state with a large Black population, many Democrats said they hope that Harris could reproduce the energy that powered former President Barack Obama to the party’s last presidential-election victory in the state in 2008.
“President Obama was the last one who was able to mobilize Black people the way that he did back when he ran for office in ’08 and ’12,” said Aimy Steele, who leads a North Carolina voter engagement organization focusing on Black and Hispanic voters.
Black voter turnout peaked in North Carolina in 2008 with a record 73% of Black registered voters turning out to vote, according to North Carolina’s Board of Elections. For comparison, 2016 saw 64% and 2020 saw 68% in the state.
But with Harris at the top of the ticket, Steele said, “I expect the same thing to happen again, if not exceed what he was able to do.”
Hoping to ensure that happens, several Black groups have responded to grassroots enthusiasm for Harris with new efforts to mobilize voters to the polls.
Quentin James founded Collective PAC, an organization that supports Black candidates at all levels of government around the country. James helped organize the Monday night Win with Black Men Zoom call — telling ABC News that the call was just the beginning.
“As someone who’s done a lot of fundraising, I’ve never raised $1.3 million over three or four hours from grassroots donors, I’ve never seen that kind of momentum,” James said. “The energy is inspiring. Each one of those people on the call can organize 10 people or 100 people, and we hope to mobilize all of them.”
On Monday, the presidents of the group of nine historically Black sororities and fraternities known as the “Divine Nine” wrote in a press release that they had agreed to collaborate on “an unprecedented voter registration, education, and mobilization coordinated campaign.”
Harris joined Divine Nine sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha when she attended Howard University, a historically Black university.
Alpha Kappa Alpha International President Danette Anthony Reed said there is enthusiasm among the sorority’s ranks for Harris as a candidate.
“We are just ecstatic and excited that a member of our organization, as well as the first woman of color, has the opportunity to become a candidate for president,” Reed said.
‘We know when we organize, mountains move’
Already the campaign is seeing the return on Harris’ momentum. The campaign has reported a record-breaking $126 million in donations in the 48-hours after Biden’s endorsement. The campaign said 74,000 of those who donated were from new recurring donors, with two-thirds of these recurring donors signing up for weekly donations. There has also been a surge of 100,000 volunteers, according to the campaign.
Although there are few polls out that have data to fully capture this moment, Harris is already seeing significantly higher numbers in favorability with Black voters.
In a memo outlining the campaign’s path forward Wednesday, Campaign Chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon wrote that the vice president has “multiple pathways to 270” thanks to her support among different groups of voters, including Black, Latino and women voters.
Recently, Harris delivered remarks to another Divine Nine sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, which, like AKA, was also founded at the vice president’s alma mater, telling the women that “we know when we organize, mountains move.”
Lois Lofton-Donivei, a teacher from Houston, Texas, heard Harris’ call and was ready to answer it.
“I’m ready to hit the pavement and to do whatever I can to get her elected as the first female president,” said Lofton-Donivei. “We’re finally acknowledging that women have the ability to lead.”
(WASHINGTON) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a potential vice presidential contender, has emerged among labor unions as a popular pick to join Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, four union officials and a political consultant told ABC News.
Walz, a former public school teacher and union member, has drawn support for his record of pro-labor legislation in a blue-leaning state and his potential appeal with voters in nearby Midwest battlegrounds Wisconsin and Michigan, they said.
Still, some added, labor unions lack a consensus choice in part because it is difficult to determine which candidate will deliver the best chance of a Democratic victory in the November election.
“People are high on Walz,” Steve Rosenthal, president of political consulting firm The Organizing Group, who has spoken with unions about the potential vice presidential nominee, told ABC News. “People in the labor movement would be very comfortable with him.”
However, Rosenthal added: “Mostly people understand the desperate need to win. It’s not like there’s somebody who’s the union candidate and people have coalesced around that.”
Walz has signed into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker. Last year, Minnesota established paid sick and medical leave, banned non-compete agreements and expanded protections for Amazon warehouse workers. In May, Minnesota enacted a measure providing a raise for Uber and Lyft drivers while averting a threat made by those companies to stop doing business in the state.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, told ABC News that she considers Walz one of two top candidates for the vice presidential nod.
“He got the workers from Uber involved before passing the bill to support workers rights in the gig economy,” Nelson said. “That trust of workers and that understanding of the engagement of working people is absolutely something we’re looking for.”
In addition to Walz, Nelson said she backs Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as a potential VP pick, citing his willingness to walk the picket line in a red state and his legislative record on issues important to the working class such as an expansion of healthcare access.
“Those two should really rise to the top,” Nelson said of Walz and Beshear, adding that she had communicated that view to the Harris campaign. “It makes a lot of sense to lean in harder on workers’ rights when the MAGA talking points are trying to say they’re for working people.”
Representatives for Walz and Beshear did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Labor unions, a key part of the Democratic coalition, issued a flurry of endorsements for Harris over the days following her entry into the race. Harris spoke on Thursday in Houston at the national convention of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers’ union.
“One of the best ways to keep our nation moving forward is to give workers a voice — to protect the freedom to organize,” Harris said.
A senior staff member at a private sector union that backs Harris, who has participated in labor discussions about the vice presidential pick, said enthusiasm about Walz among union officials has grown in recent days. The person requested that their name not be used due to the sensitivity surrounding the Harris campaign’s selection of a vice president.
“Walz may not be as splashy as some of the other potential folks, but I think he will really relate with working class voters, especially in the states we need to win in November,” the person said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wa., a labor ally, said on Thursday that she favors Walz for the vice presidential nomination due in large part to his record on worker issues.
To be sure, labor officials have not agreed upon a preferred candidate for the position, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Service Employees International Union, the largest private sector union, declined to respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the vice presidential selection. The AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization, also declined to comment.
Concern emerged in recent days over the potential selection of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly due to his previous unwillingness to back the PRO Act, a major labor reform measure. On Wednesday, Kelly said he would vote for the legislation if it came to the Senate floor. His comments were first reported by the Huffington Post.
A representative for Kelly declined to respond to a request for comment. In response to a previous request from ABC News, Kelly’s office said the Arizona senator has robustly backed labor.
“Senator Kelly is the son of two union police officers and has been a strong supporter of workers throughout his time in the Senate,” Kelly spokesperson Jacob Peters said.
Rosenthal, of The Organizing Group, said the shift in Kelly’s position warded off a concerted opposition campaign from organized labor.
“Had Kelly not taken the position he did, there would be a significant amount of pushback from labor unions,” Rosenthal said, later adding: “Overall, it’s really about winning.”
Jim McLaughlin, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99, the largest private sector union in Arizona, praised Kelly in a post on X on Wednesday. “Unions in Arizona know [Kelly] for his commitment to the state and to our nation,” McLaughlin said. “I respect Senator Kelly and am encouraged by the consideration he is being given by the [Kamala Harris] campaign.
At least one labor leader took issue with Kelly after his newfound support for the PRO Act. “If he changed his position on the PRO Act, he would’ve signed onto it,” Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen told ABC News on Thursday.
“I’ve heard talk about Walz from other union presidents,” Samuelsen added. “And Tim Walz certainly sounds like a dream come true relative to Mark Kelly.”
A labor leader, who has endorsed Harris, voiced praise for Walz’s pro-labor legislative accomplishments and his potential appeal in the Midwest. At the same time, the person lauded Kelly as a skilled campaigner who would perform well as a running mate. The person requested that ABC News not use their name due to the sensitivity surrounding Harris’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.
The decision should ultimately come down to which of vice presidential choices best helps Harris win the election, the person added. “It’s hard to know,” they said.
(PHOENIX) — Before Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly emerged as one of the lead contenders for vice president on the Democratic ticket, the former NASA astronaut earned more than a million dollars on the speaking circuit by regaling companies and colleges with tales of his triumphs in space.
Kelly, who was a U.S. Navy attack pilot before spending a decade as a NASA Space Shuttle pilot, earned more than $1.7 million in speaking fees over the two years before he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, financial disclosures show.
The senator, who has been floated as one of the possible candidates to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, earned additional income from book deals and business consulting, according to the disclosures.
The $1.7 million came from 62 public speaking engagements from 2018 to 2019 — during which time Kelly sometimes delivered multiple speeches per day in different states, records show. On Nov. 18, 2018, for example, Kelly made $72,250 from three separate speeches in California, Minnesota, and Oregon.
Among those that paid Kelly for speeches were the American Society of Dermatological Surgery, which paid him $25,500, Chobani, the yogurt company, which paid him $58,250, and the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, which paid him $29,750.
Kelly later returned $55,250 that he made from a speech for Pink Tank, a Dubai-based consulting company, after it was made public that the event was sponsored by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. At the time, a spokesperson for Kelly’s Senate campaign said Kelly’s speech was “focused entirely on Mark sharing experiences in space and discussing our countries’ space programs.”
In 2019, the Arizona senator also reported $1.5 million in income from Kelly Aerospace Consulting LLC, an Arizona limited liability company he registered in 2017, along with other income he earned from board member positions and from consulting.
The financial disclosures from that year show that Kelly held 16 positions for which he was compensated, including a position with Space X, the spacecraft manufacturer owned by Elon Musk.
According to disclosures from 2020 to 2022, Kelly stepped away from most of his board member positions and stopped doing paid public speaking engagements.
Since 2020, Kelly’s income has mostly come from his investments and stocks, and from royalties and advances from his several books.
In 2021, Kelly reported six royalty agreements for books he has written or co-written, which include several children’s books as well as the book “Gabby,” a book written with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, that recounts the 2011 mass shooting that left her partly paralyzed and with difficulty speaking.
Kelly’s most recent financial disclosures are from 2022. He requested an extension to file his disclosures for 2023.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Barack Obama attend an event to mark the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House, Apr. 5, 2022, in Washington. — Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday to be the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee.
Obama was one of the only high-profile Democrats who had yet to endorse Harris, who quickly secured enough delegate support to clinch the nomination so long as the delegates do not change their mind before the Democratic National Convention’s virtual roll next month.
When President Joe Biden announced Sunday he was exiting the 2024 race, he quickly endorsed Harris to take his place.
In more extensive remarks on his decision delivered from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, Biden said he believed “the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation” and now was the time for “fresh” and “younger” voices.
“I made my choice. I’ve made my views known. I’d like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris,” Biden said. “She’s experienced, she’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me, and a leader for our country. Now, the choice is up to you, the American people.”
After Biden backed Harris, many Democrats across the country quickly fell in line behind her and she faces no major opposition yet for the party’s nomination. Focus has already shifted to who she may select to be her vice presidential running mate in challenging former President Donald Trump and JD Vance.
Several days before Obama’s endorsement, Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, publicly endorsed Harris. Jeffries and Schumer both spoke about Harris earning the nomination “from the grassroots up and not the top down.”
Obama, too, appeared to want to let the “process” play out before announcing his support. In his initial response to Biden’s decision to drop out, Obama said the party would be “navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead.”
“But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” Obama said at the time.
Though a source told ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang that Harris had spoken to Obama, along with other leaders, in the 24 hours after Biden stepped down from the race.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. — Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ replacement of President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket could keep the electoral battlefield confined to the typical handful of swing states after the electoral map appeared to be mushrooming in Republicans’ favor.
After Biden’s ruinous debate performance last month, Republicans boasted and Democrats feared that blue and blue-leaning states like New Hampshire, New Mexico, Virginia and even New Jersey were suddenly in play. But now, operatives in both parties predicted that having a Democratic nominee who’s not dogged by such weighty baggage takes those states back off the table, recalibrating the race back to the Rust and Sun Belts.
“She definitely helps us play less defense,” one source familiar with Harris’ campaign’s strategy said. “States that were blue-leaning states that became more competitive post-debate based on early polling seem to be shifting back.”
Democratic alarm was high after last month’s debate, when Biden’s bumbling performance sent Democrats into a tizzy and had Republicans dreaming about a landslide victory.
Handwringing over traditional swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Rust Belt and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina in the Sun Belt was exacerbated by discussions of having to bolster states where Democrats should waltz to victory but could prove competitive as Biden’s poll numbers cratered.
“I was getting calls pretty much on a daily basis with concern,” said Henry Roybal, the chair of the Santa Fe County Democratic Party in New Mexico.
Now, “New Mexico is off the map,” he said.
The story is the same elsewhere.
Conversations with operatives in traditionally noncompetitive states echoed Roybal’s account, even if they believe that former President Donald Trump still would have struggled to carry their electoral votes and there wasn’t definitive polling to prove he could.
After the debate, one senior New Jersey Democratic strategist insisted Biden could have won their state by a mid-single-digit margin after winning it by about 16 points in 2020. The state is now “completely off the table,” the person said.
Some Republicans aren’t entirely convinced.
Harris ran a dysfunctional 2020 presidential campaign and had to drop out before any primary votes were cast, and her approval ratings at the start of her nascent campaign are low. And while the blue-leaning states are still safer for Harris than traditional swing states, Republicans maintain any slip ups could keep them in play.
“It all depends upon how Kamala Harris runs her campaign and how she performs under the enormous pressure of a presidential contest. She did not acquit herself well when she ran for the 2020 nomination,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres.” If she’s a whole lot better than she was then, then conceivably, those states could be off the table again. On the other hand, if she does not perform well, I think all those states are potential Trump pickups.”
Trump is not giving up on those states. He is blitzing Harris with attacks on her record, labeling her a “California liberal,” and will hold his second joint rally with Ohio Sen. JD Vance, his running mate, in St. Cloud, Minn, on Saturday, firing up his voters in a state no Republican presidential candidate has won since 1972.
“As more voters understand how dangerously liberal Kamala Harris is, President Trump’s chances in these traditionally-Democrat strongholds will only get better,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
Still, other Republicans concede that Harris’ candidacy introduces stiffer headwinds than existed when Biden topped Democrats’ ticket. Underscoring the point, a New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday found Harris and Trump statistically tied, an improvement from earlier this month when the same poll found Trump ahead of Biden by 6 points.
“I expect Harris will be stronger. I mean, you just can’t help but be stronger, regardless of performance level,” said New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy. “And so now it’s just a question of how well she does on the stump and in debates.”
“It’s too early to know exactly, but my overall summary is she probably stems the bleeding and raises the floor, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s going to be able to put away states that she needs to,” Virginia-based Republican strategist Zack Roday added.
Now, the race is expected to shift back to the seven swing states that were at the top of the battleground map at the start of the race, with the source familiar with the campaign’s strategy telling ABC News “we’re seeing a reversion to what we expected this race to be pre-presidential debate.”
All seven states are anticipated to be decided by razor-thin margins, with millions of dollars dumped in by both campaigns. Already, Harris has hit the campaign trail in Wisconsin, a marquee swing state.
Harris’ campaign released a memo Wednesday saying it “intend[s] to play offense in each of these states, and have the resources and campaign infrastructure to do so.”
“This campaign will be close, it will be hard fought, but Vice President Harris is in a position of strength – and she’s going to win,” Campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon wrote.
Taking Republicans’ stretch states off the table as much as she can is a key part of remaining competitive in the true battlegrounds. The universe of campaign finance is gargantuan but finite — and every dollar spent in New Jersey or New Mexico is one not spent in Arizona or Michigan.
“The one thing it likely changes is, right now, the ground game,” said one national GOP strategist. “Are they going to shift resources out of specific swing states into other states because the map doesn’t feel as large for Democrats anymore to have to defend territory?”
And Harris’ ability to prevent a landslide for Trump is not just key for her — it’s also important for Democrats’ hopes for the House of Representatives and Senate.
Several key down-ballot races are being held in both swing states and blue-leaning states, and Harris’ ability to keep the margin at the top of the ticket competitive in battlegrounds and expansive in states she wins — rather than a blowout for Trump, as was speculated with Biden — would be a massive boon to congressional contenders.
“It’s critical. If you’re a Senate or a governor candidate or a congressional candidate, you can run ahead of the top of the ticket by a handful of points, three or four. You can’t run ahead at the top of the ticket by 10 or 12 points,” Ayres said.
Biden, he added, “definitely could have gotten blown out.”
(WASHINGTON) — A Fox News interview from 2021, in which Sen. JD Vance smeared Vice President Kamala Harris as a “childless cat lady,” has resurfaced since he became the Republican vice presidential nominee, sparking widespread anger.
In the clip, Vance questioned Democrats — including Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — for not having biological children.
“We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said.
“How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” he asked.
The 2021 interview began circulating widely after Hillary Clinton shared the clip on X. “What a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn’t hate women having freedoms,” she wrote.
Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Though Harris does not have biological children, she does have two stepchildren — Cole and Ella Emhoff — who have lovingly referred to her as “Momala.”
Kerstin Emhoff — second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife, and mother to Cole and Ella Emhoff — has been a vocal supporter of Harris, and defended her against attacks about her parental status.
“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Ella Emhoff shared her mother’s statement on Instagram, writing, “I love my three parents.”
“How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?” she added.
Buttigieg also hit back against Vance’s comments, saying in a CNN interview that Vance should not speak about other people’s children.
“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Buttigieg said. “He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children, and it’s not about his kids or my kids or the vice president’s family. It’s about your family, people’s families whose well-being will depend on whether we go into a future led by somebody like Kamala Harris, who is focused on expanding the prosperity, the freedom, the well-being of our families.
Actress Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken about her struggles with fertility, made a post on Instagram slamming Vance, who has voted against establishing federal protections for in vitro fertilization.
“I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States,” Aniston wrote. “All I can say is … Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her too.”
Vance’s comments have even struck a nerve with some prominent conservative women.
“One of my best friends did rounds and rounds of unsuccessful IVF wanting to have a child. It is still painful to talk about,” Meghan McCain said in an X post. “This ‘childless women’ comment by JD Vance has made so many waves with so many different friends of mine for its insensitivity and cruelty to women.”
Beverly Hallberg, a fellow with the conservative nonprofit Independent Women’s Forum, replied to McCain’s post.
“I’m childless on earth, but I have a baby in heaven due to an ectopic pregnancy,” Hallberg said. “Not all women who don’t have children are childless by choice. It adds insult to injury, to put it mildly, when these comments are said.”
Corie Whalen, media relations director at a Republican think tank and former congressional staffer, said on X she was disgusted by Vance’s comments.
“I’m a right-leaning woman who agrees with almost nothing the Biden-Harris administration has done, but the primal hatred and disgust Vance stokes in me transcends politics,” she wrote. “I suspect I am not the only woman of my vintage, so to speak, who feels this way.”
The head of a major infertility nonprofit also spoke out against Vance, calling his comments “painful and tone-deaf.”
“People are childfree for many reasons — from grieving the pain of miscarriage to experiencing failed adoptions or rounds of fertility treatments to making their own choice not to have children,” said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association.
“For some, living without children doesn’t feel like a choice that they made, but a choice that they live with, despite trying to grow their families,” Collura added. “Under no circumstances, should living childfree be weaponized in a way that degrades people or their value to society.”
In an interview with ABC News at the American Teachers Federation Conference in Houston, Briget Rein — a former Brooklyn teacher, who wore a pink shirt that said “Cats Against Trump” — proudly identified herself as a “cat lady” and said she thought Vance’s remarks were “stupid.”
“Vance also is unprepared to be a vice president, he’s not prepared. Because he’s busy looking at the surface. He’s not looking at the full picture,” she said.”You know, this cat lady went to college. This cat lady went to work … but he’s busy talking about cat ladies, and talking about women in a very derogatory fashion.”
