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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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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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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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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The decision by the Democrat came after building pressure from lawmakers, donors, activists and voters within his own party who had concerns about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump in November’s election. The letter ended weeks of speculation after the 81-year old’s troubling performance at the June 27 presidential debate. Below is the text of the letter that Biden sent on his personal stationery:

My Fellow Americans,

Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.

Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most important climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved our Democracy. And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do — when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.

—

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Special counsel Jack Smith’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order is expected to tee up a court fight that might reach the U.S. Supreme Court and could result in the reinstatement of the indictment and even conceivably the reassignment of the case to a different judge.

There’s no scenario in which a revived prosecution could reach trial before the November election — and it presumably won’t take place at all in the event Trump is elected president and orders his Justice Department to dismiss it. Still, Cannon’s order ensures many more months of legal wrangling in a criminal case that became snarled over the last year by interminable delays.

“The only good thing about this is that it is finally a decision,” said Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. “The difficulty with Judge Cannon has been that she has made no decisions. She has simply sat on the case. And since she has made no decisions, there was nothing to appeal.”

The judge’s 93-page order held that Smith’s selection as special counsel violated the Constitution because he was named to the position directly by Attorney General Merrick Garland instead of being appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Prosecutors vigorously challenged that argument when it was raised by Trump’s lawyers, and filed a formal notice of appeal Wednesday to initiate the process.

It’s impossible to say whether the opinion will stand or be reversed on appeal, though other judges in other districts in recent years have reached opposite conclusions of Cannon, upholding the constitutionality of special counsels who were appointed by Justice Department leadership and funded by a permanent indefinite appropriation.

The Supreme Court, in a 50-year-old opinion involving President Richard Nixon, held that the Justice Department had the statutory authority to appoint a special prosecutor.

And even though Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised questions this month about the legality of Smith’s appointment, no other justice signed onto his concurring opinion in a case conferring broad immunity on former presidents.

The Smith team is likely to point to all of those court holdings in casting Cannon to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as an outlier who made not just a bad decision but one requiring swift reversal, said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law school professor.

A spokesman for Smith’s office, in announcing Monday that the Justice Department had authorized an appeal, said the opinion “deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel.”

But Jesse Panuccio, a former associate attorney general in the Trump administration Justice Department, said anger over Cannon’s opinion — which he called a “careful and scholarly” analysis — was misplaced.

“If you took out of the equation the derangement that comes from anyone analyzing anything that has to do with Trump and you just asked legal scholars 10 years ago, ‘Hey, are there any issues involving independent counsels, special counsels?’” he said, the answer would be yes.

Panuccio added: “I think this is a very serious issue, and it’s an issue frankly that when I was at the Justice Department, I had reservations about.”

Trump on Monday said the dismissal “should be just the first step” and the three other cases against him, which he called “Witch Hunts,” should also be thrown out.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has exasperated the Justice Department since even before the indictment was filed, meaning if prosecutors do seek her removal, they could presumably cite a laundry list of grievances with her handling of the case.

Weeks after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for classified documents in August 2022, Cannon granted a Trump team request to appoint an independent arbiter to review the seized records — a decision later overturned by a unanimous federal appeals panel. In April, prosecutors rebuked Cannon over potential jury instructions she floated that they said rested on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise.”

It is unclear if Smith’s team will seek to have Cannon reassigned in the event that the appeals court reinstates the case. A Smith spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday on that possibility. It’s an unusual request and one prosecutors in this case had avoided making.

But there is precedent for appeals courts taking that step, including in the same judicial district where the Florida case was charged.

“I think it would be quite a statement if the Circuit Court removes her from the case, but I think in this instance it would be warranted,” said Cheryl Bader, a Fordham University law school professor and former federal prosecutor. “There does seem to be a pattern of Judge Cannon bending over backwards to create delay and obstacles.”

In 1989, the 11th Circuit reinstated a criminal case in Florida of a man charged with trafficking counterfeit Rolex watches and reassigned the case to another judge after the trial judge described the case as “silly” and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

The court laid out three considerations for deciding whether to assign a case to a different judge, including whether such a move is “appropriate to preserve the appearance of justice” and “whether the original judge would have difficulty putting his previous views and findings aside.”

Gerhardt, the North Carolina professor, said he did not see a downside to Smith’s team making such a request.

“Judges do make bad decisions sometimes,” he said. “But not good judges do it more often than they should, and she’s done it more often than any judge should.”

But Panuccio said he didn’t think Cannon’s order gave Smith’s team sufficient cause to complain, especially given that Cannon’s position was backed by a member of the Supreme Court.

“I think Jack Smith would be flirting with fire if he were to make that request based on this opinion simply because he lost an issue,” he said.

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The Republican presidential ticket came together on Monday when Donald Trump named JD Vance as his running mate. In turning to the 39-year-old Ohio senator, the Republican nominee injected new energy into a campaign that has centered in recent weeks on questions of age following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.

The Republican National Convention opened less than 48 hours after Trump was the subject of a shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The shooting, which left Trump injured and one man dead, loomed over the convention with speakers expressing gratitude for the former president’s survival and resolved to win back the White House in November.

Here are some takeaways from the first day of the convention.

Trump made a powerful entrance
Just two days after a gunman tried to kill him, Trump walked into the convention hall with a bandage over his injured right ear as the singer Lee Greewood performed “God Bless the USA,” a regular feature of the former president’s rallies. Trump waved to the crowd and pumped his fist in the air, a regular gesture that has taken on new meaning after he made a similar motion from the stage as Secret Service agents whisked him to safety on Saturday.

The crowd stood and cheered with delight at the sight of their nominee. Trump, who is rarely left without words, made no formal comments. But the sight of him said plenty, offering a palpable reminder of the former president’s narrow miss from tragedy.

He then greeted his family before taking a seat between Vance and commentator Tucker Carlson.

The GOP’s Trump-era evolution was on full display

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is arguably responsible for the GOP’s biggest policy accomplishments, particularly in installing conservative judges at all levels of the judiciary. But that didn’t matter much to the Trump-friendly crowd at the RNC, which greeted the Kentucky Republican with boos — a tangible rejection of someone demonized as an establishment Republican who has insufficiently supported the former president.

Just a short while later, Vance enjoyed a much different reception. The second-youngest U.S. senator — and the first millennial to appear on a major party ticket — received raucous applause when he walked onto the convention floor for the first time as Trump’s running mate.

The dueling moments offered a window into the changes that have swept the GOP under Trump — bookending an era in which McConnell has gone from one of his party’s most powerful leaders and incisive tacticians to getting jeered on the convention floor by his own party’s activists.

Stylistically, McConnell and Vance couldn’t be much more different. Vance, an outspoken MAGA warrior, is one of Trump’s chief acolytes. McConnell, meanwhile, has an understated demeanor while his political sensibilities are rooted in the GOP of Ronald Reagan.

Without McConnell, however, the 39-year-old Vance’s political rise might not have been possible.

Two years ago, Vance was struggling to raise money and up against a well-funded Democratic opponent. McConnell’s super PAC swept in with more than $30 million in advertising spending.

Vance won and began his climb to prominence. McConnell, now in the twilight of his political career, will step down as the GOP’s Senate leader in November.

Unions are the GOP’s new friend?
For decades, Democrats have been the party of labor unions, while Republicans have been outwardly hostile to them.

But on the opening night of the RNC, Trump threw the doors of the convention open to International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who delivered the final speech of the night and singled out both major political parties for not doing enough for working people.

If it seems unusual for a president of a major labor union to address a major gathering of Republicans, that’s because it is. For decades the party has pushed anti-labor laws intended to curtail the ability of unions to organize.

But in his speech, which wasn’t always warmly received by Republicans in attendance, O’Brien said workers are being taken for granted and sold out to big banks, big tech, the corporate elite, as well as both parties in Washington.

His speech amounted to criticism of Biden, who often likes to boast that he’s “the most pro-union president in history.”

As Trump continues to scramble American politics and position himself as a champion of working people, O’Brien appeared to be making clear that Democrats shouldn’t take labor for granted.

“We are not beholden to anyone or any party,” O’Brien said.

Republicans spoke of unity — but leaned into hot-button social issues
The first night of the RNC was supposed to be about the economy, with the goal of uniting voters of all ideological persuasions who are frustrated by high prices. But some of the biggest applause lines came from harsh criticisms of transgender people.

It’s a reminder that cultural issues motivate the GOP base as much as financial ones. A trio of speakers unabashedly went after Democrats who have sought greater acceptance for transgender people. Of particular outrage to Republicans this year was Biden marking Transgender Day of Visibility. It happened to overlap with Easter in 2024, a byproduct of the Christian holiday being based off the lunar calendar.

To many in the LGBTQ+ community, it was a coincidence. But to many Republicans, it was an insult.

“They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “And let me state this clearly, there are only two genders.”

Other Republicans sought to make the issue a matter of fairness. Their argument was that it’s wrong to ask “girls” to compete against transgender athletes. The Biden administration proposed a rule in April that would prevent schools and colleges from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, a rule that was quickly challenged in court.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said at the convention it was all part of a “fringe agenda” that “includes biological males competing against girls.”

Rep. John James, R-Mich., tried to equate it to part of a broader critique of Democrats, saying that they promised to offer the country hope and had failed. “Our daughters were sold on hope, and now they’re being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms with biological males,” James said.

Republicans hit Biden hard on inflation
To hear Republicans tell it, inflation had crushed the U.S. economy and it’s all Biden’s fault.

The argument is a key message for voters who may have doubts about Trump’s ethics but still trust his economic judgment. None of the speeches at the convention offered much of a detailed explanation as to why prices went up. That would require acknowledging the broken supply chains after the pandemic as well as how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up food and energy costs. But Biden pushed through $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid and the GOP argued that Americans have suffered as a result by paying more for groceries and gasoline.

This was all about taking the troubling inflation data and ignoring the positives in the economy such as a strong job market and solid growth as the economy has recovered.

“So many American families have to live with so much less,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. “This is too high a price to pay for an administration that has brought us to such lows.”

But how would the GOP fix inflation?

The speakers never really gave a plan, other than simply returning Trump to the White House.

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Early on, he made one notable flub when he bobbled a reference to Vice President Kamala Harris. But for an hour, he largely held his own under intense questioning, eschewing any suggestion that he was in decline, no longer capable of leading the nation and too old to serve another term.

It was unclear whether the performance was enough to change the dynamic that has set in: A growing number of Democratic lawmakers, donors and celebrities are calling on him to step aside — not to mention the majority of voters expressing doubts that he is up to the job — and Biden is digging in, insisting he’s staying in the race and will win come November. And the longer the infighting continues, the less the Democrats are presenting a united front against Republican Donald Trump.

“If I slow down and I can’t get the job done, that’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it,” Biden said. “But there’s no indication of that yet — none.”

Yet even as he wrapped his news conference, the 81-year-old leader was confronting calls to step aside. In a statement released shortly after he walked offstage, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Biden should end his candidacy, considering his “remarkable legacy in American history.” Fifteen other House Democrats have called on him to make way for a new candidate.

Biden said he was willing to take another neurological assessment before the election, but only if his doctors recommended it. His last exam was in January and the results of it were released in February.

In his first exchange with reporters, Biden was asked about losing support among many of his fellow Democrats and unionists, and was asked about Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden was at first defiant, saying the “UAW endorsed me, but go ahead,” meaning the United Auto Workers. But then he mixed up Harris and Trump, saying, “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she wasn’t qualified.”

Trump weighed in live on Biden’s news conference with a post on his social media network of a video clip of the president saying “Vice President Trump.”

Trump added sarcastically, “Great job, Joe!”

Most of news conference was vintage Biden: He gave long answers on foreign policy and told well-worn anecdotes. He used teleprompters for his opening remarks on NATO, which ran about eight minutes. Then the teleprompters lowered and he took a wide range of questions from 10 journalists about his mental acuity, foreign and domestic policy and — mostly — the future of his campaign.

“I believe I’m the best qualified to govern and I think I’m the best qualified to win,” Biden said, adding that he will stay in the race until his staff says there’s no way he can win.

“No one’s saying that,” he said. “No poll says that.”

Biden has explained away his June 27 debate performance as a bad night following a grueling month of international travel. Since then, he’s been out in public more, talking with voters and answering reporters’ questions. He even looks considerably less pale than he did two weeks ago.

“I’m determined on running but I think it’s important that I allay fears — let them see me out there,” Biden said.

But his campaign on Thursday acknowledged he is behind, and a growing number of the president’s aides in the White House and the campaign privately harbor doubts that he can turn things around.

But they’re taking their cues from Biden, expressing that he is in 100% unless and until he isn’t, and there appears to be no organized internal effort to persuade the president to step aside. His allies were aware heading into the week that there would be more calls for him to step down, and they were prepared for it. But they felt like he met the moment Thursday, and demonstrated to lawmakers and the public he could do the job even though he’s not known as a polished speaker.

The news conference extended into prime-time television coverage, and the major TV networks broke into programming for it, meaning millions of Americans were likely to have seen it.

Campaign acknowledges president is behind but sees path to win
Earlier, Biden’s campaign laid out what it sees as its path to keeping the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the “clearest pathway” to victory.

The memo sought to brush back “hypothetical polling of alternative nominees” as unreliable and said such surveys “do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter.”

Meanwhile, the campaign has been quietly surveying voters on Harris to determine how she’s viewed among the electorate, according to two people with knowledge of the campaign who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to talk about internal matters.

The people said the polling was not necessarily to show that she could be the nominee in Biden’s place, but rather to better understand how she’s viewed. The research came after Trump stepped up his attacks against Harris following the debate, according to another person familiar with the effort. The survey was first reported by The New York Times.

The other major flub of the day
His other major flub of the day came before the press conference, while announcing a compact that would bring together NATO countries to support Ukraine. Biden referred to the nation’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” to audible gasps in the room. He quickly returned to the microphone: “President Putin — he’s going to beat President Putin … President Zelenskyy,” Biden said.

Then he said, “I’m so focused on beating Putin,” in an effort to explain the gaffe.

“I’m better,” Zelenskyy replied. “You’re a hell of a lot better,” Biden said back.

Biden campaign meets with senators
In an effort to bring together anxious lawmakers with Biden’s team, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer organized a meeting to discuss concerns and the path forward, but some senators groused they would prefer to hear from the president himself. In the Senate, only Peter Welch of Vermont has so far called for Biden to step out of the race.

The 90-minute conversation with the president’s team, which one person said included no new data, polling or game plan on how Biden would beat Trump, did not appear to change senators’ minds. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the closed door session.

The meeting was frank, angry at times and also somewhat painful, since many in the room know and love Biden, said one senator who requested anonymity to discuss the private briefing. Senators confronted the advisers over Biden’s performance at the debate and the effect on Senate races this year.

One Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said afterward: “My belief is that the president can win, but he’s got to be able to go out and answer voters’ concerns. He’s got to be able to talk to voters directly over the next few day.”

At the same time, influential senators are standing strongly with Biden, leaving the party at an impasse.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, told the AP he thinks Biden “is going to win this election. I think he has a chance to win it big.”

Sanders said he has been publicly critical of the campaign, and said Biden needs to talk more about the future and his plans for the country. “As we come closer to Election Day, the choices are very clear,” he said.

__ Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Farnoush Amiri and Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

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Lawyers for Walt Nauta, Trump’s personal valet, had asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss the indictment against their client. They argued, among other things, that Nauta was charged because of insufficient cooperation with prosecutors’ investigation and because of a personal animus that they say prosecutors harbored against one of Nauta’s attorneys.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has denied all the claims, and Cannon in her four-page order Saturday said Nauta had not met the high bar required to get the case dismissed.

Nauta and another co-defendant, Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, are accused of conspiring with Trump to conceal evidence from investigators as they sought to recover classified documents that were taken to the Palm Beach, Florida property after Trump’s presidency ended.

All three men have pleaded not guilty.

No trial date has been set in the case. Trump has also sought to dismiss the case, and Cannon pointedly noted at the conclusion of her order: “This Order shall not be construed as commenting on the merits of Defendant Trump’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment Based on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution or on any other motion pending before the Court.”

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The court delivered a 6-3 procedural ruling that left key questions still lingering about whether states can ban doctors from providing emergency abortions that save a woman from serious infection or organ loss.

Health and legal experts say Thursday’s order that divided the Supreme Court’s conservatives does nothing to protect pregnant women in other states with strict abortion bans, where state bans might conflict with a federal law that the Biden administration argues requires emergency abortions.

“The decision the Supreme Court released this morning doesn’t shed any light on how that conflict will or should be resolved,” said Joanne Rosen, the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Law and the Public’s Health.

Here is a look at emergency abortions in the U.S., the federal law that the Biden administration says requires hospitals to provide them, and why the debate on the legality of those abortions is far from resolved.

How often do pregnancies threaten a woman’s health?
Every year, about 50,000 women in the U.S. develop life-threatening complications during pregnancy, including sepsis, hemorrhaging or the loss of reproductive organs.

In rare cases with some of those complications, doctors might terminate the pregnancy, especially when there is no chance for a fetus to survive. For example, if a woman’s water breaks during the second trimester, a condition known as preterm premature rupture of membranes, the fetus may not be viable and continuing the pregnancy means that the patient may risk developing sepsis, an infection that can be deadly.

Sepsis and blood loss are some of the most common causes of maternal deaths in the U.S. Last year, nearly 700 women died while pregnant, giving birth or immediately following childbirth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Idaho doctors say at least a half-dozen pregnant women have been airlifted to get emergency treatment in other states since January when the strict abortion ban, which allows doctors to perform abortion if a woman’s life but not her health is at risk, took effect.

What protections does the federal law provide pregnant patients in emergency rooms?
The law, called t he Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act or “EMTALA,” requires emergency rooms to offer a medical exam if you turn up at their facility. The law applies to nearly all emergency rooms — any that accept Medicare funding.

Those emergency rooms are required to stabilize patients if they do have a medical emergency before discharging or transferring them to another hospital. And if the ER doesn’t have the resources or staff to properly treat that patient, staff members are required to arrange a medical transfer to another hospital, after they’ve confirmed the facility can accept the patient.

Hospitals that violate the federal law risk their Medicare funding and can face steep fines from the federal government.

Why are Idaho and the U.S. Supreme Court involved?
Since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration has told hospitals that abortion is considered stabilizing care that EMTALA requires.

The Biden administration sued Idaho over its strict abortion ban, which only allowed exceptions to save a woman’s life, arguing that the law prevented ER doctors from offering an abortion if a woman needed one in a medical emergency.

Attorneys for Idaho argued there’s no conflict between the state and federal law since Idaho allows doctors to perform an abortion if the woman’s life is at risk.

On Thursday, the justices reinstated a lower court order that had allowed hospitals in Idaho to perform emergency abortions to protect a pregnant patient’s health, saying that the U.S. Supreme Court got involved in the case too quickly.

What does the ruling mean for other states with strict abortion bans?
Very little – for now. The U.S. solicitor general has said several other states have abortion bans that are so strict, they might be in conflict with the federal law. But the Supreme Court didn’t directly address possible conflicts between the laws in its ruling.

Texas, for example, is suing the federal government over its guidance that says hospitals must provide abortions for women who need one in medical emergencies.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the administration in January, finding that EMTALA does not require Texas hospitals to provide abortions in emergency rooms. The Justice Department has appealed that decision.

“The availability of abortions in emergency medical cases in Texas will continue to be extraordinarily limited,” Rosen of Johns Hopkins said.

Doctors in states like Florida and Missouri have said they are afraid to treat patients with an abortion since the bans were enacted. The federal government has also found hospitals in those states have violated EMTALA in some cases where pregnant patients were turned away or not properly treated.

On Thursday, in a concurring opinion that also expressed dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued the court should have settled the debate for doctors and patients alike.

“For as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price,” Jackson said.

Could the Supreme Court revisit this issue?
Yes. With the Idaho case being sent back to the lower court and the Texas case under appeal, it’s an issue that could land back at the Supreme Court soon.

And six judges have now tipped their hand.

The court’s three liberal judges – Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor – said in their decision that the federal law says women should be able to get abortions in medical emergencies, despite state bans. Three conservative justices – Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas – disagreed that the federal law is that specific, and pointed out that it was written in a way that requires hospitals to treat the “unborn child.”

That leaves Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts in play.

“They don’t want to have to make a decision now,” said Rob Gatter, a law professor at St. Louis University, who is an expert on health policy. “That’s a recipe for saying, somebody else deal with this first, you get it wrong first, you give it a first try, let me see how this goes.”

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