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Harris-Trump showdown: The Vice President to give closing argument with White House as backdrop

Harris-Trump showdown: The Vice President to give closing argument with White House as backdrop

Vice President Kamala Harris brings her presidential campaign to the nation’s capital on Tuesday, as she delivers what’s being billed as her closing argument address to American voters. With one week until Election Day, the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee will call on Americans to ‘turn the page’ on former President Trump, the Republican nominee. And a senior Harris campaign adviser also said the vice president, in what’s being touted as an optimistic and hopeful speech, will pledge to always put country and common ground above party to achieve results for all Americans. WHY TRUMP IS MAKING LAST MINUTE STOPS IN THESE TWO BLUE-LEANING STATES According to her campaign, Harris plans to argue that Trump – who four years later continues to charge that his 2020 election defeat to President Biden was due to an election rigged with massive voter fraud – is all-consumed by his grievances and desire for retribution that he’s not focused on the needs of Americans. It’s an argument the vice president has been spotlighting in recent days.  WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SHOW “He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country, and it is not in any way something that will strengthen the American family, the American worker,” Harris told reporters on Monday. And at a large rally in suburban Atlanta, Georgia last Thursday, the vice president asked supporters to “just imagine the Oval Office in three months.  Picture it in your mind….It’s either Donald Trump in there, stewing — stewing over his enemies list, or me — working for you, checking off my to-do list.” The vice president is expected to expand on that contrast in her speech. Trump, who has been indicted multiple times and made history as the first current or former president convicted in a criminal case, has regularly threatened during the 2024 campaign that if he returned to the White House, he would prosecute his political foes. And both Biden and Harris – who replaced her boss atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket in July after Biden ended his re-election bid – have repeatedly warned voters that Trump poses a threat to democracy if he’s re-elected. “Our democracy is at stake,” the president said last week. “Think about it. Think about what would happen if Donald Trump wins this election.” Harris will deliver her address from the Ellipse, a large park located just south of the White House and north of the National Mall. The Harris campaign points to two symbolic reasons for the Ellipse as the location of the vice president’s address. First, the backdrop is the White House, where either Harris or Trump will soon succeed Biden in the Oval Office. And second, Trump headlined a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse on Jan 6, 2021. Many of those who attended Trump’s rally then marched to the U.S. Capital and joined other protesters in storming the building in an attempt to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump. The Harris campaign says the vice president will also use her address to spotlight her plans and priorities for the country going forward. And they say at the top of that list is offering specifics on how she’ll bring down costs and put more money in the pockets of average Americans. Trump gave his closing argument at a large rally Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where the former president’s message was partially outshined by controversial comments from speakers during the pre-show that grabbed national headlines. Harris’ address comes as the latest national polls indicate a margin-of-error race between her and Trump. It’s the same story with the most recent surveys in the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine if Harris or Trump wins the 2024 election. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Harris-Trump showdown: Margin-of-error presidential race with one week until Election Day

Harris-Trump showdown: Margin-of-error presidential race with one week until Election Day

With one week to go until Election Day, it remains a coin-flip White House race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump. Facing a margin-of-error race in both the national polls and the swing state surveys, both the vice president and the former president, their running mates, and top surrogates continue to fan out across the seven crucial battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 presidential election. On the trail The Republican presidential nominee starts Tuesday from his home base in Palm Beach, Florida, where his campaign says Trump will deliver remarks to the press. CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION The former president then holds two events in Pennsylvania, which, with 19 electoral votes at stake, is the largest prize among the key swing states. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, campaigns with two stops in battleground Michigan. WHY TRUMP IS MAKING LAST MINUTE STOPS IN BLUE-LEANING STATES The Democratic nominee is in the nation’s capital, taking a break from swing state travel for a day, as she delivers what the Harris campaign touts as her closing argument, in an address from the Ellipse, with the White House as a backdrop. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, makes three stops in the crucial southeastern battleground of Georgia. Casting ballots Early voting turnout has been brisk, with swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina breaking records. And with Trump apparently fully on board, the GOP’s efforts to convince Republicans to vote early appear to be working.  WHAT THE MOST RECENT FOX NEWS POLLS SHOW IN THE HARRIS-TRUMP SHOWDOWN The GOP hopes this surge in early voting will help the party rebound from setbacks in the 2020 and 2022 elections, when Democrats dominated early in-person voting and absentee balloting. Poll position A handful of national polls point to a dead heat between Harris and Trump, while others indicate the vice president with the slight advantage or the former president with the edge. But getting past the top lines, there are warning signs for both candidates. Harris has lost her favorability advantage over Trump in some of the most recent surveys. After replacing President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket in July, the vice president’s favorable ratings soared. But they’ve steadily eroded over the past month. Another red flag for Harris are polls indicating her support among Black voters is below Biden’s levels in the 2020 election. For Trump, his support among White voters is on par with his standing in the 2020 election, when he lost the White House to Biden. And the former president still faces a healthy deficit to the vice president when it comes to being trustworthy and caring about people. While national polls are closely watched, the race for the White House is not based on the national popular vote. It’s a battle for the states and their electoral votes. And the latest surveys in the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 election, are mostly within the margin of error. The most recent Fox News national poll indicated Trump had a two-point edge, but Harris had a 6-point advantage among respondents questioned in all seven battleground states. Cash dash  While there’s a margin of error in the polls, there is a clear frontrunner in the battle for campaign cash, another important indicator in presidential politics. And it’s Harris. According to the latest figures the two major party presidential campaigns filed with the Federal Election Commission, Harris hauled in $97 million during the first half of October. That far outpaced the $16 million the Trump campaign said it raised during the first half of this month. Both campaigns use a number of affiliated fundraisings committees to raise money. And when those are included, Trump narrowed the gap, but trailed $176 million to $97 million during the first two weeks of this month. During the first 16 days of October, the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign outspent Trump $166 million to $99 million, with paid media the top expenditure for both campaigns. However, Harris finished the reporting period with more cash in her coffers. As of Oct. 16, she had $119 million cash on hand, while Trump had $36 million. When joint fundraising committees are also included, Harris holds a $240 million to $168 million cash-on-hand advantage. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

‘Untapped voters’: Experts explain how campaigns turn out vote in Michigan, other battlegrounds in final days

‘Untapped voters’: Experts explain how campaigns turn out vote in Michigan, other battlegrounds in final days

Election swing state Michigan will be decided by which campaigns can get the most voters out to the polls in the final week of the race, according to multiple experts. “The campaign’s No. 1 priority and the party’s priority right now is getting our people out to vote,” Jimmy Keady, the founder and president of Republican consulting firm JLK Political Strategies, told Fox News Digital. The comments come with just one week to go in a dramatic election season, with just a handful of battleground states in play that will decide the fate of the race. MICHIGAN CAMPAIGN STOPS FROM PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ALREADY DOUBLE THAT OF 2020, 2016 Perhaps the most important of those states is Michigan, a swing state that narrowly went to Donald Trump in 2016 before flipping back to Joe Biden in another close race in the 2020 election. Polls indicate yet another tight race brewing in the state, with the RealClearPolitics polling average showing a razor-thin 0.1 point lead for Trump as of Monday. Meanwhile, the latest Fox News Power Rankings lists Michigan as a toss-up, and Trump is only a slight betting favorite in the state, with ElectionBettingOdds.com showing the former president with a 53.2% chance of carrying the state as of Monday. According to Keady, the part of the race in which candidates attempt to persuade voters is mostly over, with Michigan coming down to who has the ground game to get the numbers out between now and next Tuesday. Republicans will also be focused on turning out low propensity voters, Keady said, a demographic the party has targeted in the hopes the group could potentially push them over the top. “A lot of these campaigns are going to be focused a lot on low propensity voters … voters that are voting in like one out of four elections, making sure that they’re hit several times, making sure we’re dragging people out to the polls to vote,” Keady said. CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION Jason Roe, a GOP strategist working in Michigan, echoed a similar sentiment, telling Fox News Digital that the time to persuade undecided voters is mostly over. “There’s not a lot of undecided voters left, but there’s untapped voters who’ve never heard from a Republican campaign,” Roe said. “In addition to getting mail-in ballots returned and people to vote early, finding and mobilizing low propensity voters and getting them to the polls is everyone’s focus.” Keady also believes that such a strategy could help down-ballot Republicans in Michigan, where races such as the Senate campaign between former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers and Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin will help determine which party controls the Senate. “Michigan and Nevada are one of two of the seven swing states on the map that basically have straight ticket voting,” Keady said. “Getting low prop voters out to vote that are Republican and conservative means it’s going to help down-ballot.” POLITICAL ROCK STARS AND ENTERTAINMENT CELEBRITIES HIT THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL That optimism is shared by Rogers himself, who told Fox News Digital that issues such as the “open border, job-killing EV mandates and rising gas and grocery prices” will help motivate voters out to the polls in hopes of avoiding “more of the same.” “Over the next week, Team Rogers will be burning the shoe leather to earn every vote,” Rogers said. “We will be hosting numerous rallies and stops across Michigan sharing our message of getting America back on track.” Keady also noted another opportunity unique to Michigan in the battle to get blue-collar and union voters out to the polls with just a week to go. “We are seeing a lot of union members move to the Republican side because of their economic policies … particularly when it comes to manufacturing jobs,” Keady said. “The campaigns absolutely have to be moving through their microtargets and talking to these union voters.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Racist talk at rally mars Trump’s message, but he scores on Joe Rogan podcast

Racist talk at rally mars Trump’s message, but he scores on Joe Rogan podcast

It was a revealing moment for Donald Trump. “When I say ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy,” he said Sunday.  He’s right about that. I raised the subject in our Trump Tower interview last weekend, saying that phrase seemed ominous, and his response – that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are indeed enemies, not just opponents, was picked up across the media universe. But driving the other side nuts is a Trump specialty. When he told the rally at Madison Square Garden that the media are “the real enemy, the enemy of the people,” there were loud cheers from a party that already despises and distrusts the press. BAD BUNNY ENDORSES HARRIS AFTER TRUMP RALLY COMEDIAN JOKES PUERTO RICO IS ‘FLOATING ISLAND OF GARBAGE’ A slight digression: The argument that Trump shouldn’t have been at the Garden because the Nazis held a rally there in 1939 is ludicrous. FDR held an event there two years later, and the Democrats have held nominating conventions there. It’s the place where I’ve watched many Knicks games and a George Harrison concert. And Billy Joel has been selling out the arena for years.) Trump knows how to rile up the media, rekindling the debate over whether they must cover his more over-the-top rhetoric or are just normalizing him.   In our Mar-a-Lago interview a few months ago, the former president acknowledged to me that at times he deliberately uses incendiary language to drive news coverage. Remember, even negative coverage helps him dominate the headlines. And if you think media companies aren’t intimidated by him, look at the disingenuous decisions by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Patrrick Soon-Shiong to kill Kamala Harris endorsements in favor of a no-endorsement stance that obviously helps Trump. Two columnists, including Michelle Norris, have resigned from the Post, three top editors have quit the Times, and thousands of subscriptions have been canceled at both papers. Trump’s speech at the Garden was almost completely overshadowed by what came before it. A comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, called Puerto Rico “a floating pile of garbage.” He joked about Jewish people being cheap, and he and a Black buddy folks “carving watermelons.” “These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do,” Hinchcliffe said. “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.” CNN PUNDITS ADMIT THEY WEREN’T IMPRESSED WITH KAMALA HARRIS’ TOWN HALL: ‘WORD SALAD CITY’ It reached the point that Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Fox yesterday morning: “Look, it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste. Obviously, that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign.” The Trump camp soon put out word that it hadn’t vetted what Hinchcliffe was going to say. That, if true, was a big mistake. But it wasn’t just the comedian. Conservative New York radio host Sid Rosenberg told the rally about “f****** illegals, and also called Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a bitch” and a “Jew hater.” A friend of Trump called Kamala Harris “the anti-Christ.” Now Trump didn’t say any of this, but made no attempt to distance himself by saying, for instance, that he didn’t agree with everything that had been said. A New York Times news story was headlined “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.” PLAYING THE HITLER CARD: WILL TRUMP BACKERS DISMISS JOHN KELLY’S ATTACK? And that gave Kamala Harris an opening. She said the rally “highlighted a point I’ve been making…He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, and himself and on dividing our country.” Meanwhile, Trump scored an absolute coup with a three-hour sitdown with Joe Rogan. Sure, he rambled at times, talking about whales and extraterrestrial aliens. But the podcast racked up 33 million views, with an audience of mostly men, and mainly young men. That’s far more than a candidate would reach going on several top-rated cable news shows. Many believe the sitdown helped humanize Trump, and Rogan told him he gets endless publicity because he says “weird s***.” It was a clearly sympathetic conversation, and Rogan said the media are “the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.” Harris was also in talks to do Rogan’s Spotify podcast, and he said she was welcome there, but if he wanted her, she’d be taping the show today. To save face, she then announced that she had scheduling issues. Instead, Harris did Brene Brown’s prodcast, who obviously appeals to women. The vice president needs to improve her gender gap among men. With one week till the election, every message and misstep counts. And every day you’re playing defense is a lost opportunity.