HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Facing the need to win battleground Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris is swearing off any prior assertion that she opposed fracking, but that hasn't stopped Republican Donald Trump from wielding her now-abandoned position to win over voters in a state where the natural gas industry means jobs.
Last week, in his first appearance in Pennsylvania since Harris became the Democrats' presumptive nominee, Trump repeatedly warned that Harris would ban fracking — a position she held as a presidential primary candidate in 2019 — and devastate the economy in the nation's No. 2 natural gas state.
“She's against fracking, she's against oil drilling, she wants everybody to have one electric car and share it with the neighbors," Trump told rallygoers at a Harrisburg rally on Wednesday, which was also his first appearance in the state since he was wounded in a July 13 assassination attempt in Butler County. “Harris has stated repeatedly that she supports, quote, banning fracking. I'll ban fracking, I'll ban it on my first day.”
Harris’ campaign, in a statement, insisted she would not ban fracking, and called Trump’s claims an “attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.”
Still, Trump criticized Harris' support as a senator and candidate in 2020's presidential primary for a Democratic resolution to create a “Green New Deal,” a sweeping progressive effort to shift the country toward renewable energy. Trump called the platform — never fully translated into policy proposals — a “$100 trillion green new scam designed to abolish the oil, coal and natural gas industry entirely.”
While Harris considers choosing popular Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a finalist to be her running mate on the Democratic ticket, Trump has made it clear that he won't concede the swing state, part of the decisive “blue wall” along with Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump repeatedly has said his administration would “drill baby drill” and dismissed Harris' change of position with these words of caution: "Remember, a politician always goes back to what their original thought was.”
Fracking is nearly always on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Formally named hydraulic fracturing, it has made the United States an oil and gas superpower over the past decade, along with horizontal drilling.
Republicans routinely attack Democrats over fracking to drive a wedge into the party's fragile alliance between its left wing, which is hostile to fossil fuels, and its bedrock building trade union base, whose workers are building an expanding network of gas pipelines, power plants and processing facilities in Pennsylvania.
Republicans have used similar attacks in the past two election cycles, both unsuccessfully, against Joe Biden in 2020's presidential race and against Sen. John Fetterman in 2022.
To attack Biden in 2020, Republicans seized on a series of confusing statements — such as remarks on the oil industry from a debate just a couple weeks before the election — to claim he intended to “ban” or end national gas extraction. That was not Biden's official position, and if he intended to restrain the extraction method, it was hard to find evidence of it in energy production data during his first three years in office.
Biden has sought to slow down leasing on federal lands and emphasize conservation as part of a large-scale effort to slow global warming. But U.S. natural gas production and crude oil production have hit record monthly highs in the past year, according to federal energy statistics. The same thing has happened with gas production in Pennsylvania, which also has posted record monthly highs during Biden's time in office.
Harris has backed Biden’s plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But that plan never included a ban on fracking, and Biden has said he viewed those energy sources as necessary during the transition.
Trump, meanwhile, has heavily courted the gas industry in Pennsylvania and has ridiculed the science behind increasingly urgent warnings for immediate action to stave off the worst of climate damage by cutting fossil fuel emissions.
Oil and gas producers have opposed a range of energy policies under Biden, including tougher regulations on tailpipe emissions and vehicle fuel economy that they see as a de facto electric vehicle mandate, clamping down on leases on federal lands and delaying liquefied natural gas projects.
Energy companies want to know whether Harris will continue down those roads.
“It's safe to say that we and a lot of other folks are eager to hear from the vice president,” said Dustin Meyer, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute.
Attacking Harris over fracking is reminiscent of Republican efforts to turn union workers against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. In tenor and scale, Trump's overtures to the industry have echoed the unfulfilled promises he made to save the coal industry during his first campaign.
Clinton was hammered for saying “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” when describing her climate plan, a comment that was used to suggest she had declared war on coal.
Democrats in Pennsylvania — such as Fetterman, Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey — have successfully run on getting tough on fracking through stronger regulation. They shun talk of a fracking ban, although they may not necessarily support every aspect of Biden's energy policy if unions oppose it.
When Biden dropped his candidacy, the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, whose members work on pipelines and in power plants, quickly endorsed Harris in a unanimous vote.
Mark McManus, the union's general president, pointedly noted that Harris “did have a previous position in a previous role in a different state,” but said she has been clear about her new position on fracking.
“And it’s a good position for the United Association,” McManus said. “She’s a nationwide candidate right now.”
McManus described Harris' energy approach as being joined at the hip with Biden, a Pennsylvania native the union endorsed twice in his races against Trump, including this year's campaign. McManus embraced what he described as an “all of the above energy approach."
Still, in a heavily populated and heavily contested state where Trump won by just over 44,000 votes in 2016 and Biden won by just over 81,000, any marginal change is significant, campaign strategists and pollsters say.
Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, said fracking simply won't be a decisive factor for most Pennsylvania voters because opinions on it are highly divided in the state.
The gas industry has flushed money into some local economies. But it has also inspired a backlash in other communities, most notably in Philadelphia’s suburbs.
The sweet spot for statewide candidates — such as Casey, Shapiro and Fetterman — has been not calling for a ban, but calling for tight regulation, clear disclosure about the process and limits on where it can be done, Borick said.
“It’s been successful for all of them,” Borick said, “and that’s where you see Harris going now.”
Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/timelywriter.
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally, July 31, 2024, in Harrisburg, Pa. Facing the need to win Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris has sworn off any prior assertion that she opposed fracking. But that hasn't stopped Trump from wielding her now-abandoned position as to win over working-class voters in the key battleground state where the industry means jobs. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally, July 31, 2024, in Harrisburg, Pa. Facing the need to win Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris has sworn off any prior assertion that she opposed fracking. But that hasn't stopped Trump from wielding her now-abandoned position as to win over working-class voters in the key battleground state where the industry means jobs. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Work continues at a shale gas well drilling site in St. Mary's, Pa., March 12, 2020. Facing the need to win Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris has sworn off any prior assertion that she opposed fracking. But that hasn't stopped Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump from wielding her now-abandoned position as to win over working-class voters in the key battleground state where the industry means jobs. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are gearing up to take the stage for Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia, where they’ll fight to sway 2024 election voters on the biggest stage in U.S. politics.
The event, at 9 p.m. Eastern, will offer Americans their most detailed look at a campaign that’s dramatically changed since the last debate in June. In rapid fashion, President Joe Biden bowed out of the race after his disastrous performance, Trump survived an assassination attempt and bothsides chose their running mates.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Donald Trump’s inner circle says Kamala Harris has plenty of weaknesses she’ll have to defend on the debate stage, from inflation under President Joe Biden to the more liberal positions she took in her own 2020 presidential campaign before tacking toward the center.
Some Republicans are worried the freewheeling former president may miss some opportunities to put Harris on the defensive.
“Some of the biggest concerns of the American people remain the border crisis, the economy and inflation,” said Marc Short, who led debate preparations for Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, when he took Harris on in the the 2020 campaign.
“My advice would be to force real conversations on the border, economics and international affairs. And put her on the defensive on all the things she’s flip-flopped on,” Short said. “But I’m not sitting here with confidence that he’s going to be able to prosecute the case effectively.”
Short recalled how detailed Pence was in preparing for Harris, with days of “full dress rehearsals” against stand-ins who knew questions ahead of time and had prepared answers based on Harris’ positions and public statements. “That’s just not Trump’s style,” said Short. “You know, I would not anticipate a deeply substantive debate. But you never know.”
That’s according to a person familiar with his plans who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The Republican former president, who’s from New York, is scheduled to visit the memorial site in lower Manhattan.
Biden and Harris are also set to visit as the president and vice president make stops at ground zero in New York for a ceremony at the National Sept. 11 Memorial plaza, the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon.
Trump is also set to visit the Pennsylvania site Wednesday but it wasn’t clear if he and Harris would come face-to-face on any of their stops as they mark the 23rd anniversary of the attacks the day after their debate.
— Michelle L. Price
Four years ago, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence met in the 2020 vice presidential debate in what was mostly a civil, substantive debate. But a tiny insect ended up stealing more of its fair share of the spotlight.
Marc Short, who led Pence’s debate prep, still shakes his head thinking about the fly that landed on Pence’s head during the debate, a stark image of the dark insect set against Pence’s white hair.
“On the actual substance you we were very pleased with Pence’s answers back and forth in that debate,” Short said. Unfortunately, he added, “a lot of the after coverage was focused on the fly.”
Indeed, it became an immediate social media sensation, made its way into the ubiquitous takeaway analysis pieces that every major news outlet produces and was part of NBC’s Saturday Night Live “Cold Open” skit days later.
The lesson, Short said, is that candidates, no matter how much they prepare, cannot always control the conversation coming out of a debate.
“She just needs to be herself, and she will be fine,” South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn told reporters at a White House celebration for the South Carolina Gamecocks, the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball champs.
Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman, said he was confident Harris will show herself to be more presidential than former President Donald Trump.
“Listen, I think if the vice president is herself, she’s going to be fantastic,” said Harrison, another South Carolinian who attended the White House ceremony. “She’s going to be presidential, and we know Donald Trump is going to do what Donald Trump does.”
If he wins in November, Trump, who’s 78, will be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. And a new Pew Research Center poll finds that about half of voters think his age will hurt his candidacy. Only 3% of voters think his age will help him, and the rest say it won’t make a difference.
The results are the opposite for Harris, who at 59 is nearly two decades younger than her opponent. About half say her age will help her, while only 3% say it will hurt her.
With Harris as the Democratic candidate, Trump may have lost an advantage over President Joe Biden – the perception that he’s more mentally prepared for the job. About 6 in 10 voters say the phrase “mentally sharp” describes Harris very or fairly well, while about half say that about Trump. Back in July, when Biden was still his opponent, about 6 in 10 voters said Trump was “mentally sharp,” while only about one-quarter said the same of Biden.
Harris’s candidacy is historic – if elected, she’d be the first woman president, as well as the first Asian American and first Black woman president. Voters are more likely to think those identities will help her than hurt her at the ballot box this fall, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.
About 4 in 10 voters think Harris’s Asian and Black identity will help her in November, and a similar share think the same about her identity as a woman. They’re more likely to see her gender as a liability than her race: About 3 in 10 say the fact that Harris is a woman will hurt her in November, while about 3 in 10 say that about the fact that she is Asian and Black.
The voters who are most concerned that Harris’s race and gender will be a liability are her own supporters. About 4 in 10 Harris supporters, for instance, say the fact that Harris is a woman will hurt her with voters, compared to 16% of Trump supporters.
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet face-to-face for the first time in a highly-anticipated debate Tuesday night. The two presidential candidates describe the state of the country in starkly different terms. Trump often paints a dark picture centered around issues such as immigration and high inflation, while Harris focuses on optimism for the future, promising that “we’re not going back.”
The first debate of the 2024 election in June — at which President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance ultimately forced him from the race — featured multiple false and misleading claims from both candidates and it’s likely that Tuesday’s match-up will include much of the same.
▶ Read more about claims made by the candidates
And both of them plan to say why the Democrat would be better than Republican Donald Trump.
Anthony Scaramucci was briefly the Trump White House’s communications director, while Olivia Troye was a homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and was involved in Trump’s coronavirus task force. The Harris campaign said both will speak out against Trump before the debate starts.
In a form of political judo, the Harris campaign has been trying to use Trump’s former aides against him, trying to show that those who know him best see him as unfit to return to the White House.
This year’s presidential race is a genuine contest of ideas between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — with clear differences on taxes, abortion, immigration, global alliances, climate change and democracy itself.
Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Harris has pledged to chart a new way forward even as she’s embraced many of his ideas. She wants middle class tax cuts, tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations, a restoration of abortion rights and a government that aggressively addresses climate change, among other stances.
Seeking a return to the White House, Trump wants to accomplish much of what he couldn’t do during a term that was sidetracked by the global pandemic. The Republican wants the extension and expansion of his 2017 tax cuts, a massive increase in tariffs, more support for fossil fuels and a greater concentration of government power in the White House.
The two candidates have spelled out their ideas in speeches, advertisements and other venues. Many of their proposals lack specifics, making it difficult to judge exactly how they would translate their intentions into law or pay for them.
▶ Read more about where the candidates stand on issues
With early voting fast approaching, the rhetoric by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who “cheats” in the election in the same way he believes they did in 2020, when he falsely claimed he won and attacked those who stood by their accurate vote tallies.
He also told a gathering of police officers last Friday that they should “watch for the voter fraud,” an apparent attempt to enlist law enforcement that would be legally dubious.
Trump has contended, without providing evidence, that he lost the 2020 election only because of cheating by Democrats, election officials and other, unspecified forces.
On Saturday, Trump promised that this year those who cheat “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” should he win in November. He said he was referencing everyone from election officials to attorneys, political staffers and donors.
▶ Read more about Trump’s rhetoric on the election
The debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump won’t have an audience, live microphones when candidates aren’t speaking, or written notes, according to rules ABC News, the host network, shared with both campaigns last month.
The parameters in place for the Tuesday night debate are essentially the same as they were for the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, a disastrous performance for the incumbent Democrat that fueled his exit from the campaign.
It's the only debate that’s been firmly scheduled and could be the only time voters see Harris and Trump go head to head before the November general election.
▶ Read more about the rules for the Trump-Harris debate
In this combination photo, Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
The motorcade of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris passes a billboard in support of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, ahead of the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives on Air Force Two at Atlantic Aviation Philadelphia, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, ahead of the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Signage at the media filing center ahead of tomorrow's presidential debate between Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
