Kamala Harris and Donald Trump centred their attention on Texas on Friday, with both presidential candidates holding events there. In appearances on opposite sides of the staunchly Republican state, the nominees set out their contrasting visions for the country – with the content of their pitches underlining recent polling data which shows the gender gap among voters widening to historic levels.
In Houston, Harris was joined by Beyoncé, with the Democratic candidate telling the Texas crowd that they were “ground zero in the fight for reproductive freedom”. She went on to call out Texas for having one of the most restrictive bans in the country, adding “now one in three women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban”.
Meanwhile, an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan in Austin created another opportunity for Trump to highlight the hyper-masculine tone that has defined much of his 2024 White House bid. A Trump victory could hinge on men turning out to vote for the Republican nominee, according to Politico, which highlighted Rogan’s podcast as a good place to reach them. With an audience in the tens of millions, The Joe Rogan Experience has built a massive, mostly male, audience.
Here’s what else happened on Friday:
Kamala Harris election news
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At the conclusion of her Houston rally, Harris called on voters to cast their ballots early. “Do we trust women? Do we believe in reproductive freedom? Do we believe in the promise of America, and are we ready to fight for it?” Harris said, before concluding by saying, “When we fight, we win.”
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In Houston, Beyoncé was joined by her former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Kelly Rowland, in front of an audience of 30,000 people. “I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said. “Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations.”
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While Beyoncé appealed to a younger crowd, 91-year-old Willie Nelson showed earlier in the event that he still has cachet in his native Texas. “Are we ready to say Madam President?” Nelson asked the crowd before launching into Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, to which the audience sang along.
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Colin Allred, the Democratic congressman running to unseat Texas senator Ted Cruz, used the rally to denounce his opponent. “I believe in a very different Texas than Ted Cruz does,” Allred said. “My time in Congress, I’ve been the exact opposite of Ted Cruz, because I never forgot where I came from, never forgot the folks who gave me a chance. He went on to lead the crowd in a chant of “You gotta lose your job.”
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Tim Walz delivered a rousing pep talk in Scranton, Pennsylvania, telling voters the race was “going to be tight”. “It’s the fourth quarter. We have got the best team on the field,” Walz said. “We have got to do this one inch at a time, one yard at a time, one door at a time, one call at a time, one dollar at a time, one vote at a time.”
Donald Trump election news
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Donald Trump ran hours late to a rally in Michigan, causing thousands of his supporters to leave while others huddled in cold weather to await the former president at an outdoor rally in the battleground state. The Republican presidential nominee was delayed by his interview with Rogan, which stretched to three hours. In Michigan, Trump said “we’ve got a war going and she’s out partying,” a reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran.
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Chinese government-linked hackers are believed to have targeted phones used by Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, as part of a larger breach of US telecommunications networks, according to a New York Times report. Investigators are working to determine what data, if any, was accessed by the “sophisticated” hack, sources said.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail
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There was uproar and outrage among the Washington Post’s current and former staff and other notable figures in the world of American media after the newspaper’s leaders on Friday chose to not endorse any candidate in the US presidential election. The newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced on Friday that for the first time in over 30 years, the paper’s editorial board would not be endorsing a candidate in this year’s presidential election, nor in future presidential elections. The decision, according to some staffers and reporters, was allegedly made by the Post’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos.
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Russian actors were behind a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania, US officials confirmed. The video had taken off on social media but was debunked within three hours by local election officials and law enforcement after members of the public reported it.
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Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, has called for the defence department to investigate a report that Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Politico reports. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Armed Services Committee, said “Elon Musk, who has billions in contracts that support some of our most sensitive military operations, reportedly has an open line to Putin.” Musk’s spacecraft company SpaceX has multiple contracts with the defence department and Nasa. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the billionaire has had previously unreported discussions with Putin since 2022.
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A fresh group of “lifelong Republican” former aides to Donald Trump added their voices to the chorus of criticism of the Republican nominee, speaking out in support of John Kelly, who earlier this week called his old boss a fascist. “The revelations General Kelly brought forward are disturbing and shocking. But because we know Trump and have worked for and alongside him, we were sadly not surprised by what General Kelly had to say,” a letter from more than a dozen staffers who worked in Trump’s administration says.
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