Vice President Kamala Harris, urged her supporters to “get out there, let’s fight for it,” as she concluded her presidential nomination acceptance speech at this week’s Democratic National Convention.

With both major party national nominating conventions now in the books, the 2024 edition of the race for the White House enters the final sprint.

Both Harris and former President Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee, will be back on the campaign trail in the upcoming week, along with their running mates, making stops across some of the seven crucial battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the November election.

HARRIS TAKES AIM AT TRUMP AS SHE VOWS ‘TO BE A PRESIDENT FOR ALL AMERICANS’

It’s a process that will be repeated each and every week until Election Day.

Harris interview?

The former president, his running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and their campaign and allied Republicans have repeatedly criticized Harris for not holding a major news conference or sitting for an interview since replacing Biden atop their party’s 2024 ticket over a month ago.

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING IN THE 2024 ELECTION

So all eyes will be on Harris to see if she lives up to her promise to do a national news media interview in the week left in the month of August.

Fundraising fight

There’s just one week left in August, and the end of the month will bring anticipation of the latest fundraising figures from both the Trump and Harris campaigns.

President Biden enjoyed the fundraising lead over Trump earlier this year, but the former president saw his fundraising soar in the late spring and early summer.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, looks on as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. Kennedy endorsed Trump after suspending his campaign. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

But after Biden’s blockbuster move to end his re-election bid and Harris replacing him as the Democrats’ standard-bearer, the campaign and the party’s fundraising surged and Harris walloped Trump in fundraising during July. 

The August numbers, which the campaigns could release as early as September 1, will be closely watched and scrutinized, as fundraising along with polling is a crucial metric.

Debate clash

The first and possibly the only presidential debate between Harris and Trump is scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia.

The face-off could be the most important evening in the 2024 presidential election, with the power to potentially shift or transform the current margin-of-error race between the vice president and the former president.

Former President Trump live posted on Truth Social during VP Harris’ DNC speech (Getty Images)

Need proof – just look back to the late June debate between Biden and Trump. The president’s disastrous performance fueled questions about whether the 81-year-old president had the mental and physical stamina to handle another four years in the White House. And it sparked calls from within his own party for Biden to drop out of the race. 

Less than a month after the clash in Atlanta, the president was out of the race.

Early voting 

There are 73 days to go until Election Day, but some voters will start casting ballots next month. 

In swing state North Carolina, mail-in voting begins on Sept. 6. And early voting begins on Sept. 16 in Pennsylvania and Sept. 26 in Michigan, two other crucial electoral battlegrounds.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Throughout his nearly four years in office, President Biden regularly consulted historians to measure his accomplishments against history, and did so again before stepping out of the presidential race. History will recognize among his many achievements his sweeping economic vision and legislative expertise, which quickly moved the country out of a pandemic recession, reduced wage inequality and created the longest period of full employment in more than 50 years.

Biden also brought about the most significant pro-worker policies in decades. He revitalized agencies that have aggressively moved to clean our air and water of deadly contaminants like toxic “forever” chemicals. And with the narrowest margins in Congress, he secured the votes to enact the first major law to combat climate change in U.S. history, which has created 330,000 good, safe clean-energy jobs so far.

Although Biden seems keenly attuned to his legacy, his foreign policy — like that of Lyndon B. Johnson before him — could forever haunt his record in history books and stain his standing among generations of Americans. Like America’s wars in Indochina, the bloody, nearly yearlong assault on Gaza has unleashed a level of carnage that has horrified the world. It has stoked resistance and division in America. And, like the wars of 50 years ago, it’s contributed to a one-term Democratic president who has, to date, been ineffectual at halting spiraling violence and brutality abroad.

With at least 40,000 Gazans killed by Israel’s offensive so far, seemingly constant reports of fresh bombardments of civilians with U.S. arms have made a mockery of the administration’s claims of concern for human rights. Preventable diseases such as polio as well as famine now threaten the blockaded enclave. Two million people remain trapped and denied adequate food and medical attention.

Israel’s provocative measures abroad — like its assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, with whom it was negotiating an end to hostilities and return of Israeli hostages — seem intended to sabotage cease-fire talks and draw the United States into a larger regional conflict. Such a war could be fought for years, with untold further civilian casualties.

It’s no wonder that Republicans seem to delight in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawlessness and aggression, as they criticize Biden for supposedly not backing Israel more firmly. They cynically believe that the nonstop devastation of Gaza will discourage some Democratic voters from supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in an election that could once again be determined by a margin of just tens of thousands of votes. Republicans might also hope to benefit politically from a regional war before the presidential election, if it contributed to a jump in oil prices and U.S. involvement in an unpopular conflict.

And Republicans recognize that largely unconditional military support emboldens Netanyahu to exacerbate the suffering in Gaza, continue to strike neighboring countries and yet again reject the U.S. framework for a permanent cease-fire.

But it’s not too late for Biden, in the final months of his term, to act boldly. Freed from some political considerations because he is not running for reelection, he could use the necessary political capital to finally pressure Netanyahu into accepting a permanent cease-fire deal. If Biden acts swiftly and decisively, he could preserve his legacy as a statesman by ending the months of cruelty in Gaza, calming regional tensions and protecting the possibility of a two-state solution.

He would also, incidentally, position Harris to win the November election. A majority of U.S. voters support conditioning military aid on Israel accepting a cease-fire deal, and swing-state voters say they would be more likely to support Harris if a permanent cease-fire were achieved. With an election that could easily be determined by a razor-thin margin, regaining Democratic voters disaffected by Gaza policy could prove decisive to Harris’ victory. By resolving this major and ongoing political liability, Biden would also make room for Harris to credibly defend and expand on his domestic achievements in 2025.

Biden himself suggested Netanyahu is avoiding a permanent cease-fire for his own political self-preservation. That means only U.S. leverage can compel a just outcome for Gaza and the families of Israeli hostages. As Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant admitted in October, “We are not in a place where we can refuse” American demands. “We rely on them for planes and military equipment. What are we supposed to do? Tell them no?”

All Biden has to do is enforce — or simply threaten to enforce — existing U.S. law. As 88 House Democrats noted in May, Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits security assistance or arms sales to any country that restricts U.S. humanitarian assistance. Section 502B of the same law prohibits security aid to any government engaged in a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations. And weapons restrictions in Biden’s own national security memoranda and conventional arms transfer policy provide additional tools of leverage needed to secure a permanent cease-fire. Biden already has the authority to condition or cut off offensive military aid to Israel — if Netanyahu refuses to accept a permanent cease-fire.

Biden can draw on his own experience staring down Netanyahu in 2021. After many phone calls over Israel’s prior assault on Gaza, Biden simply said: “Hey, man, we’re out of runway here. It’s over.” Author Franklin Foer noted: “And then, like that, it was. By the time the call ended, Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to a cease-fire that the Egyptians would broker.”

Biden should draw on history to avoid the pitfalls of the past: Antiwar protests occurred throughout this year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, an echo of opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968. A Republican presidential nominee who, like Richard Nixon, disdains the rule of law hopes to take power. By acting now, Biden can end a humanitarian disaster, prevent a return of the authoritarian far right in the U.S. and ensure his righteous legacy in history.

Mark Ruffalo is an actor and advocate for social justice.

The Trump campaign blasted Vice President Kamala Harris as a “liar” and “desperate” after her campaign released a TV ad claiming former President Trump’s policies brought in a “violent crime wave,” telling Fox News Digital Harris is an “open border, weak-on-crime liberal.” 

The Harris campaign, just a day after the vice president accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago, released a television ad focused on crime. The ad claims on Harris’ watch, “violent crime went down.” 

“Her record as district attorney and attorney general — locking up child abusers, online predators and violent offenders and shutting down international drug cartels,” the ad says. “Under Donald Trump? A violent crime wave. And Trump ordered MAGA extremists to kill the bipartisan border security deal.

“Trump just talks tough. Kamala Harris is tough.”

NEW HARRIS BORDER SECURITY ADS MARK 180 FROM YEARS OF LIBERAL IMMIGRATION ADVOCACY

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Harris “a liar.” 

“The truth is Kamala and Biden reversed every single one of President Trump’s effective immigration policies immediately upon taking office and opened the border to criminals, terrorists and drug cartels,” Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “If Ms. Border Czar Harris really wanted to secure the border, why doesn’t she go back to Washington and do it today?

“She won’t, because she’s an open border, weak-on-crime liberal.”

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote that violent crime “isn’t down, it’s up almost 25% across 66 major U.S. cities while Kamala has presided over three of the four most murderous years in the last 25 years.”

DNC ATTENDEES WEIGH IN: ARE KAMALA HARRIS’ AND JOE BIDEN’S RECORDS ONE AND THE SAME?

“Under Kamala, illegals she let into the country are brutally raping and murdering our citizens,” the campaign continued, adding that, as district attorney, Harris “was known for being soft on crime, while San Francisco had the highest murder rate in a decade.”

The campaign said Harris became “the model” for “Soros-backed prosecutors across the country.” 

“Drug cartels haven’t been ‘shut down,’ they’ve ravaged our communities with deadly drugs flowing across the border in unprecedented numbers,” the campaign continued. “The Sinaloa Cartel has made record profit under Kamala.” 

As for the bipartisan border bill, the Trump campaign said it would have “put millions of illegals on the fast track to citizenship.”

Trump visited the border in Arizona Thursday. 

Trump’s campaign has referenced Americans like Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, who were all allegedly killed by illegal immigrants.

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, comforts Patty Morin, mother of Rachel Morin, Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Ariz. Rachel was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Rebecca Noble)

Two Venezuelan nationals — 21-year-old Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and 26-year-old Franklin Jose Peña Ramos — have been charged with capital murder in the death of 12-year-old Nungaray. The two men crossed illegally into the U.S. earlier this year and are accused of strangling the pre-teen to death in June.

Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant, was charged with 22-year-old Riley’s murder. Ibarra entered the U.S. through El Paso, Texas, in 2022 and was freed on border parole. He initially lived in New York City, where he was arrested for allegedly endangering a child prior to his move to Athens, Georgia.

Ibarra has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another in connection to Riley’s murder.

The El Salvadoran national allegedly responsible for Morin’s death, 23-year-old Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, was also in the country illegally, and, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was caught by Border Patrol three times within a matter of days in January 2023 and February 2023 and sent back to Mexico under Title 42 each time. 

Former President Trump, the Republican candidate for president, speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Ariz. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

He then successfully entered the U.S. as a gotaway, meaning he entered without being inspected, admitted or paroled by a U.S. immigration officer, in February 2023 near El Paso, Texas.

During his visit to Arizona Thursday, Trump invited Angel Moms to share stories about victims of illegal migrant crime. 

“We’ve done a lot of trips to the border over the years and told a lot of stories about border victims, including the stories of the amazing Angel Moms,” Trump said. “Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but we have never seen anything in terms of the volume and viciousness like what we are seeing now in our country.

“It is an onslaught of violence.” 

A Trump campaign official told Fox News Digital the campaign’s strategy will be to “continue to hammer home immigration and Kamala’s dereliction of duty at the border.”