had a busy 24 hours after being endorsed as the Democratic presidential candidate by President Joe Biden. She to earn the party’s nomination and raised more than $81 million, a record sum for the 2024 political cycle. Harris also spoke Monday at a White House celebration with the NCAA championship teams, since President Biden announced he was leaving the race.

and was called on to resign over security failures at a rally where a 20-year-old gunman former President .

Follow the AP’s Election-2024 coverage at: .

Here’s the Latest:

Harris: I look forward to accepting the nomination soon

Shortly after securing the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that she is looking forward to formally accepting the nomination while also making her case against a second Donald Trump presidency.

“Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top,” Harris said.

The 2024 election is about two different visions for America’s future, Harris said.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time before many of us had full freedoms and equal rights,” she said. “I believe in a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead.”

The AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats hold a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.

Harris has enough support of Democratic delegates to become party’s presidential nominee: AP survey

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party’s nominee against Republican Donald Trump, according to an   taken in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his bid for reelection.

Harris, who was endorsed by Biden minutes after he announced he would not accept the Democratic nomination, worked to quickly lock up the support of her party’s donors, elected officials and other leaders, and has so far received support from at least 2,214.

However, the AP is not calling Harris the new presumptive nominee. That’s because the convention delegates are still free to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention in August or if Democrats hold a virtual roll call ahead of that gathering in Chicago.

For young voters, Harris is ‘far closer’ in age

Tatum Watkins, a 19-year-old college student from southwest Iowa and a delegate to the DNC, said she appreciates as a young woman that Harris is speaking out on issues like reproductive rights and is “far closer” in age to a whole new generation of voters.

“She is very much leaning into what’s popular right now,” Watkins said. “I’ve seen already her branding is .”

Watkins said that has energized and excited her and other young Iowans, making what will be her first experience voting in a presidential election “even better.”

Rep. Dean: ‘I’ve never been more optimistic about America’

The mood among many House Democrats lifted quickly as lawmakers returned to Washington with Biden having handed off the election to Harris.

“I’ve never been more optimistic about America because of his leadership, his selflessness, his putting country first,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

“And then Kamala — woo! — I am excited,” she said. “I’m hearing from my constituents and folks they are so fired up.”

She said one way Harris could approach campaigning in a swing state like hers would be to pick Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate for the vice presidential spot.

Biden to return to the White House, Harris will hit the campaign trail

President Biden is set to return to the White House tomorrow after spending six days at his beach home in Delaware convalescing from COVID-19. Biden became ill while campaigning in Las Vegas last week and headed to his vacation home to isolate.

Vice President Harris, meanwhile, will head to the battleground state of Wisconsin as her campaign for the White House kicks into high gear.

The event in Milwaukee will be her first full-fledged campaign event since announcing her candidacy on Sunday.

Kansas DNC delegates vote to support Harris

Kansas delegates for the DNC met virtually Monday evening and agreed to give all 44 of the state’s votes on the presidential nomination to Vice President Harris.

“We are united in our endorsement,” the delegation’s leader, state party Chair Jeanna Repass, said after the meeting. “Time is not our friend. We have got to be united.”

Repass rejected suggestions — some from Republicans — that the Democratic Party is ignoring the will of its primary voters. She said primary voters who backed Biden understood that Harris would be president if something happened to Biden.

She said there is still time for other candidates to come forward if they can get enough delegates to sign onto their efforts.

“This has already been adjudicated through the primary process,” Repass said. “That’s why you’re seeing us come together so quickly. She has been our choice since 2020, and she is still our choice today.”

New ad contrasts Trump and Harris as felon and prosecutor

A Democratic group is targeting Trump and trumpeting Harris’ past as a prosecutor with new ads in the swing states expected to be key to the general election.

American Bridge 21st Century says it is launching a $20 million ad buy in the northern swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin later this week.

The group says the spots feature voters from the trio of states with the goal of contrasting Harris — a former prosecutor — with Trump, recently convicted on 34 felony charges.

The $20 million ad buy is part of a $200 million campaign American Bridge and is aimed at swing voters in smaller media markets that are less saturated with political advertising. The group hopes to reach people who may be on the fence.

The first round of ads focuses on abortion rights and health care access. One of the new ads shared by American Bridge features a Pennsylvania veteran who says he felt “violated” by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and called it an “example of Trump spitting on all of us who served.”

Democrats plan to push forward with a virtual roll call

The Democratic Party plans to push forward with a virtual roll call in which delegates to its convention can choose a presidential nominee before they meet in person next month in Chicago, with Vice President Kamala Harris heavily favored now that President Joe Biden has abandoned his reelection bid.

The convention rules committee will meet Wednesday to approve how the virtual roll call will work, but a draft of what they are set to approve was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

It does not list a date for when the roll call will take place, but Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the process will be completed by Aug. 7. It could contain multiple rounds of voting, but to qualify, candidates will need 300 electronic signatures of support from convention delegates.

The Democratic National Convention opens Aug. 19. State delegations to the gathering began pledging their near-unanimous support for Harris in the hours after President Joe Biden announced he was abandoning his reelection bid on Sunday.

Trump campaign advisers peg Harris as ‘dangerously liberal’

Trump’s campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles have released a memo after Harris’ visit and remarks at Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, calling her “dangerously liberal” and saying she “is as bad, if not worse, than Joe Biden.”

“It’s a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to defeat not just one Democrat nominee for president, but two — in the same year!”

The advisers have called this “a ploy to try and shake up the race” and said Harris is just as responsible for Biden’s policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, which saw illegal crossing arrests reach record highs at the end of 2023.

Harris leans into her prosecutor background and draws contrast with Trump

Vice President Harris is honing the political message she plans to use to seek the White House in November.

Rallying staffers at Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, now hers to inherit, Harris emphasized her professional background as a prosecutor. She contrasted that with Trump, who has been convicted on 34 felony counts in a hush money case in New York.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris said, adding, “I know Donald Trump’s type.”

She also announced that Jen O’Malley Dillon, who had chaired Biden’s reelection campaign, will run her bid.

Biden calls into Harris’ appearance with campaign staff

President Biden called into a campaign staff meeting while Vice President Harris was visiting, pledging, “If I didn’t have COVID, I’d be standing there with you.”

Harris traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, today to rally campaign staffers a day after Biden withdrew his presidential candidacy and endorsed Harris to replace him atop the Democratic ticket.

The crowd at first gasped, then cheered as Biden promised, “I’m going to be on the road” and campaigning for Harris.

“I want people to remember, what we have done has been incredible,” Biden said. He added, “I want to say to the team, embrace her, she’s the best.”

Harris devoted much of her brief remarks to praising Biden, saying, “I love Joe Biden. I know we all do.”

Interest in the Harris campaign surges

More than 28,000 new volunteers have registered to join Harris’ campaign since Biden chose to withdraw his candidacy and bestow his campaign infrastructure to his VP. It’s a rate more than 100 times an average day from the previous Biden reelection campaign, underscoring the enthusiasm behind Harris.

Ohio state Senator regrets suggesting ‘civil war’ would follow a Trump lose

A Republican state senator from Ohio who spoke at Vance’s first solo rally has apologized for saying on stage that it would “take a civil war” to save the country if Trump loses.

The apology from George Lang, the state lawmaker, came after Harris’ team highlighted his remarks in a post on X.

“I regret the divisive remarks in the excitement of the moment on stage,” he said on the same social network. “Especially in light of the assassination attempt on President Trump last week, we should all be mindful of what is said at political events, myself included.”

Voter Voice: ‘Nothing’s been handed to him in life’

Trump supporter Christina Chrisley, who lives in Virginia’s New River Valley, said she knew very little about JD Vance before he was announced as the Republican vice presidential nominee. She had hoped Glenn Youngkin would be selected.

But after doing more research, she said she’s excited by Vance. She has respect for Vance’s background and service as a marine and thinks he’ll do everything he can to “help Donald Trump win the election and do everything he possibly can for blue-collar workers.”

“Nothing’s been handed to him in life,” she said, sitting in a lawn chair looking out at the New River in a hot pink Trump shirt before the rally’s start.

She also said she was impressed by Vance’s speech at the RNC, calling him “eloquent and very well-spoken.”

DNC Delegate: ‘There is incredible excitement’

Ron Meehan, who works at an Anchorage food bank and, at 25, is the youngest member of Alaska’s Democratic delegates, said Harris is creating a buzz in the party.

“I think that there is incredible excitement among Democrats right now, and particularly the young Democrats that had maybe been tuned out of the process,” he said Monday. “We’re on the verge of making history, the first woman president.”

Meehan is the western regional adviser to the Democratic National Committee’s Climate and Environmental Crisis Council.

“Climate issues in particular are ones that I think young people across the country, including myself, are watching very closely,” he said. Meehan credited the Biden-Harris administration for protecting southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, both the nation’s largest national forest and the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, reinstating restrictions on road-building and logging there.

“I think that she has the policy and track record, the temperament and the skill set to run a very strong campaign and to be a strong president,” he said.

Harris raises $81 million in 24 hours, setting new presidential donation record

Vice President Harris’ team has raised more than $81 million in the 24-hour period since President Biden announced his decision to step aside.

The massive fundraising haul represents the largest 24-hour fundraising sum by either party in the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump reported raising more than $50 million in the 24-hour period after his felony conviction in the New York hush money trial. Biden reported $38 million in the four days after his disastrous debate performance.

Harris’ new total features donations from hundreds of thousands of first-time donors, the campaign said.

Top California Democrat urges delegates to support Harris

The head of the California Democratic Party, Rusty Hicks, is urging delegates to quickly line up behind Harris and has circulated an online form to submit endorsements.

“I am asking delegates from our great state of California and home to our vice president, Kamala Harris, to officially endorse her nomination,” wrote Hicks, who also heads the nation’s largest delegation to the August convention.

“The future of our country is at stake in this election,” Hicks added in an email to delegates, who were expected to hold a virtual meeting on Harris’ nomination later Monday.

Vance calls Democrats ‘a threat to Democracy’ — not Trump

Sen. Vance also sought to deflect the criticism that Trump, who has refused to accept the 2020 election results and tried to overthrow his loss, is a threat to democracy by instead claiming that the Democrats were the threat.

“The idea of selecting the Democrat party’s nominee because George Soros and Barack Obama and a couple of elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard, that is now how it works,” Vance said. “That is a threat to democracy. Not the Republican Party.”

With Biden stepping aside, Democrats technically start with an open convention. But realistically, his endorsement of Harris pushes Democrats into murky territory. Harris has solidified support among more than half of the almost 4,000 party delegates and 700 more .

Harris’ governor endorsements roll in

1. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said, “She’s tough, she’s smart and she’s ready to unite the country.” 2. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said, “Americans are looking for a new generation of leadership that will move past the divisiveness and unite us around our shared American values.” 3. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said, “Harris has always done what’s best for American families,” citing her record on abortion rights and helping to “safeguard democracy.” 4. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy called Harris “a proven leader who has delivered for the American people again and again.”

AP survey finds Harris now backed by more than half of delegates needed to win nomination vote

An AP survey finds that Vice President Harris has the support of more than half of the delegates she’ll need to take President Biden’s place at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Over 1,000 pledged delegates told The Associated Press or announced that they plan to support Harris in a forthcoming vote to pick a new White House nominee.

Democratic National Committee rules most recently set 1,976 pledged delegates as the benchmark to win the nomination. Of the about 1,070 delegates who have spoken to the AP or announced their plans, fewer than 60 either declined to answer or said they were undecided. And Harris is the only Democrat to receive support from delegates so far.

Pat Chesbro, an Alaska delegate and former U.S. Senate candidate, said she could think of no better option than Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket. “People are doing their best to find the best candidate in this situation, which is pretty unusual,” she said. “I look forward to the convention and to seeing whatever the next phase is,” said Chesbro, a lifelong educator.

Bipartisan leaders call Secret Service director to resign

Bipartisan leaders of the House Oversight Committee have ended a contentious, nearly five-hour hearing with the Secret Service director by calling for her to resign after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

In a rare moment of unity for an often divided committee, Reps. James Comer and Jamie Raskin issued a letter to Director Kimberly Cheatle, asking for her to step down as director given her own description of the “most significant operation failure” in the agency’s history.

Cheatle, a 29-year veteran of the Secret Service, spent the majority of the hearing fielding attacks from both sides of the aisle and deflecting questions about the details of the ongoing criminal investigation into the July 13 shooting. But she remained defiant, saying that she believes she is the “right person” to lead the agency at this time and that she will move “heaven and earth” to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

Harris fires off first campaign fundraising email

Kamala Harris is launching her first campaign fundraising email with a nod to the campaign theme she adopted as far back as her campaign for California attorney general 14 years ago.

“My whole life, I’ve only had one client: the people,” the email begins, referencing her abbreviated 2020 presidential campaign theme, “Kamala: For the people.”

It’s a riff on a prosecutor’s role and the customary introduction in criminal proceedings.

“That was true when I was a prosecutor in California, when I served in the Senate and throughout my time as your Vice President,” Harris’ email states.

“And it’s true as I make this announcement to the world. My name is Kamala Harris, and I’m running for President of the United States.”

Speaker at JD Vance campaign event warns of ‘civil war’ if Trump loses election

While Republicans touted a unifying message last week and decried inflammatory language in the wake of the assassination attempt against Trump, one of the first speakers to introduce Vance on Monday in his hometown took a sharp departure from that message and suggested the country may need to come to civil war if Trump loses in November.

“I believe wholeheartedly, Donald Trump and Butler County’s JD Vance are the last chance to save our country,” said George Lang, a Republican state senator. “Politically, I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country and it will be saved. It’s the greatest experiment in the history of mankind.”

Secret Service director says she apologized to Donald Trump after his assassination attempt

Speaking during a congressional hearing, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said she apologized to Trump in a phone call after the rally in Pennsylvania.

White House chief of staff: There’s still much work to be done

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told White House aides and political appointees across the administration that there remains much work to be done in the next six months, according to two people familiar with this message, even as Biden suspends his candidacy for president.

In separate calls, Zients told hundreds of aides and appointees that in every call he’s had with Biden in the last 24 hours, the president has urged his team to focus on key policy goals, such as continuing to implement his legislative achievements and zeroing in on efforts to lower health care and housing costs.

As for Biden’s successor, Zients stressed Biden has been clear on his thoughts and acknowledged Harris’ tenure, which he described as extraordinary. Zients noted that as an official side employee, he had been advised by the White House counsel’s office that he could not speak about politics nor who the next president would be – whomever she is.

— Seung Min Kim

Secret Service chief: Roof where shooter fired was identified as a potential vulnerability days before rally

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said the roof from which the shooter fired had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania.

Cheatle said Monday that her agency failed in its mission to protect Trump during a highly contentious congressional hearing with lawmakers of both major political parties demanding she resign over security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at the campaign rally.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorses Harris for president with ‘enthusiastic support’

Pelosi, who had been one of the notable holdouts to Harris, initially encouraging a primary to strengthen the eventual nominee, endorsed Harris on Monday. Pelosi said she was lending her “enthusiastic support” to Harris’ effort to lead the party.

More than 700 pledged delegates have told The Associated Press or announced that they plan to support Harris at the convention, which is over one-third of the pledged delegates she needs in order to clinch the nomination. Democratic National Committee rules most recently set 1,976 pledged delegates as the benchmark to win the nomination.

French president wrote letter to Biden praising ‘spirit of responsibility’ that led him to leave race

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote President Joe Biden a letter praising the ‘’courage, spirit of responsibility and sense of duty’’ that led him to withdraw from the presidential race.

’’Just after we commemorated together the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I share a hope that this spirit of partnership between the two coasts of the Atlantic continues to animate the historic relations between our two countries,″ the letter reads, according to excerpts released Monday by his office.

AP survey of Democratic delegates finds early signs that Harris is consolidating support for presidential nomination

More than 700 pledged delegates have told The Associated Press or announced that they plan to support at the convention, which is over one-third of the pledged delegates she needs in order to clinch the nomination.

Democratic National Committee rules most recently set 1,976 pledged delegates as the benchmark to win the nomination.

Secret Service director: Agency had been told about ‘suspicious person’ at Trump rally 2 to 5 times before shooting

In her first congressional hearing over the July 13 assassination attempt against Donald Trump, acknowledged that the agency was told about a suspicious person “somewhere between two and five times” before the shooting.

Yet, Cheatle gave no indication Monday that she intends to resign even as she said she takes “full responsibility” for any security lapses at the Pennsylvania rally. Cheatle vowed to “move heaven and earth” to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.

Lawmakers peppered Cheatle with questions about how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee when he was supposed to be carefully guarded and about why Trump was allowed to take the stage after local law enforcement had identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as suspicious.

Republican JD Vance to make first solo campaign appearances as Trump’s running mate

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is making his first solo appearances on the campaign trail, a day after the 2024 presidential race was thrown into upheaval as President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Vance, an Ohio senator, and is scheduled to hold a rally in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, on Monday afternoon, followed by a second rally Monday evening in Radford, Virginia.

Vendors outside of the Vance event in Ohio appeared for have pivoted quickly with the news of Biden dropping out. They had removed merchandise referencing Biden and added coffee mugs, t-shirts and other items that featured Vance.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper: ‘The vice presidential conversation needs to occur later’

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he had a “great” conversation Sunday with Vice President Kamala Harris about “winning this race.”

Cooper, a term-limited governor with a history of strong support for the Biden-Harris administration, is a possible contender for Harris’ running mate should she win the nomination. Asked twice if he would consider being Harris’ running mate, Cooper instead said the focus needs to be on Harris alone this week.

“The vice presidential conversation needs to occur later,” Cooper said. “I want to make sure Kamala Harris wins. I’m going to work for her all over this country and do what I can to stop Donald Trump.”

Cooper also said he had a conversation with President Joe Biden on Sunday, where he told him he “cemented his legacy among the greatest of presidents.”

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says Harris called him after Biden’s announcement

“The vice president called me personally yesterday and called me within a couple of hours of President Biden’s announcement,” Beshear said. “And that meant a lot to me, to reach out to me personally and ask for my support.”

The Democratic governor said he pledged his support to her.

“The rest of that conversation I said would stay between us,” he said.

Asked if she mentioned the No. 2 spot on the ticket, Beshear said: “I’m not going to get into any of those details, but the call was about asking for my support and I pledged it.”

Harris heading to Delaware to meet with Biden campaign staff

Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Delaware to meet with staffers of the reelection campaign that President Joe Biden gave up.

Her office says Harris will hold a “campaign engagement” in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday afternoon. Biden reelection campaign headquarters occupies space in two buildings there.

Biden endorsed Harris shortly after announcing he was leaving the presidential race. The campaign announced raising $49.6 million in the hours after his announcement.

Harris is not yet the formal Democratic presidential nominee, but top party elected officials and donors, as well as labor unions and leading advocacy groups, have endorsed her.

Secret Service director faces storm of criticism at congressional hearing

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle faced a storm of bipartisan criticism at a congressional hearing Monday, with many lawmakers asking why she had not yet resigned from her job in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

The director, who’s spent nearly three decades combined at the agency, remained defiant that she was the “right person” to lead the agency despite overseeing the “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Even so, both Republicans and Democrats pushed Cheatle on why she wasn’t more forthcoming with details about what went wrong on July 13 or how she would ensure it never happens again.

“Tell us what went wrong!” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, yelled at Cheatle. “Tell us and don’t try to play a shell game with us.”

Harris praises Biden but doesn’t mention her own candidacy in remarks at the White House

Vice President Kamala Harris says President Joe Biden’s list of accomplishments are “unmatched in modern history.”

In her first public remarks since Biden announced he was leaving the presidential race, Harris made no comment of her own presidential candidacy.

Speaking at a Monday event with NCAA athletes on the lawn of the White House that Biden missed as he recovers from COVID-19, Harris said that Biden, in one term, got more done than many two-term presidents.

“I am firsthand witness that every day, our President Joe Biden fights for the American people,” she said. “And we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation.”

Senior adviser to Obama: ‘Democrats didn’t have a chance on Sunday and now they have a chance’

David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said Biden’s withdrawal and his endorsement of Harris doesn’t simply erase concerns about Biden but elevates Harris as a motivating, tested national candidate who’s grown while in office.

“Democrats didn’t have a chance on Sunday and now they have a chance,” Axelrod told The Associated Press Monday. “It’s really that simple.”

“I think that it’s a different race now because she has maybe some of his liabilities and she may have some of her own,” Axelrod said. “But no one judges her as too old, or unfit in that way.”

The electoral map stays essentially the same, with Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin being the most pivotal states, he said. And within them, Harris will motivate in particular younger voters, Axelrod said.

But Harris faces the daunting task of launching a campaign and building one at the same time. “Which is hard, but it can be done,” Axelrod said.

The reaction in the Gaza Strip on Biden’s exit from the race

In the central city of Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians coping with more than nine months of the devastating Israel-Hamas war say they feel indifferent about Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential election.

“We feel the United States is a partner in the assault on Gaza,” Hassan Shaqalieh told The Associated Press. “The news that matters the most to us is the end of the war.”

Biden in May presented a deal that aims to end the war in Gaza and return the Israeli hostages the Palestinian group Hamas kidnapped in their surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, but Washington is Israel’s biggest political and military ally.

Hamza Fayyad who was displaced from the southern city of Khan Younis, says there has been no trust in Washington for the Palestinian people’s aspiration to a state and end to Israel’s occupation in the Palestinian territories.

“Someone bad leaves, only for someone worse to come in,” he said.

The reaction from China on Biden’s exit from the US presidential race

China’s foreign ministry on Monday said it had no comment on Biden’s exit from the presidential race, citing that “the presidential elections are the U.S.′ own affairs.”

The official Xinhua news agency, however, opined that it “once again exposed the ugly reality of U.S. politics.”

“Biden’s withdrawal once again expose the chaos and the essence of U.S. politics where partisan interests rule supreme and money drives elections,” Xinhua said in an editorial.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorses Harris for president

The second-term Democratic governor from one of the most-contested presidential states said in a news release Monday, “Today, I am fired up to endorse Kamala Harris for President of the United States.”

Whitmer continued, “In Vice President Harris, Michigan voters have a presidential candidate they can can count on to focus on lowering their costs, restoring their freedoms, bringing jobs and supply chains back from overseas, and building an economy that works for working people.”

Whitmer had been mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential prospect.

“So Michigan, let’s go to work,” Whitmer said. “We cannot let Donald Trump anywhere near the White House. Let’s go!”

Secret Service chief says she takes ‘full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency’ after Trump rally attack

The director of the Secret Service says the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.

Director Kimberly Cheatle told lawmakers Monday during a congressional hearing: “On July 13, we failed.” Cheatle says she takes full responsibility for the agency’s missteps related to the attack at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally earlier this month.

Prominent Democrats endorse Harris, who has no declared rival, as party rapidly coalesces around her

Additional endorsements Monday, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, left a dwindling list of potential rivals to Vice President Kamala Harris as she moves to lock up Democratic delegates behind her campaign for the White House.

Winning the nomination is only the first item on a staggering political to-do list for her after Biden’s decision to exit the race, which she learned about on a Sunday morning call with the president. If she’s successful at locking up the nomination, she must also pick a running mate and pivot a massive political operation to boost her candidacy instead of Biden’s with just over 100 days until Election Day.

Amid calls to resign, Secret Service director to testify before congressional committee

The Secret Service director is set to testify Monday before a congressional committee as calls mount for her to resign over security failures at a rally where a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

The House Oversight Committee hearing will be Director Kimberly Cheatle’s first appearance before lawmakers since the July 13 Pennsylvania rally shooting that left one spectator dead.

Lawmakers have been expressing anger over how the gunman could get so close to the Republican presidential nominee when he was supposed to be carefully guarded.

How Vice President Kamala Harris, in sweats, began launching her presidential bid

As President Joe Biden was deciding to withdraw from the race Sunday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris had multiple phone conversations with him, according to a person familiar who spoke only on background to more freely divulge details.

Harris was at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington. She was surrounded by family and staff and wore a hooded Howard University sweatshirt, workout sweats and sneakers, the person said.

She spent 10-plus hours Sunday placing calls to more than 100 party leaders, members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, and leaders of advocacy and civil rights organizations. Harris told all that she was grateful Biden endorsed her upon leaving the race but she planned to earn the Democratic presidential nomination in her own right.

The vice president also called her pastor, Amos Brown III, who, along with his wife, prayed over her.

Harris arranged lunch and dinner for assembled aides. They ate afternoon sandwiches and salad and pizza in the evening. Harris’ pizza had anchovies, which the person said is her go-to topping.

— Will Weissert

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear endorses Harris while sidestepping questions about becoming her running mate

“The vice president is smart and strong, which will make her a good president,” Beshear said during a Monday morning appearance on MSNBC. “But she’s also kind and has empathy, which can make her a great president.”

Beshear praised Harris’ resume as a former prosecutor and says she’s ready to assume the presidency. He says he’s willing to do everything he can to support her.

Asked if he’s open to potentially joining the ticket, Beshear said he loves his job as governor. “The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believed I could further help my people and to help this country,” he said.

Beshear defeated Trump-endorsed Republicans to win the governorship in 2019 and to win reelection last year in his Republican-leaning state.

Sen. Joe Manchin says – again – that he’s not running for president

Speaking on Monday to CBS, the West Virginia Democrat-turned-independent said “I don’t need that in my life.”

Manchin had been the latest senator to call for Biden to exit the 2024 race before Sunday’s announcement by Biden that he would do just that.

Manchin had already mulled a late-breaking 2024 White House bid of his own but said in February after a listening tour that he didn’t want to be a “spoiler.” As a Democrat, he had often bucked his own party’s leadership.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister praises Biden’s ‘courageous and difficult decision’

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel praised President Joe Biden for his announcement that he’s ending his bid for reelection.

“It takes courage for a politician to say ‘I’m a bit old and I’m not capable of doing it anymore,’” Bettel said, describing it as a “courageous and difficult decision” by Biden.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York endorses Harris

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, endorsed Harris and called her “an unwavering champion for families, workers and justice.”

Gillibrand, who ran against Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, said in a statement Monday that the vice president is “incredibly well-qualified, with experience as a prosecutor, as a lawmaker, and as a leader on the world stage.”

“Now is the time to unite,” the senator said. “VP Harris has the grit and toughness to beat Donald Trump and I’m eager to join her in this fight.”

Small

-dollar donations total $46.7 million for Harris

ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, announced that it had as of 9 p.m. ET from small-dollar donations for Vice President Harris’ campaign.

The Biden campaign and affiliated groups previously had about $96 million in cash on hand. The Republican National Convention, by contrast, reported a campaign fund of $102 million in June.

Trump’s campaign quickly pivots to Harris after Biden withdraws

Donald Trump’s campaign has spent the last year and a half viciously attacking Joe Biden, ridiculing his policies, mocking his fumbles and relishing a rematch they felt they were winning.

But it has also spent weeks preparing for the possibility that he might exit the race, readying a bevy of attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris that it unleashed as soon as Biden made his stunning announcement Sunday that he would step aside.

Biden soon after endorsed Harris, who was quickly winning support from Democrats to be the party’s nominee.

The shakeup less than four months before Election Day lays out new challenges for Trump’s team, which had until recently been focused on contrasting the former president’s vigor and mental acuity with Biden’s.

about the Trump campaign’s pivot toward Harris.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Republican National Convention celebrated former President not just as a party leader but a living martyr who survived a would-be and is ready to work for everyday Americans after a sweeping victory in November.

The portrayals of unity, including in Trump’s first speech since he was injured in the assassination attempt last Saturday, sought to erase the image of a man whose presidency often swirled in chaos and infighting and ended with a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Democrats have repeatedly wielded images of that day to try to thwart his return and have spotlighted his recurring use of inflammatory and hardline rhetoric.

Inside the Milwaukee arena, he was “an American folk hero” and “strong commander in chief,” alive because of a “miracle.” To the left, he remains a threat to democracy, with authoritarian designs.

There’s plenty of campaigning left between now and the election, so the effectiveness of the competing messages remains to be seen. But it’s been a striking four days for a Republican Party that over three presidential elections has been reshaped by Trump’s personality and his politics.

Here are some takeaways from the closing stanza of the GOP gathering in Wisconsin.

Trump promised to serve ‘all of America’ (But …)

Trump, who has not won the popular vote in two tries, opened with the sweeping tone common to inaugural addresses.

“The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny,” he said. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”

It was a sharp departure from his first convention acceptance in Cleveland eight years ago, when he painted a dark portrait of American life and declared, “I alone can fix it.”

It seemed at first that Trump was trying to embody a less partisan, less caustic version of himself — still a giant personality, but one that uses his stature for the country’s benefit. Yet as quickly as he called for an end of the “demonization of political enemies,” he turned the issue exclusively toward Democrats. He reprised his accusations that his criminal conviction and other prosecutions were because of the weaponization of the justice system. And he answered the critique that he is upending democracy by insisting, “I am the one saving democracy.”

Republicans in the convention hall embraced the idea. But it was aimed at what’s almost certainly a more circumspect crowd: swing voters and sporadic voters, those people Republicans will need in order to have the kind of sweeping victory they talked about in Milwaukee.

Trump tried to humanize his image by telling of assassination attempt

The former president spoke in vivid detail of his experience being injured and nearly killed on Saturday.

“You will never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful,” he said before recalling at length a “beautiful day” that took a fateful turn. He recalled “a loud whizzing sound” and realized his ear was injured. He praised Secret Service agents, avoiding any mention of the criticism the agency is taking in Washington.

“I felt serene,” he said.

“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” Trump continued, echoing the same idea of divine intervention that flowed freely from the stage during the convention. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he said, with delegates responding with a chant of “Yes you are! Yes you are!”

On stage was the uniform of the retired fire chief, Corey Comperatore, who was killed behind Trump. It was powerful stagecraft and storytelling. When Trump returns to his post-convention rally circuit, it will be notable to watch whether the former presidents sticks to his claim that he will not talk again about the assassination attempt that shocked the nation.

The brand man rebranded — with limits

Trump, the name and the man, has been ubiquitous for decades. Americans and the world recognized those gold letters, T-R-U-M-P, and watched him say, “You’re fired!” on his hit show “The Apprentice” long before Trump first ran for president. He took over the GOP and won the presidency in 2016 as the unapologetically bombastic political outsider.

The convention program sought to frame the former president as a softer, more compassionate man who helps people individually and is determined to help Americans across the country. , a Trump attorney, talked of “his character, his kindness, his commitment to saving this great country.” Personal friend Steve Witkoff described Trump as a lover of music, “a man who in the darkest hours shows up, listens and always acts.”

Between speeches Thursday, videos of Trump filled the arena with another tone. Democrats, a stern-looking Trump said, “are destroying our country. … They do cheat. And, frankly, it’s the only thing they do well. … Swamp them — they can’t cheat.”

Leading up to his speech, Trump called on a number of figures from the world of professional fighting, including retired wrestler Hulk Hogan and Linda McMahon, the former president and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. She made perhaps the most overt attempt to straddle the competing messages: “Donald Trump is not only a fighter, ladies and gentleman,” she said. “He is a good man.”

It perhaps added up to a confusing message.

Certainly, you can square images of an aggressive politician and a compassionate man who loves music, his friends, his family and even Americans he does not know.

But there’s a difference in selling Trump as someone who leverages his determination on behalf of those “everyday Americans” and one who uses hyperbolic attacks on whole classes of Americans and still fights over a presidential election that he lost. Voters who believe Trump’s false assertions about 2020 and relish his broadsides are already in his corner. He’s trying to grow his coalition, or at least he needs to if Republicans want to have the kind of November sweep they’ve talked about in Milwaukee.

Short on details of another term

Trump made sweeping promises to end inflation and secure the border. He said “Republicans have a plan” to bring down energy prices “very, very rapidly.” He didn’t say what it is.

He said he’d “drill, baby, drill” and “reduce your taxes.” He suggested falsely that Democrats want to raise taxes “by four times” what they are now.

The most specific he got was promising to roll back Biden administration efforts to combat climate change, direct all infrastructure spending to “roads and bridges,” and impose steep tariffs.

GOP leaders said ahead of the convention that Trump should lay out a clear vision of what a second presidency would look like. If he did that, it was only in the broadest strokes, mostly using crowd-pleasing talking points.

Trump barely mentioned Biden or Harris

Many Republican speakers this week made a point not just to blast President Joe Biden but also Vice President . It’s an obvious move to position the party for the possibility that the 81-year-old Biden ends his campaign and Democrats turn to his second-in-command.

Trump himself barely acknowledged the Democratic incumbents. “I’m only going to say it one time,” he said, after mentioning Biden by name. At another point, he said merely “this person.”

That approach could be because of how much , leaving Trump unsure of who he will actually face in the fall. It could just as easily reflect how confident Trump is that he will win. Perhaps he believes he does not need to take on Biden any longer at all.

Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed after diving in front of his family when gunfire rang out at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Trump was shot in the ear and two others were critically injured before the Secret Service killed the gunman.

Trump is doing “fine,” according to campaign officials, and is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention this week. The two other people injured were in stable condition as of Sunday.

In a statement Monday, Polis described Comperatore as a hero and said his thoughts were with the man’s friends and family.

“There are no words that can take away the pain of this moment, but together we can help honor his life and the man that he was,” Polis said in a statement. “…The last few days have been traumatic for all Americans, and we unite to mourn the tragic loss of Corey Comperatore.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Here are some things to know about Vance, a 39-year-old Republican now in his first term in the Senate:

Vance rose to prominence with the memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy’

Vance was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq, and later earned degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He also worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

Vance made a name for himself with his memoir, the 2016 bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was published as Trump was first running for president. The book earned Vance a reputation as someone who could help explain the maverick New York businessman’s appeal in middle America, especially among the working class, rural white voters who helped Trump win the presidency.

“Hillbilly Elegy” also introduced Vance to the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. loved the book and knew of Vance when he went to launch his political career. The two hit it off and have remained friends.

He was first elected to public office in 2022

After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Vance returned to his native Ohio and set up an anti-opioid charity. He also took to the lecture circuit and was a favored guest at Republican Lincoln Day dinners where his personal story — including the hardship Vance endured because of his mother’s drug addiction — resonated.

Vance’s appearances were opportunities to sell his ideas for fixing the country and helped lay the groundwork for entering politics in 2021, when he sought the Senate seat vacated by Republican Rob Portman, who retired.

Trump endorsed Vance. Vance went on to win a crowded Republican primary and the general election.

He and Trump have personal chemistry

Personal relationships are extremely important to the former president and he and Vance have developed a strong rapport over years, speaking on the phone regularly.

Trump has also complimented Vance’s beard, saying he “looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.”

Vance went from never-Trumper to fierce ally

Vance was a “never Trump” Republican in 2016. He called Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” for office. Vance, whose wife, lawyer Usha Chilukuri Vance, is Indian American and the mother of their three children, also criticized �հ��ܳ���’s racist rhetoric, saying he could be “America’s Hitler.”

But by the time Vance met Trump in 2021, he had reversed his opinion, citing �հ��ܳ���’s accomplishments as president. Both men downplayed Vance’s past scathing criticism.

Once elected, Vance became a fierce Trump ally on Capitol Hill, unceasingly defending �հ��ܳ���’s policies and behavior.

He is a leading conservative voice

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, called Vance a leading voice for the conservative movement, on key issues including a shift away from interventionist foreign policy, free market economics and “American culture writ large.”

Democrats call him an extremist, citing provocative positions Vance has taken but sometimes later amended. Vance signaled support for a national 15-week abortion ban during his Senate run, for instance, then softened that stance once Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed a 2023 abortion rights amendment.

Vance has adopted Trump’s rhetoric about Jan. 6

On the 2020 election, he said he wouldn’t have certified the results immediately if he had been vice president and said Trump had “a very legitimate grievance.” He has put conditions on honoring the results of the 2024 election that echo Trump’s. A litany of government and outside investigations have not found any election fraud that could have swung the outcome of Trump’s 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

In the Senate, Vance sometimes embraces bipartisanship. He and Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown co-sponsored a railway safety bill following a fiery train derailment in the Ohio village of East Palestine. He’s sponsored legislation extending and increasing funding for Great Lakes restoration, and supported bipartisan legislation boosting workers and families.

Vance can articulate Trump’s vision

People familiar with the vice presidential vetting process said Vance would bring to the GOP ticket debating skills and the ability to articulate �հ��ܳ���’s vision.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, said Vance compellingly articulates the America First world view and could help Trump in states he closely lost in 2020, such as Michigan and Wisconsin, that share Ohio’s values, demographics and economy.

WASHINGTON — Americans are about evenly split on whether former President Donald Trump should face prison time for his on hush money charges, according to a new poll from the .

Among U.S. adults, 48% say the former president and presumptive Republican nominee should serve time behind bars, and 50% say he should not. About 8 in 10 Democrats think Trump should face prison time, while independents are divided. About half, 49%, of independents say he should, and 46% say he should not.

Most Republicans believe that Trump was mistreated by the legal system and say he should not face jail time. Democrats, conversely, are generally confident that the prosecutors, the judge and members of the jury treated Trump fairly as a defendant.

The results underscore the partisan divide in opinions about the case, which was the first brought against a current or former U.S. president. Both Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden have made the trial central to how they campaign to their respective bases: Biden frequently pointing out that Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony; Trump arguing that Democrats orchestrated the case against him for political purposes.

�հ��ܳ���’s from Thursday, three days before the Republican National Convention opens, to September at the earliest — when early voting in multiple states will already be underway.

“I thought it was all a sham to begin with,” said Dolores Mejia, a 74-year-old Republican in Peoria, Arizona, who has been closely following the trial. “I wasn’t surprised he got convicted because the court was in New York, a very blue state. … It seemed like it was thoroughly stacked against him.”

A small but notable slice of Republicans have a different view from the rest of their party. The poll found that 14% of Republicans approve of �հ��ܳ���’s conviction, while 12% believe he should spend time behind bars.

“I knew he had a big ego and questionable values when I voted for him the first time in 2016, but I thought the mantle of the presidency would be a humbling experience for him, and I was wrong,” said Leigh Gerstenberger, a Pennsylvania Republican who said he agreed with jurors’ finding in the New York case and believes Trump should spend at least some time behind bars.

“I could not be more disappointed in his conduct both in office and out of office,” the 71-year-old retiree said. “There are plenty of Americans who have spent time behind bars for lesser offenses. President Trump should not be treated any differently.”

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults are extremely or very confident that Trump has been treated fairly by either the jurors, the judge or the prosecutors. Slightly less than half, 46%, approve of the conviction in the case, in line with an , while about 3 in 10 disapprove, and one-quarter are neutral.

Some Americans do not believe Trump should be imprisoned but reject his arguments that he’s been treated unfairly by the justice system.

“I don’t think the particular crime deserves time,” said Christopher Smith, a 43-year-old independent in Tennessee. “I see what he did, lying on business records because of an affair, as more of a moral crime,” Smith said, explaining that he believes prison should be a punishment for crimes that involve a convicted person actively harming another person.

The poll found that Americans are less divided about another recent high-profile case. Last month, Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was convicted of three felonies in federal court for lying about drug use when purchasing a gun. Six in 10 U.S. adults approve of Hunter Biden’s conviction, with much smaller political differences: About 6 in 10 Democrats approve, as do around 7 in 10 Republicans.

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults believe Hunter Biden should be sentenced to serve time in prison because of his conviction in this case, with Republicans slightly more likely than Democrats to agree that prison time is warranted.

___

The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

—

Barrow reported from Atlanta.

The Associated Press called the Colorado races for both candidates less than an hour after polls closed. As of 6:07 p.m. Wednesday, Trump led the Republican primary field with 63% of votes to nearly 34% for his last remaining challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in .

In the Democratic primary, Biden led with about 83% of votes, followed by 8.9% — or more than 50,000 votes — for the “noncommitted delegate” option and 3.1% for U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota. The uncommitted share increased as later-cast ballots were counted in counties including Denver, which released its final unofficial results late Wednesday afternoon. Some of that option’s support has been driven by for voters to protest Biden’s support for Israel during the Israel-Hamas war.

Colorado is one of 15 states — including the nation’s two most populous, California and Texas — that held primary contests on Super Tuesday.

The primary capped what has been an unusually quiet campaign season in the Centennial State, with a singular visit to metro Denver by Haley late last month marking the only visit by a major candidate this year. Voters received mail ballots in mid-February.

The Republican contest took place just a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump, the New York real estate tycoon who served a single term as president, could not be removed from the ballot in Colorado. The 9-0 ruling reversed a December decision by Colorado’s high court finding that Trump was ineligible to run for president because his actions around the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, amounted to insurrection under the 14th Amendment.

At stake in Colorado’s primaries are 37 delegates to the Republican National Convention and 72 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The state’s primary results Tuesday showed lingering support for several candidates who dropped out earlier in the campaign, including Democrat Marianne Williamson and Republican Ron DeSantis, who garnered vote shares in the low single digits.

The state’s primaries for other races, including state legislative seats and Congress, are set for June 25.

Before Tuesday, Trump had coasted through eight states, notching victories in each — including Haley’s home state, South Carolina. Haley on Sunday won her first primary contest against Trump, in Washington, D.C.

Despite Trump’s dominance on Colorado’s GOP ballot Tuesday, Haley was on track to win seven counties in the state — all of them with a politically left tilt. Counties preferring Haley included Pitkin, Boulder, Denver and San Miguel.

Biden has had a solid showing during the Democratic nominating process thus far, though more than 100,000 Michigan voters on Feb. 27 broke from near-unanimous support for the incumbent on the Democratic primary ballot.

More than 13% of primary voters in Michigan chose “uncommitted.” Many of those votes were driven by opposition to American support for Israel in that country’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel acted in response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people and resulted in the taking of 250 hostages.

A similar protest-vote campaign was launched in Colorado late last week ahead of Tuesday’s primary, which unlike Colorado Democrats’ 2020 primary included the noncommitted delegate option.

Like the candidates, that option must clear a 15% threshold statewide or within congressional districts to qualify for a portion of delegates to the Democratic convention. Any uncommitted delegates selected would not be able to participate in the first round of voting but would be able to take part in a second round if Biden were to fail to secure a majority.

This year is the second presidential election cycle in which unaffiliated voters in Colorado could participate in the major-party primary of their choosing.

Not on either ballot was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who initially had signaled he would run as a Democrat but is now an independent. He over the weekend as he tries to qualify for the November ballot.

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These two insults launched a thousand thumb-suckers about civility. More than one conservative writer warned liberals that the refusal to let Trump officials eat in peace could lead to �հ��ܳ���’s reelection. “The political question of the moment,” opined Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal, is this: ‘Can the Democratic Party control its left?’ ”

Somehow, though, few are asking the same question of Republicans as Trump devotees terrorize election workers and state officials over the president����ap relentless lies about voter fraud. Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, described her family’s experience this past weekend: “As my 4-year-old son and I were finishing up decorating the house for Christmas on Saturday night, and he was about to sit down to watch ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas,’ dozens of armed individuals stood outside my home shouting obscenities and chanting into bullhorns in the dark of night.”

So far, what happened to Benson doesn’t appear to be turning into a big cultural moment. There’s no frisson of the new about it; it����ap pretty routine for Trumpists to threaten and intimidate people who work in both public health and election administration.

The radically different way the media treats boundary-pushing on the left and on the right is about more than hypocrisy or double standards. It is, rather, an outgrowth of the crisis of democracy that shields the Republican Party from popular rebuke. There’s no point asking if the GOP can control its right. It has no reason to.

Democrats have just won the popular vote in the seventh out of the past eight presidential elections. In the aftermath, analysts have overwhelmingly focused on what Democrats, not Republicans, must do to broaden their appeal. Partly, this stems from knee-jerk assumptions about the authenticity of the so-called heartland. But it����ap also just math — only one of our political parties needs to win an overwhelming national majority in order to govern.

Republican extremism tends to become a major story only when there are clear electoral consequences for it. Pat Buchanan’s demagogic culture war speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention was seen, at the time, as shocking, and elite Republicans later believed it helped George H.W. Bush lose the election. Twenty years later, after Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012, Republicans undertook an “autopsy” and went public with the results of focus groups calling the party “scary,” “narrow-minded” and “out of touch.” There were always zealots in the modern Republican Party, but there were also forces interested in quarantining them.

After that autopsy, Reince Priebus, then the Republican Party chair, called for a more “inclusive” GOP, saying, “Finding common ground with voters will be a top priority.”

Trump would prove that wasn’t necessary. In 2016, he got a smaller percentage of the popular vote than Romney did four years earlier, but still won the Electoral College. And while widespread revulsion toward Trump was a problem for him this November, down-ticket Republicans performed far better than almost anyone expected.

As a result, the effect of right-wing fanaticism on mainstream public opinion has become a nonissue. It doesn’t matter if Joe Biden voters don’t like paranoid militants, many of them armed, menacing civil servants. The structure of our politics — gerrymandering in the House and the rural bias in the Senate — buffers Republicans from centrist backlash.

One thing would change this dynamic overnight: a Democratic victory in the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5. Republicans might learn that there’s a price for aligning themselves with a president trying to thwart the will of the electorate. They might regret the arrogance of Sen. David Perdue, who didn’t deign to show up for a Sunday night debate with his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff. Trumpism might come to be seen as an electoral albatross, and Republicans would have an incentive to rejoin the reality everyone else operates in.

But unless and until that happens, few will be able to muster much surprise when Republicans condone the most outrageous right-wing thuggery, because few will expect anything else.

The uproar over shunning Sanders was an outgrowth of an old liberal quandary — how a tolerant society should treat those who conspire against tolerance. The people screaming outside Benson’s house raise an entirely different question, about how long our society can endure absent any overlapping values or common truths. You can condemn an anti-democratic party for behaving anti-democratically, but you can’t really argue with it.

Michelle Goldberg has been an opinion columnist for The New York Times since 2017.

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That����ap not the first line of a dumb political joke. It is a statement of fact.

Last month I read that the Republican National Committee’s platform this year is, literally, just this: “The Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President����ap America-first agenda; and that the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention.” Knowing that the Republican Party has written and published a platform every four years since 1856, 20 years before Colorado even became a state, I wondered if our own Republicans took it upon themselves to stand for any specific positions on any specific issues in defiance of the Trump-first national GOP.

Lo and behold, the Colorado Republican Party’s platform is a link to the 2016 national Republican party platform. The 2016 GOP had positions on homeownership, international trade, the national electric grid, administrative law, you name it. The document is over 60 pages long, and party activists no doubt put real thought and work into its creation, editing, writing, publishing, and promotion.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that a party platform is a critically-important document that elected officials follow closely. Because it����ap not. But without some sort of platform on which to base decisions, an organization fundamentally has no reason for existing. It would be like opening a business for the purpose of “doing business.”

By contrast, the Colorado Democratic Party’s 2020 platform is over 20 pages long, and has detailed positions the party has taken on every issue from the economy to social justice, transportation to labor, education, and energy. They even have a very specific set of positions on the media’s role in democracy, and what the party’s positions are on a free press. It����ap all there in black and blue and white and from what I can tell, 10 point font.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado has stated positions for the 2020 election on everything from sovereign immunity to the safety clause used in state legislation to enact it immediately upon signature of the governor.

Colorado’s newest political party, the Unity Party of Colorado, states that their platform is “synonymous with the Unity Party of America platform” which is clearly articulated on their website, where they endorse a balanced budget amendment, eliminating the federal income tax, and congressional and judicial term limits among plenty of other issues.

Despite the fact that the GOP is nearly completely out of power at the state level here in Colorado, they currently control the White House and the U.S. Senate. So, without a platform more descriptive than to “enthusiastically support the President����ap America-first agenda,” how can first-time voters, new Americans, and those who have decided to vote in this critical election but have lives outside of politics know what the party stands for? Read Donald �հ��ܳ���’s tweets?

The fact that the second-largest political party in Colorado has no platform actually begins to make quite a bit of sense when you examine the recent political activities of the Colorado Republican Party over the past few years, but especially since their categorical drubbing in the Democratic wave of 2018.  With no power in the legislature, the state GOP turned instead to recall elections that allowed opportunists to fleece gullible partisans into emptying their wallets in order to try to oust Democrats. None of the recalls even qualified for the ballot, in fact, only four signatures were ever turned into the Secretary of State for validation.

Of course, yet another recall attempt against Gov. Jared Polis was announced this week, with a general election less than 50 days away. Gov. Polis currently enjoys a 57% approval rating so this effort, like the others before it, has absolutely no chance of either qualifying or succeeding.

Indeed, the would-be recallers don’t even have a candidate they would run against Gov. Polis if they were somehow successful in their effort, which pretty well sums up the whole thing.

It is therefore no surprise that someone like Donald Trump has himself become the Alpha and Omega for the Colorado and national Republican Party. After all, as the old saying goes, those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.

Ian Silverii is the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest progressive advocacy group.

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Re: “ Staff level cited in death,” Aug. 31 news story

I am a retired RN who graduated in 1968. Cutbacks are a constant threat regardless of how low your nurse-to-patient ratio is at any point. It is virtually impossible to do the job you should be doing.

In the late 1970s, I switched to psychiatric nursing where the situation was, at times, frighteningly dire. I was often the only RN assigned to a unit of 23 patients. I had two nursing assistants and, if I was lucky, another RN to pour and pass medications. I continued to hear the word “cutback” to which “no overtime” was added. We had patients on suicide watch requiring 1:1 staffing and patients in restraints requiring quarterly hour checks.

Physicians came and went, writing new orders that needed to be transcribed and carried out and the phone rang non-stop. We simply did not have adequate staffing to do the job we were supposed to do and had been trained to do.

Now add COVID-19 to this picture. Is it any wonder so many nurses leave nursing before retirement age? It is a miracle more patients don’t die from inadequate care. This is a long standing problem and yet, young new graduates tell me “cutback” is what they continue to hear from their supervisors. Hospitals make money but where does it go ? And when will the public start to demand that they get the care they deserve?

Gail Zwiebel, Centennial

U.S. needs to support Taiwan

Re: “ Taiwan is moving to revamp its military,” Aug. 31 news story

As China continues to threaten Taiwan by sending its aircraft and warships alarmingly close to this island, the American Institute in Taiwan, the U.S. representative office, recently declassified cables sent by U.S. Department of State that say if the PRC were to become more hostile, then the U.S. would increase arms sales to Taiwan.

The declassified assurances from 38 years ago still serve as guidance for U.S. policy toward Taiwan’s security. My government has expressed our appreciation for the declassification of the cables, which reassures U.S. commitments to the cross-strait peace and stability. As a stakeholder in the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan will keep enhancing its self-defensive capabilities, and cooperating with like-minded countries to safeguard democracy and freedom in the region.

Jerry Chang, Denver

Editor’s note: Chang is the director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Denver.

White House right place for RNC

Re: Sept. 1 Letters to the editor

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong in holding the Republican National Convention activities at the White House. It certainly was the safest place to be outside (until exiting). I think the left could find fault with any place the Republicans would have chosen.

Of course, please note that participants were mobbed upon exiting. Sen. Rand Paul and his wife were seriously threatened and had it not been for two police officers, they would have been badly injured or even killed by that vicious mob shouting Breonna Taylor. Other participants were harassed also. Isn’t it ironic that Rand Paul sponsored the no-knock bill in honor of Breonna Taylor?

I have two questions for the letter writers who were blasting the Republicans for holding the convention at the White House: 1) What harm did it do? and 2) Was anyone at the convention causing harm to anyone else? I think the answers would be “No harm” and “No.”

Kay Robbins, Denver

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These unscrupulous politicians and operatives have broken rules and laws they find inconvenient, raised money for an accused murderer, promoted fake made-to-fail lawsuits, then demand swift punishment for their political opponents. These same “justice for thee and not for me” politicians and activists openly flout the law and public health orders put in place to suppress the pandemic, and shamelessly fleece resentful rubes hopped up on a steady diet of Fox News, racist dog whistles from the president, and conservative AM radio demagogues.

Congressman Ken Buck, who is also chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, called for a Justice Department investigation into the ongoing racial justice protests in Denver and throughout the nation. In the same week, at least two more Black men were executed in the streets by police. But instead of being upset about the killing of Black men, Buck claims without a shred of evidence that protesters are having “transportation costs, food costs, and housing costs, and perhaps salaries and other benefits” covered by a mysterious (imaginary) funder, preposterously going on to say, “it����ap important to know when you’re dealing with organized crime like this where the funding is coming from.”

Rep. Buck was spotted a few days before at a GOP fundraiser for Sen. Cory Gardner and Lauren Boebert, the conspiracy-curious Republican nominee for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, wearing a t-shirt with the U.S. Marine’s informal slogan: “kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.” So much for the “pro-life” party.

As for general law and order, I didn’t see Buck, or any Colorado Republican leader utter a peep of dissent when the Republican National Convention took place on the south lawn of the White House last week. Turning the White House into a backdrop for the RNC was a flagrant violation of the Hatch Act of 1939, a fact that Trump reportedly relished because he knew that nobody would try and stop him.

Congressional candidate Lauren Boebert has quite a rap sheet herself and has been arrested at least three times in the past. She once told detained underage drinkers that they should flee from police at a country music festival. While Boebert was being handcuffed for disorderly conduct at the same event, she told the cops that she had friends at Fox News and if they arrested her it would be national news. She was, and it wasn’t. Boebert failed to appear to her court dates on multiple occasions, refusing to answer several summonses, leading to yet another arrest and detention in county jail. She reportedly let her pit bulls freely roam her neighborhood, harassing other residents, and gave dozens of attendees at a rodeo in 2017 .

And then on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Patrick Neville joined Michelle Malkin at a large “anti-masker” rally at Bandimere Speedway in Jefferson County, in open defiance of the statewide public health order for mask-wearing in public and against Jeffco’s specific orders against gatherings of 175 people or more. Malkin is a fringe right-wing commentator who called anti-Semitism “a useless, meaningless term and everybody knows it,” and who also said it was not anti-semitic to question “whatever the precise number of people is who perished in World War II,” to say nothing of her ties to outright Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

The worst example of the right����ap recent embrace of lawlessness comes from Dudley Brown, former executive director of Colorado’s extreme gun enthusiast group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. Brown’s national organization, the National Foundation for Gun Rights is now raising money for Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old militia member who has been charged with first-degree murder for shooting multiple protesters after the police shooting of yet another Black man, Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In the end, this is about projection: an attempt to distract voters with stories about vandalism and graffiti while Republicans break laws, cheer on and justify the actions of an accused murderer, violate public health orders, and scam their own base for funds — all the while chanting “Blue Lives Matter” and claiming to be the party of “law and order.”

For those leading today’s conservative movement, the real lawbreakers are in the mirror.

Ian Silverii is the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest progressive advocacy group.

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Updated Sept. 8, 2020 at 1:36 p.m. Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wis., police officer in late August. He survived and is recovering in the hospital. Because of the writer’s error, this column originally said he was killed by police.