Donald Trump’s political history is easy to summarize. Polls leading up to the 2016 and 2020 general election underestimated his support. In 2016, that was largely because his support increased sharply in the final week of the contest. In 2020, the polls were simply further from the mark.

In both elections, though, he got similar levels of support: 46 percent of the vote in 2016 and 47 percent in 2020. The first time around, the Democrat — Hillary Clinton — got only 48 percent, thanks to third-party candidates. That was enough to squeeze Trump into the White House. In 2020, though, very little of the other 53 percent of the vote went to anyone but Joe Biden. Hence: President Biden.

This pattern actually extends a bit beyond those two general elections, in fact. Trump has the remarkable distinction of being elected president in 2016 after getting less than 50 percent of his party’s primary votes and less than 50 percent of the vote in the general election. He fared far better with his party’s voters in 2020 and 2024, but Trump has otherwise been, rather ironically, a president of the minority.

That seemed as though it was likely to change this year. Trump’s support in national polling has almost never been at or above 50 percent, with only 2 percent of polls catalogued by RealClearPolitics in 2016 and only 1 percent in 2020 indicating majority support for the Republican candidate. In 2024, though, Trump was pulling in 50 percent or more of support in 1 in 5 polls — at least until Biden opted not to run for reelection. A few polls showed him lingering over 50 percent once his opponent became Vice President Kamala Harris, but now he’s back where he was late in the previous two presidential elections.

Of course, as noted at the outset, Trump’s position in the polls understated his actual support in 2016 and 2020. If we average all of the poll results in the RealClearPolitics data — not accounting for poll reliability — you can see the patterns. The steady improvement in 2016. The miss in 2020. And Trump in polling over the past few weeks coming in at about that same 47 percent mark.

The state of the race now? In RealClearPolitics’ average, Trump is at — 47 percent, down from 48 when Biden dropped out. Trump trails Harris by about 3 points in Nate Silver’s (weighted) polling average, getting about 44 percent of the vote. In 538’s (weighted and more selective) average, he trails by about the same amount, with an average of 43 percent of the vote. In The Washington Post’s (far more selective) average, Harris has a smaller lead.

Harris’s nomination is still new and her support is buoyed in part by the enthusiasm surge among Democrats. That surge, in fact, helps explain why she’s doing better against Trump than was Biden: Democrats who were flirting with a third-party candidate have increasingly come home and they are also presumably more likely now to want to participate in polling in the first place. That enthusiasm edge will probably last for a while, given that the Democratic National Convention is next week.

Regardless, swapping Biden for Harris clearly reshaped the race. But it isn’t necessarily that the race is now bounded by new parameters and expectations. Instead, it seems as if it is newly bounded by the old parameters; Trump’s unusual strength against Biden seems to have waned against Harris.

No wonder Trump is spending time wishcasting that Biden would retake the nomination at the convention. Running against Biden, Trump actually had a majority of voters backing his candidacy with some regularity. No longer.

An attorney involved in efforts to upend the results of the 2020 election was arrested in federal court in Washington this week and ordered to turn herself in to authorities in Michigan as civil and criminal cases involving claims of voter fraud collided.

Stefanie Lambert’s arrest came more than a week after officials had issued a bench warrant for failing to appear for a hearing in her criminal case in Michigan, where she is charged with illegally breaching voting machines, and days after she came under scrutiny for the release of documents as the attorney for an ally of former president Donald Trump in a federal defamation case.

Lambert was held at a D.C. detention center as a “fugitive from justice” until Tuesday, when a judge released her on an unsecured $10,000 bond with orders to turn herself in to the police in Michigan by Wednesday or face rearrest.

“As long as there is still a warrant out for your arrest, you can continue to be arrested over and over again,” D.C. Superior Court Judge Heide L. Herrmann told Lambert at her bail review hearing. The judge added, “If you don’t appear, you will owe $10,000.”

Lambert was in D.C. federal court Monday representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for repeatedly and falsely saying the company’s machines were used to tamper with votes in 2020. But she was the one being questioned, asked why she made public thousands of Dominion documents she had sworn to keep confidential.

Right before her arrest, Lambert admitted that she used the Dominion documents to argue that the case against her in Michigan is illegitimate. She said she also shared them with a southwestern Michigan sheriff who was investigated as part of the alleged voting machine plot. Over 2,000 pages of the documents were put on the social media site X over the weekend by an account using the sheriff’s name and photograph.

Dominion attorney Davida Brook said in court that “the cat is out of the bag” and there is no hope of getting those papers out of the public domain. But she said Lambert should be removed from the defamation case and face penalties for violating court rules and fueling fresh violent threats against Dominion employees.

“It has been nearly four years. When does it stop?” Brook asked the court. She said the company sued Byrne and others “to stop the lies, to end the threats of violence.” Now, she said, Lambert was “using these very lawsuits … to spread yet more lies and do yet more harm.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya said she needed more time to decide whether Lambert should be disqualified as Byrne’s attorney. But the judge said that in the meantime, both Lambert and Byrne could not have access to any of Dominion’s records, and that Lambert must move to seal the Michigan court document containing them.

After the hearing ended, the other attorneys left while Lambert was asked by the judge to stay behind. Several U.S. Marshals then entered the courtroom and locked the door behind them.

Lambert’s Michigan defense attorney, Daniel Hartman, said Monday that her failure to appear in court in Michigan “was not willful.” Instead he said it was because of “mixed messages” about whether she had to get fingerprinted while challenging the court’s orders. Just before Lambert appeared in court in D.C., Hartman asked the Michigan judge to reconsider the warrant for her arrest, calling the whole case a “tragedy.”

In a filing Monday, prosecutors in Michigan said they had tried to avoid having Lambert arrested “for fear that would unnecessarily traumatize her children.” But, they said, she “has been given several opportunities to turn herself in and has failed to do so,” and that there was no ambiguity about her requirement to show up in court.

In a civil suit, both sides are required to exchange evidence that might be relevant at trial. But in the Dominion case as in most, all the attorneys involved — including Lambert — signed a protective order not to share the material in any way unless the judge agrees it should be public.

Lambert argued in court that she was under no obligation to adhere to the protective order because the emails contained “evidence of a crime,” suggesting the situation was analogous to being handed “a dead body” as part of the case files. Specifically, she alleged that they were proof that “Dominion conspired with foreign nationals in Serbia” to undermine the U.S. election system. Dominion’s attorneys responded that this was a “xenophobic conclusion” based only on the fact that the company has some overseas employees. A Dominion spokeswoman added in an email that “any allegation that Dominion employees anywhere tried to interfere with any election is flatly false.”

Lambert only recently became Byrne’s lead attorney in Washington, but she said in court that she had been helping with the case since late last year and gained access to the documents sometime “after the holidays.” Given that she had them for weeks, if not months, Upadhyaya said “the dead body analogy rings hollow.” But she said she needed more time and more information before sanctioning Lambert. Her focus on Monday, she said, was “to prevent further bleeding” by figuring out who had access to Dominion’s information.

Lambert said in court that she gave only Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf access to the files, which Brook said totals over a million pages. But Lambert said Leaf shared the documents with other sheriffs and members of Congress. Leaf, who has not been charged in the Michigan case but is fighting a subpoena, did not return a request for comment. Lambert added that Byrne shared the documents with “the U.S. attorney’s office.” She said she did not know which one; there are nearly 100 U.S. attorneys running federal prosecutors’ offices across the country.

Lambert argued that Byrne is “a national intelligence asset” who was entitled to share “national security information” with law enforcement. Byrne left the company he founded in 2019 after saying he had been instructed by the FBI to pursue a romantic relationship with Maria Butina, a Russian national convicted that year of being an unregistered foreign agent. (Former FBI officials have called that assertion “ridiculous.”) Byrne has since become a prominent source of false claims about the last election, and he met with Trump and others at the White House to discuss ways to keep Joe Biden from taking office.

Byrne did not appear in court Monday; Upadhyaya said he must come to the next hearing to answer questions about what he did with the Dominion papers. Asked about the documents, he said by text message: “I’m just a humble concerned citizen.”

Dominion was alerted to the leaks by Byrne’s previous attorney, Robert Driscoll, who also represented Butina. In an email made public in court filings, he said he had learned about the leaks through social media and “asked Ms. Lambert to take immediate steps and reasonable efforts to prevent further disclosure of Confidential Discovery Material.”

Lambert was involved in former Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s unsuccessful lawsuits to block certification of the 2020 election results, and records indicate both were involved in efforts to access voting machine data in Georgia as well as Michigan. Powell has pleaded guilty in Georgia state court to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. A description of an unindicted co-conspirator in the Georgia case, in which Trump and others are described as engaging in a racketeering scheme, matches Lambert.

Lambert’s criminal trial was set to begin April 1, but prosecutors say her recalcitrance has forced a delay. They added that they may now seek to have her detained until trial because she did not voluntarily turn herself in on the bench warrant.

A trial date has not been set in the Dominion case. The company last year settled a similar suit with Fox News for $787 million, and is also suing former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Powell along with the right-wing television station OAN and the pillow businessman Mike Lindell.

LOS ANGELES — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back on GOP attacks on his military service and the timing of his departure from the Army National Guard during his first solo campaign appearance a week after being named Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

During a speech Tuesday before one of the nation’s largest public sector unions, the longtime National Guard member took a moment to address recent scrutiny of his military record by former president Donald Trump and his allies, including his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).

“I firmly believe you should never degenerate another person’s service record,” Walz said at the convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). “To anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words: thank you for your service and sacrifice.”

Walz served for more than two decades in the Army National Guard and his military service was likely viewed as an asset by Harris when she chose Walz as her running mate. But at least three of Walz’s former Guard colleagues have publicly voiced disappointment about his decision to leave the service when the unit was preparing to go to war in Iraq. Walz ultimately chose to leave the guard in 2005 to run for Congress and won a House seat the following year.

On Tuesday, Walz noted that he signed up for the Army National Guard two days after his 17th birthday with encouragement from his father, who served in the Army during the Korean War, and he said he did so because of his love for his country.

“In 2005, I felt the call of duty again, this time giving service to my country in the halls of Congress,” Walz said on Tuesday. “My students inspired me to run for that office, and I was proud to make it to Washington. I was a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee and a champion of our men and women in uniform. I’m going to say it again as clearly as I can, I am damn proud of my service to this country.”

The Trump campaign has tried to capitalize on the controversy over the timing of Walz’s retirement. And Trump allies have also focused fresh scrutiny of Walz’s comments during a 2018 gubernatorial campaign event where he stated “we can make sure those weapons of war that I carried in war” are not on America’s streets. A campaign spokesman acknowledged Friday that Walz “misspoke” during the 2018 exchange.

Walz did not serve in combat, according to the Minnesota Army National Guard. Vance, who is also a veteran, has specifically drawn attention to that 2018 comment: “When were you ever in a war?” Vance said at a recent campaign event in Michigan in comments directed to Walz.

After Walz said that he would never denigrate the service of a fellow veteran, Vance responded to him on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Hi Tim, I thank you for your service,” Vance wrote. “But you shouldn’t have lied about it. You shouldn’t have said you went to war when you didn’t. Nor should you have said that you didn’t know your unit was going to Iraq. Happy to discuss more in a debate.”

The Minnesota Governor’s address to AFSCME, that otherwise largely focused on how Democratic policies would benefit working class voters, underscored the fierce battle for the loyalty of blue-collar voters that is underway between Harris and Trump.

Before President Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the presidential race this summer, some polls suggested that support for the Democratic ticket was softening among working-class voters. On the campaign trail, Trump had repeatedly faulted Biden for the rise in prices due to inflation.

Trump has also strategically courted key labor leaders as he has attempted to drive a wedge between union leaders and rank-and-file members, who he has argued should be more receptive to his candidacy. He attended a meeting with the Teamster union in January and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien was one of the featured speakers at the Republican National Convention, though he did not endorse Trump.

As Harris and Walz try to solidify their relationship with organized labor in this new phase of the campaign, Harris unveiled a proposal last week to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers. Trump first proposed eliminating taxes on tips in June during a rally in Las Vegas.

Walz offered harsh criticism of the records of both Trump and Vance on Tuesday, arguing that they would “wage war on workers” if they are elected in November. Walz, a former teacher and football coach, highlighted his own union membership in his remarks, telling the crowd as he opened his remarks that he was “the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan.” (Trump was a member of the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists but resigned after leaders considered removing him for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.)

Walz questioned whether Vance “was a value add to this campaign or not” and mocked Trump’s work ethic — asking the boisterous and receptive audience to imagine whether Trump would make it as a worker at McDonald’s.

“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s, trying to make a McFlurry or something?” Walz asked. “He couldn’t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.”

He later said Vance “has never cast a vote on a pro-worker bill in his life.”

“The only thing those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them,” Walz said.

A pro-Trump lawyer facing criminal charges for illegally accessing Michigan voting machines after the 2020 election was disqualified Tuesday from representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne after a judge found her and Byrne responsible for leaking up to 1 million confidential records turned over in a separate defamation lawsuit.

Stefanie Lambert was barred from representing Byrne, a prominent funder of adherents of election misinformation, in a $1.6 billion damages lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, the target of false attacks over former president Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya of Washington disqualified Lambert over violations beginning last March with her disclosure of Dominion emails to a county sheriff in southwestern Michigan and to a court filing in her own criminal case in Michigan, despite a court order requiring that records in the defamation case be kept confidential.

“The record clearly shows that Lambert deliberately violated multiple court rules and orders and continues to do so despite having had ample warning of the consequences and assuring the Court she would comply,” Upadhyaya said, raising the “serious concern” that she joined Byrne’s legal team “for the sheer purpose of gaining access to and publicly sharing Dominion’s protected discovery.”

The judge wrote that Lambert’s “truly egregious misconduct” warranted disqualification because it had already marred and would undoubtedly continue to “infect future proceedings.”

Byrne also violated confidentiality orders in the case, the judge wrote, but the scope of his actions and any penalties sought by Dominion were to be determined.

The courtroom punishment shows how legal consequences continue to pile up for many allies who amplified Trump’s false 2020 election claims 3½ years after he attempted to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory, even as top Republicans led by Trump have refused to commit to accept November’s election results with 12 weeks to go until Election Day.

Still, Byrne — who has funded efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election — has continued to attempt to use evidence disclosed in the litigation to push false accusations against Dominion, while claiming that law enforcement would face “a piano wire and a blowtorch” if they did not drop a case against an ally, who a Colorado jury found guilty on Monday.

Lambert said Tuesday that Byrne will file an “immediate appeal” of Upadhyaya’s decision. Byrne did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dominion has won settlements of $787.5 million from Fox News for airing baseless claims that its voting machines were used to rig the 2020 election against Trump and for Biden, and it has sued seeking similar $1 billion-plus damage payouts from Byrne, conservative businessman Mike Lindell, and former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

In December, Byrne hired Lambert, a lawyer who tried to upend Trump’s loss in Michigan and who is also known as Stefanie Lambert Junttila. She was charged in August 2023 with four state felony counts of accessing voting machines in 2020 in a fruitless search for evidence of a conspiracy theory against Trump. Lambert’s repeated defiance of court authorities while under criminal prosecution have created more drama in the key 2024 swing state and in D.C., where her civil and criminal cases have become entangled.

Lambert did not appear for a March 7 hearing in her criminal case, prompting a bench warrant for her arrest. She was taken into custody by U.S. marshals in Washington after a hearing in Byrne’s civil case March 19 and was released on an unsecured $10,000 bond by a D.C. Superior Court judge. She was ordered to turn herself in to the police in Michigan.

Right before her arrest, Lambert admitted in Byrne’s case that despite a court order to protect the confidentiality of Dominion records in the case, she shared some with Dar Leaf, a county sheriff in southwestern Michigan who was investigated as part of the alleged voting machine plot. More than 2,000 pages of the documents were posted to an account under Leaf’s name on X the previous weekend. Lambert cited the contents of the disclosures to argue that the case against her in Michigan is illegitimate.

Dominion urged the court in Washington to remove her from the case, saying it sued Byrne and others “to stop the lies, to end the threats of violence” against its employees but that Lambert was “using these very lawsuits … to spread yet more lies and do yet more harm.” The company said Lambert’s actions “should shock the conscience” and continued to undermine the integrity of the legal and election systems.

Lambert alleged that they were proof that “Dominion conspired with foreign nationals in Serbia” to undermine the U.S. election system. Echoing his argument to the court, Byrne wrote on X that Lambert “signed an NDA, but she found evidence of ongoing crime, and reported it to law enforcement. If she found a severed head in discovery box she had a duty to report it to law-enforcement, too.”

Dominion’s attorneys responded that this was a “xenophobic conclusion” based only on the fact that the company has some overseas employees. A company spokeswoman added in an email that “any allegation that Dominion employees anywhere tried to interfere with any election is flatly false.”

Lambert argued that Byrne was entitled to share “national security information” with law enforcement. Byrne left the company he founded in 2019.

Byrne has since become a prominent source of false claims about the past election, and he met with Trump and others at the White House to discuss ways to keep Biden from taking office.

Dominion was alerted to the leaks by Byrne’s former attorney, Robert Driscoll, who told the court that he learned about the disclosures through social media and asked Lambert to prevent them. He and his firm left Lambert’s case March 12 but continue to represent him in other matters.

Lambert was involved in former Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s unsuccessful lawsuits to block certification of the 2020 election results, and records indicate both were involved in efforts to access voting machine data in Georgia and Michigan. Powell has pleaded guilty in Georgia state court to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. A description of an unindicted co-conspirator in the Georgia case, in which Trump and others are described as engaging in a racketeering scheme, matches Lambert.

Separately on May 9, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced additional felony charges against Lambert and former Adams Township clerk Stephanie Scott, alleging that they accessed voting systems without authorization in search of fraud. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Lambert is tentatively set for trial in her first Michigan case in October. Trial dates have not been set in her second case or in Dominion’s case against Byrne.

NEW ORLEANS — President Joe Biden announced $150 million in additional funding for cancer research during a Tuesday visit to Louisiana, a rare public appearance since announcing he would not seek reelection on July 21, and one that hints that he may focus the remainder of his tenure on issues that are especially close to his heart.

The cancer “moonshot,” originally started in 2016 and relaunched two years ago, is aimed at halving cancer deaths by 2047 and improving the lives of people diagnosed with the disease. Biden’s oldest son, Beau, died of an aggressive brain cancer in 2015 at age 46, and the president routinely infuses speeches on health policy with anecdotes about his son’s ordeal and his family’s experience as caregivers watching a loved one succumb to illness.

“Imagine bringing innovations to all communities nationwide,” Biden told the crowd gathered at Tulane University, which will receive millions of dollars in funding as part of Tuesday’s announcement. “It’s not just personal, it’s probable.”

Biden, 81, announced late last month that he would not seek reelection to a second term, following a presidential debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump during which he repeatedly stumbled and sometimes had difficulty finishing his sentences. That prompted fears among many Democrats that he would struggle to defeat Trump; Biden ultimately ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since then, Biden — who, before pulling out, had been crisscrossing the country in an effort to show that he had the energy to conduct a robust campaign — has significantly scaled back his public schedule. His only other public event this week will be a joint appearance with Harris on Friday, as the two leaders deliver an economic message in suburban Maryland.

Biden spent last weekend at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and is planning to spend next weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. He is slated to speak next Monday on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He will then depart for vacation as the rest of the Democratic Party celebrates Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and outlines its goals and values to the country.

At Monday’s White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would devote the bulk of his remaining time in office to focusing on “initiatives that have been a key part … of his platform and how he wants to deliver for the American people.” She identified the economy, health care and foreign policy as areas where Biden will concentrate his energies.

The American people are “at the center of everything that he does, making sure we deliver for them, give them a little bit breathing room, and deal with issues that matter to them,” Jean-Pierre said.

Biden is also likely to continue facing his share of foreign policy challenges. Earlier this month, he announced a complex prisoner swap that brought several long-imprisoned Americans home from Russia. The White House is now closely watching events in the Middle East, where tensions have been growing between Israel and Iran amid a devastating war in Gaza.

Still, it is clear that much of the nation’s attention has shifted from Biden to Harris, as she travels the country holding rallies that have been greeted enthusiastically by Democratic voters. Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s press briefing by noting that there were “a lot of empty seats back there in the press briefing room.” And while Harris has been addressing overflow crowds of thousands of voters, Biden’s event Tuesday was attended by about 100 people.

Biden has talked about renewing the cancer moonshot — named after former president John F. Kennedy’s successful push to put Americans on the moon within a decade — since he was on the campaign trail in 2020, stressing that the United States has the medical and technological wherewithal to make strides against a disease anticipated to kill more than 600,000 Americans this year. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in America.

In its first two years, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), as it is officially known, has distributed more than $400 million to programs that prevent, detect and treat cancer.

The $150 million in ARPA-H spending that Biden announced Tuesday will go to researchers who are trying to more effectively remove tumors from cancer patients. The $23 million going to Tulane University will be used to create an imaging system that surgeons can use to scan a tumor during surgery, so they can determine if any cancer tissue has been left behind.

“Currently, it can take days to weeks before a surgeon knows whether all the tumor has been removed, and our goal is to get that down to 10 minutes, while the patient is still on the table,” J. Quincy Brown, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Tulane, said in a news release. “If successful, our work would transform cancer surgery as we know it.”

Biden heralded the potential advance as a step forward in a course of treatment that can often come down to an agonizing race against the clock.

“Imagine cancer surgery that removes all the cancer the first time,” Biden said. “Compare that to today. … As we all know, cancer surgery is one of the most challenging surgeries.”

Former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has won the Democratic nomination to replace the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), making Turner her likely successor next year in the heavily Democratic district that she represented for nearly three decades.

Democratic precinct chairs in the 18th Congressional District on Tuesday night picked Turner to take Jackson Lee’s place on the November ballot after she died last month. Turner faced five opponents in the first round of voting before advancing to a runoff against Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member who ran against Jackson Lee in the March primary. Turner defeated Edwards 41 to 37 percent in an unusual runoff.

The election was conducted by the local Democratic Party, which gathered the precinct chairs who make up the 18th District. There was an initial round of voting where each precinct chair publicly announced their choice to the room. No candidate received a majority of the vote, triggering a unique runoff in which precinct chairs physically sorted themselves to indicate whether they supported Turner or Edwards.

There is also a Nov. 5 special election to finish Jackson Lee’s unexpired term, which goes until January. Her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, who did not vie for the replacement nomination Tuesday, announced Monday she would run in the special election; Turner is not expected to do so.

Jackson Lee, 74, died July 19 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Vice President Kamala Harris eulogized Jackson Lee at a funeral in Houston earlier this month, calling her a “force of nature.”

Turner was seen as the front-runner for the replacement nomination. He had the support of Jackson Lee’s two children, including Lee Carter, as well as at least 30 precinct chairs who publicly backed him ahead of Tuesday’s vote. The first round of voting was nonetheless close, with Turner taking 35 votes to 34 for Edwards.

Turner is a veteran Houston politician and reliable supporter of Democratic policies. His No. 1 platform plank was to “keep federal resources flowing” after Jackson Lee’s death to address issues in the district such as rising prices and reproductive rights.

“This is a critical moment, and it demands relationships and experience right now,” Turner told precinct chairs.

Edwards pitched herself as part of a new generation of leadership that would “build upon the strength of the congresswoman’s office and legacy but move us forward.”

“We just saw our very own president, President Joe Biden, step aside and make room for Vice President Kamala Harris to emerge as our new presidential nominee,” Edwards said in her final speech of the night. “Let us make this moment … count.”

Turner was Houston mayor from 2016 until January of this year, when he left office due to term limits. He previously served for 27 years in the Texas House of Representatives.

Jackson Lee ran to succeed Turner as mayor last year, but lost to a fellow Democrat, state Sen. John Whitmire, in a runoff. Turner endorsed Jackson Lee in the runoff.

The Nov. 5 special election to complete Jackson Lee’s term will coincide with the general election in Texas. The winner of the special election will probably serve for a short time, especially if no candidate receives more than a majority of the vote and a runoff is needed. The candidate filing deadline for the special election is Aug. 22.

Vice President Kamala Harris aims to share the campaign trail vibes with the public in Chicago next week with free manicures, friendship bracelet making and campaign training at the city’s convention center.

The daytime programing, dubbed “DemPalooza” by party bosses, will take place at the McCormick Place convention center, about 5 miles from the United Center where more than 4,000 credentialed delegates will gather Monday through Thursday for nightly televised celebrations of their presidential ticket. No credential is required to pass through the security perimeter at the convention center, party officials said.

“It’s a party and everyone is invited,” said Roger Lau, deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

The giveaways and celebratory atmosphere are a tactic Democrats and independent groups supporting them have been using this year to recruit volunteers and interest disaffected voters in the coming elections. Outside organizations have been experimenting with dance parties, concerts, free beer and birth control giveaways to engage voters, while the Biden-Harris campaign has used bracelet making and bingo nights to engage voters.

“DemPalooza” will take place alongside the regularly scheduled meetings of 33 Democratic Party caucuses and councils, events that are expected to draw elected speakers. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) are scheduled to address different groups at the convention center, along with the governors of Maryland, New Mexico and Massachusetts. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the youngest member of Congress, will stop by, along with Maryland Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, among others.

Unlike the arena events, which are open only to those with credentials, the off-site events are free, and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. There will be a space for live podcast tapings, and other performances, the DNC announced.

The site will also be a location for Harris campaign officials to offer training and briefings to the public. Briefing titles include “Cultivating a Unified Vision: Embedding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Progressive Politics,” “Investing in Communities: Biden-Harris Infrastructure Success Stories,” and “Everything You Need to Know About Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda,” even though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, a policy planning effort by the Heritage Foundation.

The campaign will also offer organizing training for volunteers, which uses a smartphone app to encourage people to contact their friends and family. There will be an expo and vendor space, with a display called “All Things Chicago,” highlighting the city’s different neighborhoods. A DNC news release says attendees will be able to get a ‘Kamala Harris’ manicure, but does not describe what a ‘Kamala Harris’ manicure entails.

“We are bringing together thought leaders, advocates, grassroots supporters, and every day Americans who want to get involved in our democratic process ahead of the most consequential election of our lifetime,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “Every day at the McCormick Center, thousands of Democratic leaders from across the country will come together to network, train, share ideas, and activate voters and volunteers.”

Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer, a lover of fava beans and a nice chianti, fictional — and now, a regular feature in Donald Trump’s speeches.

As the Republican presidential nominee riffed on immigration and the border at an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta, he declared: “They hate when I use Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The late, great Hannibal Lecter,” an apparent reference to the media.

During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last month, he asked: “Has anyone seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’? The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums.”

In Wildwood, N.J., on May 11, he told the crowd: “The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He’s a wonderful man. … Remember the last scene?” Trump went on to say: “We have people that are being released into our country that we don’t want in our country.”

Trump’s references to Lecter are at once consistent and nonsensical. He typically mentions the fictional serial killer in the context of immigration, claiming without evidence that migrants are coming in from insane asylums and mental institutions and often using dehumanizing language.

Around 1 percent of those arrested at the southern border have criminal convictions, federal data shows. There is little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crime than U.S. citizens do. Many migrants who cross the U.S. border seek political asylum here, but that term has nothing to do with mental illness. Trump has also spoken about Lecter before reading “The Snake,” a poem that he has used to convey an anti-immigrant message at his rallies and public events for years.

Yet the references to Lecter reveal something else about Trump: the era in which he rose to fame and his previous time as a celebrity. A Trump rally is a sort of time capsule, a frozen-in-amber moment from an earlier era — the 1980s — when Trump ruled the New York City clubs and tabloids and first graced the cover of Time magazine.

His self-curated rally playlists include hits like “Y.M.C.A.” (1978) and “Gloria” (1982). The fit of his suits and the length of his ties scream 1980s. He still has a penchant for gilded interior design. Trump Tower was completed in 1983.

Trump is the “crypt keeper for the 1980s,” which was “the high point of his life until he became president,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer who has criticized the former president.

“Every time he opens the door, people spill out from the 1980s, whether it’s Roger Stone or Rudy Giuliani, fashion from the ’80s spills out, whether it’s his monochrome tie or suits that invariably are made in two or three different colors … his office decor is still in the 1980s,” he said. “None of his tastes have been updated in decades.”

Trump’s Hannibal Lecter obsession fits perfectly in this mold. Thomas Harris’s novel “The Silence of the Lambs,” which the film is based on, hit bookstore shelves around the same time as Trump’s 1987 book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.” (The New York Times had the two books side by side on its paperback bestseller list in mid-1989.) The movie, which starred Jodie Foster as FBI cadet Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, came out in 1991 and became the first and only horror film to win the Academy Award for best picture.

A decade later, Trump attended the 2001 New York premiere of “Hannibal,” the sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs.” He arrived at the premiere with future wife Melania Trump, then Melania Knauss, according to a USA Today story. The story noted that the movie studio at the time was concerned about how women would react to the gore. Melania said she had “no problems” and didn’t close her eyes. Trump replied: “I did.”

Trump began working “The Silence of the Lambs” into speeches in March 2023. He mentioned the movie in an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference then, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches this cycle. Lecter himself did not make an appearance until an October rally in Waterloo, Iowa. In 70 speeches tracked by The Post between his campaign kickoff in November 2022 and Aug. 12, Trump has mentioned Lecter or the film “The Silence of the Lambs” in 20 of them. (Trump appeared to recognize the references to Lecter may be outdated, musing at a rally in Sioux City that “young people” hadn’t heard of him.)

The Lecter mentions are a way for Trump to continue “upping the ante” from his previous descriptions of migrants, said Gwenda Blair, another Trump biographer. It’s “not just criminals, rapists, which Trump has already used starting in 2015 … but let’s get cannibal in the mix.”

Trump “is somebody who understands images and branding, and Hannibal Lecter is a well-established brand of absolutely indescribable horror,” Blair added.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running for Senate, thinks there’s a simple explanation. “It was a great movie,” Banks said. “Widely recognized as one of the best movies of all time. And I think he enjoys that liberals get bent out of shape about it.”

Several people close to the Trump campaign said they did not know the backstory for Trump’s fixation on Lecter and had never asked. His speeches also seem to have perplexed Hopkins, the Welsh actor who won an Oscar for playing Lecter. In an interview with Deadline, Hopkins observed: “Hannibal, that’s a long time ago, that movie. God, that was over 30 years ago. I’m shocked and appalled what you’ve told me about Trump.”

In interviews at Trump’s rally in Atlanta, voters offered different interpretations.

“First time I heard it, I was like, ‘What?’ But after I heard it a couple of times, it was like, ‘Oh I get the connection now,’” said Jim Scandle, 72. “He’s trying to make the point that a lot of these people that are coming illegally in this country are from mental institutions, just like Hannibal Lecter. And so you know, it has nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter except the fact that he was in a mental institution.”

Bert Sandler, 66, laughed when asked about “The Silence of the Lambs.” (Sandler hasn’t seen the movie in “probably” six years but exclaimed, “With fava beans!” as he reflected on Trump’s comments.)

He had a more philosophical interpretation.

“I think he’s just speaking about where the world is today,” Sandler said. “I think that’s where we are, the divisiveness, I think he’s just trying to portray a character that’s pretty divisive and needed a lot of help, and I think America needs a lot of help.”

Debbie Courtney offered a shorter take: “I just think evil.” She added: “I don’t think he’s talking about somebody eating somebody for dinner.”

The Trump campaign did not offer further clarification about the former president’s penchant for mentioning Lecter or volunteer his personal positions on fava beans and chianti. Instead, Steven Cheung replied in a statement: “President Trump is an inspiring and gifted storyteller and referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters. Whereas, [Vice President Kamala Harris] is as relatable as a worn-out couch.”

Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.

In 1908, a White mob incited a race riot in Springfield, Ill., leaving several people dead, hundreds injured and dozens of Black-owned businesses and homes burned and destroyed.

On Friday, President Joe Biden will designate a national monument to commemorate the violent event, the White House confirmed to The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Biden, aiming to bolster his record on racial justice as he prepares to leave office in January, will sign the designation proclamation during an event at the White House with civil rights leaders and Illinois lawmakers. The proclamation, which has not previously been reported, will come during the 116th anniversary of the riot.

It also follows the fatal July 6 shooting of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old unarmed Black woman in south Springfield, by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy. Massey’s death has reignited a reckoning in her hometown and across the country over police brutality against Black Americans — four years after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police sparked global protests over racial inequality.

Four lawmakers from Illinois — Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D) and Dick Durbin (D) and Reps. Nikki Budzinski (D) and Darin LaHood (R) — introduced legislation to create the national monument under the National Park Service. But the measure has stalled amid the gridlock on Capitol Hill in an election year.

Biden will bypass the gridlock by using his executive authority under the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that authorizes the president to protect lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans. He has designated five new national monuments and expanded four others, part of his ambitious plan to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.

The bipartisan bill “has stalled in the House, unfortunately, but the president’s action will make sure this monument will happen,” Durbin said, adding that the riot demonstrated that “racism was not confined to the Confederate states. And I hope that Springfield, after the tragedy of Sonya Massey, will move forward to reduce and eliminate racism.”

Duckworth agreed that the monument could help spread awareness of the racial violence that occurred outside the Jim Crow-era South. “I don’t think people think of the Midwest, and especially Illinois, as a place where these horrific events in American civil rights history happened,” she said.

The riot began on the evening of Aug. 14, 1908, when a mob of roughly 5,000 White people gathered outside the city jail. Tensions rose as the mob called for releasing and lynching two Black male prisoners: George Richardson, who had been accused of raping a White woman, and Joe James, who had been accused of murdering a White man.

The sheriff, fearful of violence, secretly removed the two prisoners through a back door and put them on a train to a jail in Bloomington, Ill. Then he announced that the prisoners were gone, assuming the crowd would disperse.

He was sorely mistaken. Members of the mob, angry that they had been tricked, rampaged through the city’s Black neighborhoods, looting and destroying dozens of Black-owned businesses and homes. At least nine Black residents died, including two who were lynched: Scott Burton, a barber, and William Donnegan, a cobbler and conductor on the Underground Railroad.

The financial losses from the violence totaled $150,000, or more than $5 million in today’s dollars. The Illinois National Guard was eventually called in to restore order.

Two weeks after the riot, Mabel Hallam, the White woman who had accused Richardson of rape, recanted her claims, and the charges against Richardson were dropped. James was sentenced to death and executed, despite little evidence linking him to the murder.

The riot had immediate ripple effects; It led the founding of the NAACP in 1909. But more than a century later, some Black residents of Springfield say the community has literally and metaphorically buried the horrific incident in its past. The site of the riot has been paved over for a parking lot, and the incident is not taught in Springfield public schools.

“When you cover things up, the wound will eventually fester like a raisin in the sun,” said Ken Page, president of the Springfield chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “There is now an opportunity for schoolchildren to visit that site and also to understand it. … I think it’s extremely important for us to know our history so that we do not repeat it.”

Physical traces of the riot recently resurfaced in a surprising way. In 2014, an archaeological dig for a high-speed-rail project uncovered the foundations of five houses that burned down in the riot, along with artifacts from their occupants.

Floyd Mansberger, director of Fever River Research, which conducted the archaeological work, said his team found several artifacts that helped counter racist and inaccurate reporting by early-20th-century newspapers, which described the city’s Black residents as “disreputable” and “living in huts and shanties.”

For example, the firm found three military medals that belonged to a young Black man named Robert Wright, who had enlisted in the 8th Infantry Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, the nation’s first all-Black officer corps. The team also uncovered the burned remains of a book, clothing and jewelry — including a 14-carat gold wedding ring — that belonged to a young Black woman named Bessie Black.

“The archaeology really helps us understand the reality of who these people were versus the perception of who these people were,” Mansberger said. “And that goes to great lengths to help us learn who was impacted by this horrific event and how we can move forward.”

An ongoing fight

Springfield, the capital of Illinois and a city of roughly 110,000, is known for its connections to two U.S. presidents who made history on issues of race: Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. They both launched their political careers in Springfield, and tributes to them are everywhere.

But in recent weeks, the city has made national news for a different, darker reason — Massey’s death. On July 6, Massey called 911 to report a possible intruder in her home in south Springfield. Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell and Deputy Sean Grayson responded to the call after midnight.

According to body-camera footage, Massey lifted a pot of boiling water from the stove, and Grayson said he was stepping back “away from your hot steaming water.”

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” Massey said in response.

Grayson warned Massey not to rebuke him and threatened to shoot her in the face. Then he drew his gun, ordered her to drop the pot and fired at least two shots at her.

Massey was pronounced dead in the same hospital as Donnegan, the Black cobbler who was lynched during the 1908 race riot. According to her family, Massey was also a direct descendant of Donnegan — a “tragic parallel,” said Cedric Haynes, vice president of policy and legislative affairs for the NAACP.

The day before Massey was shot, her mother called 911 to report that her daughter was having a mental breakdown. The mother implored law enforcement officers not to harm her daughter, 911 recordings show.

Grayson, 30, is charged with first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty, saying he acted in self-defense. He has since been fired. In the face of public outcry, Campbell has said he will retire by the end of the month.

Austin Randolph, president of the Springfield chapter of the NAACP, said the community is still reeling from Massey’s death. He said the new monument could help bring greater attention to Black Americans’ ongoing struggle for equality and justice in Springfield and nationwide.

“Racism has not gone away — it’s been around for a long, long, long time,” Randolph said. “We must fight against racism, segregation, hatred and violence. And this monument will stand as a testament to fighting that battle.”