The Latest: Harris keeps a focus on 'blue wall' states in the campaign's final weeks

With three weeks left in the presidential campaign, Democrat Kamala Harris is spending most of her days trying to shore up support in the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as she tries to avoid a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s collapse there eight years ago.

Her schedule reflects the Democratic nominee’s focus on her most likely path to victory over Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Harris visited Milwaukee on Thursday seeking support from college-age voters.

She dropped by a business class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and held a student rally at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. She closes out the day with a rally in Green Bay.

In other news, former President Donald Trump is in New York attending the annual Al Smith charity dinner. Harris is skipping the event, breaking with presidential tradition. But she will appear on screen in a recorded video, organizers said.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Trump wraps Al Smith remarks

Republican Donald Trump has wrapped up an insult-heavy and bitter speech at the Al Smith charity dinner.

Trump said that he did not want to make jokes for the speech, which is traditionally a light-hearted and bipartisan event. He concluded by veering off his script and going into a rambling campaign mode.

Trump called it a “serious evening” before ending with his campaign slogan: “We’re going to make America great again.”

Trump takes aim at top Dems during Al Smith roast

Republican Donald Trump is heaping insults to top Democratic officials, taking aim at President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, her husband Doug Emhoff and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The Al Smith charity dinner has traditionally featured barbs -- as well as self-deprecation -- between presidential candidates. But Trump said “I’ve got nothing” when it comes to poking fun at himself.

“I just don’t see the point of taking shots at myself when other people have been shooting at me,” he said.

Trump rants against Harris at Al Smith event

Republican Donald Trump is going on a bit of a rant against Vice President Kamala Harris in his speech at the Al Smith charity dinner.

The dinner has a tradition of presidential candidates exchanging light-hearted barbs. But after Harris declined to attend while she campaigns in a battleground state, Trump noted it repeatedly and said it showed Catholics needed to vote for him.

“You should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis and then she’d be here,” Trump said.

The Republican former president also went after President Joe Biden, though he said he now likes him more than Harris.

“If the Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden,” Trump said.

Trump addresses Al Smith crowd with jokes and jabs

Republican Donald Trump is starting his address at the Al Smith charity dinner on a generous note, calling out to Republican and Democratic officials alike.

He wished “good luck” to New York City Mayor Eric Adams as he faces federal bribery charges.

“I think you’re going to win,” he said.

However, Trump went on to say that Harris was being “disrespectful” to the charity and Catholics for missing the dinner.

Harris joins actress Molly Shannon in taped Al Smith message

Vice President Kamala Harris is appearing in a video alongside Molly Shannon, a comedian and actress, for the Al Smith charity dinner.

Shannon reprised her long-running “Saturday Night Live” character Mary Katherine Gallagher, an awkward Catholic schoolgirl, for the video and says, “It’s time for a woman, bro.”

The Democratic presidential candidate is not attending the fundraiser, but recorded a video that will be played on screen. She pokes fun at Republican Donald Trump for comments he made in Michigan, saying that mocking Catholics in the video would be “like criticizing Detroit in Detroit.”

Harris mocks Trump calling himself the ‘father of IVF’

Vice President Kamala Harris is mocking Republican Donald Trump for calling himself “the father of IVF” in a Fox News town hall this week.

Harris played a collection of Trump comments on reproductive care, including comments taking credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and ending a national right to abortion, before adding on the latest clip. “It just gets more unbelievable sometimes,” Harris said, laughing. “Now the man calls himself the father of IVF? I mean, what does that even mean?”

The issue burst onto the national political landscape in February after the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children. That decision forced clinics in Alabama to pause their IVF treatments. Soon after, and facing a national backlash, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so IVF procedures could continue. “He is the one, by the way, who is responsible for it being at risk in the first place,” Harris said. Harris also took aim at Trump for saying that voters wanted Roe to be overturned. “No Donald, everyone did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned,” she said. “Women are dying of sepsis because they can’t get the help that they need. They did not want this.”

RFK Jr. and wife attend Al Smith dinner

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines are attending Thursday night’s Al Smith Charity Dinner together.

Kennedy is backing Republican Donald Trump’s presidential bid after he suspended his own presidential campaign in August.

Trump will headline the white-tie charity dinner in New York, which raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade light-hearted barbs and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election’s final stretch.

Read more here.

Republicans say they’re appealing a Georgia judge’s ruling on election rules

National and state Republicans on Thursday appealed a judge’s ruling that said seven election rules recently passed by Georgia’s State Election Board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party are appealing a ruling from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, who ruled Wednesday that the State Election Board did not have the authority to pass the rules and ordered it to immediately inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.

The rules that Cox invalidated include three that had gotten a lot of attention — one that requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after the close of polls and two that had to do with the certification of election results.

Read more here.

Democratic swing state governors embark on blue wall tour ahead of election

The Democratic governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this week embarked on a swiftly organized bus tour, rolling through the autumn landscape to press the urgency of the case for Vice President Kamala Harris in must-win states where some Democrats worry that she’s struggling.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers all descended on Flint Thursday afternoon, joined by the chairman of the national Democratic Party, Jaime Harrison. In a joint interview with The Associated Press, all three acknowledged the enormity of the stakes but dismissed any suggestion that their effort reflected anything other than the need to have all hands engaged in the fight.

“All three of us know what it’s like to compete and win really tough, close races,” said Shapiro. “So I think the more we can get out there and not only thank volunteers for being here today, we can also maybe calm some nerves too.”

Read more here.

Harris and Walz to attend church in Michigan and Georgia

Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz will attend church on Sunday in the battleground states of Georgia and Michigan.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will also sit down for an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton, that will air Sunday night on his MSNBC program, according to a Harris campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss schedule details not yet officially announced.

Both candidates will also highlight their campaign’s “Souls to the Polls” effort to encourage Black churchgoers to turn out to vote early or on Election Day, Nov. 5.

With less than three weeks until the election, the Harris campaign is focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, and has been encouraging supporters attending events to take advantage of opportunities to vote early in their states. The vice president spent much of the week focused on shoring up support among Black voters, men in particular.

Harris is set to attend services at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Stonecrest, Georgia. Last Sunday, she addressed congregants at a predominantly Black church in Greenville, North Carolina, another closely contested state.

Walz will join worshippers at Victorious Believers Ministries in Saginaw, Michigan.

Harris casts Trump as ‘increasingly unstable and unhinged’

Kamala Harris says that Republican nominee Donald Trump is “increasingly unstable and unhinged, and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power for himself.”

The Democratic nominee was speaking at a rally in Wisconsin where she warned about the stakes of the upcoming presidential election, arguing Trump is a threat to freedom.

Harris says Trump wants to “send the military after American citizens, he wants to prevent women from making decisions about their own bodies. He wants to threaten fundamental freedoms and rights like the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and the freedom to love who love openly and with pride.”

Harris quips at rally hecklers

While Vice President Kamala Harris was talking about abortion rights at a Wisconsin rally filled with college students, hecklers briefly interrupted her, after she said Americans deserved the “freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.”

She stopped and said to the hecklers: “Oh you guys are at the wrong rally,” as cheers filled the rec center.

“You guys meant to go to the smaller one down the street,” she quipped. Harris has suggested that Donald Trump’s rallies are shrinking and crowds tended to leave them early.

Mark Cuban says Trump's tariffs proposal would make holiday gifts cost more

Mark Cuban is telling supporters of Kamala Harris at a rally Thursday that Donald Trump used to be “a little bit coherent.”

“But I don’t know what happened to him,” said Cuban, an owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and celebrity investor on “Shark Tank.”

The rally is at Recreational Eagle Center, the main sports and recreation facility on the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus. The school has about 9,400 undergraduates and about 930 graduate students. A large sign on one end of the arena reads, “A New Way Forward for La Crosse.”

Cuban warned the crowd that if Trump was elected in November, his tariffs proposal would make holiday gifts cost 60% more than they are now.

“You won’t be able to afford the presents you want for your family and friends,” he said. The choice, he said, is to elect Harris.

Biden says Harris turned in a strong performance during her first interview on Fox News

President Joe Biden thinks Vice President Kamala Harris turned in a “strong” performance during her first interview on Fox News.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden caught the interview, which was broadcast nationally on Wednesday night, and thought the Democratic presidential nominee’s performance was “strong.”

“I think what you saw, and this is what he believes, is that you saw why Americans and people want to see her continuing to fight for them” Jean-Pierre told reporters accompanying Biden on a trip to Germany on Thursday. “She was strong and incredibly impressive.”

Harris engaged in a combative interview with Bret Baier, the host of “Special Report,” sparring with him on immigration and shifting policy positions while asserting that if elected, she would not represent a continuation of Biden’s presidency.

Trump visits barbershop in Bronx borough of New York City

Republican Donald Trump stopped by a barbershop in the Bronx borough of New York City on Thursday.

The former president entered the barbershop through a security tent that been set up outside and once inside, greeted a room full of men who were seated in barber chairs.

“How good are the barbers here?” Trump asked the room, according to a video posted on social media by his spokesman Steven Cheung. “I can see they’re good.”

With just weeks before election day, Trump has often taken a hypermasculine tone as he tries to secure support from male voters, including Black and Hispanic men.

Harris says the killing of Sinwar is an opportunity ‘to finally end the war in Gaza’

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said Thursday the killing of Hamas’ top leader, Yahya Sinwar, by Israel “gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza.”

Speaking from a Wisconsin college campus where she was campaigning, Harris said the war “must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

“It is time for the day after to begin,” she said.

As she arrived to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, protesters shouted outside “Free, free Palestine.”

Israel says Sinwar was killed in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza. Iaraeli Foreign Minister Katz called Sinwar’s killing a “military and moral achievement for the Israeli army.”

Sinwar was a chief architect of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that precipitated the war and escalating conflicts across the Middle East.

Former NBC anchor Brian Williams is returning to election night and hosting an Amazon special

Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams will be working again on election night, anchoring a live special with results and analysis to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Amazon announced the plans on Thursday, saying the election night streamcast will begin at 5 p.m. Eastern, with no end time given. His longtime NBC colleague, Jonathan Wald, will be executive producer.

An election night telecast is a new frontier for a big streaming service, one that doesn’t have its own news operation. Prime Video was scant on details in a news release, saying the show will have results from third-party news sources and a variety of as-yet unnamed guests to talk about them.

Williams and Wald were not immediately available, according to Amazon.

Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz will make the talk show rounds

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is making the talk show rounds with scheduled appearances on “The View,” and “The Daily Show.”

The Minnesota governor will appear on both shows Monday, with just a few weeks to go before the presidential election. He’s heading to ABC’s “The View” after Kamala Harris was on Oct. 8. Her appearance delivered the longtime talk show’s highest ratings in three and a half years, according to ABC.

Walz will be interviewed on Comedy Central’s popular talk show by Jon Stewart, campaign officials said. Stewart, the show’s longtime leader, has come back to host once a week on Mondays.

Electoral battleground North Carolina starts early in-person voting while recovering from Helene

Early in-person voting began statewide Thursday in the presidential battleground of North Carolina, including in mountainous areas where thousands of potential voters still lack power and clean running water after Hurricane Helene’s epic flooding.

More than 400 locations in all 100 counties were slated to open for the 17-day early vote period, said State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell. Only four of 80 sites in the 25 western counties hardest hit by the storm weren’t going to open.

Helene’s arrival three weeks ago in the Southeast decimated remote towns throughout Appalachia and killed at least 246 people, with a little over half of the storm-related deaths in North Carolina. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005.

Early in-person voting, which continues through Nov. 2, is very popular in North Carolina. More than 3.6 million ballots — 65% of all cast ballots — were cast this way in the 2020 general election. In the 2016 election, 62% of all cast ballots were cast during early in-person voting.

Absentee voting in North Carolina began a few weeks ago, with over 67,000 completed ballots turned in so far, election officials said. People displaced by Helene are being allowed to drop off their absentee ballot at any early voting site in the state.

On Thursday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz was expected to campaign in Winston-Salem and in Durham, where he was to be joined by former President Bill Clinton.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley were expected to appear on the “Team Trump Bus Tour” when it resumes Thursday in Rutherford County, which was among the hardest-hit areas.

Biden says Harris would cut her own path as president, warns that Trump is dishonest

As President Joe Biden left the White House on his way to Germany Thursday, he was asked about Donald Trump’s recent social media post that Kamala Harris was “the worst vice president in history.” Biden, walking from the White House to Marine One on the South Lawn, stopped and said: “You don’t listen to Donald Trump, do ya?”

Biden hasn’t had any nice words for the Republican nominee, calling him a “loser” during a campaign event earlier this week. He also said that Harris, if elected, would cut her own path as president and her “perspective on our problems will be fresh and new. Donald Trump’s perspective is old and failed and quite frankly, thoroughly totally dishonest.”