Politics
Polls: Harris leads Trump in post-DNC afterglow
![Polls: Harris leads Trump in post-DNC afterglow Polls: Harris leads Trump in post-DNC afterglow](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0fa795c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1600x840+0+180/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb7%2Fd7%2Fabb31cc1487ab3f04927e61bf240%2Fla-me-trump-harris-diptych.jpg)
With just over two months left until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a slight lead over former President Trump in national polls and has made advances in several swing states that previously seemed locked up for Trump.
Poll after poll shows the race essentially tied, with leads for either Trump or Harris often within the margin of error.
Harris would take 45% of the nationwide vote, compared with Trump’s 41%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters, released Thursday. Her margin widened to 13 percentage points over Trump among women and Hispanic voters, the survey found.
Harris leads Trump 48% to 47% in a head-to-head matchup, according to a Thursday poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal, which noted the vice president holds a 2-point lead when independent and third-party candidates are factored into the survey.
And in a USA Today/Suffolk University survey, also released Thursday, Harris holds a 48%-to-43% lead over Trump.
The spate of new polls, released after the pro-Harris blitz at the Democratic National Convention wrapped up, reflects a dramatic shift in the state of the race since President Biden dropped out just over a month ago.
The Trump campaign anticipated the post-DNC bump of support for Harris, saying in a statement before her acceptance speech Aug. 22, “These bumps do not last.” The campaign noted that it had also predicted a “honeymoon” period of positive polling and good press after Harris’ nomination, adding that it blamed the media, which it said had “decided to extend the honeymoon for over 4 weeks now.”
Narrow margins in swing states
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have been zeroing in on the swing states likely to determine the election. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, campaigned in Georgia and North Carolina this week and announced a “reproductive freedom bus tour” across several battleground states, beginning next week. Meanwhile, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, visited Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump led Harris 45% to 43% among registered voters across the seven battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. But a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showed Harris either leading or tied with Trump in the same states.
A Fox News poll conducted over the weekend showed Harris leading by 1 percentage point in Arizona, and by 2 points in Georgia and Nevada. Trump was up 1 point in North Carolina, according to the Fox News poll.
The Fox News polling finds Harris keeping pace with the support that won President Biden the election in 2020; he eked out leads in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada while Trump won North Carolina. In the 2024 campaign, Trump previously held a commanding lead in the four Sun Belt states before Biden dropped out, according to Fox News polls conducted earlier this year.
Harris maintained a 1-point lead across the four states even when third-party candidates such as Chase Oliver, Jill Stein and Cornel West were included, the Fox News survey found.
Issues voters care about
More Americans trust Harris on the issues of abortion, healthcare, uniting the country, fighting for the people and bringing needed change, according to the Fox News poll. But Trump is the go-to candidate for border security and immigration, the economy and the Israel-Hamas war, it found.
Voters who spoke to Reuters/Ipsos pollsters agreed that Trump would have a better approach to managing the U.S. economy — 45% compared with 36% for Harris. But they preferred the vice president at a 47% to 31% advantage on the issue of abortion policy.
On the topic of democracy and election integrity, 68% of voters in a poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos said that Harris was likely to accept the election results, compared with just 29% who said the same about Trump. As for the voters themselves, 81% said they would accept the outcome no matter who won.
Pro-Palestinian voters continue to show discontent
Harris’ numbers are not all so bright, however. The Council on American-Islamic Relations found in a poll released Thursday that 29.4% of American Muslims intend to vote for Harris — nearly tying with their support for Green Party candidate Stein at 29.1%. The findings reveal that American Muslims continue to press their complaints about the Biden-Harris administration’s policies on Gaza.
Trump voters made up 11.2% of those polled, with small percentages for West and Oliver. About 16% said they were undecided.
During the spring’s Democratic primaries, many Muslims and pro-Palestinian voters showed their discontent with Biden by casting ballots marked “uncommitted.” This was especially true in Michigan, a swing state where Biden won by less than 3% of the vote in 2020 and home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the nation. More than 13% of voters cast “uncommitted” ballots in the state’s February primary.
Stein, a long-shot third-party candidate, frequently runs in presidential elections without notching much support countrywide. But CAIR’s survey shows that she provides an outlet for disgruntled Americans to register their discontent. Still, Harris’ prospects among American Muslims are an improvement over Biden’s. In a previous survey of 2,500 Muslim Americans, CAIR found that they supported Biden at 7.3%, compared with Trump at 4.9%. Overwhelming support went to third-party candidates Stein at 36% and West at 25.2%.
The RFK Jr. effect
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race last week and endorsed Trump, pundits were aflutter with questions about how his decision would affect the leading two candidates. Early polling shows that the remaining support for Kennedy — which had diminished after Biden dropped out and Harris became the Democratic nominee — is turning toward Trump.
The Fox News poll found that 3 in 4 voters who had a favorable view of Kennedy now support Trump.
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Politics
'For election purposes': Critics balk at Harris' claim she will 'enforce our laws' at southern border
!['For election purposes': Critics balk at Harris' claim she will 'enforce our laws' at southern border 'For election purposes': Critics balk at Harris' claim she will 'enforce our laws' at southern border](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/KamalaHarrisCNN.jpg)
Vice President Kamala Harris made a 180-degree turn on her opinion about prosecuting illegal border crossings during her long-awaited first interview since becoming the Democratic Party’s official nominee for president.
CNN anchor Dana Bash questioned Harris Thursday about whether she still believed illegal border crossings should be prosecuted, something Harris indicated she was against while running her 2019 campaign to become president.
“I believe there should be consequence,” Harris told Bash. “We have laws that have to be followed and enforced that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally. … And let’s be clear, in this race, I’m the only person who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns, drugs and human beings. I’m the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws. And I would enforce our laws as president going forward.”
TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM KAMALA HARRIS’ FIRST INTERVIEW AS DEM NOMINEE: ‘I WILL NOT BAN FRACKING’
Unaccompanied minors walk toward U.S. Border Patrol vehicles after crossing over from Mexico May 9, 2023, in El Paso, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Harris’ comments Thursday contrasted with what she has said and done in the past regarding illegal immigration, particularly when it comes to illegal border crossings.
Besides indicating during a nationally televised debate that she would not pursue people who have crossed the border illegally for prosecution, she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015 that “an undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.” She also posted the claim on social media. And in a riff with the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s daughter, Meghan, during a 2019 episode of “The View,” Harris reiterated her stance.
“I would not make it a crime punishable by jail,” she said. “It should be a civil enforcement issue but not a criminal enforcement issue.”
As a U.S. senator, Harris sought to strip funding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And as California’s attorney general, she instructed local law enforcement not to adhere to ICE detainers when they request that someone who has committed a crime and crossed the border illegally be held until they can be taken into custody to initiate deportation procedures.
Harris has also compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan.
KAMALA HARRIS OFFERS VAGUE ‘DAY 1’ OVAL OFFICE PLAN IN CNN INTERVIEW: ‘A NUMBER OF THINGS’
![US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) special agent](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/04/1200/675/Immigration-and-Customs-Enforcement-Agent.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Fox News Digital spoke to critics who called Harris’ comments “insincere” and “for election purposes” only. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital spoke to two conservative immigration law experts who called her comments “insincere” and “for election purposes” only.
“If someone cares about enforcing our laws as they pertain to the border, you would think that they would be a part of and lead an administration that prosecutes sufficient offenses related to crossing the border unlawfully,” said Gene Hamilton, the director of America First Legal, a right-wing legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
“The Department of Justice’s prosecution for border-related offenses are at rock bottom. They are lower than even the Obama years, and that’s saying something.”
Hamilton, who served as counselor to the attorney general at the Department of Justice under former President Trump, argued a key metric in determining how seriously an administration is taking border security is the number of illegal border crossings compared to the number of individuals deported.
Last year, there were 2.4 million illegal border crossings, according to Department of Justice data, Hamilton said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department prosecuted around 20,000 of those violations.
“You know, the numbers — the numbers speak for themselves,” Hamilton argued. He also pointed out that in 2019, under Trump, there were fewer illegal border crossings than the country faced in 2023, but the Trump administration still prosecuted more than five times the number of illegal border crossers than the Biden-Harris administration in 2023.
“As she said last night in her interview, her values have not changed. She said that over and over again,” said Lora Ries, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center. “She is telling her base, ‘Look, don’t worry about what the campaign is saying right now. We just have to say that to try and get elected. But my values have not changed.’”
NBC REPORTER CALLS OUT KAMALA HARRIS FOR SAYING HER ‘VALUES HAVEN’T CHANGED’: ‘HER POSITIONS HAVE CHANGED’
![Kamala Harris CNN interview](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/KamalaHarrisCNN.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Vice President Kamala Harris raised eyebrows when telling CNN’s Dana Bash that her “values haven’t changed” after making complete reversals on far-left positions she held in 2019. (Screenshot/CNN)
CNN’S KAMALA HARRIS, TIM WALZ INTERVIEW CAN BE SUMMED UP IN JUST TWO WORDS
Ries slammed the Biden-Harris administration for “gaslighting” the American public but argued the Harris campaign “is taking it to another level” by denying Harris was tapped to be the border czar and pretending as if she is not in power and able to enact tougher measures at the border.
“She’s in power right now. If she truly meant it, she would do it now, and she’s not. But to pretend like you’re not in power and not in office right now is a higher level of gaslighting,” said Ries. “I think this is just, you know, for election purposes.”
Hamilton echoed that statement, calling Harris’ comments Thursday “insincere.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign repeatedly for comment but did not receive a response.
Politics
Illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty in fatal Colorado crash faces just one year behind bars
![Illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty in fatal Colorado crash faces just one year behind bars Illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty in fatal Colorado crash faces just one year behind bars](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/Ignacio-Crash.png)
An illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty to causing a crash that killed a man in Colorado is facing a maximum of a year in jail when he is sentenced Friday, according to local reports.
Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza was charged with misdemeanor traffic violations, including one count of careless driving resulting in death, and he pleaded guilty in July, 9News reported. He faces one year in jail and some fines as a result when sentenced.
Fox reported earlier this year that Cruz-Mendoza was hauling a load of steel pipe on Hwy 285 when he lost control of the semi, sending it rolling onto its side as it veered off the road.
SEMI DRIVER IN DEADLY COLORADO HIGHWAY CRASH IS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WHO WAS DEPORTED FROM US MULTIPLE TIMES: ICE
L-R: Mugshot of Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza; wreckage from the deadly crash along US 285 in Colorado. (Colorado State Patrol; KDVR)
A load of pipe and angle iron spilled out of the semi and onto five other vehicles. One person was killed, and another was seriously injured, authorities said. A spokesperson for ICE confirmed that Cruz-Mendoza has a long history of removal to Mexico, stretching back more than two decades. ICE first became aware of Cruz-Mendoza in April 2002 when he was arrested on local charges in Jefferson County, Oregon, the ICE spokesperson said.
An immigration judge ordered Cruz-Mendoza removed to Mexico on May 29, 2002. Since then, he has been removed from the U.S. or voluntarily returned to Mexico 16 times, ICE said.
The widow of Scott Miller, the man killed in the crash, took aim at the district attorney for not bringing more charges.
“I’m mad that I’m not going to get justice for my husband, mad because … the most this man can get is a year for murdering my husband because the DA refused to charge him with more charges,” Deann Miller told 9News.
LAKEN RILEY MURDER: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SUSPECT IN GEORGIA COLLEGE STUDENT SLAYING ASKS TO HIDE CERTAIN EVIDENCE
“It makes me feel like they didn’t do their job,” Miller said. “They’re not doing their job. Who else is going to get these rogue truck drivers and these rogue trucking companies off the road if not the people we put in charge to make us safe?”
9News reported that the DA’s office was surprised that Cruz-Mendoza pleaded guilty in his arraignment on the misdemeanor, preventing further charges. The Jefferson County DA’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital but told 9News that they are looking into the trucking company involved in the crash.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
Politics
Column: Why Donald Trump's politicking at Arlington National Cemetery should disgust every American
![Column: Why Donald Trump's politicking at Arlington National Cemetery should disgust every American Column: Why Donald Trump's politicking at Arlington National Cemetery should disgust every American](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1322b4d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5559x2918+0+394/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F49%2F75%2F63ba63f446a8983f80076f6909a8%2Ftrump-cementerio-de-arlington-36750.jpg)
Former President Trump did something breathtakingly cynical, certainly immoral and probably illegal the other day.
In other words, it was Monday.
Trump used an appearance on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, a resting place for many who honorably served their country, to make a campaign video.
Trump was ostensibly at Arlington to commemorate the third anniversary of the killing of 13 American service members by a suicide bomber during the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said the solidiers’ family members, some of whom disparaged President Biden at the Republican National Convention, invited him.
I have no doubt that’s true. But even the grieving families of fallen soldiers do not have a right to trash Arlington‘s protocols.
The Army, which oversees the cemetery, forbids any sort of political activities on the grounds. It is, as the Trump campaign was informed, against federal law and Defense Department policy. The Washington Post reported that Pentagon officials were “deeply concerned” that Trump would turn the visit into a campaign stop but also wanted to accommodate him.
During the visit, a cemetery official tried to enforce the rules against outside cameras in Section 60, the area devoted chiefly to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Trump staffers physically pushed her out of the way, according to news reports.
The official declined to press charges because she feared retaliation from Trump supporters, according to an Army statement. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung promptly slimed her as “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”
Trump had smiled broadly and given a jarring thumbs-up as he stood at the grave of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, one of those killed in the bombing. He wasn’t there just to pay his respects; he was there to exploit the tragedy that occurred at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate in 2021 by blaming it on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has soared in recent polls.
The frenzied withdrawal and terrible loss of life occurred on Biden’s watch — as did the abandonment of at least 78,000 Afghans who worked for the U.S. government and continue to live there precariously. Nonetheless, Trump crassly ignores his own role in the debacle. A deal he himself struck with the Taliban locked the United States into a withdrawal timeline. Military intelligence was profoundly mistaken about the Afghan government’s ability to defend Kabul, which fell to the Taliban with lightning speed. There is enough blame to go around.
I called a dear friend whose parents are buried at Arlington. Her father was a Marine colonel and a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. At his funeral, he was given a 21-gun salute, and his procession included a riderless horse, empty boots in the stirrups facing backward to symbolize a final look back at his troops and his loved ones.
“My father was a conservative guy, but he would have thought Trump was a pig,” my friend told me. “He believed in honor, and if you are buried at Arlington, it is an honor. It is not something that should be … [messed] with.”
Trump has a history of demeaning military sacrifices and messing with honorable traditions. As president, he turned the White House into his personal political prop, using it as a backdrop for the launch of his failed 2020 reelection campaign.
Poor Ohio Sen. JD Vance, whose awkwardness on the campaign trail has turned him into a meme-worthy punch line. He has once again been put in the sorry position of trying to mop up after his running mate. At a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, an indignant Vance excoriated the media.
“You’re acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a grave site,” said Vance, a Marine veteran. “He was there providing emotional support to a lot of brave Americans who lost loved ones they never should have lost, and there happened to be a camera there, and someone gave them permission to have that camera there.”
As they say on social media, who’s gonna tell him?
That very day, the Trump campaign released a video showing the former president at Arlington, laying flowers at a grave and posing for photos with the Gold Star families.
In a voice-over, Trump says, “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months,” a self-regarding and entirely bogus claim he’s been making for the last few years. As Reuters reported in May 2022, if Trump was referring to the time period in which he negotiated the withdrawal agreement, 15 American troops suffered what the Defense Department called “hostile deaths” in Afghanistan. If he was referring to the last 18 months of his presidency, 12 members of the military died in Afghanistan. None of this is likely to dissuade Trump’s passionate supporters. But let’s hope his creepy stunt will persuade the last undecided voters that he is truly, deeply unfit to be this country’s commander in chief.
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