Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck in new poll – live

Kamala Harris will announce her vice-presidential pick as early as Monday before embarking on a multi-state battleground tour with her new running mate later in the week, two sources familiar with the planning said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

The high-stakes decision on who will run with the current vice-president as the wingman on her presidential ticket has taken center stage since she became the Democratic frontrunner for the 5 November election.

Kamala Harris is expected to announce who will be her running mate in her campaign for president as early as Monday, the Reuters news wire is reporting this evening, as an exclusive, citing sources but as yet giving no more detail.

This echoes what Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said yesterday, that Harris would choose and announce “in the next six, seven days”, as we blogged earlier.

But anything that echoes or strengthens that prediction is fascinating, so we’ll watch closely.

Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in this election, after Joe Biden withdrew from his re-election campaign nine days ago and anointed Harris as his chosen successor at the top of the ticket.

At this rate, she can expect to be officially voted in as the nominee at the party’s national convention next month, in Chicago.

Kamala Harris will not attend the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Chicago, according to a source familiar with her schedule, citing logistical challenges getting to Chicago days after launching her campaign.

The vice-president is heading to Houston this week to attend the funeral of the late Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee as well as conducting a rapid search for her running mate.

The source said Harris’s campaign offered to participate in a virtual fireside chat, or to host an in-person fireside chat with Harris at a later date, but the request was denied. The source said Harris’s team will continue to work toward a possible solution with the NABJ board.

On the sidelines of the centrist WelcomeFest in Washington DC, Will Rollins, the Democratic nominee in a competitive California House district, said Republicans would have a “tricky” time trying to paint Kamala Harris as “dangerously liberal”.

“Somebody who goes into law enforcement is not a leftwing ideologue,” said Rollins, a former prosecutor. Already he said she was having a positive impact on down-ballot races. His campaign alone raised a six-figure sum in the 48 hours after her ascent, he said.

Rollins noted that when Harris came up in California politics, she was criticized by activists as too conservative, despite the image Republicans are portraying of her as far-left.

“She in fact was branded as much too conservative for San Francisco. So I think as voters actually learned more about her actual record it’s going to work well for us,” he said.

To underline the point, Rollins said he first met Harris when she was the state’s attorney general at an event with the then Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he worked for at the time.

“That kind of proves or disproves their attempt to paint her as an extremist. Here you have this Democratic statewide attorney general, who was working with a Republican governor in California at the time,” he said. “I actually think that’s one of the more underreported parts of her background, what she was able to do across party lines.”

He also weighed in on who Harris might choose as her running mate. His choice was for fellow millennial, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who he called an “incredible communicator”.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the presidential race, according to a new Reuters and Ipsos poll.

The poll, which was completed on Sunday, showed that the vice-president was supported by 43% of registered voters while the former president was supported by 42%.

Last week, a Reuters and Ipsos poll showed that Harris was leading by 44% to Trump’s 42%.

Reuters and Ipsos’s latest poll was conducted among 1,025 adults, including 876 registered voters, from 26 to 28 July.

The departure of Paul Dans as the leader of Project 2025 could indicate the project’s work is winding down or at least will not be taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public.

Dans, a Donald Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel management.

Although Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation, claimed the change was always intended and followed a set timeline, the move underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for weeks attempted to distance himself from it.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said:

We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.

At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project: “I don’t know what the hell it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy ideas, albeit with far more detail.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said he has “total confidence” in Kamala Harris’s running mate choice.

Asked whether he would support Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, as Harris’s running mate, Schumer said:

I have total confidence that Vice President Harris will choose a great vice-presidential candidate.

Asked whether he was concerned about the prospect of a special election in Arizona, CNN reports that Schumer replied:

I have complete faith in Vice President Harris’ choice.

Not even a day after audio of JD Vance telling donors that Kamala Harris was a threat and a “sucker punch” was leaked to the Washington Post, Vance continued to make headlines on Tuesday, as a previously unseen video of Vance was published by the Harris 2024 campaign.

In the video, Vance can be seen telling an interviewer that not having “kids in your life” makes “people more sociopathic” and makes the US a little bit “less mentally stable”.

This comes as Vance continues to face backlash over comments he made in 2021 that recently resurfaced where he criticized the vice-president and other Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives”.

On Monday evening, Donald Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham of Fox News and defended Vance’s comments, telling the host that his vice-presidential candidate was simply trying to show how much he values family life.

Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, made headlines again on Monday evening, after an audio recording of Vance speaking privately to donors on Saturday about Kamala Harris was leaked to the Washington Post.

Vance reporedtly told donors that Harris was a threat and “a bit of a political sucker punch” to the Trump Vance campaign.

Vance also reportedly said:

The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden, because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger. And Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did.

The comments contradict Donald Trump’s own statements on Harris since Biden withdrew from the race, as he has told reporters that he did not think switching out Biden for Harris “would make much difference”, adding: “I would define her in a very similar [way] that I define him.”

Even Vance himself has told reporters that there was in effect no difference in running against Biden versus Harris.

The Trump campaign has responded to the news of Project 2025 director Paul Dans’ departure. In a statement, it said:

President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way.

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.

The work of Project 2025 will continue despite its director, Paul Dans, stepping down from his role, Politico reported, citing a source.

The report adds that the source said “the goal of Project 2025 was always to have their work done by the time of the Republican National Convention which ended in late July”.

Here’s more on the news that Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, has stepped down from his role at the Heritage Foundation.

Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative thinktank, has confirmed that Dans is leaving his post.

Dans “built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years” but is now “moving up to the front where the fight remains”, Roberts said in a statement.

Under Paul Dans’ leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people.

Dans informed staff at the thinktank this week of his decision to step down, the Wall Street Journal reported.