AP
Walz has experience on a debate stage pinning down an abortion opponent’s shifting positions
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Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)Read More
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Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at the Whitewater Music Hall Brewing Company Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Wausau, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
BY STEVE KARNOWSKIUpdated 10:11 AM GMT+6, September 28, 2024Share
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz knows how to lean into abortion rights on the debate stage. He’s done it before.
Just ask his Republican opponent in the 2022 Minnesota governor’s race, Dr. Scott Jensen, who was on the receiving end of Walz’s attacks — and saw firsthand how effective Walz could be in exposing an opponent’s shifting positions on abortion.
Jensen’s experience two years ago could provide insight into what to expect Tuesday when Walz debates GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance on CBS. Jensen said in an interview that Walz would be smart to talk about abortion.
“I think Tim Walz will say that loud and clear, and JD Vance needs to make it very clear that there’s not going to be a federal ban on abortion,” Jensen said. “That’s what Trump has said, and they need to make that very clear.”
The family practice physician and former state senator originally voiced support for an abortion ban in his 2022 campaign and picked a running mate with a record as an outspoken abortion opponent, former Minnesota Viking Matt Birk. That helped him get the Republican nomination, but it didn’t play so well with the broader electorate.
By the time Walz and Jensen met for their second of three debates two years ago, Jensen was trying to play down abortion, insisting it wasn’t on the ballot.
To Walz, it most certainly was.
“My entire career I’ve trusted women to make their health care decisions,” Walz said as they met at the studios of KTTC-TV in Rochester in their only televised prime-time debate. “I don’t believe anybody who sits in this office should come between them.”
Jensen had asserted that state courts had already decided that abortion rights were protected under the Minnesota Constitution and accused Walz of “fearmongering” by claiming they might be in danger. He said he wouldn’t ban abortion because he couldn’t — that it would take a constitutional amendment.
But Walz pointed out that former President Donald Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision after suggesting in their confirmation hearings that it was settled law. In Minnesota, Walz noted, governors appoint state Supreme Court justices.
“I just want to be absolutely clear: This is on the ballot,” Walz said. “It will impact generations to come.”
Vance and Trump are treading carefully after their previous support for limiting access to abortion, saying they now want to leave it to the states.
Trump repeatedly declined to say during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris whether he would veto a national abortion ban, insisting that a ban would not pass Congress anyway. Yet he has often taken credit for appointing the three justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion. He’s backed away from statements he’d made as recently as March that he’d support a national ban.
Vance himself had strongly opposed abortion in the runup to his 2022 senatorial election but aligned himself this year with Trump. Harris and Walz have been urging their audiences not to trust Trump and Vance on abortion rights.
Walz’s comments on abortion rights from the 2022 debates with Jensen sound like lines he could try again in the clash with Vance, said Kevin Parsneau, a political science professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato. Despite Trump’s and Vance’s comments that a national ban is off the table and the issue in the hands of the states, he said, Walz could point out that the next president and Congress could override whatever the states do.
Not only were abortion rights a winning issue in 2022 for Walz, who defeated Jensen by nearly 8 percentage points, the issue helped Democrats take control of both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature and the governor’s office for the first time in eight years. That “trifecta” let them enact a sweeping progressive agenda in 2023 that included stronger protections for abortion rights — and put Walz on Harris’ radar when she needed a running mate.
Both Walz and Jensen were feeling scrappy by their third debate, on Minnesota Public Radio.
Walz basically ignored Jensen’s dig about his 1995 drunken driving arrest in Nebraska and Jensen calling him the “godfather of the crime epidemic.” Walz did lapse into some rambling answers, prompting Jensen to quip one point, when the moderator offered him a rebuttal, “Thanks, I almost fell asleep.”
Walz will make adjustments on the move, Jensen said, so Vance will need to frame his attacks carefully.
“Tim Walz has an affable personality. I worked with him when I was in the Senate,” Jensen said. “He’s a jovial fellow. If you try to turn Tim Walz into something malignant, I don’t think that’s going to work. Because Tim Walz is not malignant. He’s a skilled politician who’s learned on the job.”
The Trump-Vance campaign has already criticized Walz’s response to the rioting that accompanied protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, and Vance could raise it again. While Trump praised Walz at the time, Republicans now say Walz should have moved faster to use the National Guard. The governor, in the KTTC-TV debate, said he was proud of how he and Minnesota’s first responders reacted to the crisis “no matter how much I’m slandered by Scott.”
Vance has already previewed attacks on Walz’s military record. Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years but retired when he first ran for Congress in 2005 before his unit was deployed to Iraq. He has at times called himself a retired command sergeant major and did serve as one for less than a year. But his rank was reduced for benefit purposes to master sergeant because he had not completed the necessary coursework. His careless use of language included what struck some as a claim that he served in combat when he did not.
Vance, who served four years in the Marines, including six months as a military journalist in Iraq, has accused Walz of ” stolen valor.”
“I am damn proud of my service to this country,” Walz responded in a speech to a union convention. “And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record. To anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
Vance thanked Walz for his service in a social media post but accused Walz of lying about his record.
“Happy to discuss more in a debate,” Vance posted.
An important challenge for Vance, Jensen said, will be making sure Walz answers the questions put to him.
“You don’t want to underestimate Tim Walz because he has an ability to speak rapidly and sincerely, and yet, without the audiences realizing it, a lot of times he can go on for a minute or two, and everything sort of checks out OK on the surface, but when you stop and ask, ‘Did he answer the question?’ he didn’t,” Jensen said. “Tim Walz will throw a word salad at you and you won’t realize it’s even happening.”
AP
The final day of voting in the US is here, after tens of millions have already cast their ballots
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People stand in line during the last day of early voting, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)Read More
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Voters line up to vote as a early voting location opened in Carmel, Ind., Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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A person walks past a sign during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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An election worker demonstrates mail-in ballot processing during a media preview at the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, in Philadelphia, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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A voter fills out their their ballot during early voting in the general election, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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People line up to vote at the Chicago Early Voting Loop Supersite in Chicago, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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Bennett College student Zairen Jackson listens to a fellow student answer a question during a roundtable in Greensboro, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
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FILE – A Delaware County secured drop box for the return of vote-by-mail ballots is pictured, May 2, 2022, in Newtown Square, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
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An elections official sorts counted mail-in ballots on the first day of tabulation, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
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People wait in line to cast their ballots at an early voting location, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Blue Springs, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
BY CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY AND ALI SWENSONUpdated 11:05 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — Election Day 2024 arrived Tuesday — with tens of millions of Americans having already cast their ballots. Those include record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner.
The early turnout in Georgia, which has flipped between the Republican and Democratic nominees in the previous two presidential elections, has been so robust — over 4 million voters — that a top official in the secretary of state’s office said the big day could look like a “ghost town” at the polls.
As of Monday, Associated Press tracking of advance voting nationwide showed roughly 82 million ballots already cast — slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier. That’s driven partly by Republican voters, who were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote.
That included in the parts of western North Carolina hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads.
By the time early voting in North Carolina had ended on Saturday, over 4.4 million voters — or nearly 57% of all registered voters in the state — had cast their ballots. As of Monday, turnout in the 25 western counties affected by the hurricane was even stronger at 59% of registered voters, state election board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.
Brinson Bell called the voters and election workers in the hurricane-hit counties “an inspiration to us all.”
Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were searching for the person responsible.
The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, which is now under his sway, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day.
He has mischaracterized an investigation underway in Pennsylvania into roughly 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration applications by saying one of the counties was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person.” The investigation is into registration applications; there is no indication that ballots are involved.
In Georgia, Republicans sought to prohibit voters from returning mailed ballots to their local election office by the close of polls on Election Day, votes that are allowed under state law. A judge rejected their lawsuit over the weekend.
Trump and Republicans also have warned about the possibility that Democrats are recruiting masses of noncitizens to vote, a claim they have made without evidence and that runs counter to the data, including from Republican secretaries of state. Research has consistently shown that noncitizens registering to vote is rare. Any noncitizen who does faces the potential of felony charges and deportation, a significant disincentive.
One case of noncitizen voting was caught during early voting last month and resulted in felony charges in Michigan after a student from China cast an illegal early ballot.
This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago and began various attempts to circumvent the outcome and remain in power. That climaxed with the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to halt certification of the results after Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Even now, a solid majority of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden was not legitimately elected, despite reviews, audits and recounts in the battleground states that all affirmed Biden’s win. A survey last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed Republicans remain much more skeptical than Democrats that their ballots will be counted accurately this year.
Seeking to rebuild voter confidence in a system targeted with false claims of widespread fraud, Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states since 2020 have passed new voting restrictions. Those rules include shortening the window to apply or return a mail ballot, reducing the availability of ballot drop boxes and adding ID requirements.
On the last weekend before Election Day, Trump continued to falsely claim the election was being rigged against him and said a presidential winner should be declared on election night, before all the ballots are counted.
Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactic of casting doubt on elections. The Democratic nominee told supporters at a weekend rally in Michigan that the tactic was intended to suggest to people “that if they vote, their vote won’t matter.” Instead, she urged people who had already cast ballots to encourage their friends to do the same.
Through four years of election lies and voting-related conspiracy theories, local election officials have faced harassment and even death threats. That has prompted high turnover and led to heightened security for election offices and polling sites that includes panic buttons and bullet-proof glass.
While there have been no major reports of any malicious cyberactivity affecting election offices, foreign actors have been active in using fake social media profiles and websites to drum up partisan vitriol and disinformation. In the final weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to Russia multiple fake videos alleging election fraud in presidential swing states.
On the eve of Election Day, they issued a joint statement with federal law enforcement agencies warning that Russia in particular was ramping up its influence operations, including in ways that could incite violence, and likely would continue those efforts well after the votes have been cast.
Jen Easterly, the nation’s top election security official, urged Americans to rely on state and local election officials for information about elections.
“This is especially important as we are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation being aggressively peddled and amplified by our foreign adversaries at a greater scale than ever before,” she said. “We cannot allow our foreign adversaries to have a vote in our democracy.”
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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Swenson reports on election-related misinformation, disinformation and extremism for The Associated Press.
AP
Georgia high court says absentee ballots must be returned by Election Day, even in county with delay
Updated 5:13 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — Thousands of voters in Georgia’s third-largest county who received their absentee ballots late will not get an extension to return them, the state’s highest court decided on Monday.
Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, didn’t mail out absentee ballots to some 3,400 voters who had requested them until late last week. Georgia law says absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls on Election Day. But a judge in a lower court ruled last week that the ballots at issue could be counted if they’re received by this Friday, three days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruling means the affected Cobb County residents must vote in person on Election Day, which is Tuesday, or bring their absentee ballots to the county elections office by 7 p.m. that day.
The high court ruling instructs county election officials to notify the affected voters by email, text message and in a public message on the county election board’s website. And it orders officials to keep separate and sealed any ballots received after the Election Day deadline but before 5 p.m. Friday.
Board of elections Chair Tori Silas said the board will comply with the Supreme Court order, but it’s still up in the air whether ballots received after Election Day will be counted. The order only addressed a motion for a stay, so election officials will have to wait for the court’s final ruling to see whether votes received after Tuesday will be counted, she said in a statement.
To deliver the ballots on time, election officials in Cobb County were using U.S. Postal Service express mail and UPS overnight delivery, and sending the ballots with prepaid express return envelopes. The Board of Elections said that more than 1,000 of the absentee ballots being mailed late were being sent to people outside of Georgia.
Silas last week blamed the delay in sending out the ballots on faulty equipment and a late surge in absentee ballot requests during the week before the Oct. 25 deadline.
The original ruling extending the deadline stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of three Cobb County voters who said they had not received absentee ballots by mail as of Friday.
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Elon Musk is pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution. The giveaway by the Donald Trump supporter is raising questions among some who say it’s a violation of the law.Read More
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America PAC lawyer Chris Gober speaks with members of the media ahead of a hearing at a City Hall courtroom in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner arrives for a hearing at a City Hall courtroom, in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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America PAC lawyer Chris Gober speaks with members of the media ahead of a hearing at a City Hall courtroom in Philadelphia, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, third from right, arrives for a hearing at a City Hall courtroom, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
BY MARYCLAIRE DALEUpdated 4:19 AM GMT+6, November 5, 2024Share
Follow live: Updates from AP’s coverage of the presidential election.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk ‘s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday.
Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta — ruling after Musk’s lawyers said the winners are paid spokespeople and not chosen by chance — did not immediately explain his reasoning.
District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, had called the process a scam “designed to actually influence a national election” and asked that it be shut down.
Musk lawyer Chris Gober said the final two recipients before Tuesday’s presidential election will be in Arizona on Monday and Michigan on Tuesday.
“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said Monday. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”
Chris Young, the director and treasurer of America PAC, testified that the recipients are vetted ahead of time, to “feel out their personality, (and) make sure they were someone whose values aligned” with the group.
Musk’s lawyers, defending the effort, called it “core political speech” given that participants sign a petition endorsing the U.S. Constitution. They also said Krasner’s bid to shut it down under Pennsylvania law was moot because there would be no more Pennsylvania winners before the program ends Tuesday.
Young also acknowledged that the PAC made the recipients sign nondisclosure agreements.
“They couldn’t really reveal the truth about how they got the money, right?” Summers asked.
“Sounds right,” Young said.
In an Oct. 20 social media post shown in court, Musk said anyone signing the petition had “a daily chance of winning $1M!”
Summers grilled him on Musk’s use of both the words “chance” and “randomly,” prompting Young to concede the latter was not “the word I would have selected.”
Young said the winners knew they would be called on stage but not specifically that they would win the money.
Musk did not attend the hearing. He has committed more than $70 million to the super PAC to help Trump and other Republicans win in November.
“This was all a political marketing masquerading as a lottery,” Krasner testified Monday. “That’s what it is. A grift.”
Lawyers for Musk and the PAC said they do not plan to extend the lottery beyond Tuesday. Krasner said the first three winners, starting on Oct. 19, came from Pennsylvania in the days leading up to the state’s Oct. 21 voter registration deadline.
Other winners came from the battleground states of Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. It’s not clear if anyone has yet received the money. The PAC pledged they would get it by Nov. 30, according to an exhibit shown in court.
More than 1 million people from the seven states have registered for the sweepstakes by signing a petition saying they support the right to free speech and to bear arms, the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Krasner questioned how the PAC might use their data, which it will have on hand well past the election.
“They were scammed for their information,” Krasner said. “It has almost unlimited use.”
Krasner’s team called Musk “the heartbeat of America PAC,” and the person announcing the winners and presenting the checks.
“He was the one who presented the checks, albeit large cardboard checks. We don’t really know if there are any real checks,” Summers said.
Foglietta presided over the case at Philadelphia City Hall after Musk and the PAC lost an effort to move it to federal court.
Krasner has said he could still consider criminal charges, as he’s tasked with protecting both lotteries and the integrity of elections.
Pennsylvania remains a key battleground state with 19 electoral votes and both Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have repeatedly visited the state, including stops planned Monday in the final hours of the campaign.
Krasner — who noted that he has long driven a Tesla — said he could also seek civil damages for the Pennsylvania registrants. Musk is the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla. He also owns the social media platform X, where America PAC has published posts on the sweepstakes, and the rocket ship maker SpaceX.
Dale covers national legal issues for The Associated Press, often focusing on the federal judiciary, gender law, #MeToo and NFL player concussions. Her work unsealing Bill Cosby’s testimony in a decade-old deposition led to his arrest and sexual assault trials.
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