Election 2024: Arizona holds primary, Harris rallies in Atlanta and Project 2025 is ending its policy work

The National Association of Black Journalists is facing backlash after it announced that Trump would take part in a Q&A at the organization’s annual convention.

The group announced the session late yesterday, with the convention set to kick off tomorrow in Chicago. Trump will discuss issues facing the Black community through questions from ABC News, Fox News and Semafor journalists.

The announcement quickly prompted backlash from some Black journalists who said they were “disgusted” and expressed concerns over Trump’s rhetoric about Black people.

Read the full story here.

Harris and her future running mate are expected to make a stop next Tuesday in Philadelphia, her campaign said in a news release.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed tonight that the soon-to-be vice presidential candidate would be included in Tuesday's event while cautioning that the event location was not an indication that Harris has already selected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is considered to be among her vice presidential contenders.

“Philly was chosen in a vacuum, though; don’t interpret as a sign it’s Shapiro,” the source said.

Harris’ campaign has said she has not yet selected a running mate.

Three months after becoming a senator in 2021, Mark Kelly had a bone to pick with the Biden-Harris administration.

President Joe Biden had just given his first address to Congress, and Kelly, D-Ariz., accused him of failing to address “the immediate crisis at the border” and vowed to “continue holding this administration accountable” on the issue. At the time, the White House was reluctant to call it a crisis, siding with activists on the left who believed that word played into anti-immigration GOP rhetoric.

While he has been a Biden ally on most issues, Kelly remained a vocal critic on border security. He went after the White House for inadequately funding Arizona’s migrant programs and urged the administration not to reverse a Trump-era policy known as Title 42, which made it easier to turn away migrants at the U.S. border. When the White House revoked the policy anyway in 2022, Kelly called the decision “wrong” and “unacceptable” in a statement.

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Vance knows he has had a rocky rollout as Trump’s running mate, but he doesn’t believe he has disappointed the former president.

“No,” Vance said in an interview aboard his campaign plane en route to a rally here today. “I mean, I knew that when I came out of the gate there was going to be a couple of days of positive media coverage and then immediately they would go and attack me over everything that I had ever said in my life.”

Vance has faced relentless criticism from allies of Harris, the de facto Democratic presidential nominee, for his 2021 comments questioning the societal value of women who don’t have children and referring to them as “childless cat ladies.” Harris’ campaign over the last week has tried to brand Vance and his political point of view as “weird.” Trump has stood by Vance.

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Vance said tonight that he was raised by "strong women," a line that has taken on more meaning as he faces criticism over comments about "childless" women.

"I have been the beneficiary, I have to say, of a number of strong women in my life," Vance said at a rally in Reno, Nevada. "I've lived the American dream because of those strong women."

Vance recounted a story about his grandmother, who he said tried to dissuade him from enlisting in the Marine Corps in 2003 and confronted a recruiter who set foot on her porch. Vance recalled her saying, "If you take another step, I'll blow that foot off."

Harris is officially the only candidate seeking the Democratic presidential nomination after a key deadline passed tonight with no one else qualifying.

According to the Democratic National Committee, 99% of delegates signed Harris’ nominating petition.

With no internal competition, Democrats will avoid the messy fight that some party officials feared when Biden stepped aside in the race less than two weeks ago.

Read the full story here.

Harris, facing a new barrage of GOP attack ads seeking to define her early in her campaign, attacked back on immigration and border security before a fired-up crowd of thousands in an over-capacity arena tonight.

Through chants of “Kamala” aimed at her and “lock him up” aimed at Trump, Harris began her line of attack by citing her experience as attorney general of America’s largest border state, California.

“In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico on that border with law enforcement officers,” Harris said. “I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won.”

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Maricopa County, Arizona, has been at the center of election conspiracy theories and denial of results in each of the last two elections. Now, the team running the vote is seeing how much a big effort to increase transparency and explanation around its procedures can help.

In 2020, the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center saw hundreds of pro-Trump protesters, some armed, gather outside the facility in the days after the election, arguing without evidence that the election was being stolen from Trump.

In 2022, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake fueled another round of election conspiracy theory claims after dozens of vote tabulation machines malfunctioned, causing delays.

Read the full story here.

Harris painted the top of the Republican ticket as "weird" during her campaign rally in Atlanta tonight, hammering home what's become a theme among Democrats criticizing Trump and Vance.

"And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird?" Harris asked the crowd.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who is considered a potential Harris running mate, helped popularize what appears to have been adopted as a key campaign message dubbing Republicans as “weird."

In a Fox News interview that aired this week, Trump said: "You know who’s plain weird? She’s plain weird. She’s a weird person."

Harris jabbed at Trump at a campaign rally in Atlanta tonight, accusing him of pulling out of a previously scheduled debate for September.

"Here's the funny thing about that," Harris said. "So, he won't debate, but he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me."

“Well, Donald, I do hope you’ll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage, because, as the saying goes, ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,’” she added.

Trump said in an interview that aired last night that he would "probably" debate Harris. His campaign has said it won't commit to a debate until Harris, who doesn't face any major Democratic opponents, is officially the party's nominee.

In a resurfaced 2021 clip, Vance said it was "weird" to call Simone Biles' withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics an act of "heroism."

“I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments,” Vance said in the Fox News clip, shared today by American Bridge 21st Century, a major opposition research super PAC, shortly after Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team won the gold in the team finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Biles, whom many have praised for prioritizing her mental health, said she experienced the "twisties" during her first event of the team final at the Tokyo Olympics, causing her to lose sight of where she was in the air while she was vaulting. She withdrew from the rest of the team competition, in which the women of Team USA took the silver.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is considered a potential running mate pick, cut a fundraising ad for the Harris campaign that's now running on Facebook and Instagram.

"I've known Vice President Harris for nearly two decades," Shapiro says in the 26-second video. "We're both prosecutors, we both are for the people, and we both stand up for the rule of law."

Before he was elected governor, Shapiro was attorney general for the battleground state from 2017 to 2023.

Attorney General Merrick Garland told NBC News today that he was outraged by the attempted assassination of Trump, saying authorities must do everything they can to ensure that type of “horrific attack” never happens again.

“This should not happen in America. This kind of security failure is not acceptable,” Garland said in an exclusive interview that will air on “NBC Nightly News” this evening. “This kind of a horrific attack on a former American president just can’t continue. We have to be sure we stop this.”

Garland said that Trump was hit by a bullet and that there was “no question” that he was “the object of an assassination attempt,” even if authorities were still trying to determine the motive. Garland said it was “extremely alarming” that the shooter was able to get so close.

Read the full story here.

Trump today endorsed both Republican candidates in the GOP primary for Missouri attorney general.

Both candidates — incumbent Andrew Bailey and challenger Will Scharf — have strong connections to Trump. Scharf is an attorney for Trump who recently worked on his presidential immunity case. Bailey sued New York state claiming election interference in response to a recent gag order and prosecution of Trump.

“Neither one will ever let you down,” Trump said in all caps on Truth Social, adding that both candidates have "fearlessly confronted the radical left" and would fight to protect the Constitution.

The double endorsement comes shortly after Trump endorsed two House candidates in an Arizona primary that's being held today.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who is being vetted as a potential running mate for Harris, defended her president today when he was asked about Trump’s labeling her a radical.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s political. It’s what he does, though,” Kelly told reporters in the Capitol. “She’s a prosecutor. She was an attorney general. She was a district attorney. She’s a cop. Like my mom, in some regards. As district attorney, you’re prosecuting cases. My mother was out there as a beat cop in New Jersey when I was growing up as a kid. My dad was a police officer."

He added: "Kamala Harris is somebody that enforced crime, makes sure her state was safer. And then here in the United States Senate, she did the same thing. And as vice president.”

Harris will not attend the National Association of Black Journalists' annual convention this week, according to a source familiar with her plans.

The source said it was logistically not feasible for Harris to attend the conference in person as she works to select a running mate and flies to Houston on Thursday for the funeral of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.

Trump is scheduled to appear at the event in Chicago tomorrow.

As Vance faces criticism over resurfaced comments referring to Democratic leaders like Harris as "childless cat ladies," Nevada voters at his rally here in Henderson had varying levels of concern about the remark.

Russell Hendricks, a Trump supporter, said Vance's comment could hurt Trump among female voters.

"I think he might lose some women voters. I think my wife, she was concerned about that and she might vote for Kennedy now because of those remarks," he said, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate for president.

Dorina Pontarelli brushed off Vance's 2021 comment. "I’m 51 years old and I have no children and I’m all for it," she said.

Georgia Democrats are operating with renewed intensity ahead of Harris’ campaign rally in the state today, the party now galvanized by a candidate who legislators, organizers and voters alike say has boosted their chances of keeping once ruby-red Georgia in Democratic hands in November.

The event will be Harris’ second rally since she launched her own presidential campaign after Biden decided to drop out on July 21.

“There’s an incredible amount of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. I haven’t seen anything like this in my many years in Georgia politics,” state Rep. Sam Park said.

Read the full story here.

Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, is leaving her White House position to work for a political action committee supporting the Harris campaign.

“It’s been an honor and privilege to serve in this White House, with this President and this team, during this transformational term," Dunn said in a statement today. "I am grateful to President Biden and Vice President Harris for their leadership and giving me the opportunity to be part of what they have accomplished for the American people."

According to a senior White House official, Dunn will advise Future Forward, a super PAC that recently launched a $50 million advertising campaign supporting Harris.

The Heritage Foundation official leading Project 2025 is stepping down and the group is winding down its policy work following sustained criticism by Trump and his campaign.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement today that the announcement should place on notice others attempting to link themselves to the former president and that they “welcomed” reports of the group’s “demise.”

“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign— it will not end well for you,” co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said.

Read the full story here.

Inside a hollowed-out former railcar wheel plant Friday, Rep. Ro Khanna gathered local political leaders, a powerful labor boss, environmentalists and “Made in America” advocates to help him roll out new legislation to construct modern iron and steel plants in deindustrialized, storied towns like this one.

The event capped one of the most stunning weeks in Democratic Party history — Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and party stalwarts began rallying behind Harris — but Khanna made no mention of either during his 50-minute news conference.

Skipping over that tectonic shift is surprising, given that just days before, Khanna, one of the leading progressive voices in Congress, was a Biden-Harris surrogate who served on the campaign’s national advisory board. Now, he’s a Harris campaign surrogate.

Read the full story here.

Trump suggested in a radio interview today that Democrats calling him a "threat to democracy" might be the reason he was shot — and then used the same language about them.

In an interview with WABC New York, Trump complained that his rivals "say I’m not democratic. I’m a threat to democracy."

"Maybe it’s the reason I was shot, who knows. You know, it’s rhetorically a terrible thing to say about somebody like me, but they say it all the time. And actually, they’re the threat," he said.

Investigators have yet to determine a motive for the shooter's actions. The 20-year-old was a registered Republican who donated $15 to a progressive group in 2021. Testifying today before a Senate hearing on the assassination attempt, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said a social media account believed to be associated with the shooter "appear[ed] to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence."

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro spoke to reporters after shooting some hoops with kids who are part of Philadelphia Youth Basketball.

Asked about the significance of having a Jewish vice presidential nominee amid Israel's war with Hamas, Shapiro deflected and said that Harris "will make the best decision for her and her country.”

"It is a deeply personal decision for the vice president to make, who she wants to run with, who she wants to govern with and who can help best move America forward," he said. "I think there are so many people within the Democratic party who are extraordinary people, extraordinary public servants, and she will make the best decision for her and her country."

Harris and her yet-to-be-named running mate will hit the campaign trail next week on a battleground state tour, according to two sources familiar with the planning.

This is the latest indication that her vice presidential selection process is nearing its end.

The acting director of the Secret Service testified today that he was “ashamed” at the security gaps that led to the assassination attempt on Trump and pledged to discipline any agents who failed to do their jobs.

During a rare joint Senate committee hearing, acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said he could not understand or defend why the roof where the 20-year-old shooter fired from on July 13 was not better secured. 

He said the Secret Service was investigating whether any employees broke any rules that day. Those employees, Rowe said, would be held accountable through the agency’s disciplinary process and face penalties that could include termination. 

“That roof should have had better coverage,” he said, “and we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations.” 

The Harris campaign is switching over internal email addresses to @KamalaHarris.com, aides said.

“They shifted us overnight so it’s going to be a bit of a transition. They are working out the kinks," a campaign source said.

Sen. JD Vance will visit the southern border in the Cochise County, Arizona area on Thursday, the Trump campaign announced.

Vance’s visit to the border comes as Trump seeks to blame Vice President Harris, whom he has labeled the administration's “border czar,” for high numbers of migrants crossing the border and an overwhelmed asylum system in the U.S.

In 2021, Biden tapped Harris to lead efforts to reduce migration from Central America to the southern border and to implement a long-term strategy to address the root causes of migration.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said he has lost sleep over the fact that the agency's counter drone system was not operating when the gunman who shot Trump flew his own drone over the Pennsylvania rally site on July 13, hours before the former president took the stage.

In testimony today before a joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, Rowe said it was "something that has cost me a lot of sleep because of the eventual outcome of the assailant."

The shooter might have been stopped if the counter drone tracking system had been working, he said.

"I feel as though we could have perhaps found him, we could have maybe stopped him. Maybe on that particular day, he would have decided this isn’t the day to do it,” Rowe said, explaining that a "connectivity challenge" prevented the system from working.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is being vetted by the Harris campaign as a potential vice presidential nominee pick, according to two sources familiar with the process. 

NBC News reported last week that Beshear was being considered.

Trump and JD Vance will hold a rally on Saturday at Georgia State University in Atlanta — the same venue where Harris is hosting her campaign event today at 7 p.m.

The campaign said in a release announcing the rally that Trump and Vance "are heartbroken to see the path of death and destruction left behind by Kamala Harris and her activist friends. President Trump and Senator Vance will fight to ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in Georgia! "

Trump and Vance are expected to speak at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

Some famous “white dudes” — including the guy who played “The Dude” — rallied in support of Harris, who would be the first female president if elected, in the inaugural event of a new group called White Dudes for Harris on Monday night.

The name may be a bit facetious, but the star-studded Zoom call attracted more than 180,000 participants and raised almost $4 million, according to organizers, who are themselves a group of white dude Democratic political operatives. 

Over the nearly 3½-hour call, they said, they sold more than 5,700 White Dudes for Harris trucker caps — “not the pointy ones,” joked Ross Morales Rocketto, one of the organizers, referring to less PC gatherings of white dudes like the Ku Klux Klan. 

“Throughout American history, when white men organized, it was often with pointy hats on,” said Rocketto before he added how proud he was of this group of white men, who he said are too rarely heard from.

John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona, wrote an op-ed published yesterday in azcentral.com encouraging Republicans to choose “country over party this election and vote against Donald Trump.”

Speaking about the endorsement in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Giles said, “The question that is presented is a moral one and an ethical one,” adding, “Silence is not an option.”

“That’s my argument to my fellow Republicans, that this is not a year that we can follow tradition or follow misplaced loyalty and vote for a Republican at the top of the ticket.”

Mesa is the second-largest city in Arizona, located in Maricopa County, which Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Vance said in a 2020 podcast interview, which was resurfaced by CNN, that he worried that not having children makes people "more sociopathic."

“The fact that so many people, especially in America’s leadership class, just don’t have that in their lives, you know, I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately, our whole country a little bit less mentally stable,” said Vance, who has already come under fire for comments he made in 2021 about "childless cat ladies."

The podcast hosted by Chris Buskirk was published online in late November 2020, several months before the Ohio Republican launched his winning campaign for Senate.

Several months later, Vance, who by then was running for Senate, used the “cat lady” language again in a tweet sharing an article from The Hill with the headline, “Poll finds significant percentage fear having children because of climate crisis.” “The cat ladies, man. They must be stopped,” he wrote. 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said he preferred to “respect the process” behind Harris' selection of a running mate when asked whether he would accept an offer to join her on the ticket during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“She’s got a lot of wonderful folks that she’s looking at, and she’s going to make a decision that’s right for her and right for the country,” he said. “It’s an intensely personal decision, and I want to respect that process.”

Pressed again on whether he would accept an offer to be Harris’ running mate if asked, Peters repeated that he would “respect the process.”

“Whoever she chooses, I will fully support,” he said.

Peters, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said “prospects have gotten a whole lot brighter” for candidates in tight Senate races in battleground states since Harris launched her presidential campaign.

Trump says he wants to debate Harris but added that he “can also make a case for not doing it.” NBC’s Hallie Jackson reports for "TODAY."

The Harris campaign is hitting back at Trump after his campaign released an ad criticizing her handling of the issue of immigration.

“After killing the toughest border deal in decades, Donald Trump is running on his trademark lies because his own record and ‘plans’ are extreme and unpopular," Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said. "As a former district attorney, attorney general, and now vice president, Kamala Harris has spent her career taking on and prosecuting violent criminals and making our communities safer. She’ll do the same as president.”

The Harris campaign reiterated that the vice president was never named a "border czar," which Trump has dubbed her in his attacks. Biden had tasked her in 2021 with addressing the root causes of migration in Central America.

The Democratic National Committee is launching a bilingual billboard campaign in Reno today "highlighting his intent to work with Donald Trump to ban abortion nationwide, including in Nevada," the DNC said.

The billboards feature an image of Vance and Trump and says, "7 in 10 Nevadans support reproductive rights. JD Vance wants to ban abortion. Trump-Vance is too extreme for Nevada." It is unclear what polling the DNC is citing.

“JD Vance is committed to doing whatever it takes to follow through with Donald Trump’s plans to completely undermine women’s reproductive freedom in every single state across the country," DNC spokesperson Stephanie Justice said in a statement. "Thanks to Trump, MAGA Republicans have enacted extreme abortion bans in 22 states — and if given the chance, Trump and Vance will force Nevada women to face the same horrific reality after they ban abortion nationwide."

Vance is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in Reno later today.

LAS VEGAS — Trump’s big bet on Sen. JD Vance faces a big test in the West this week, beginning this afternoon nearly 15 miles from the Las Vegas Strip.

Vance, the Ohio Republican who has endured a bumpy rollout as Trump’s running mate, will start the campaign swing with a speech at a high school in Henderson. 

From there, Vance will head to an event in Reno and then on to California tomorrow for a fundraising luncheon near Fresno. Later that day, Vance will rally at Arizona Christian University near Phoenix. Other stops could be added to the already-packed schedule.

For Vance, it’s a chance to quickly move beyond a debut that was engulfed by fresh scrutiny last week over his past provocative comments, including his thoughts on the societal value of women who do not have children — “childless cat ladies” in his words. 

PHOENIX — Arizona voters will finalize the matchup in a hotly contested Senate race and set the stage for congressional races that could tip the balance of power and shape the future of both parties for years to come in the House. 

And Arizona’s position on the front lines of fights and conspiracy theories about election results over the last four years will take center stage once again, as a top election official in Arizona’s largest county faces a primary after having defended it from critics since 2020.

Here’s what to watch for after the polls close at 10 p.m. ET today.

The Trump campaign has released its first major TV ad targeting Harris since she launched her presidential race last week, taking aim at her record on immigration, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung told NBC News.

The 30-second-long ad criticized Harris as a “failed weak, dangerous liberal” who is responsible for the record numbers of migrant crossings at the southern border.

It features an interview in 2021 that Harris did with NBC News’ Lester Holt, in which he asked her about not yet visiting the southern border. Harris said she had not “been to Europe” either, which prompted Holt to respond, “I mean, I don’t understand the point you’re making.”

While Trump has attacked Harris as a "border czar" who allowed migrants to pour over the border, in fact the vice president was tasked by Biden to tackle the root causes of migration, not daily border crossings.

The Harris campaign has launched a $50 million paid media campaign in battleground states ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month.

Its first ad, titled “fearless," features Harris at a recent rally in Milwaukee, aims to conveying Harris as “a fighter who has never been afraid to take on the powerful and special interests on behalf of the American people,” the campaign said in a press release.

The ad highlights Harris’ career as a prosecutor, attorney general and vice president, saying she worked to put murderers and abusers behind bars, go after big banks to help homeowners hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis, and target pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of insulin for seniors.

The ad also seeks to contrast Harris’ vision for the country versus what the campaign says are the “dangerous and extreme” plans that Trump has for the country, including tax cuts to billionaires and corporations and the elimination of the Affordable Care Act.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has informed Harris’ presidential campaign that he does not want to be under consideration in her search for a vice presidential candidate, he said last night.

Cooper said in a statement explaining his decision that although he was taking himself out of consideration for the role, he’s still backing Harris’ candidacy.

Read the full story here.

There’s new excitement among some Black male voters for Harris’ campaign run for president, while others say they are supporting Trump because of his experience in business. NBC News’ Yamiche Alcindor reports from Georgia, a key battleground state.

Vance will rally supporters out West today, first in Henderson, Nevada, and then traveling northwest to Reno.

While no Republican presidential ticket has won Nevada since 2004, many experts say there could be an opening for Trump this year. 

One of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s strengths in the race to become Harris’ running mate is that he could appeal to centrist voters as a Democrat who won re-election in a state that Trump carried by more than 20 percentage points in 2020.

Beshear won his campaign last year, in part, by leaning into his support for abortion rights in a state where the procedure is almost entirely banned. Yet for some reproductive rights advocates in Kentucky, Beshear has not done enough on an issue that is critical for the party nationally — which could factor into his chances of joining the presidential ticket. 

Read the full story here.