Election Day is right around the corner. With national polls pointing toward a tight race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, all eyes are on a handful of swing states. However, the swing state roster has changed since the 2020 presidential election. So, what are the key states to watch come Election Day? Swing states are typically defined as areas that have similar levels of support for each political party’s candidate that can have a key role in the outcome of the presidential race.Seven states in two regions of the U.S. could have a major impact on the outcome of the 2024 election. The ‘Blue Wall’ statesThe so-called “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are on the list of swing states. Trump won all three states in 2016, but President Joe Biden gained them back in 2020. Wisconsin is specifically seen as one of the most competitive states, as President Joe Biden had previously won by fewer than 21,000 votes in the 2020 election.The Sun Belt statesThe Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina have also made it onto the list. This is due to a combination of an increase of Latino, Asian American and young Black voting demographics in the region. But North Carolina and Georgia could still be wild cards, as North Carolina has historically leaned Republican. Most notably missing from the list of swing states is the industrial midwest: Ohio and Iowa have recently leaned more Republican. According to an analysis by NPR, the change is due to the shift toward the GOP among white voters without college degrees. Prior to the Trump era, Ohio and Iowa were considered competitive for decades.Both presidential candidates have intensified their campaigns in key swing states in the past few months.As voters cast their ballots, watching these regions will be key to determining the electoral college winner in 2024.
Election Day is right around the corner. With national polls pointing toward a tight race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, all eyes are on a handful of swing states.
However, the swing state roster has changed since the 2020 presidential election.
So, what are the key states to watch come Election Day?
Swing states are typically defined as areas that have similar levels of support for each political party’s candidate that can have a key role in the outcome of the presidential race.
Seven states in two regions of the U.S. could have a major impact on the outcome of the 2024 election.
The ‘Blue Wall’ states
The so-called “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are on the list of swing states.
Trump won all three states in 2016, but President Joe Biden gained them back in 2020.
Wisconsin is specifically seen as one of the most competitive states, as President Joe Biden had previously won by fewer than 21,000 votes in the 2020 election.
The Sun Belt states
The Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina have also made it onto the list.
This is due to a combination of an increase of Latino, Asian American and young Black voting demographics in the region.
But North Carolina and Georgia could still be wild cards, as North Carolina has historically leaned Republican.
Most notably missing from the list of swing states is the industrial midwest: Ohio and Iowa have recently leaned more Republican.
According to an analysis by NPR, the change is due to the shift toward the GOP among white voters without college degrees. Prior to the Trump era, Ohio and Iowa were considered competitive for decades.
San Diego city officials and activists came together to call on business and government officials to address pay inequities for Latinas in San Diego, CA on Dec. 8, 2022.
Matthew Bowler | KPBS | Sipa USA
Latina women working full time, year-round earn 58 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to data collected by the National Women’s Law Center.
Latina Equal Pay Day, which this year falls on Oct. 3, marks the additional days into the new year that Latinas must work to earn as much as the typical annual salary of white, non-Hispanic male workers.
That gap in pay translates to a loss of nearly $1.3 million over a 40-year career. Break that down further and Latinas lose $32,070 in wages per year, or $2,672 every month, compared with the dominant cohort.
While 58 cents per dollar is a penny improvement compared with the previous year, NWLC notes that even though wages have been increasing, so too has the total wage gap over a lifetime — which last year totaled $1,218,000.
“The increase in lifetime losses and widening of the wage gap for all Latina workers, including part-time workers, is likely because white men’s wages are increasing at a faster rate than other demographic groups,” said Ashir Coillberg, NWLC senior research analyst.
Assuming a Latina and her white, non-Hispanic male counterpart both begin work at age 20, NWLC notes, the wage gap means a Latina would have to work until she is 89 years old — eight years beyond her life expectancy — to be paid what a white, non-Hispanic man has been paid by age 60.
Despite the narrow improvement for full-time workers, the gap actually widens for part-time and part-year Latina workers, falling to 51 cents on the dollar compared with 52 cents last year.
The wage gap varies widely for certain Latina communities, and for some in the United States it’s even more extreme.
While full time, year-round Argentinean and Spanish Latina workers remain closest to parity at 84 cents and 81 cents, respectively, wages for Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran women remained the widest at 47 cents, 48 cents and 51 cents, respectively.
“Most other marginalized populations — and women as a whole — saw a slight widening of the wage gap this year, for both full-time, year-round workers as well as when including part-time workers,” Coillberg said.
Guatemalan, Cuban and Spanish women saw the greatest increase in losses over a 40-year career.
Latinas are more likely to hold low-wage jobs, but NWLC research finds pay disparities at all education levels.
While continued education can be a benefit to earnings potential, NWLC data suggests getting more education does not shield them from the wage gap. Latinas are typically paid less than white, non-Hispanic men with the same educational attainment and are often paid less than white, non-Hispanic men with less educational attainment.
Some of the most educated Latinas have some of the most striking pay gaps compared to their white non-Hispanic men counterparts, according to the NWLC. For example, the center said a Latina with a professional degree stands to lose more than $2.9 million to the wage gap over a 40-year career.
“Unequal pay means Latinas have less money to cover current expenses and forces them to miss key opportunities to build wealth and build economic security throughout their lifetimes,” the NWLC notes in the report.
Instead of prioritizing continued education, pay equity experts are advocating for comprehensive legislative reform.
“A comprehensive approach includes requiring equal pay for equal work, pay transparency policies from lawmakers, eliminating the subminimum tipped wage, protection from caregiver discrimination, safety from harassment and health hazards for all workers, prohibiting salary history to determine future pay, and increased access to higher-paid jobs for women,” said Noreen Farrell, Equal Pay Today chair. “That’s how you actually close the gap.”
“The widening gap underscores the urgency of tackling this issue to ensure equitable economic opportunities for Latinas,” Farrell said. “Latinas do not have one more day to wait for equal pay.”
The cannabis has been suffering for the last two years…but do the presidential candidates really care?
The last two years has been brutal for the cannabis industry. Consumer use continues to climb, but the cost of doing business is outpacing the profit. Filled with mainly mom and pop small business owners, it has become tougher and tougher as more and more people consume. But does either political parties care and what are they actually going to do? The marijuana industry seeks positive signs from candidates, and more than just statements, they want sound policy.
Legal states have reaped the benefits of making the plant safely available. ncreased tax revenue, a decreased in youth use, and a variable options for medical marijuana patients from addictive opioids. But the businesses themselves are battling high taxes, no tax benefits, increase in crime and a massive federal restrictions. Even with a growing customer base, hope is dwindling the government will act. And both parties have not been helpful.
Photo by Darren Halstead via Unsplash
Vice President Harris expressed support for legalizing marijuana, speaking publicly about where she stands for the first time she became the Democratic nominee.
“I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior,” Harris said during a nearly hourlong interview on the sports and culture podcast “All the Smoke” released Monday.
But what does it mean? Biden promised to help in 2020. The seasoned policy maker waited to the last moment to make the move, and then didn’t push the gas petal. While 2024 looked like a turning point year, nothing will happen. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) postponed their rescheduling announcement to December, after the election and a potential change in priorities, legalization actions, and executive orders.
Walz, as governor of Minnesota, saw the introduction of legal marijuana and how the state’s citizen’s embraced it in large numbers. But recently he shared he believed it should be a “states rights” issue but he still wants to Democrats to win Congress to help SAFE Banking.
The GOP Presidential candidate has given a nod to the industry, but under his previous term, nothing happened. Party leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have made it clear they want a regression of marijuana legality. The Senate GOP blocked the SAFER BANKING ACT 7 times. And the chaos over the ousting of Kevin McCarthy as speaker ruined the last big chance before camping started.
It seems all the states want the revenue, but no political leader wants to support the growth of the industry. The industry is just hoping something will hold candidates to their promises.
A trio of new trials — a devastating hurricane, expanding conflict in the Mideast and a dockworkers strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming over the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could help shape the public mood as voters decide between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.How events shake out — and how the candidates respond — could be decisive as they claw for votes in battleground states.Related video above: Election 2024: What are the key swing states to watch?The sitting president, Joe Biden, is still the steward of a U.S. economy and foreign policy at this tumultuous moment and may well bear ultimate responsibility for how they play out. But how Harris and Trump approach the three disparate issues could have rippling impact on how Americans perceive their two choices this November.”Unfortunately, there are going to be events like this, and this is where you see the leadership of a president show up,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. “I think this should send a message to Americans: It matters. It matters who sits behind the Resolute Desk.”Harris, with Biden’s help, is trying to display steady calm as a flurry of difficult problems arise all at once. She and Biden on Tuesday toggled between directing Hurricane Helene recovery and rescue response work and huddling with aides in the White House Situation Room to watch as the U.S. helped Israel defend against a massive attack by Iran in retaliation for the killing of Tehran-backed leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah.All the while, they were keeping close contact with economic advisers as dockworkers took to the picket line Tuesday, a walkout stretching from ports in Maine to Texas that threatens to snarl supply chains and cause shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks.Trump, for his part, lashed out at Harris as in over her head, while claiming that this sort of crush of problems never would have happened under his watch.”We have been talking about World War III, and I don’t want to make predictions,” Trump said at a campaign event in Wisconsin. “The whole world is laughing at us. That’s why Israel was under attack just a little while ago. Because they don’t respect our country anymore.”Yet voters cast Trump aside four years ago in large part because of how they viewed his handling of the swirling economic, social and public health challenges that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden, in comments to reporters before meeting with aides Tuesday to discuss the ongoing hurricane response, seemed to acknowledge the growing frustration with the federal response to the massive storm.”I’ve been in frequent contact with the governors and other leaders in the impacted areas, and we have to jumpstart this recovery process,” Biden said. He will travel to the Carolinas on Wednesday to get a closer look at the hurricane devastation. He is also expected to visit hurricane-impacted areas in Georgia and Florida later this week. “People are scared to death. People wonder whether they’re going to make it.” Video below: Biden pledges federal aid after touring devastation from HeleneHarris, meanwhile, headed to Georgia on Wednesday and North Carolina in the coming days to do the same. Tuesday’s vice presidential debate offered a sampling of how the two campaigns were reacting to new developments to bolster their own messages and sharpen their attacks on their rivals. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz promised “steady leadership” under Harris while Ohio Sen. JD Vance pledged a return to “peace through strength” if Trump is returned to the White House.Biden has stayed off the campaign trail since announcing in July that he was ending his reelection effort amid sliding public approval ratings. His conspicuous absence underscores that Democrats see him as more of a liability than an asset in making the case for Harris, said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania.But how well Biden deals with the three latest emergency situations could have a big impact in how undecided voters perceive Harris in these final days.”President Biden can’t help Kamala Harris on the stump,” Borick said. “But in a campaign where you are turning over every rock in a few states to get that undecided voter, how he manages these crises over the next several weeks could have an impact.” The Harris campaign understands the risks it faces with multiple crises converging all at once, especially given their varied and unpredictable nature. A prolonged strike, a bungled disaster response or a further expansion of Middle East conflict could raise doubts about Biden’s leadership, and by extension that of his second-in-command.At the same time, Harris campaign aides believe the perilous moment presents an opportunity to demonstrate to voters the stakes of who’s in the job and the seriousness with which they approach it, according to campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking.The former president, in a speech in Waunakee, Wisconsin, and in social media postings Tuesday, offered a mixture of prayer and concern for those impacted by Helene, jabs at Harris for the dockworkers strike, and an aside about the casting of Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.””The situation should have never come to this and, had I been president, it would not have,” Trump said in a statement about the strike.Harris aides made a point of having the vice president deliver brief remarks on the Iranian attack Tuesday in between taping interviews for her campaign, aiming to portray her as ready to take command.Late-term tumult has been fixture in American presidential politics, sometimes in the form of scandal and other times with an incumbent hoping to demonstrate that he or his preferred successor would be a steady head at an uncertain time. George W. Bush pushed a rescue package through Congress to stabilize a reeling financial system by creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program amid fears that the economy was on the verge of collapse. The broader economic conditions didn’t help Republican John McCain in the race he lost to Barack Obama. Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign in 1980 was paralyzed by the Iran hostage crisis. Fifty-two hostages were released on January 20, 1981, soon after his successor, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated.Lyndon Johnson announced a halting of bombings in North Vietnam days before the 1968 election, a step he hoped would bring the conflict toward a peace settlement. But the South Vietnamese indicated they would not negotiate and Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost narrowly to Republican Richard Nixon.”The efforts by incumbents to help themselves or their party’s nominee with ‘October surprises’ go back quite a ways,” said Edward Frantz, a University of Indianapolis historian. “In this current climate, I’m not sure how many voters can be persuaded by a candidate this late in the game trying to show competency.”___AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON —
A trio of new trials — a devastating hurricane, expanding conflict in the Mideast and a dockworkers strike that threatens the U.S. economy — are looming over the final weeks of the presidential campaign and could help shape the public mood as voters decide between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
How events shake out — and how the candidates respond — could be decisive as they claw for votes in battleground states.
Related video above: Election 2024: What are the key swing states to watch?
The sitting president, Joe Biden, is still the steward of a U.S. economy and foreign policy at this tumultuous moment and may well bear ultimate responsibility for how they play out. But how Harris and Trump approach the three disparate issues could have rippling impact on how Americans perceive their two choices this November.
“Unfortunately, there are going to be events like this, and this is where you see the leadership of a president show up,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. “I think this should send a message to Americans: It matters. It matters who sits behind the Resolute Desk.”
Harris, with Biden’s help, is trying to display steady calm as a flurry of difficult problems arise all at once.
She and Biden on Tuesday toggled between directing Hurricane Helene recovery and rescue response work and huddling with aides in the White House Situation Room to watch as the U.S. helped Israel defend against a massive attack by Iran in retaliation for the killing of Tehran-backed leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah.
All the while, they were keeping close contact with economic advisers as dockworkers took to the picket line Tuesday, a walkout stretching from ports in Maine to Texas that threatens to snarl supply chains and cause shortages and higher prices if it stretches on for more than a few weeks.
Trump, for his part, lashed out at Harris as in over her head, while claiming that this sort of crush of problems never would have happened under his watch.
“We have been talking about World War III, and I don’t want to make predictions,” Trump said at a campaign event in Wisconsin. “The whole world is laughing at us. That’s why Israel was under attack just a little while ago. Because they don’t respect our country anymore.”
Yet voters cast Trump aside four years ago in large part because of how they viewed his handling of the swirling economic, social and public health challenges that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden, in comments to reporters before meeting with aides Tuesday to discuss the ongoing hurricane response, seemed to acknowledge the growing frustration with the federal response to the massive storm.
“I’ve been in frequent contact with the governors and other leaders in the impacted areas, and we have to jumpstart this recovery process,” Biden said. He will travel to the Carolinas on Wednesday to get a closer look at the hurricane devastation. He is also expected to visit hurricane-impacted areas in Georgia and Florida later this week. “People are scared to death. People wonder whether they’re going to make it.”
Video below: Biden pledges federal aid after touring devastation from Helene
Harris, meanwhile, headed to Georgia on Wednesday and North Carolina in the coming days to do the same.
Tuesday’s vice presidential debate offered a sampling of how the two campaigns were reacting to new developments to bolster their own messages and sharpen their attacks on their rivals. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz promised “steady leadership” under Harris while Ohio Sen. JD Vance pledged a return to “peace through strength” if Trump is returned to the White House.
Biden has stayed off the campaign trail since announcing in July that he was ending his reelection effort amid sliding public approval ratings.
His conspicuous absence underscores that Democrats see him as more of a liability than an asset in making the case for Harris, said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania.
But how well Biden deals with the three latest emergency situations could have a big impact in how undecided voters perceive Harris in these final days.
“President Biden can’t help Kamala Harris on the stump,” Borick said. “But in a campaign where you are turning over every rock in a few states to get that undecided voter, how he manages these crises over the next several weeks could have an impact.”
The Harris campaign understands the risks it faces with multiple crises converging all at once, especially given their varied and unpredictable nature. A prolonged strike, a bungled disaster response or a further expansion of Middle East conflict could raise doubts about Biden’s leadership, and by extension that of his second-in-command.
At the same time, Harris campaign aides believe the perilous moment presents an opportunity to demonstrate to voters the stakes of who’s in the job and the seriousness with which they approach it, according to campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking.
The former president, in a speech in Waunakee, Wisconsin, and in social media postings Tuesday, offered a mixture of prayer and concern for those impacted by Helene, jabs at Harris for the dockworkers strike, and an aside about the casting of Stanley Kubrick’s film “Full Metal Jacket.”
“The situation should have never come to this and, had I been president, it would not have,” Trump said in a statement about the strike.
Harris aides made a point of having the vice president deliver brief remarks on the Iranian attack Tuesday in between taping interviews for her campaign, aiming to portray her as ready to take command.
Late-term tumult has been fixture in American presidential politics, sometimes in the form of scandal and other times with an incumbent hoping to demonstrate that he or his preferred successor would be a steady head at an uncertain time.
George W. Bush pushed a rescue package through Congress to stabilize a reeling financial system by creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program amid fears that the economy was on the verge of collapse. The broader economic conditions didn’t help Republican John McCain in the race he lost to Barack Obama.
Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign in 1980 was paralyzed by the Iran hostage crisis. Fifty-two hostages were released on January 20, 1981, soon after his successor, Ronald Reagan, was inaugurated.
Lyndon Johnson announced a halting of bombings in North Vietnam days before the 1968 election, a step he hoped would bring the conflict toward a peace settlement. But the South Vietnamese indicated they would not negotiate and Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost narrowly to Republican Richard Nixon.
“The efforts by incumbents to help themselves or their party’s nominee with ‘October surprises’ go back quite a ways,” said Edward Frantz, a University of Indianapolis historian. “In this current climate, I’m not sure how many voters can be persuaded by a candidate this late in the game trying to show competency.”
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Amid warnings from U.S. Steel about significant consequences if its sale to Nippon Steel fails, Vice President Kamala Harris defended her position of blocking the sale to the Japanese company.
In an interview with KDKA-TV on Tuesday, the vice president reiterated her stance that Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned.
“I feel very strongly that U.S. Steel needs to remain a U.S. company, and that the people working there need to be American workers,” Harris said on Tuesday. “I think that is also why I’m proud and I do have the support of the steelworkers union.”
U.S. Steel said last month that if the sale does not happen, it may have to move its headquarters from Pittsburgh and thousands of union jobs could be at risk. Without the sale going through, the company said it will “largely pivot away” from its blast furnace facilities.
“If you block this foreign acquisition, how can you guarantee that there will be support?” KDKA-TV’s Jon Delano asked Harris on Tuesday. “Will it come from the federal government to make sure these furnaces stay open and the jobs are kept in Pittsburgh?”
“It is my priority to keep the jobs in Pittsburgh, understanding again that the folks who are doing that work are doing hard work, good work. It is part of not only a tradition of American industry to do that work but it is part of what we need to invest in the future.”
Harris said it’s a matter of protecting American jobs and national security.
“I start my day being briefed on hotspots around the world and threats to our national security,” she said. “When I think about the importance of supporting U.S. workers and U.S. Steel, it’s through the lens of not only what we should do to protect that workforce but also what we should do to protect U.S. and American interests.”
U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt previously said that if the sale to Nippon Steel goes through, U.S. Steel would keep its name and remain headquartered in Pittsburgh. Last week, a board of arbitrators ruled the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon can move forward.
Jon Delano is a familiar face on KDKA, having been the station’s political analyst since 1994. In September 2001, Jon joined KDKA full time as the Money & Politics Editor and this region’s only political analyst who covers national and local issues that affect hometown residents.
Leah Feiger: I think it adds to it. It’s this, it’s stolen valor. Even when you’re actually parsing through the specifics of it, is it that terrible?
Tim Marchman: I don’t think he came off great. I don’t think it’s …
Leah Feiger: Yeah, he came off not well in the fact that he called himself a knucklehead. That was tough to see. That was definitely a JD Vance smirking moment. I just couldn’t stop watching him that entire time.
Tim Marchman: Yeah, and it’s something you’d really … If the guy was gilding the lily a bit, everyone gilds the lily a bit, at least at this level of politics, and you really should have a comeback for that. I think there was a little bit of confusion. I was in the region during that period, I wasn’t in Hong Kong at the time of those specific protests. I wasn’t in Tiananmen Square when the man was standing down the tank, but I was there at that time. It was a time of great change, as we all remember, the Berlin Wall. There’s a way to do that. He seemed completely flat-footed, which was just bizarre.
Leah Feiger: Obviously, we should point out, and perhaps our lovely moderators could have as well, that Trump is a serial liar, and compared to his many, many, many whoppers over the years, I could have seen a funny turning point of Walz going, “This is nothing. Let’s talk about some greatest hits.” For a campaign that is so focused on the meme-able moment, on the pivot to social, on the pivot to TikTok, they did not manage to grab a lot out of this. Of course, we’re not even talking about Springfield. JD Vance was one of the big, big instigators of the whole Haitian immigrants, Haitian illegal immigrants are eating your friendly neighborhood pets. They’re eating your dogs and cats. When Springfield came up in the debate, this was such an opportunity for Walz to go in, and he did. He did mention that some of this rhetoric had led to schools having to have a lot of extra security, or having to have all these additional drills, but he didn’t go after Vance specifically. He barely went after Trump specifically.
Makena Kelly: This would’ve been a turn too for Walz to be like, “OK, let’s talk about lying and fibbing. You’re the person who literally went on the news last week or whatever week it was, saying that we can embellish these stories to really get everything across that’s happening to rural America right now because of immigration.” That would’ve been an awesome pivot point, and of course, it just didn’t happen.
Tim Marchman: He also had the opportunity to say that what Vance was saying was still just flatly false. Vance, as he did throughout the debate, basically took this rhetorical position, kind of distancing himself from Trump, or treating Trump as like a crazy uncle who, “Eh, we all know what he says, but let’s not worry about that. He says a lot of stuff.” He backed off the claims that Haitian illegal immigrants are kidnapping people’s pets and barbecuing them, but he presented it as his attempt to bring attention to the serious problem of immigrants flooding into Springfield and overwhelming the hospital systems, overwhelming the school systems, something of which there’s literally no evidence. People have looked at mortality rates, they’ve looked at 911 waiting times, all these different metrics. There’s no evidence that the migrants are overwhelming the hospital system. The school system, they need more ESL teachers, they need things like that. Those are legitimate issues to bring up. There’s a very easy way to bring up those issues without getting into blood libel. Walz missed the opportunity to go on offense with that when this whole issue came up, affirmatively defending these people and saying, “These are people who are here legally, who are in this town because the town has jobs, and they don’t have people to do them, period.” He was very forceful in making the point that Trump and Vance’s rhetoric has led to bomb threats and all sorts of horrible stuff, but it was, again, to me, an example of him just kind of ceding the premise a little bit. This is not a problem. Really, this is not a problem. He allowed it, I thought, to be presented as a huge existential problem for the country in a way that was just pretty ridiculous.
As Trump and Harris remain in a close race, voters in Georgia discuss key issues like the economy and rising prices in CBS Mornings’ “Three Meals” series.
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Vice President Kamala Harris gave her thoughts on Oakland losing all its major sports teams.
Harris was recently a guest on “All the Smoke” podcast hosted by former Golden State Warriors players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
During the nearly hour interview, Harris, who was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley, was asked about the mass exodus of Oakland sports teams.
“Oh, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart,” she said. “Remember, we used to have all of them? You know, you just drive by that area. When I go to Oakland, when I go to the Bay Area. When you like land at Oakland Airport and just pass the Coliseum. It just breaks my heart and good, good teams, right?”
In recent years, the city of Oakland lost their MLB, NBA and NFL teams as they moved to other cities.
The Warriors left Oakland in 2019 for the Chase Center in San Francisco. In 2020, the Raiders left the Bay Area and California as the team relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Oakland A’s recently ended its final season in the city as the team prepares to move to Sacramento for several years while a new stadium is being built in Las Vegas.
Harris also talked about how the moves impacted Oakland’s economy.
“It was part of the economic engine of Oakland,” Harris said. “And then the vendors, and it was the local folks, small businesses.”
Barnes mentioned while he loves the Warriors’ new home, it would never be like Oakland and Oracle Arena, in which his co-host Jackson and Harris agreed.
“I’m always going to think Golden State Warriors is Oakland,” Harris said. “That’s Oakland.”
Harris, Barnes and Jackson also discussed the Warriors’ “We Believe” era in the mid 2000s as Harris attended games during that time. Barnes and Jackson played for the team during that era as well.
“I do remember. We want to say our Warriors are always good, whichever era. But that was a very special time,” Harris said. “I mean it was electric, you guys remember? It was electric and we would take BART to get there and go.”
Harris added the thing she likes about sports in general and the Warriors is the team bringing “all kinds of people from around the Bay Area.”
“The Bay Area is a melting pot, right? All coming in,” she said. “And that team, I mean you guys were like the best of the best, legendary, legendary.”
In addition to her Bay Area roots, Harris also talked about being a stepmother and her racial identity during the interview.
A “60 Minutes” candidate hour will feature only Vice President Kamala Harris after former President Donald Trump, who’d previously agreed to be on the show, decided not to participate in the Monday, Oct. 7 special.
“For over half a century, ’60 Minutes’ has invited the Democratic and Republican tickets to appear on our broadcast as Americans head to the polls,” “60 Minutes” said in a statement. “This year, both the Harris and Trump campaigns agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes. Vice President Harris will speak with correspondent Bill Whitaker. After initially accepting 60 Minutes’ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate. Pelley will address this Monday evening. Our election special will broadcast the Harris interview on Monday as planned. Our original invitation to former President Donald Trump to be interviewed on 60 Minutes stands.”
Harris and Trump only debated each other once and have no other debates planned before the Nov. 5 election.
Leading up to the candidate hour, Trump, through campaign spokespeople, was the first candidate to accept the “60 Minutes” request to be interviewed for the special, according to CBS News. It had been agreed that both candidates would receive equal time during the broadcast. “60 Minutes” will uphold its agreement with Harris and interviews are scheduled on the campaign trail this week.
Trump last sat down with 60 Minutes in 2020. He walked out during the interview with Lesley Stahl. Trump referenced the incident on Tuesday night at a Milwaukee press conference when asked about his decision not to participate in the Oct. 7 “60 Minutes” election special.
“Well, right now, I went to – they came to me and would like me to do an interview, but first I want to get an apology, because the last time I did an interview with them, if you remember, they challenged me on the computer,” Trump said. “They said the ‘laptop from hell’ was from Russia, and I said it wasn’t from Russia. It was from Hunter, and I never got an apology, so I’m sort of waiting. I’d love to do ’60 Minutes.’ I do everything. I mean, I’d do you right now, right? And you’re tougher than ’60 Minutes,’ frankly. The ‘laptop from hell’ was from Hunter. It wasn’t from– So I haven’t gotten– if you remember Lesley Stahl, we got into a little bit of an argument on the camera, talking about that and other things. And you know, they really owed me an apology. I’ll tell you, David Muir. How about David Muir, when he said that crime went down, and then the following day they released the numbers from the Justice Department that crime went up 45%. Where’s my apology? They should apologize. They were wrong on everything. So I’d like to get an apology. So I’ve asked them for an apology.”
The Republican nominee for president emphasized that he felt he was owed an apology from “60 Minutes.”
“Let’s see if they do it. I wouldn’t mind doing 60,” Trump continued. “I’ve done ’60 Minutes’ a lot. I did ’60 Minutes’ twice with Mike Wallace, the great Mike Wallace, he was great. His son is from a different ballpark. His son doesn’t have– I said, you want to be like your father? Just don’t have the talent.”
In a statement, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said that Trump’s team had not agreed to an interview.
“Fake News,” Cheung said in a post on X. “60 Minutes begged for an interview, even after they were caught lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop back in 2020. There were initial discussions, but nothing was ever scheduled or locked in. They also insisted on doing live fact checking, which is unprecedented.”
Harris is expected to discuss a wide-range of topics, including the economy, immigration, and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel.
The vice president previously sat down with Whitaker last year. She also was interviewed by Norah O’Donnell, “CBS Evening News” anchor and “60 Minutes” contributing correspondent, in 2020.
Trump previously sat down with “60 Minutes’” Mike Wallace in 1985, Pelley in 2015 and Lesley Stahl twice in 2016, first in July of that year and then again in November of 2016. He also spoke with Stahl again in 2018 and 2020.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Sen. JD Vance were also invited to participate in the Oct. 7 broadcast. The pair are set to debate each other Tuesday at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. O’Donnell will moderate the debate along with “Face the Nation” moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz may be best known for his Midwestern roots, having grown up in Nebraska and spent years as a public school teacher and football coach in Minnesota. But voters will get a chance during his debate Tuesday with vice presidential rival Sen. JD Vance on CBS to hear more about Walz’s views on taxes and the economy, a critical issue in the November election.
With polls pointing to a tight 2024 presidential race, the share of voters who describe the economy as good has inched up, helping lift support for the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz. Yet almost 6 in 10 voters describe the economy as “bad,” CBS News polling shows, with the economy ranking as the most important issue among likely voters.
Already, Walz’s approach toward economic issues is visible through his actions as governor of Minnesota, a job he’s held since 2019 and where he is now serving his second term. His policies have included enacting the largest state Child Tax Credit in the nation and enacting free school meals for the state’s K-12 students, while raising taxes on high earners in the state to help pay for those and other social programs.
Walz’s track record with taxes
Walz “has added to the progressivity of Minnesota’s tax code,” noted Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a left-leaning think tank. “Having a system like Minnesota’s, where you ask more of folks at the top, that type of progressive system makes it a whole lot easier to pay for spending on side initiatives like free school lunch.”
The taxes and social programs that Walz signed into law in Minnesota echo some of the plans that the Harris-Walz ticket have so far rolled out, including a more generous federal Child Tax Credit and plans to increase taxes on higher earners and corporations.
“The parallels are pretty obvious” between Walz’s track record in Minnesota and the Harris-Walz national campaign, Davis said.
Minnesota’s Child Tax Credit
A number of states enacted or expanded a Child Tax Credit following the pandemic, when the federal government boosted the national CTC to as much as $3,600 per child. That bigger benefit was credited with helping reduce child poverty to historic lows, but when that enhanced CTC expired in 2022, child poverty rates surged.
That prompted some states, including Minnesota, to explore enacting their own CTCs, ITEP’s Davis noted.
Minnesota’s CTC of $1,750 per child is the most generous state child tax credit in the U.S., according to the Tax Policy Center, a tax-focused think tank. Walz touted it as “the best child tax credit in the country” and encouraged Minnesota parents to file their taxes in order to claim the benefit.
Vance, meanwhile, has proposed expanding the federal CTC to $5,000, but Republican lawmakers earlier this year blocked a modest expansion in the tax benefit. Vance didn’t vote on the failed Senate bill to provide a bigger CTC to low-income families, as he wasn’t present for the vote. He told “Face the Nation” in August that the vote was for “show” and destined to fail, regardless of the direction of his vote.
The debate on Tuesday is likely to pit Walz’s ideas for how to help families afford the rising cost of living against Vance’s economic views, which aside from expanding the CTC have included criticizing Democrats as “anti-family.”
Lowering Social Security taxes
Walz has also sought to help Minnesota residents on the other end of the age spectrum — retirees. As part of the state’s 2023 tax bill, Walz eliminated Minnesota income taxes on Social Security benefits for three-quarters of beneficiaries.
Under the Minnesota law, couples with annual income of less than $100,000 and single filers earning less than $78,000 are now exempted from state taxes on their Social Security checks.
Scrapping taxes on Social Security benefits has also been proposed by former President Donald Trump, who earlier this year vowed to eliminate federal income tax on the monthly government payments. About 40% of the nation’s 67 million Social Security recipients earn enough from their benefits to owe taxes to the IRS.
But there’s one major difference between the dueling proposals: Walz paid for his cuts to Social Security taxes — as well as the CTC — by raising taxes on higher-income households, according to the Tax Policy Center. Trump and Vance, meanwhile, have indicated they want to lower taxes on corporations and renew the tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, which gave the most generous tax cuts to higher earners.
Walz accomplished his tax cuts for families and seniors by limiting the amount of standard or itemized deductions that high-income filers could claim, as well as reducing a deduction for dividend income and creating a surtax on capital gains income, the Tax Policy Center notes.
How does Minnesota’s economy compare?
Minnesota’s gross domestic product has expanded about 5% since 2018, when Walz was elected governor, according to the Minnesota Compass, a data site created by Wilder Research, a Minnesota-focused research group that focuses on topics such as homelessness and public health.
Since the height of the pandemic, when employers cut workers across the nation, Minnesota has regained its lost jobs and is now back to where it was before the health emergency, its data shows.
Minnesotans also earn more than the typical American worker, with median income in the state of $85,000 in 2023, compared with about $78,000 nationally, Minnesota Compass found. To be sure, Minnesota residents’ incomes have paced ahead of the U.S. median for at least three decades, long predating Walz’s election, the data shows.
The state ranks highly for doing business, with one recent study from business news site CNBC ranking it No. 6 among the 50 U.S. states based on a number of criteria, including competitiveness, workforce, infrastructure, economy, quality of life and business friendliness.
A number of businesses have recently planned expansions or investments in Minnesota, including a $5 billion expansion from the Mayo Clinic and a historic $525 million investment from Polar Semiconductor.
The state’s relatively strong economy also helped generate enough tax revenues to provide surpluses at the start of the 2019 and 2021 budget cycles, as well as an enormous $17.6 billion budget surplus for 2023. The latter helped the state fund the ambitious social programs signed into law by Walz, which include free school meals for children.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
“Neither one of the two candidates has earned my vote, and the voters in the country are going to be able to make that decision,” the former Maryland governor said.
Washington — Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday that neither former President Donald Trump nor Vice President Kamala Harris has earned his vote in the presidential election.
The popular Republican governor, who served from 2015 to 2023, has Trump’s endorsement. But Hogan said he won’t be voting for the former president.
“I didn’t vote for him in 2016 or 2020 and I’ve made that pretty clear,” Hogan said. “I’m willing to put country over party, and I’m hoping that the voters will be willing to do the same thing.”
Hogan is seeking an open seat in the U.S. Senate representing Maryland, facing off against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in a race that’s grown unexpectedly competitive in deep-blue Maryland.
The former governor has often set himself apart from his party, being known to criticize Trump.
“I have a completely separate identity after, you know, being governor for two terms in the bluest state, or one of the blue states in America,” Hogan said Sunday. “I stand up to him, probably more than just about anyone, and I’ll continue to.”
Hogan said Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” is something the nation could do without, while expressing concern about “the toxic and divisive politics” on both sides of the aisle.
“I’m very concerned and I believe both parties are way off track from what their kind of base core values used to be,” Hogan said, arguing that the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left and the GOP too become “more of a Trump party.”
And despite Trump’s endorsement, Hogan said he has no interest in appearing with the former president at a campaign rally.
“I don’t think I will,” Hogan said, when asked whether he would campaign with the former president or even attend a Baltimore Orioles game with him. “He’s not going to really be campaigning in Maryland. But he should go watch a game sometime, yeah — sure.”
Vice President Kamala Harris held a rally in Nevada after a fundraiser in Los Angeles. Former President Donald Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania as his rethoric and insults draw new scrutiny and backlash, including from some Republicans. Caitlin Huey-Burns has more from Eirie, Pennsylvania.
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Billionaire investor Mark Cuban cautioned Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday against forming an alliance with former President Donald Trump, because, he said, the Republican presidential nominee may not ultimately repay his political debts.
“Elon, there will come a time when you need something from Donald Trump,” Cuban wrote in an X post to his fellow billionaire. “You will think you will have earned the right to ask and receive. You have been a loyal, faithful soldier for him.”
“At the point you need him the most,” Cuban continued. “You will find out what so many before you have learned, his loyalty is only to himself.
Cuban’s message came in response to an earlier X post from Musk in which the SpaceX CEO amplified a variety of conspiracy theories about Democrats encouraging immigration into battleground states as “a surefire way to win every election.”
“If Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election,” Musk wrote.
Musk’s endorsement of Trump is a stark reversal from 2022 when he would openly sling insults at the former president on social media.
Cuban’s warning to Musk, one billionaire to another, hinted at the implicit bid for governmental favor that wealthy political supporters make when they hitch their wagon to a presidential candidate.
The two billionaires are on opposing sides of the presidential race this election cycle. But both business leaders have their eyes on some level of regulatory control.
Trump, Cuban believes, might not follow through on that exchange for Musk.
Cuban has become an outspoken surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris and her economic agenda. In recent weeks, he has regularly championed Harris as “better for business,” even amid some skepticism about her plan to raise corporate tax rates.
As Cuban ramps up his public support, he is also keeping tabs on a potential new job opportunity at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I told her team, put my name in for the SEC, it needs to change,” Cuban said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Musk is chasing a new job of his own. Musk has repeatedly floated the creation of a so-called government efficiency commission to crack down on federal spending if Trump wins a second term in the White House. And he has raised his hand to helm such an agency.
Earlier this month, Trump endorsed the government efficiency commission idea and suggested Musk could be a “good one” to lead it.
But the Republican nominee hedged that Musk, a busy CEO of multiple companies, might not have the time for the job, but that he could “consult.”
One of the game-changing events of this presidential election that didn’t change much. Photo-Illustration: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
By most conventional standards, the 2024 presidential contest has been wild and crazy. What began as a likely ho-hum rematch of the 2020 nominees went sideways pretty early on when Donald Trump, originally facing 12 primary opponents, started getting indicted for criminal offenses in multiple venues. Despite constant claims that he was finally losing his magic, he crushed his intraparty opposition almost effortlessly, and his legal problems — which included multiple reminders of what he was up to on January 6, 2021, and how he has treated women for many years — seemed to help him politically.
The day he clinched the GOP nomination (March 12), he led Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling averages by 2.1 percent. The day after Biden’s terrible debate performance on June 27, Trump’s lead was actually smaller, at 1.9 percent. His lead over Biden peaked at 3.4 percent on July 6 and ended at 3.1 percent on July 21 when the president dropped out of the race. That’s not a great deal of variation.
The midsummer replacement of Biden by Kamala Harris, an epochal event with no precedent in U.S. history (much like Trump’s criminal charges), at first didn’t shift the polls much at all; Trump maintained a lead in the RCP averages until August 4. Harris then built a modest lead that hasn’t changed in any significant way despite the novelty of her campaign, a clear debate victory on September 10, and two attempted Trump assassinations. She led Trump by 1.5 percent the day after the debate and leads him by 2 percent now. Yes, there are some shifts in support under the surface that have made the seven battleground states as close as or even closer than the national race, but all in all, the picture we have is of two big coalitions of equal size that neither grow nor shrink enough to change the equation. Even another historic development — the emergence and then the eclipse of the largest non-major-party presidential candidacy since 1992 — really didn’t change the balance of power between the two major-party candidates.
To get a sense of how impervious this race has been to the wild dynamics underlying it, let’s compare this year’s polling variation to that of other recent presidential cycles. In 2020, Biden led by 4.4 percent on May 11, by 10.2 percent on June 22, by 5.8 percent on September 16, by 10.3 percent on October 10, and by 7.2 percent in the final averages (he won the national popular vote by 4.5 percent). That’s a pretty good amount of bouncing around. But there was even more in 2016. Hillary Clinton led Trump by 11.2 percent on March 23, Trump led by 0.2 percent on May 23, Clinton rebuilt a 6.8 percent lead on June 26, but Trump regained the lead by 1.1 percent a month later. In the home stretch, Clinton led by 7.1 percent on October 17, but her lead dropped to 1.3 percent by November 2 and her final polling margin was 3.2 percent. She actually won the national popular vote by 2.1 percent. That’s a lot of volatility.
Going further back, we tend to remember the Obama-Romney contest of 2012 as a long, hard slog without that much movement. To some extent, that’s accurate, but Barack Obama led by 4.7 percent on August 11, the two candidates were tied on September 4, and Mitt Romney was up by 1.5 percent on October 9 and by 1 percent on October 26. Obama led in the final averages by 0.7 percent, and he actually won the national popular vote by 3.9 percent. In 2008, Obama led John McCain by 7.5 percent on June 23, McCain led Obama by 2.9 percent on September 7, but then Obama led by 7.6 percent in the final averages (very close to his actual 7.3 percent national popular-vote margin). And going all the way back to 2004, John Kerry led George W. Bush by 2.5 percent on August 11, but by September 8, Bush was up by 7.6 percent. In the final averages, Bush led by only 1.5 percent, a bit short of his actual margin of 2.4 percent. Election Night 2004 saw some bonus volatility as the exit polls were badly flawed and Team Kerry thought it had won.
So with all the volatility of the 2024 contest — its indictments, its candidate switch, its decisive debates, and whatever surprises lie ahead — the race has been a testament to fairly stable public sentiment and, most likely, partisan polarization. It’s so very close that it’s tempting to look ahead to the next development (e.g., next week’s vice-presidential debate) as a potential game changer, but we probably won’t know what most influenced the outcome until it’s all over. With luck, that will be long before the presidential electors meet on December 17.
Former President Donald Trump meandered Saturday through a list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link his Democratic opponent to illegal border crossings.
A day after Harris discussed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the U.S. illegally, alleging she was responsible for “erasing our border.”
“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion,” he said. “We’re going to liberate the country.”
The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”
“Joe Biden became mentally impaired,” Trump said. “Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.”
The personal attacks have been something of a trend for Trump since Harris entered the race. In July, Trump falsely questioned Harris’ racial identity during a panel with the National Association of Black Journalists.
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said at the time. “So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?”
When asked in an interview with CBS News last month if he believes the personal attacks will hurt him with voters, he responded, “No, I don’t think so.”
Trump, meanwhile, hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.
Trump shifted from topic to topic so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what he meant at times. He talked about the two assassination attempts against him and blamed the U.S. Secret Service for not being able to hold a large outdoor rally instead of an event in a smaller indoor space. But he also offered asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body was better than President Biden’s, and a fly that was buzzing near him.
“I wonder where the fly came from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer. We can’t take it any longer.”
Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris denounced Trump’s handling of the border while president and his opposing a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”
Trump professed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself ended under pressure from his own party.
Harris, at a rally in San Francisco, told supporters there were “two very different visions for our nation” and voters see it “every day on the campaign trail.”
“Donald Trump is the same old tired show,” she said. “The same tired playbook we have heard for years.”
She said Trump was “a very unserious man.”
“However the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious,” she said.
The Harris campaign Saturday again challenged Trump to a second debate, this time in the form of a football-themed television ad. Following his Wisconsin rally, Trump traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game Saturday evening, and the Harris campaign premiered the ad during the game.
“Champions know its anytime, anyplace, but losers, they whine and waffle,” the ad’s narrator said.
Thinner benefits and coverage changes await many older Americans shopping for health insurance this fall. That’s if their plan is even still available in 2025.
More than a million people will probably have to find new coverage as major insurers cut costs and pull back from markets for Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run version of the federal government’s coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older.
Industry experts also predict some price increases for Medicare prescription drug plans as required coverage improvements kick in.
“This could be bad news for Vice President Harris. If that premium is going up, that’s a very obvious sign that you’re paying more,” said Massey Whorley, an analyst for health care consulting company Avalere. “That has significant implications for how they’re viewing the performance of the current administration.”
Insurance agents say the distraction of the election adds another complication to an already challenging annual enrollment window that starts next month.
Insurers are pulling back from Medicare Advantage
Medicare Advantage plans will cover more than 35 million people next year, or around half of all people enrolled in Medicare, according to the federal government. Insurance agents say they expect more people than usual will have to find new coverage for 2025 because their insurer has either ended a plan or left their market.
The health insurer Humana expects more than half a million customers — about 10% of its total — to be affected as it pulls Medicare Advantage plans from places around the country. Many customers will be able to transfer to other Humana plans, but company leaders still anticipate losing a few hundred thousand customers.
CVS Health’s Aetna projects a similar loss, and other big insurers have said they are leaving several states.
Insurers say rising costs and care use, along with reimbursement cuts from the government, are forcing them to pull back.
Some people can expect a tough search
When insurers leave Medicare Advantage markets, they tend to stop selling plans that have lower quality ratings and those with a higher proportion of Black buyers, said Dr. Amal Trivedi, a Brown University public health researcher.
He noted that market exits can be particularly hard on people with several doctors and on patients with cognitive trouble like dementia.
Most markets will still have dozens of plan choices. But finding a new option involves understanding out-of-pocket costs for each choice, plus figuring out how physicians and regular prescriptions are covered.
“People don’t like change when it comes to health insurance because you don’t know what’s on the other side of the fence,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care.
Plans that don’t leave markets may raise deductibles and trim perks like cards used to pay for utilities or food.
Those proved popular in recent years as inflation rose, said Danielle Roberts, co-founder of the Fort Worth, Texas, insurance agency Boomer Benefits.
“It’s really difficult for a person on a fixed income to choose a health plan for the right reasons … when $900 on a flex card in free groceries sounds pretty good,” she said.
Don’t “sleep” on picking a Medicare plan
Prices also could rise for some so-called standalone Part D prescription drug plans, which people pair with traditional Medicare coverage. KFF says that population includes more than 13 million people.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that premiums for these plans will decrease about 4% on average to $40 next year.
But brokers and agents say premiums can vary widely, and they still expect some increases. They also expect fewer plan choices and changes to formularies, or lists of covered drugs. Roberts said she has already seen premium hikes of $30 or more from some plans for next year.
Any price shift will hit a customer base known to switch plans for premium changes as small as $1, said Fran Soistman, CEO of the online insurance marketplace eHealth.
The changes come as a congressional-approved coverage overhaul takes hold. Most notably, out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000 for those on Medicare, an effort championed by Democrats and President Joe Biden in 2022.
In the long run, these changes will lead to a “much richer benefit,” Whorley said.
KFF’s Neuman noted that the cap on drug costs will be especially helpful to cancer patients and others with expensive prescriptions. She estimates about 1.5 million people will benefit.
To ward off big premium spikes because of the changes, the Biden administration will pull billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund to pay insurers to keep premium prices down, a move some Republicans have criticized. Insurers will not be allowed to raise premium prices beyond $35 next year.
People will be able to sign up for 2025 coverage between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7. Experts say all the potential changes make it important for shoppers to study closely any new choices or coverage they expect to renew.
“This is not a year to sleep on it, just re-enroll in the status quo,” said Whorley, the health care analyst.
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NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News, hosting vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz for the general election campaign’s third debate next week, says it will be up to the politicians — not the moderators — to check the facts of their opponents.
The 90-minute debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan studio that once hosted the children’s program “Captain Kangaroo,” will be moderated by the outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.
Tim Walz and JD Vance meet for their first vice presidential debate:
During ABC’s debate between presidential contenders Kamala Harris and Donald Trump earlier this month, network moderators on four occasions pointed out inaccurate statements by Trump, and none by Harris. That infuriated the former president and his supporters, who complained it was unfair.
Last spring, CNN moderators did not question any facts presented by Trump and President Joe Biden in the debate where Biden’s poor performance eventually led to him dropping out of the race.
On Friday, CBS said the onus will be on Vance and Walz to point out misstatements by the other, and that “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. The network said its own misinformation unit, CBS News Confirmed, will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on its live blog and on social media, and on the air during post-debate analysis.
With its plans, CBS News is clearly indicating it wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to misleading statements by candidates. Some argue that offstage fact-checking is too little, too late and not seen by many people who watch the event.
It’s not the first time
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said she has seen examples of moderators who have successfully encouraged candidates to keep their opponents honest.
“I’ll be interested in seeing how this works in practice,” she said. “Having said that, you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”
During the ABC debate, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis corrected Trump statements on abortion, the 2020 election, crime statistics and reports that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.
Unlike the two presidential debates, the two sides agreed that the vice presidential candidates’ microphones will not be turned off while their opponent is speaking, increasing the chance for genuine back-and-forth exchanges and the risk that the two men will talk over each other. CBS says it reserves the right to shut off a “hot mic” when necessary. Each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement, with Vance winning a virtual coin toss and choosing to get the last word.
The stakes are high for CBS News
It’s a big moment for CBS News, long mired in third place in the evening news ratings. O’Donnell just announced she was stepping down from the role. Brennan is considered a rising star.
Like with the presidential debates, CBS is making its feed available for other networks to televise, and many are expected to take advantage of the opportunity.
There will be no audience when Vance and Walz meet at a West Side studio that, in its past, has hosted editions of “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “Inside the NFL,” “Geraldo” and “Captain Kangaroo.”
It’s not known whether there will be other opportunities to see Trump and Harris together on the same stage before the Nov. 5 election. Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for another debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has rejected it. In a poll taken by Quinnipiac University and released earlier this week, likely voters said by roughly a two-to-one margin that they’d like them face off again.
CBS’ “60 Minutes” is looking to land both Harris and Trump for back-to-back interviews that will air on Oct. 7, but neither candidate has committed to it yet.
Already the longest-lived of the 45 men to serve as U.S. president, Jimmy Carter is about to reach the century mark.
The 39th president, who remains under home hospice care, will turn 100 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, celebrating in the same south Georgia town where he was born in 1924.
Here are some notable markers for Carter, the nation and the world over his long life.
Booms most everywhere — but not Plains
FILE – The Ku Klux Klan marches down Pennsylvania Ave. past the Treasury Building in Washington D.C. in 1925. (AP Photo, File)
Carter has seen the U.S. population nearly triple. The U.S. has about 330 million residents; there were about 114 million in 1924 and 220 million when Carter was inaugurated in 1977. The global population has more than quadrupled, from 1.9 billion to more than 8.1 billion. It already had more than doubled to 4.36 billion by the time he became president.
That boom has not reached Plains, where Carter has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. His wife Rosalynn, who died in 2023 at age 96, also was born in Plains.
Their town comprised fewer than 500 people in the 1920s and has about 700 today; much of the local economy revolves around its most famous residents.
When James Earl Carter Jr. was born, life expectancy for American males was 58. It’s now 75.
TV, radio and presidential maps
NBC first debuted a red-and-blue electoral map in the 1976 election between then-President Gerald Ford, a Republican, and Carter, the Democratic challenger. But NBC’s John Chancellor made Carter’s states red and Ford’s blue. Some other early versions of color electoral maps used yellow and blue because red was associated with Soviet and Chinese communism.
FILE – Former Presidents George Bush, left, and Jimmy Carter, right, stand with President Clinton during a kick-off rally for the President’s volunteer summit at Marcus Foster Stadium in Philadelphia, PA., April 27, 1997. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson, File)
It wasn’t until the 1990s that networks settled on blue for Democratic-won states and red for GOP-won states. “Red state” and “blue state” did not become a permanent part of the American political lexicon until after the disputed 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Carter was 14 when Franklin D. Roosevelt made the first presidential television appearance. Warren Harding became the first radio president two years before Carter’s birth.
Attention shoppers
There was no Amazon Prime in 1924, but you could order a build-it-yourself house from a catalog. Sears Roebuck Gladstone’s three-bedroom model went for $2,025, which was slightly less than the average worker’s annual income.
FILE – College student Chuck McManis watches President Jimmy Carter’s nationally televised energy speech from a service station in Los Angeles, as a gas station attendant fills up a customer’s car, July 15, 1979. (AP Photo/Mao, File)
Walmart didn’t exist, but local general stores served the same purpose. Ballpark prices: loaf of bread, 9 cents; gallon of milk, 54 cents; gallon of gas, 11 cents.
Inflation helped drive Carter from office, as it has dogged President Joe Biden. The average gallon in 1980, Carter’s last full year in office, was about $3.25 when adjusted for inflation. That’s just 3 cents more than AAA’s current national average.
From suffragettes to Kamala Harris
The 19th Amendment that extended voting rights to women — almost exclusively white women at the time — was ratified in 1920, four years before Carter’s birth. The Voting Rights Act that widened the franchise to Black Americans passed in 1965 as Carter was preparing his first bid for Georgia governor.
Now, Carter is poised to cast a mail ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris. She would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office. Grandson Jason Carter said the former president is holding on in part because he is excited about the chance to see Harris make history.
FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter, right, and Atlanta Braves team owner Ted Turner, left, watch early play during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta, Oct. 14, 1998. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)
Immigration, isolationism and ‘America First’
For all the shifts in U.S. politics, some things stay the same. Or at least come back around.
Carter was born in an era of isolationism, protectionism and white Christian nationalism — all elements of the right in the ongoing Donald Trump era. In 2024, Trump is promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, while tightening legal immigration. He has said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Five months before Carter was born, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The law created the U.S. Border Patrol and sharply curtailed immigration, limiting admission mostly to migrants from western Europe. Asians were banned entirely. Congress described its purpose plainly: “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” The Ku Klux Klan followed in 1925 and 1926 with marches on Washington promoting white supremacy.
Trump also has called for sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, part of his “America First” agenda. In 1922, Congress enacted tariffs intended to help U.S. manufacturers. After stock market losses in 1929, lawmakers added the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, ostensibly to help American farmers. The Great Depression followed anyway. In the 1930s, as Carter became politically aware, the political right that countered FDR was driven in part by a movement that opposed international engagement. Those conservatives’ slogan: “America First.”
FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter pulls notes out of his pocket before delivering remarks during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Aug. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
America’s and Carter’s pastime
Carter is the Atlanta Braves’ most famous fan. Jason Carter says the former president still enjoys watching his favorite baseball team.
In the 1990s, when the Braves were annual features in the October playoffs, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were often spotted in the owner’s box with media mogul Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, then Turner’s wife. The Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee between Carter’s failed run for governor in 1966 and his victory four years later. Then-Gov. Carter was sitting in the first row of Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium on April 9, 1974, when Henry Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s career record.
When Carter was born, the Braves were still in Boston, their original city. Ruth had just completed his fifth season for the New York Yankees. He had hit 284 home runs to that point (still 430 short of his career total) and the original Yankee Stadium — “The House that Ruth Built” — had been open less than 18 months.
Booze, Billy and Billy Beer
Prohibition had been in effect for four years when Carter was born and wouldn’t be lifted until he was 9. The Carters were never prodigious drinkers. They served only wine at state dinners and other White House functions, though it’s a common misconception that they did so because of their Baptist mores. It was more because Carter has always been frugal: He didn’t want taxpayers or the residence account (his and Rosalynn’s personal money) to cover more expensive hard liquor.
Carter’s younger brother Billy, who owned a Plains gas station and died in 1988, had different tastes. He marketed his own brand, Billy Beer, once Carter became president. News sources reported that Billy Carter snagged a $50,000 annual licensing fee from one brewer. That’s about $215,000 today. The president’s annual salary at the time was $200,000 — it’s now $400,000.
The debt: More Carter frugality
The Times Square debt clock didn’t debut until Carter was in his early 60s and out of the White House. But for anyone counting the $35 trillion debt, Carter doesn’t merit much mention. The man who would wash Ziploc bags to reuse them added less than $300 billion to the national debt, which stood below $1 trillion when he left office.
Other presidents
Carter has lived through 40% of U.S. history since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and more than a third of all U.S. administrations since George Washington took office in 1789 — nine before Carter was president, his own and seven since.
When Carter took office, just two presidents, John Adams and Herbert Hoover, had lived to be 90. Since then, Ford, Ronald Reagan, Carter and George H.W. Bush all reached at least 93.
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This story was first published on Sep. 28, 2024. It was updated on Oct. 1, 2024 to correct that only one other former president, John Adams, lived to be at least 90. Herbert Hoover died at 90 in 1964.
