Her choice of Walz was confirmed by three people familiar with the decision who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it had not been made public.

Some things to know about Walz:

Walz comes from rural America

It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.

He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That’s where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school’s four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.

Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military’s highest enlisted ranks.

He has a proven ability to connect with conservative voters

In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006, when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

During six terms in the U.S. House, Walz championed veterans’ issues.

He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.

He could help the ticket in key Midwestern states

While Walz isn’t from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he’s right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.

That’s important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn’t carried the state since President Richard Nixon’s landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.

When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.

Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He’s been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers’ rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

He has experience with divided government

In his first term as governor, Walz faced a Legislature split between a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care and roads. But he and lawmakers brokered compromises that made the state’s divided government still seem productive.

Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Things got easier for Walz in his second term, after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.

Walz and lawmakers eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

Rejecting Republican pleas that the state budget surplus be used to cut taxes, Democrats funded free school meals for children, free tuition at public colleges for students in families earning under $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program and health insurance coverage regardless of a person’s immigration status.

He has an ear for sound-bite politics

Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association — which Walz chairs — amplified the point on a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.

The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats, and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtably weird 2024 election.

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Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on the Big Bend coast of Florida early Monday, first hitting the small community of Steinhatchee. It damaged homes and businesses, sent floodwaters rising, caused sweeping power outages across the state and Georgia and led to several fatalities. Debby was downgraded to a tropical storm midday Monday.

But experts say the worst is yet to come as the storm system is expected to stall over the Southeast region.

How much rain is expected?

Forecasters say the system could pummel the Southeast with widespread areas of up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain and some totaling up to 30 inches (76 centimeters).

That would be a record-setting rainfall, shattering the record from a tropical system in 2018’s Hurricane Florence. More than 23 inches (58 centimeters) of rain was recorded in South Carolina after that storm hit the Carolinas.

Although Debby was classified as a Category 1, “It really is worthy of a Category 3 or 4 rating, if you want to talk about rainfall impacts,” said Jeff Masters, founder of Weather Underground, now with Yale Climate Connections. “That’s going to cause a lot of damage.”

What areas are at risk?

Northern Florida as well as low-lying areas including Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head Island and Charleston, South Carolina, are expected to see the most severe flooding. North Carolina could also be impacted.

Officials in Savannah warned the area could see a month’s worth of rain in four days if the system stalls. There were also flooding concerns for Tybee Island, Georgia’s largest public beach 18 miles (28.97 kilometers) east of Savannah. On top of any torrential downpours that Debby dishes out, the island could get even wetter from 2 to 4 feet of storm surge, according to the National Hurricane Center.

“We don’t know how much rain is going to fall. But we have to prepare for the worst,” Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry said on a video posted to Facebook. “If that happens, we will see an event we have never seen on Hilton Head before.”

Meanwhile, Charleston County Interim Emergency Director Ben Webster called Debby a “historic and potentially unprecedented event” three times in a 90-second briefing Monday morning.

Few places in South Carolina are as susceptible to flooding as Charleston. Much of the city and surrounding areas founded in 1670 were built on land created by using fill dirt and other debris. Rising sea levels cause a number of minor flooding events even without a storm and like many coastal cities, Charleston can’t drain well.

The city doesn’t expect a massive amount of flooding from the ocean, but the storm is still dangerous. Heavy rain can back up into the city, also causing flooding.

What’s causing this storm to stall?

Some hurricanes make landfall and move quickly, experts say, while others slow substantially.

“Really what happened, and why the storm has stalled, is because there’s basically high pressure areas to the west of the storm and to the northeast, and that’s kind of pinned the storm,” said Phil Klotzbach, senior research scientist at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science. “With a hurricane you always have wind problems, but when you have a storm moving at 3 to 5 miles an hour, it’s going to be over any specific location for a very long period of time, so flash flooding and just tremendous rainfall totals are going to be very likely.”

Experts say the warming atmosphere plays a role in the severity of storm surges such as Debby.

Warming water in the northeast Gulf of Mexico is increasing Hurricane Debby’s heavy rains, as more moisture evaporates from the waters, Masters said. Some research says climate change can impact the forward motion of hurricanes, he added, making them go slower.

“It’s something we’ve been seeing more of lately,” Masters said.

How long could this last?

The worst of the rain is expected during the first half of the week, but it could last through Saturday, forecasters said.

___

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The Florida-based airline said Tuesday the top ticket will be a “Go Big” package that includes priority check-in, a roomier seat, snacks and drinks, a checked bag, a carry-on bag and free WiFi.

CEO Ted Christie said the changes are “taking low-fare travel to new heights.” They also indicate the deep trouble with Spirit’s longtime business model.

The airline with bright yellow planes hasn’t made a full-year profit since 2019 — it has lost nearly $2.4 billion since — leading industry analysts to mull whether a bankruptcy filing could be in Spirit’s future.

Full-service carriers Delta and United account for an outsized share of the U.S. airline industry’s profit, and they are doing it by focusing on premium flyers while also selling bare-bones “basic economy” fares that compete with Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant for travelers on tight budgets.

The budget carriers have suffered more than the giants from a glut of flights within the United States, which has led to price-cutting. Delta, United and American have a booming business right now in long-haul international flights that can offset weak pricing power at home. Spirit does not.

The budget carriers are trying to adapt. Frontier Airlines — which, like Spirit, has been losing money for more than four years — matched a pandemic-era move by the bigger airlines and dropped flight-change and cancellation fees for many customers this spring. Spirit quickly copied the move.

Spirit has other problems, including a looming debt payment of more than $1 billion and a shortage of planes because some of its jets are grounded for inspections and repairs of Pratt & Whitney engines. Spirit expects compensation of up to $200 million from the engine maker, but its condition is dire enough that Spirit announced in April it would furlough some pilots and delay delivery of new jets.

TD Cowen analysts downgraded Spirit shares to “Sell” this month and said if Spirit can’t renegotiate its debt or return leased planes to lessors, a pre-packaged bankruptcy filing is possible.

Spirit’s announcement Tuesday targets travelers who might not consider a budget airline.

It said customers will be able to book any of the four new ticket bundles starting Aug. 16. That means they won’t be available during the height of summer-vacation travel but will be in use over the busy Labor Day holiday.

“We listened to our guests and are excited to deliver what they want: choices for an elevated experience that are affordable and provide unparalleled value,” Christie said in a statement issued by Spirit.

Spirit shares gained 5% in afternoon trading but are down more than 80% this year.

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The Broward County school board voted 5-4 to suspend without pay Jessica Norton ‘s employment at Monarch High School, where her 16-year-old daughter played on the varsity volleyball team the last two seasons. She can also no longer work as a computer information specialist but must be given a job with equal pay and responsibility.

The board found that Norton’s actions violated the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which bars transgender females from playing girls high school sports. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature adopted it in 2021, over the Broward board’s opposition.

“Our employee made a choice not to follow the law,” said board member Debbi Hixon, who proposed the censure. But, she said, “It was a first offense. We would not terminate someone on their first offense.”

Norton, who was removed from the school after the violation was discovered in November and then placed on paid leave, called the vote an “incorrect decision” but said it was better than being fired. She said she wasn’t sure if she would accept the punishment and return to work. She wanted to talk it over with her daughter, who left the school even though she had been her class president and a homecoming princess. Maybe they could return together, she said.

“I did nothing wrong. Nothing,” Norton said.

Treatment of transgender children has been a hot-button issue across the country over the last few years. Florida is among at least 25 states that adopted bans on gender-affirming care for minors and one of at least 24 states that’s adopted a law banning transgender women and girls from certain women’s and girls sports. The Nortons are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit trying to block Florida’s law as a violation of their daughter’s civil rights. It remains pending.

During Tuesday’s hour-long debate, Hixon proposed Norton’s punishment after casting the deciding vote against an earlier motion, which called for a five-day suspension with no change in jobs. She said that was not severe enough. It failed by a 5-4 vote.

But, Hixon argued, firing Norton was too harsh for a seven-year employee with sterling evaluations and a caring reputation among students.

“This isn’t somebody who abused or harmed children,” Hixon said. “This is really about not following the law.”

Still, Hixon said, Norton put the district in a legally difficult spot by falsely attesting her child was born female on her state athletic eligibility form. The Florida athletic association fined Monarch $16,500 for violating the act, put the school on probation, and the district could be sued under the act if another student believes she was kept off the volleyball team and lost scholarship opportunities because of Norton’s daughter.

Hixon said she wanted Norton moved from her job as a computer information specialist because in that position she could learn of another transgender student who was playing girls sports and might not report that to administrators.

“That puts us as a school district in a bad place,” Hixon said.

The four other “yes” votes believed a five-day suspension or no punishment was appropriate but agreed to the 10-day ban as a compromise they could live with. They pointed to previous three-, five- and 10-day suspensions that were given to employees who had physically or verbally abused students as evidence Norton was being punished too harshly.

“I believe this case is unique,” member Allen Zeman said. “You can correctly surmise there have been problems with how we (the board) have dealt with it. You can also correctly surmise that rules and laws have been broken. But I think it is important that we come up with a solution that is consistent with the others.”

At least three board members supported Superintendent Howard Hepburn’s recommendation that Norton be fired because she had knowingly violated the law. Hepburn had overridden a committee’s recommendation that Norton be suspended 10 days.

Member Torey Alston said he believes the past suspensions cited by Norton’s supporters were too lax and shouldn’t preclude them from firing her. He said the board was sending the message that it would “go soft” on employees who violate statutes simply because they disagree with them.

“I have zero tolerance for breaking the law,” Alston said.

Norton and her husband stormed out of the meeting when member Brenda Fam repeatedly called her child a boy. Fam argued that Norton should face criminal charges though the Fairness act only carries civil penalties aimed at violating schools. She compared Norton to a parent who falsifies an address to get their child into a better school, an act that is a crime under Florida law.

Fam said she supports the Fairness act because it protects biological girls from having to compete against transgender girls who may be bigger and stronger. Norton and her supporters have argued her daughter has been on puberty blockers and estrogen for several years and has no physical advantages over her teammates or opposing teams.

“This was not a question about her son or her family, it was an issue about what she did as an employee and how she harmed others,” Fam said. She later denied misgendering Norton’s child, saying she was quoting from a newspaper article.

Norton, after the meeting, said Fam intentionally misgendered her child to anger her.

“It worked. I don’t think that a school board member should be misgendering children,” Norton said. “It’s a horrible thing.”

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About 8 in 10 Democrats say they would be somewhat or very satisfied if Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was conducted after Biden withdrew from the race.

In a separate AP-NORC poll, taken before Biden dropped out but after his debate against Republican former President Donald Trump, only about 4 in 10 Democrats said they were somewhat or very satisfied that he was the Democratic Party’s likely nominee for president.

The rapidly changing views among Democrats in such a short time span underscore how swiftly the party — from rank-and-file voters to elected officials — has coalesced behind Harris as its standard-bearer, motivated by the fresh face at the top of the ticket and newfound confidence in the party’s prospects against Trump in November.

Gary Hines, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said he wasn’t particularly impressed by Harris’ first presidential bid but now, she’s shown “she’s up to the task, can do the work, has proven that she’s running a strong campaign so far and maybe on a bigger level, she’s somebody that can beat Donald Trump.” All those factors have ignited an enthusiasm in Hines that wasn’t there when Biden was still in the race, he said.

“I really want to go out and maybe knock on doors, which I would’ve never done,” said Hines, 68. “It’s jazzed me up quite a bit.”

Americans are also more likely to say that Harris would make a good president than they were earlier in July, a shift that was primarily driven by Democrats. They still see a tough contest looming, though: A majority of U.S. adults, 56%, say that if Trump and Harris are their parties’ nominees for the general election in November, Trump is more likely to win.

Lauren Schulman, a Democrat from Pompano Beach, Florida, said she admires Biden and what he has accomplished during his presidency. But she said with him at the top of the ticket, “I have just been so terrified that we were going to lose.”

With Harris, on the other hand, “she’s been a bright, shining star,” said Schulman, 66, noting that the vice president is “smart and she’s younger, and she even comes off younger than she is. That makes such a huge contrast with Trump.”

Growing enthusiasm for Harris — especially compared to Biden

About 7 in 10 Black adults and about half of Hispanic adults would be satisfied with Harris as the Democratic nominee — a marked increase from earlier in July, when about half of Black adults and 15% of Hispanic adults felt satisfied with Biden as the Democrats’ expected nominee. (The poll did not include enough Asian adults to analyze their responses separately.)

The share of younger adults (those under the age of 45) who say they would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee, at around 4 in 10, is higher than the 17% who said they were satisfied with Biden in July.

Bryan Seigler, a Democrat from Raleigh, North Carolina, praised Harris’ “broad appeal” and pointed to a contrast that Democrats weren’t able to make before.

“Donald Trump is the old guy now,” said Seigler, 36.

The new poll shows that Harris’ overall favorability has risen slightly, from 39% at the beginning of the summer — before the debate — to 46% now. Democrats’ opinions of Harris have also shifted in a slightly more positive direction. Eight in 10 Democrats have a positive view of Harris, up slightly from around 7 in 10 in early June.

Harris would be a historic candidate — she would be the first woman to win the presidency, as well as the first Black woman, the first South Asian American, and the first Asian American. Around 4 in 10 Americans say that it would be a good thing for the country to elect either a woman or a person of color to be president. Even more — about 6 in 10 when asked about electing a person of color and about half when asked about electing a woman — say it does not matter.

Majorities of Democrats, however, say it would be good for the country to elect a woman or person of color.

Views of Biden’s decision

Most Americans, 54%, say they have heard or read a lot about Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. About three-quarters of Americans approve of his decision to withdraw as the Democratic nominee for president, including most Democrats and Republicans.

For many Democrats, Biden’s catastrophic June 27 debate showed that — even if they were largely satisfied with his accomplishments during his time in office — the incumbent president should not be running for a second term because of concerns about how his age was affecting his public performance or his ability to campaign effectively against Trump.

“When I watched the debate, you could just tell his cognitive ability was hardly there,” said Julian Castañeda, a Democrat in Pocatello, Idaho. “He had a hard time forming sentences and a lot of his responses, I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. At his age right now, it was appropriate for him to stand aside.”

Biden’s choice to endorse Harris as the Democratic nominee for president is slightly more divisive, with about half of U.S. adults in support, though Democrats overwhelmingly approve. There are similar levels of support for Biden’s decision to serve out the rest of his presidential term.

Withdrawing from the race didn’t do much to change Americans’ views of Biden overall. About 4 in 10 Americans approve of how Biden is handling his job as president. That number is roughly in line with where it has been for the last two years. Biden’s favorability ratings are similar to where they were before he dropped out of the race, with about 4 in 10 adults and about three-quarters of Democrats holding a positive view.

Americans see a tough election contest for Harris

Even as the new Harris campaign has reasons for optimism, the vice president faces an opponent who is better known by the country and who has a reputation for a loyal base of support.

Most Americans perceive Trump as having the advantage going into the November election. A majority of U.S. adults say that if Trump and Harris are the candidates, Trump is more likely to win. About 9 in 10 Republicans say Trump is more likely to become president, while only about 7 in 10 Democrats say that about Harris.

Schulman thinks Harris is more likely to win this fall. Still, she added: “Democrats, we’re like a real, nervous, paranoid bunch these days.”

___
The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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The regulation also adds protections for pregnant students and students who are parents, and details how schools must respond to sexual misconduct complaints.

For schools, the impact of the court challenges could be a combination of confusion and inertia in terms of compliance as the academic year begins.

“I think it is likely that school district-to-school district or state-to-state, we’re going to see more or less a continuation of the current status quo,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The rights of transgender people — and especially young people — have become a major political battleground in recent years as trans visibility has increased. Most Republican-controlled states have banned gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, and several have adopted policies limiting which school bathrooms trans people can use and barring trans girls from some sports competitions.

In April, President Joe Biden’s administration sought to settle some of the contention with a regulation to safeguard rights of LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, the 1972 law against sex discrimination in schools that receive federal money. The rule was two years in the making and drew 240,000 responses — a record for the Education Department.

The rule declares that it’s unlawful discrimination to treat transgender students differently from their classmates, including by restricting bathroom access. It does not explicitly address sports participation, a particularly contentious topic.

It also enhances protections for students who are pregnant or have children, widens the scope of the sexual misconduct cases schools must investigate, and removes a Trump administration rule requiring schools to let the accused cross-examine their accusers in live hearings.

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court for permission to enforce the elements of the new regulation that don’t address transgender rights, but it’s not clear when the justices might rule.

Meanwhile, Title IX enforcement remains highly unsettled.

In a series of rulings, federal courts have declared that the rule cannot be enforced in most of the Republican states that sued while the litigation continues. In a ruling Tuesday, a judge in Alabama went the other way, allowing enforcement to start in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

A Kansas-based federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump added another wrinkle, asserting power over states led by Democrats: He said the rule cannot be enforced in schools attended by the children of members of Moms for Liberty or colleges with members of Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United. That’s keeping the regulation from taking effect in hundreds of colleges and some 1,700 schools in states where it can otherwise be enforced.

In many school districts across the country, the rule is to be enforced in some schools but can’t be followed in others.

“There aren’t many other parallels I can give you of two different sets of rules applying in the very same place, one school on one side of the street operating from a different playbook from a school on the other side of the street,” said Brett Sokolow, chair of the Association of Title IX Administrators.

Administrators have been frustrated by lack of guidance from the Biden administration, he said. When the Education Department recently sent schools information about implementing the new policies, it noted that they don’t apply in many places. Sokolow said some districts may need to consider having two separate teams — one trained on the previous rules, the other on the 2024 version — to be prepared for either scenario.

Jay Warona, the deputy executive director and general counsel for the New York State School Boards Association, said his state already offers transgender students some similar protections, but not all of the other components of the new regulation are addressed in state policy.

Warona said he’s fielding messages from school districts wondering what to do, and he’s telling them to check with their district lawyers.

Caius Willingham, senior policy advocate at the National Center for Transgender Equality, said it’s important to note that the injunctions don’t prevent school districts from having similar policies, even as they bar the federal government from enforcing its new regulations in some places.

Meanwhile, students are facing real impacts. Some people barred from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender hold their bladder all day, avoid hydrating or even drop out of school, he said.

“If you can’t meaningfully participate in the educational systems as your true self,” Willingham said, “you’re not going to be able to thrive.”

For Kaemo Mainard O’Connell, a transgender and nonbinary high school senior in Arkansas, the lack of federal protections seems like a signal to encourage behavior such as deadnaming and bullying.

“It means I’m going to have to work much harder to be respected by teachers and by students,” they said. “What not having federal protection does is, it makes it seem like my issues are not real issues.”

Since Arkansas now prohibits transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity, Kaemo has instead been using a single-person restroom at the school, and is required to sign in and often wait before using it.

Similar worries are shared by families of trans kids in Utah, where lawmakers in June passed resolutions instructing state employees to disregard the Title IX directive. Utah is among the states challenging the rules in court, but is struggling to enforce its bathroom restrictions meanwhile: A tip form to report possible violations has been flooded with hoax submissions, and the state official tasked with filtering through them has made his lack of enthusiasm known.

“The bathroom law brought unpleasant conversations and definitely made our kiddo feel othered,” said Utah mom Grace Cooper, whose child is nonbinary. “It also brought a lot of allies out of the woodwork, but without federal protections, my worries as a mother are ever-present.”

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In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that’s voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic Party.

Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.

Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.

“This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.”

As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are delivering messages aimed at younger voters who could prove decisive in some of the most hotly contested states.

Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.

“We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, highlighting her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and action to combat climate change.

Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta, and she praised young voters across the country for their response to the vice president’s elevation to likely nominee.

“As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, citing new voter registrations, small donations from young voters and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.

Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, derided Harris as an “incompetent” and a “far left” vice president. He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.

“With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square and I will also protect other religions.”

John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”

In many ways, it was the first time many young people felt heard and felt like their actions could have an impact on politics, he and several young leaders said.

“It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”

About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter of the group saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.

That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and from CNN that were conducted after Biden dropped out, suggest that Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.

Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.

Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations such as the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.

College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and to change course on the war in Gaza and have “worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer. But they received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.

A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, Muralitharan said, adding that she may also be able to change course and distance herself from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.

“The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”

Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.

“Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”

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As of April 1 of this year, Florida had 23,002,597 residents, according to estimates released earlier this month by the state Demographic Estimating Conference.

Florida is the third most populous state in the U.S., trailing only California’s 39.5 million residents and Texas’ 30.5 million inhabitants.

Florida added almost 359,000 people last year and has been adding about 350,000 to 375,000 people each year this decade, according to the estimates.

The population growth is expected to peak this year and get smaller with each following year for the rest of the 2020s as the final cohort of baby boomers entering retirement gets smaller, according to the estimates.

By the early 2030s, Florida’s growth rate will be under 1% after hitting an expected 1.6% this year.

Since a little bit before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, all of Florida’s growth has come from people moving to the Sunshine State from other parts of the United States or abroad. Deaths have outpaced births in Florida since late 2019 and early 2020, and that trend is predicted to continue well into the next decade.

Almost 10% of Florida’s residents are age 75 and older, second only to Puerto Rico among U.S. states and the territory.

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Menendez had insisted after the July 16 verdict that he was innocent and on Tuesday in his letter promised to appeal “all the way,” including to the Supreme Court, he wrote to fellow Democrat, Gov. Phil Murphy. The roughly monthlong delay in leaving gives his staff time for an orderly transition, Menendez wrote. The date also coincides with a Senate payday.

He did not mention the federal conviction in the letter but cited his work helping Superstorm Sandy victims and getting transit funding, among other items and addressed the governor directly, reminding him that he had once praised Menendez — before calling for his resignation.

“These successes led you, Governor, to call me the ‘Indispensable Senator,’” he wrote.

The Senate received a copy of Menendez’s resignation letter, according to Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont, who was presiding in the chamber on Tuesday.

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Here are some takeaways from the historic day.

Democrats who had been in disarray are falling in line
Since Biden’s disastrous debate in June, the Democratic party has been in disarray. Drip by drip, high-level party officials reversed course and started to send signals that the president needed to step aside.

Before Sunday, seeing Biden step aside did not necessarily mean making room for Harris. The vice president’s approval ratings were as grim as Biden’s, and there’s widespread skepticism on the left about her electability after her disappointing performance in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

But on Sunday, Democrats started lining up behind Harris. Dozens of members of Congress and senators endorsed her. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — himself a dream nominee for many Democrats who have hoped Biden would step aside — also came out in favor of Harris, as did California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Two big names — former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama — notably withheld endorsements. But with less than two months before early voting begins in the presidential election, Democrats may be deciding they don’t have time for further turmoil.

It’s also a reminder of the stark difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Trump took over the Republican Party on the strength of his personality and loyal following of party voters. Harris has been assiduously working the phones to key Democratic members of Congress to assemble a durable coalition. Democrats are still trying to balance multiple power centers.

The GOP only has one power center now.

Will the election be about Trump, or Harris, or someone else?
Normally, a president’s reelection campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. For months, Biden tried to make it about Trump.

When pushed in interviews about his own poor debate performance, Biden tried to counter it by highlighting Donald Trump’s deceptions. He made the perceived threat of another Trump presidency his big pitch to donors, saying that the Republican would end U.S. democracy. But after the debate, the framing quickly turned to Biden, and whether he had the capacity to serve another four years.

Now Democrats hope Harris, at 59, can cast a spotlight on Trump, who is just three years younger than Biden.

The GOP made no secret that it preferred to run against Biden, but it’s pivoting to attack Harris in similar ways. Republicans are already criticizing Harris for defending Biden’s ability to do his job over the past several years. They’re tying her to the least popular aspects of Biden’s presidency, like border policy and immigration. During last week’s GOP convention, speaker after speaker called Harris the “border czar” — which has never been her title, but was shorthand for how Biden tasked her with handling immigration early in his term.

Voters: Are you happy now?
The one constant since Trump announced in November of 2022 has been voters pleading, begging for a different matchup.

The desire is clear in both polls and conversations with regular voters. In late 2023, an AP-NORC poll found that 58% would be unhappy with Trump as the GOP nominee and 56% with Biden. Democrats were more likely to be dissatisfied with Biden then Republicans with Trump.

The problem for the replace-Biden movement is no single candidate captured the imagination of Democratic voters. Running essentially unopposed, Biden cleaned up in the Democratic primary. It wasn’t until the June 27 debate that Democratic powerbrokers began to listen to voters’ unease.

Now there’s a different election. But the question remains — will voters be happy about a fresher face? Or will they treat Harris like they did Biden, either because they see her as tightly connected to him or because their unhappiness wasn’t just about the re-run of the 2020 race, but other factors in American life?

A new battle over a diverse electorate?
The main contours of the presidential race were set with Trump’s announcement in November of 2022. Now, if Democrats choose Harris, those battle lines come into much sharper focus. Harris, as the nation’s first Black woman vice president, and first of South Asian descent, has the potential to generate an overperformance among women, particularly women of color, while Trump will try to do the same among white men.

But Trump isn’t putting all his eggs in a single demographic basket. After performing better than expected with Latinos in 2020 his campaign has been trying to boost his numbers with that ethnicity even more and also targeting Black voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s hold on older white voters — who are more likely to cast ballots — kept him competitive.

Will Harris be able to blunt Trump’s potential gains among more diverse parts of the electorate? Will she be able to replicate her boss’ strength in Rust Belt states where white voters are disproportionately powerful? Can she put in play states like Georgia and North Carolina that have a higher share of Black voters?

Any changes between Harris’ coalition and Biden’s are likely to be small, but this election is likely to be close and turn on tiny shifts in the electorate.

Will Harris be able to make a second first impression?
Harris has long been an electoral mystery. She has the resume of a top-of-the-line electoral juggernaut — female career prosecutor of racially mixed descent, quick and charismatic. But she’s underperformed in the races she ran in California. Though she won her statewide contests, she usually didn’t get as many votes as other Democrats running statewide.

The nadir came in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Harris ended up dropping out before voting began to preserve her viability after doing so poorly in the initial stretch of the race.

Harris’ checkered electoral history may have been a factor on Democratic disquiet about Biden, because they didn’t trust his heir apparent to beat Trump. They now may have no choice but to believe in her and have been encouraged by her sharper, clearer attacks on the Republican nominee recently.

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