Politics
Harris-Trump showdown: VP continues to dominate this crucial campaign metric days before 2024 election
The latest major national poll in the 2024 race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump indicates a dead heat – the latest metric to point to a White House race well within the margin-of-error.
However, in the battle for campaign cash – another important indicator in presidential politics – there is a clear frontrunner, Vice President Harris.
According to the latest figures the two major party presidential campaigns filed with the Federal Election Commission, Harris is reported hauling in $97 million during the first half of October.
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That far outpaced the $16 million the Trump campaign said it raised during the first half of this month.
Both campaigns use a slew of affiliated fundraising committees to haul in cash, and when those are included, Trump narrowed the gap but was still soundly topped $176 million to $97 million during the first two weeks of this month.
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The new filings also spotlight that the Harris campaign continues to vastly outspend the Trump campaign. 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 – reporting a cash-on-hand of $119 million as of Oct. 16, with Trump at $36 million. When joint-fundraising committees are also included, Harris holds a $240 million to $168 million cash-on-hand advantage.
President Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) enjoyed a fundraising lead over Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) earlier this year. However, Trump and the RNC topped Biden and the DNC by $331 million to $264 million during the second quarter of 2024 fundraising.
Biden enjoyed a brief fundraising surge after his disastrous performance in his late June debate with Trump, as donors briefly shelled out big bucks in a sign of support for the 81-year-old president.
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However, Biden’s halting and shaky debate delivery also instantly fueled questions about his physical and mental ability to serve another four years in the White House and spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the president to end his bid for a second term. The brief surge in fundraising did not last and, by early July, it began to significantly slow down.
Biden bowed out of the 2024 race on July 21, and the party quickly consolidated around Harris, who instantly saw her fundraising soar, spurred by small-dollar donations. Harris has vastly outpaced Trump in fundraising since taking over at the top of the Democrats’ ticket.
This is not the first time Trump’s faced a fundraising deficit. He raised less than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in his White House victory and was outraised by Biden four years ago in his re-election defeat.
When asked about the fundraising deficit, RNC chair Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital last month that “the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.”
However, he emphasized that “we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through, and we’re going to win on Nov. 5.”
Fundraising is a key measure of a candidate’s popularity and their campaign’s strength. The money raised can be used to – among other things – hire staff, expand grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts, pay to produce and run ads on TV, radio, digital and mailers, and for candidate travel.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Politics
Former Dem House candidate released ad explaining decision to switch to GOP
Louisiana House candidate Elbert Guillory released an advertisement explaining his decision to switch from the Democratic to the Republican Party, arguing it is the GOP that has the history of championing the rights of the Black community.
“It was the right decision, not only for me, but for all my brothers and sisters in the Black community,” Guillory said in the ad, explaining his decision. “The Democratic Party has created the illusion that their agenda and their policies are what’s best for Black people. Somehow, it’s been forgotten that the Republican Party was founded in 1842 as an abolitionist movement.”
The ad comes just over a week before Guillory faces off with four other candidates in Louisiana’s primary election, with Guillory being the only Republican candidate in the field.
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Louisiana uses a majority-vote system, with all candidates, regardless of party, competing in the same election. If a candidate is able to get over 50% of the vote, that candidate wins the election outright. If no candidate is able to achieve the 50% mark, the two top candidates will then compete in a runoff election the following month.
Guillory served in the Louisiana House from 2007 to 2009 and the state Senate from 2009 to 2016. He switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican during his time in the state Senate in 2013.
In his new ad, Guillory explained the decision as a simple one, arguing that Democrats have done little to actually help the Black community.
“The Democrats, on the other hand, were the party of Jim Crow. It was Democrats who defended the rights of slave owners,” Guillory said. “It was the Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who championed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, but it was the Democrats in the Senate who filibustered the bill.”
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Guillory is making the pitch to voters in a district that is now much more competitive for Democrats after the state’s maps were redrawn in 2022, with the Cook Political Report rating the race as “Solid Democratic” as of Oct. 22.
Nevertheless, Guillory is standing behind his decision to switch parties.
“At the heart of liberalism is the idea that only a great and powerful big government can be the benefactor of social justice for all Americans,” he said in the ad. “But the left is only concerned with one thing, control, and they disguise this control as charity programs such as welfare, food stamps.”
“These programs aren’t designed to lift Americans out of poverty,” he continued, “They were always intended as a mechanism for politicians to control the Black community. The idea that Blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Politics
Trump holding a homecoming rally at Madison Square Garden
Days before the November election, when presidential candidates typically barnstorm battleground states to turn out every last one of their supporters, former President Trump will headline a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.
The event is being held at a storied Manhattan arena that hosted the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1971, visits from two popes, multiple national political conventions and countless major musical and sports events. It was also the site where Marilyn Monroe infamously sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy.
It’s the type of venue that would appeal to Trump, a New York City native who reveled in his reputation as the consummate Big Apple billionaire businessman and sought-after bachelor, long before he ran for office.
The rally at the Garden represents a bookend to the start of his improbable presidential campaign in 2015. After descending down a gold escalator at Trump Tower, the site of his family’s penthouse that was their primary residence until 2019, Trump announced his White House bid. Trump’s campaign is billing the appearance as a marquee event in the closing days of the campaign.
Describing the rally as “historic,” Trump’s campaign said it will feature celebrities, elected officials and the former president’s friends and family.
“This epic event, in the heart of President Trump’s home city, will be a showcase of the historic political movement that President Trump has built in the final days of the campaign,” his campaign said in a statement announcing the program for the rally where Trump is scheduled to speak at 2 p.m. (Pacific).
Among the introductory speakers are Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate; sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.; daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee; House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana; SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was disbarred after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and recently ordered to turn over assets, including a Manhattan apartment, to two Georgia election workers who successfully sued him for defamation.
Both Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, have recently spent time in states that will have almost certainly have no impact on the result of the 2024 presidential race because of their respective partisan tilts.
On Friday, Harris was endorsed by musical icon Beyoncé in the singer’s hometown of Houston. Texas last voted for a Democrat for president in 1976, and Trump is comfortably leading in all presidential polling in the state. However, as the state’s demographics and politics are evolving, incumbent GOP Sen. Ted Cruz appears to be facing a tougher challenge than expected from Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, a former professional football player.
“We cannot let Texas flip blue,” Cruz said in an emailed fundraising appeal on Saturday. “Texas is in jeopardy.”
Harris has an even stronger lead over Trump in polls of her home state of California, yet the former president rallied supporters in the Coachella Valley earlier this month.
While both California and New York are overwhelmingly Democratic, because of their size, they are home to millions of Republican voters.
The former president reportedly wants to increase his share of the popular vote. Additionally, California and New York are home to well over a dozen competitive congressional races that are likely to determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Embattled incumbent Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving GOP member of California’s congressional delegation, was endorsed by Trump the same day the Corona Republican spoke at the former president’s Coachella Valley rally. Appearances by Republican New York congressional incumbents and hopefuls are expected at Trump’s Sunday rally.
On Sunday, Harris was in Philadelphia, the largest city in the critical state of Pennsylvania. As part of Democrats’ “Souls to the Polls” effort, Harris spoke at a traditionally Black church in West Philadelphia.
“We were born for a time such as this,” Harris told parishioners at the Church of Christian Compassion, as they rose to their feet. “In this moment, we do face a real question: What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, justice and compassion?”
Later she talked to local leaders and Black men — a voting bloc that some Democrats worry Harris is underperforming with — at Philly Cuts, a nearby barber shop.
She is also expected to greet voters at a Puerto Rican restaurant in North Philadelphia and to speak with families at basketball courts in the Northwest part of the city, the Harris campaign official said.
Over the following days, the vice president is scheduled to campaign in Michigan, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. Harris is expected to deliver her closing argument Tuesday evening — one week before election day — at the Ellipse near the White House, the site where Trump spoke on Jan 6. 2021, as Congress was preparing to certify the 2020 election, before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
After Trump’s appearance in Manhattan, he is expected to hold rallies in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Virginia.
Politics
Video: Where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Stand on Crime
Former President Donald J. Trump, who has 34 felony convictions and is facing three other indictments, wants to stretch the limits of executive power in the name of fighting crime if he is re-elected president. Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, has evolved somewhat on crime issues since her first presidential campaign in 2019 and has a more typical Democratic checklist. Maggie Astor, who covers campaign issues for The New York Times, details their stands on guns, policing and crime.
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