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    Harris Says She Would Form Bipartisan Council of Advisers

    As Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to stake out ground in the political center that might appeal to swing voters, she has campaigned with former Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican, and pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected. Ms. Harris added to that strategy while visiting the battleground state of Arizona on Friday, saying she would convene a bipartisan council of advisers on policy if she wins the White House.At a campaign event geared toward Republican supporters in Scottsdale, Ariz., Ms. Harris said the council would be an attempt to “put some structure” around policy discussions that reach across the aisle.“Wherever they come from, I love good ideas,” she said at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale. “We have to have a healthy two-party system.”The bipartisan council proposal is the latest effort by the Harris campaign to court Republican voters disaffected with former President Donald J. Trump. It also dovetails with the vice president’s attempts to counter her image as a California liberal. She has sought to move away from some of the progressive positions she took during her 2020 presidential run.On Friday, Ms. Harris argued that the council was in the “best interest” of all Americans because of the constructive feedback it would inspire.Ms. Harris has secured high-profile endorsements from conservative Trump critics — including from more than 100 former G.O.P. officials. The campaign has a newsletter and holds events under the banner of Republicans for Harris.The vice president has also campaigned in areas Democrats do not traditionally visit. Last week, she held a campaign event in Ripon, Wis., the birthplace of the G.O.P. She stood with Ms. Cheney, a conservative Republican and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, as Ms. Cheney declared that it was “our duty” to reject Mr. Trump and vote for Ms. Harris. More

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    Trump Rally in Aurora, Colo., Is Marked by Nativist Attacks

    Former President Donald J. Trump escalated the nativist, anti-immigration rhetoric that has animated his political career with a speech Friday in Aurora, Colo., where he repeated false and grossly exaggerated claims about undocumented immigrants that local Republican officials have refuted.For weeks, Aurora has been fending off false rumors about the city. And its conservative Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, said in a statement on Friday that he hoped to show Mr. Trump that Aurora was “a considerably safe city.”But Mr. Trump has made debunked claims about Aurora, a Denver suburb, such a central part of his stump speech that he took a campaign detour to Colorado, which has not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 2004, to make the case in person at a rally at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.And during a meandering 80-minute speech Mr. Trump repeated claims, which have been debunked by local officials, that Aurora had been “invaded and conquered,” described the United States as an “occupied state,” called for the death penalty “for any migrant that kills an American citizen” and revived a promise to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process.That law allows for the summary deportation of people from nations with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.” It was far from clear whether the law could be used in the way that Mr. Trump was proposing.The false tale that Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, was occupied by armed Venezuelans stemmed from a dispute over housing conditions.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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    The OB-GYN Running on Abortion Rights in Conservative Wisconsin

    Dr. Kristin Lyerly is looking to make inroads in a heavily Catholic part of the state.It was 7:15 a.m. on Sunday, and a blood-orange sun had turned the sky lavender. Dr. Kristin Lyerly was getting ready to leave.She had laundry going, and her bags half-packed. She felt as if she might be forgetting something. She was about to make the 400-mile drive from her home in De Pere, Wis., for a 10-day stint at a medical center in Hibbing, Minn., where she has been working as an obstetrician-gynecologist following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.Lyerly has another job, too: running for Congress.Abortion rights have become central to the fight for control of the White House and Congress, and Democrats have worked hard to bring the issue to life through the stories of women who have had abortions. Lyerly, though, is doing something a little rarer: campaigning as a Democrat who can talk about providing reproductive care in post-Roe America.She said she had bumped into children she delivered on the trail. She has been approached by women at campaign events seeking basic information about handling an unwanted pregnancy or a miscarriage. She hasn’t heeded the advice that she said she got from men suggesting she talk about the issue a little bit less.“Reproductive rights,” she told a group of teachers who gathered to knock on doors in Green Bay, Wis., last weekend, “are on everybody’s mind.”Lyerly’s district, Wisconsin’s Eighth, encompasses a rural swath of the northeastern part of the state, the city of Green Bay and the peninsula that looks like the state’s pinkie finger dipping into Lake Michigan. It is difficult territory for Democrats. Former Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican who chafed at Trump’s influence over his party, held it easily for seven years before suddenly retiring in April; a Trump-endorsed former gas station chain owner, Tony Wied, is favored to win the seat.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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    Arizona Democrats Shut Down a Phoenix Campaign Office After Shootings

    The Arizona Democratic Party shut down a campaign office in suburban Phoenix after it was struck by gunfire and a BB gun on three occasions over the past month, said a local official, Lauren Kuby, on Friday.Nobody was hurt in the shootings, but they raised concerns about the safety of campaign workers and volunteers in the thick of a bitterly fought election that has already seen assassination attempts against former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Kuby, a Democratic candidate for the Arizona State Senate and former city council member in Tempe, said on Friday that people who had been working out of the office shifted to houses and other “undisclosed locations.” News of the office’s closure was first reported by The Arizona Republic.“We’re not giving up,” Ms. Kuby said in an interview. “People are determined not to be stopped.”Gunshots were fired through the front door of an office used by the Tempe Democratic National Committee in suburban Phoenix.Ray Stern/The Republic/USA TODAY NETWORK, via Imagn ImagesThe office in Tempe, which is home to Arizona State University, had been a bustling hub for gathering volunteers and starting voter-outreach efforts, Ms. Kuby said. The shootings left its windows scarred by bullet holes.The three shootings all happened between midnight and 1 a.m. local time when the office was empty, according to the Tempe Police Department. A BB gun was used in the first incident, on Sept. 16, and a firearm was used in the second and third shootings, on Sept. 23 and Oct. 6, the police said. The Tempe police said investigators were still working to determine what kind of gun was used. The police have not made any arrests or identified a motive. This week, the police identified a silver Toyota Highlander with unknown license plates as a “suspect vehicle.”The Arizona Democratic Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. More

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    Harris Town Hall Shows Her Straining for a Tough Empathy on Immigration

    The woman was weeping as she told Vice President Kamala Harris about her mother, who she said died six weeks ago without having ever achieved legal status in the United States.“My question for you is, what are your plans to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?” Ivett Castillo asked at Ms. Harris’s first voter town hall as the Democratic nominee, an event hosted by Univision for undecided Hispanic voters.In her answer, Ms. Harris strove to connect, gently urging Ms. Castillo to “remember your mother as she lived.” But the vice president’s response also underscored how much her hard-line immigration message has focused on enforcement rather than reform, as former President Donald J. Trump uses the border to paint Ms. Harris as a weak and ineffective leader.While Ms. Harris called the nation’s immigration system “broken” and pointed out that the first bill proposed by the Biden-Harris administration would have created an earned pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, she quickly turned to the topic of the southern border — and condemned Mr. Trump for helping kill a bill that would have devoted more resources to securing it.“Real leadership is about solving the problems on behalf of the people,” she said at the town hall, which was held in Las Vegas and will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Many questions were asked in Spanish and translated for her. Hispanic voters could help decide the election, but Ms. Harris’s support among them is lagging.On Thursday, she also faced intense and emotional questions on health care and the economy, giving her a chance to display a greater degree of empathy and humanity than in the more choreographed interviews she has recently given. Much of the conversation centered on themes that Democratic presidential candidates have used to appeal to Latino voters for decades, including promises to stimulate small businesses, lower costs for families and create more legal pathways for undocumented workers.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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    In Wisconsin, Middle-Class Voters Think Carefully About Trump and Harris

    Voters in Wisconsin are weighing which candidate better understands their economic anxieties.It was a resplendent autumn morning in central Wisconsin this week, and I was doing what I do best: hanging out at a farmers’ market, admiring a $6 bunch of dahlias, and talking to strangers about the election.“We’re 50-50. We’re middle-class. We’re in a swing state,” said Toni Case, 65, as she took a break from selling gyros from a silver trailer. “We’re in the middle of an election tornado.”Case was right.The market was set up in a suburban shopping center near Wausau, a city of about 40,000 people bisected by the Wisconsin River. The whole area is the kind of place that has almost mythic status in American politics today: a haven for the middle class.According to the Pew Research Center, the Wausau metropolitan area is one of 10 in the country with the largest share of middle-income residents. It has a gleaming downtown, a new Amazon distribution center and an abundance of parks along the river. It’s the sort of place that both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are evoking all the time, though not by name, as they talk about how to improve the American economy by strengthening the middle class.It’s also a place that lays bare the challenges both candidates face as they try to appeal to middle-class voters. As I interviewed voters in Wausau and Weston, right next door, I heard pronounced anxiety over the rising cost of living, and confusion over what being middle class even means anymore. It was clear that Trump’s dire picture of a middle class under attack has resonated here, but also that voters are thinking carefully about which candidate better understands the economic complexities of their lives.“It’s hard to stay ahead,” Mercedes Anderson, 25, told me. “It feels like you just get by.”Facing ‘outrageous’ costs, and seeking a solutionTrump has depicted an American middle class on the edge of extinction, accusing Harris of making middle-class life “unaffordable and unlivable.” He pledges to create a middle class that is “once again the envy of the entire world,” mostly by suggesting that his broad promises of tax cuts or mass deportations will help these Americans.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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    As Deadline for Another Debate Looms, Trump Again Rejects a Rematch

    Former President Donald J. Trump said again on Wednesday night that he would not agree to a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, as the noon Eastern time Thursday deadline for his response to CNN’s proposed debate approached.Ms. Harris had accepted CNN’s offer to debate on Oct. 23. Fox News had also extended an offer on Wednesday for a debate this month.Mr. Trump insisted on his social media site that Ms. Harris wanted a “rematch” because she lost their first meeting, despite polls that suggested otherwise, finding that most respondents thought Ms. Harris had performed better. He also repeated his suggestion that it was too late to debate again because voting had already begun, though debates in past presidential elections have often been held in mid- to late October.Mr. Trump also claimed that he was “leading in all swing states,” even though polling averages show him leading in some and Ms. Harris leading in others, with the race very close in all of them.Mr. Trump had expressed reluctance to debate Ms. Harris in the first place, and said shortly after that meeting that he wasn’t inclined to do it again. He turned down the CNN debate last month, and indicated that even the friendly terrain of Fox News was unlikely to entice him, even as Ms. Harris has sought to goad him into another face-off. More

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    Vance and Walz Make Dueling Appearances, as Voting Begins in Arizona

    Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota opened the first day of voting in Arizona on Wednesday with a spree of campaign events across the state, zeroing in on a crucial swing state after their debate last week.Arizona, with its 15 Electoral College votes, has no clear favorite in the presidential race — even as polls there show a slight lead by former President Donald J. Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump won the state by a significant margin in 2016, and President Biden won the state in 2020 by less than 11,000 votes — a narrow victory that both campaigns highlighted as evidence that every vote in the state will matter this year.The two vice-presidential candidates fanned out in the morning from luxury hotels near Phoenix and Tucson, and their motorcades crisscrossed desert highways to campaign in the two urban centers. Mr. Vance first held a rally in Tucson before attending a town-hall event hosted by the Conservative Political Action Conference in Mesa, near Phoenix. Mr. Walz visited a Veterans of Foreign Wars post and met with tribal leaders on tribal land, near Phoenix, before holding a campaign rally in the evening at a high school gym in Tucson.Mr. Walz and Mr. Vance said little of each other — instead directing their attacks at each other’s running mates — even as the two came close to crossing paths in Phoenix. Mr. Vance flew from Tucson to Phoenix in the midafternoon, and his campaign jet was parked nearby as Mr. Walz boarded his own campaign jet for the short hop to Tucson later that day.Senator JD Vance greeting supporters at a campaign event in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday.Grace Trejo/Arizona Daily Star, via Associated PressGov. Tim Walz, also in Tucson on Wednesday, at a campaign rally at Palo Verde High Magnet School.Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star, via Associated PressSpeaking to supporters at an outdoor rally in sweltering heat at the Tucson Speedway, Mr. Vance urged Arizona residents to vote early, saying that “the best way to make sure your voice is counted is to make sure it’s counted early.” The appeal contradicts the messaging by his running mate, Mr. Trump, who continues to stoke doubts about mail voting.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