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    Sheriff Who Suggested Tracking Harris Supporters Is Stripped of Election Role

    An Ohio sheriff has been stripped of his role providing security at his county’s early voting location, members of a local elections board said, after he compared immigrants to insects and urged residents to record the addresses of people who have yard signs supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.In a Facebook post earlier this month, the sheriff, Bruce D. Zuchowski of Portage County, called Ms. Harris a “Laughing Hyena,” and described immigrants as locusts, the crop-destroying pests that were said in the Bible to have caused a plague in Egypt.“Write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” Mr. Zuchowski, a Republican who is running for re-election, said of Ms. Harris’s supporters, according to a screenshot of the since-deleted post. Then when immigrants “need places to live,” he wrote, “we’ll already have the addresses of their New families.”His comments were met with swift condemnation. And on Friday, the bipartisan Portage County Board of Elections voted 3 to 1 to remove the sheriff’s office from its role providing security at the board’s office during the early voting period, which lasts from Oct. 8 to Nov. 3. (One Republican board member voted for the motion; the other Republican member voted against it.)During early voting in Portage County, which is southeast of Cleveland, residents can vote only at the Board of Elections office.The board’s vote came in response to residents’ fears stemming from Mr. Zuchowski’s post, and concerns that the presence of the sheriff’s department on site could create an “appearance of impropriety,” said Terrie Nielsen, the deputy director of the Elections Board, who is a Democrat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Gets a Lift From Arizona Ticket-Splitters Backing a Democrat for Senate

    Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leads in this key contest, a New York Times/Siena College poll found, while Kamala Harris trails Donald Trump.Former President Donald J. Trump appears to be benefiting from ticket-splitters in Arizona, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday, a finding that highlights his strength with Latino and younger voters as well as the unique weaknesses of the Republican nominee for Senate.The poll found Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leading Kari Lake, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, by six percentage points, even as Mr. Trump has opened up a five-point lead in the state over Vice President Kamala Harris.Such a scenario would represent a notable degree of ticket-splitting, perpetuating a trend captured by surveys throughout this election cycle. Democratic Senate candidates in a number of swing states, including Arizona and Nevada, have consistently polled ahead of the top of the ticket, especially when President Biden was the party’s standard-bearer. As Ms. Harris’s nomination has made the election more competitive, the gap between her and those down-ballot Democrats has narrowed — but the trend persists in most races in swing states.“Donald Trump creates his own weather, and he has a coalition supporting him like no other Republican nominee in our lifetime — perhaps ever — in Arizona,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state lawmaker who is now a political consultant there. He pointed to the support Mr. Trump has garnered from young people and voters of color, who traditionally lean Democratic, in surveys this year. “He’s breaking out of that rule, and it does not translate down-ballot,” he said.In 2022, Ms. Lake angered many traditionally Republican voters during her divisive governor’s race, feuding with the governor at the time, Doug Ducey, a conservative Republican, and angering supporters of Senator John McCain, who died in 2018, by saying her political rise “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.” She further alienated some Republicans by filing a series of lawsuits after she lost her election, claiming that it had been stolen.This year, she has tried to change tactics, courting the moderate wing of the Republican Party in Arizona. But old grievances die hard.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris Is Set to Visit Border, Trying to Cut Into Trump’s Immigration Edge

    Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday during a trip to Arizona, according to two people briefed on the preparations, as she seeks to counter former President Donald J. Trump’s advantage with voters on the issue of immigration.The trip is set to be her first visit to the southern border since President Biden dropped out of the race.Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.Mr. Trump and Republicans have blamed Ms. Harris for the large numbers of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico over the past several years. Early in his administration, Mr. Biden made Ms. Harris responsible for addressing the root causes of migration from Latin America.But she struggled in that role and drew criticism after telling the NBC News host Lester Holt in a 2021 interview, when he asked why she had not yet visited the southern border, that she had “never been to Europe” either. The Trump campaign has used that exchange in advertisements attacking her record on immigration. Ms. Harris traveled to the border soon after her interview with Mr. Holt.In recent months, border crossings have fallen to their lowest levels since she and Mr. Biden took office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Inside a Trump Ad Hammering Harris Over Americans’ Economic Woes

    Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign began running this 30-second ad linking Vice President Kamala Harris to President Biden and the administration’s economic record on television stations in at least five key battleground states last week. The campaign has spent $2.8 million on those commercials, according to AdImpact.On the ScreenThe ad begins with a blurry image of a laughing Ms. Harris standing behind Mr. Biden on a stage, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder — physically linking them — as the words “Bidenomics is a FAILURE” blare across the screen.More bleak headlines follow: “Bidenomics FAILED.” “Bidenomics is a RECORD FAILURE.” “Americans’ incomes down THREE STRAIGHT YEARS.” “Unemployment RISING.” “America may soon be in a RECESSION.”The ad shows scenes intended to evoke Americans struggling as they go about their lives: a man putting gas in his pickup truck, a family standing morosely in front of a house with a for-sale sign, construction workers in hard hats, a man looking somberly out a window scratching his head. Another headline warns, “Bidenomics hits families with $5,600 pay cut,” before grainy video shows Ms. Harris happily declaring, “We are very proud of Bidenomics.”The ad ends with a close-up of Ms. Harris laughing, followed by a photo of Mr. Trump pumping his fist in front of an American flag and the words “Americans trust Trump on the economy.”The ScriptNarrator: “Their Bidenomics led to the highest inflation in 40 years. Highest gas prices ever. Skyrocketing interest rates. Unaffordable housing. Incomes down. Unemployment rising. And a recession now headed our way. Yet Kamala Harris is clueless.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    At a Rally in North Carolina, Trump Avoids Topic A: Mark Robinson

    Through an awkward quirk of scheduling former President Donald J. Trump found himself headlining a rally in North Carolina on Saturday just two days after the man he endorsed to become the state’s next governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, was accused of making a series of disturbing posts on a pornographic website.In the lead-up to the rally, there was a great deal of curiosity in political circles about how Mr. Trump, who had called Mr. Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids,” might react to an explosive CNN report that Mr. Robinson had once called himself a “black NAZI” and defended slavery years ago on a pornographic forum.The answer? He wouldn’t.Speaking for just over an hour at a boisterous rally on an airport tarmac in Wilmington, N.C., Mr. Trump made no mention of Mr. Robinson or the scandal surrounding him, even as he gave shout-outs to a number of the state’s officials and politicians. And Mr. Robinson, who has denied the accusations, was conspicuous by his absence.Instead, Mr. Trump delivered a fairly standard rally speech, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats on the economy and immigration while digressing to criticize Ms. Harris’s livestreamed event this week with Oprah Winfrey; to call her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, “weird”; to say that he would ask Elon Musk to help him send rockets to Mars; and to claim falsely that an Olympic boxer was transgender.One of the only speakers at Saturday’s rally to acknowledge the controversy engulfing Mr. Robinson was Representative Dan Bishop, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, who called the revelations “a meticulously timed and coordinated character assassination.”Building on his effort to make immigration, an area where voters are dissatisfied with Democrats, the central issue of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump announced that he would push Congress to pass legislation outlawing so-called sanctuary cities, places that limit how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. During his presidency, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that tried to withhold federal grants to such locales, an effort that was blocked by federal courts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris Enters Homestretch With a Far Bigger, Costlier Campaign Than Trump

    Vice President Kamala Harris entered the homestretch of the general election building a campaign that was bigger than former President Donald J. Trump’s in nearly every discernible category.She is raising more money than Mr. Trump, with her campaign collecting more than four times as much as his did in August.She is spending far more money than he is — nearly three times more in August.And she is holding on to more money than Mr. Trump, ending the month with $100 million more in the bank than him.The vast discrepancies between the two operations were laid bare in new filings with the Federal Election Commission on Friday night from the candidates’ two main campaign committees, Harris for President and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. The reports detailed their August fund-raising, costs and cash-on-hand as of Aug. 30, along with similar figures from their national party committees.The candidates had already announced their top-line figures for the month of August: Ms. Harris’s campaign, when combined with allied party committees, had almost tripled Mr. Trump in fund-raising, collecting $361 million for all of her committees while Mr. Trump’s campaign and associated committees took in just $130 million for his. All told, including some campaign committees that don’t file reports until next month, Mr. Trump entered September facing a $110 million cash deficit against Ms. Harris, according to their self-disclosed numbers.On the surface, the campaigns built by Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are similar. They both spend much of their money on advertising, and other big costs include private planes, payroll, postage and mail. But the new reports reveal how dissimilar the campaigns are in terms of scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Rallying in Two Key States, Harris Presses Her Case on Abortion Rights

    Rallying supporters in two battleground states, Vice President Kamala Harris signaled on Friday that her closing campaign message would focus on the life-or-death risks that abortion bans pose to American women — and on the argument that former President Donald J. Trump is to blame.In Madison, Wis., a crowd that had been ebullient suddenly grew hushed as Ms. Harris spoke about her visit with the family of a Georgia woman who died of sepsis after waiting for more than 20 hours for medical care to treat an incomplete medication abortion.“She was a vibrant 28-year-old,” Ms. Harris said. “Her name, Amber Nicole Thurman, and I promised her mother I would say her name every time.”Earlier in the day, Ms. Harris traveled to Georgia, where Ms. Thurman and another woman, Candi Miller, died after delays in medical care tied to state abortion restrictions, according to reporting by ProPublica. Their deaths occurred in the months after Georgia passed a six-week ban made possible by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.In Atlanta, Ms. Harris condemned the deaths of the two women in an impassioned speech, saying that Mr. Trump had caused a “health care crisis” and that women were being made to feel as “though they are criminals.”Ms. Harris’s stops in the two battleground states capped a relatively smooth week for her campaign as Mr. Trump again caused or confronted several politically unhelpful headlines and controversies. Most strikingly, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, whom Mr. Trump has praised as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” was found to have called himself a “Black Nazi” and praised slavery in a pornographic chat room.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How Trump and Harris Are Courting Pop Stars (Very Differently)

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeOn this week’s episode of Popcast, the pop music critic Jon Caramanica and the pop music reporter Joe Coscarelli discuss how musicians, both mainstream and more obscure, have figured into the current presidential campaign, including:An endorsement of Kamala Harris from Taylor Swift, plus the role of Beyoncé’s music in the Harris campaignDonald J. Trump’s recent embrace of rappers and reggaeton stars, in addition to his support in the country music worldHow Trump is finding new audiences via podcasters like Theo Von and the Nelk Boys, as well as via the stars of livestreaming services like Twitch and Kick, including Adin RossHarris’s full dive into the meme ecosystem following her inclusion in Charli XCX’s “brat summer”Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More