Coverage on this live blog has ended.
What's happening on the campaign trail today:
- Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the southern border, where she attacked her opponent, former President Donald Trump, for his role in sinking a border deal this year.
- The trip to the southern border is an attempt by Harris to tackle a political vulnerability, with polling frequently showing she trails Trump on the question of who would be better at securing the border.
- Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in the morning and held events in Michigan, first speaking in the afternoon before speaking at a town hall at Macomb Community College in Warren.
Top Democrat urges Biden admin to do more to help local election officials fight a flood of disinformation
A top Democratic senator is asking the Biden administration to do more to help state and local governments detect and respond to online disinformation campaigns designed to manipulate voters in the November election, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged the federal government’s civilian cybersecurity agency to ramp up support to state and local election officials who he said are facing an onslaught of false information — from domestic and foreign actors — that threatens to disrupt this fall’s voting.
“Unfortunately, throughout this election cycle we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in targeted election disinformation campaigns,” Warner wrote to Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“I strongly urge you to use all the tools at your disposal to provide state and local administrators with the necessary resources to uncover, build resilience against, and rapidly respond to information manipulation campaigns leading up to the election and afterwards,” Warner wrote.
Arizona secretary of state announces registered voted data posted online
Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced he delivered a criminal referral to the state’s attorney general’s office today after a man from Wisconsin posted voter registration data online.
Voter registration data is public record and is available upon request, but Fontes alleges the Wisconsinite broke Arizona state law saying that voter information recipients “shall not distribute, post or otherwise provide access to any portion of that information through the internet.”
In a statement, Fontes said, “The threat environment around elections today is complex, and this was a deliberate act to expose Arizona voters to potential bad actors on the internet.” NBC News reached out to the Secretary of State’s office to ask how many Arizonans have had their data published but have not heard back.
About a half hour before Fontes’ statement, the Arizona GOP sent out a fiery statement of its own, calling out Fontes and alleging he mysteriously postponed a meeting concerning “an urgent election issue.”
“At the last minute, Secretary Fontes moved the meeting to Monday to wait for the ‘right time.’ We don’t know what the meeting will cover, and we don’t know why it was moved — this is highly concerning, and we are demanding answers from Secretary Fontes immediately,” read the statement from Arizona Republican Chairwoman Gina Swoboda.
After the secretary of state’s press release about the published voter data, Swoboda confirmed to NBC News she learned of the posted registered voter data along with the rest of the public.
Bad blood with Republicans drives a decline in Taylor Swift’s poll numbers
Republican views of Taylor Swift have taken a nosedive in comparison to last year, a new NBC News poll shows, weeks after the pop singer announced her endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
About 47% of Republicans say they view Swift negatively in a poll conducted days after her presidential endorsement, a sharp uptick from the 26% who reported viewing her negatively in NBC’s Nov. 2023 poll, the last time she was included in the survey. Just 12% of Republicans report positive attitudes toward the singer, down from 28% last year.
Among Democrats, 58% view Swift in a positive light, a slight increase from 53% in 2023. About 26% of independents have a positive attitude toward Swift, a drop from 34% in 2023.
The significant shift from Republican voters has pushed Swift’s overall favorability rating among registered voters lower than last year, decreasing from 40% in 2023 to 33% this year. While 16% had negative feelings about her in 2023, 27% say they do now.
Trump supporter says he backs former president on tariffs and worries about immigration
WALKER, Mich — Trump supporter Zach Dole, 20, who's voting for the first time in a presidential election, said he likes that the former president uses the threat of tariffs to protect American jobs.
“I just saw that he would impose a 200% tariff on John Deere if they moved to Mexico,” Dole said. “That may raise prices. But I also like the fact that he’s looking out for Americans and keeping American jobs,” he added. “If they move to Mexico, then we’d lose all those American jobs. And I like that he’s looking out for that."
Dole said his most important issues are the economy and immigration. He said life is increasingly expensive as a college student and he worries undocumented immigrants are driving up prices.
Asked if he found Harris’ positions on the border security attractive, Dole said he did, but added that he’s not sure whether he can trust the vice president "because she’s been the border czar for four years, and it’s gone to s--- under her."
Asked if Trump would accept the election results if he lost this time around, Dole believed that he would. “I know he was asked not that long ago that if he lost, would he run again? And he said, No,” said Dole. “So I think that goes to show that he’s just willing to accept the results."
Harris’ tough-on-migration pitch at the border points to a shifting national mood
Harris highlighted her tough-on-migration stance during a long-anticipated trip today to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, aiming to cover off a political vulnerability and rebut Trump’s core campaign message that Democrats are soft on immigration enforcement.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them, and I take that responsibility very seriously,” Harris said in Douglas, Arizona, tonight after visiting the border.
Her message reflects a broader turn on immigration that reflects a changing national mood, foreshadowing a new landscape in the coming years where imposing tougher border controls will likely be the focal point regardless of which party wins the 2024 elections.
Harris doubles down on contested Biden asylum policy
Harris doubled down on a contested asylum policy tonight set forth earlier this year by Joe Biden.
"If someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum," Harris said.
That statement from Harris bears down on Biden's June executive action, which set a limit for asylum requests and mandated that individuals who crossed the border without authorization be rendered ineligible for asylum.
That order received backlash from immigrant advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit over the new rule in June. White House assistant press secretary Angelo Fernández Hernández declined to comment on pending litigation at the time, pointing NBC News to the Justice Department. However, Hernández cited the high number of "border encounters" as the reason the administration took action.
Harris' pivot toward a tougher stance on the border comes amid polling indicating that 54% of registered voters think Trump would better handle securing the border and controlling immigration, compared with just 33% who said the same of Harris.
Justice Department sues Alabama over effort to purge voter rolls within 90 days of election
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against Alabama and its secretary of state, arguing that an effort to remove voters from state rolls was taking place too close to the Nov. 5 general election in violation of federal law.
While states are allowed to clean up their voter registrations ahead of an election, federal law says that must happen more than 90 days before an election.
Alabama’s Secretary of State Wes Allen on Aug. 13 announced a crackdown on what his office called “noncitizen voters,” saying that more than 3,500 people who were registered to vote had been issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security. His office did not specify when those voters had received the ID numbers.
Chuck Schumer appeals to Harris to attend Al Smith dinner at request of prominent Cardinal
Harris’ decision to skip the Al Smith dinner, a $5,000-per-plate charity event attended by every major presidential candidate for decades, has frustrated Cardinal Timothy Dolan so much so that he enlisted prominent New York Democrats to convince Harris to change her mind, according to four people familiar with the ask.
At Dolan’s request, New York Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer appealed to Harris’ team, suggesting she should attend the white-tie gala — set to take place a few weeks before the election — benefiting Catholic charities connected to the Archdiocese of New York.
Harris is scheduled to campaign in a battleground state instead, her campaign said when announcing her decision to skip the dinner.
Senior staff informed both Schumer and the Cardinal last week that she is unable to miss her commitments that day, which were scheduled prior to her team reviewing the invitation weeks after receiving it, according to a person with direct knowledge of events.
The vice president is not currently expected to reconsider and attend the dinner, according to two sources.
Trump is scheduled to attend, as he did in 2016 when he and then-Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton traded fiery barbs in what was supposed to be a friendly comedic roast.
In a post to Truth Social this week, Trump suggested Harris — who, like him, is Christian — has something “against our Catholic friends” because she “hasn’t been very nice to them.”
Over the summer, Trump successfully courted Sillicon Valley’s most prominent entrepreneurs and investors while President Joe Biden was still in the race; now there is concern that Harris could hand over key support and funding to Trump by simply not showing, said two of the sources.
A Harris adviser suggested that staff — not the vice president herself — had made the decision to skip the Al Smith dinner, a person familiar with the conversations said.
Dolan said publicly this week that Harris is making a mistake, suggesting the last major party nominee to skip the dinner was Walter Mondale in 1984 who lost the presidential election in a landslide.
“This isn’t a campaign event, but it certainly is good visibility. You know, I mean it’s a national audience and everybody covers it,” Dolan said on his podcast Monday.
Reached by NBC News, both Harris and Schumer teams declined to comment.
Harris pledges more resources to detect fentanyl, fight cartels
In her first visit to the border as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris pledged to increase resources for the southern border.
The vice president, speaking in Cochise County, Arizona, vowed to increase staffing and technology, promising new tools and additional agents to help detect fentanyl coming into the U.S. from Mexico.
Harris, who visited a port of entry today, said she would double resources for the Department of Justice to "prosecute transnational criminal organizations and the cartels."
Harris extended the problem beyond Mexico, saying the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl are manufactured in China and then shipped to Mexico.
"I will ensure that we target the entire global fentanyl supply chain, because we must materially and sustainably disrupt the flow of illicit prisons coming into our country," she said.
Trump briefly addresses Harris' border visit
During his town hall in Michigan, Trump briefly addressed Harris' trip to the southern border today, saying that she "always complains and doesn’t do anything."
The former president also brought up a report about migrants with alleged criminal histories, saying, "what a day for the border."
Harris' trip to the border was the second one during the Biden administration. The first visit to the border was in 2021.