Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee plan to transfer nearly $25 million to support down-ballot Democratic candidates in state and federal races this year, a significant boost to those efforts following record fundraising for her campaign this summer.

“If we want a future where every American’s rights are protected, not taken away; where the middle class is strengthened, not hollowed out; and a country where our democracy is preserved, not ripped apart, every race this November matters,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement Tuesday. “The Vice President believes that this race is about mobilizing the entire country, in races at every level, to fight for our freedoms and our economic opportunity.”

The funds include $10 million transfers to both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which are leading the efforts to win Democratic majorities next January on Capitol Hill.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which focuses on winning control of state legislative bodies, will receive $2.5 million, while the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association will each receive $1 million.

The Harris campaign has been flush since she took over the Democratic ticket, after weeks of poor fundraising earlier in the summer. The campaign announced in mid-August a $370 million reservation in television and digital advertising starting after Labor Day.

O’Malley Dillon announced Sunday that the campaign raised $540 million in six weeks, leaving the Harris operation with more than 2,000 staff and 312 offices in the battleground states in partnership with the Democratic National Committee, a far bigger footprint than the Trump campaign, which has put less emphasis on field organizing.

Democrats now control the Senate by a margin of 51 to 49 and have eight fewer seats than Republicans in the House.

Democrats are hoping that high turnout in blue states can help them retake the House this year, while the prospect of holding on to the Senate is more challenging. Republicans are all but guaranteed to win a Democratic-held seat in West Virginia this fall, and several other Democratic incumbents in states such as Ohio and Montana are in tough reelection fights.

“Like President Joe Biden before, when Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz enter the Oval Office, they’ll rely on strong partners from the Hill to state legislatures to move America forward,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “We must win at all levels of government, up and down the ballot, to safeguard our freedoms and continue our economic progress — be it in red, blue, or purple America.”

The 2024 presidential election will kick into yet another gear in the coming days, with the first ballots set to go out in North Carolina on Friday, a debate Sept. 10 and early voting starting in a handful of states shortly thereafter.

The battleground is coming into focus.

There are generally thought to be seven states that are the most in play: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But not all swing states are of equal importance. Two — Georgia and Pennsylvania — loom particularly large. It has a lot to do with math.

Donald Trump’s campaign ad strategy, in particular, appears increasingly focused on these two states. The political data firm AdImpact reported recently that his campaign spent more money in Georgia and Pennsylvania than it did in any other states through late August. According to numbers that AdImpact shared with The Washington Post on Tuesday, these two states also account for more than 81 percent of the Trump campaign’s remaining ad reservations through Election Day.

Pennsylvania ($71 million) and Georgia ($38.8 million) dwarf the other states’ ad reservations, with the third-largest being Arizona ($11.2 million).

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is targeting its war chest more evenly across the seven key states. But apart from the “blue wall” states in the North — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Georgia is its biggest investment. And Pennsylvania has long been the biggest spending target for both campaigns.

So why are these two states so important?

The most obvious reason is the sheer number of electoral votes available. Among the seven states mentioned above, Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Georgia (16) and North Carolina (16) are the biggest prizes.

But it’s also because those electoral votes happen to be just enough for Trump. If he can hold North Carolina — the only one of these seven states he won in both 2016 and 2020 — he probably needs to win only Georgia and Pennsylvania in addition.

Michigan is close behind Georgia and North Carolina, with 15 electoral votes. But, crucially, winning two of the three key states (Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina), plus Michigan, probably would not be enough for Trump; sweeping those three biggest prizes probably would.

The Georgia-North Carolina-Pennsylvania path gets Trump to exactly 270 electoral votes, as long as he holds on to Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which he won by 10 points in 2016 and seven points in 2020. (Maine and Nebraska are the only states that award electoral votes to the winner of each district. Nebraska’s 2nd District is also in play.)

Here’s how that trifecta would look, courtesy of 270toWin.com. Harris could sweep the rest of the battlegrounds and still lose:

By contrast, if Trump loses one of those three states, he probably needs to win two other states to replace it. So to the extent the Trump campaign is so laser-focused on Georgia and Pennsylvania, it’s something of a high-risk strategy.

Sweeping the three big prizes would also put Harris over the top, at 276 electoral votes. But even if we assume that North Carolina would be a tougher target and stays red, winning Georgia and Pennsylvania means she needs just one more big (that is, not Nevada) swing state.

Here’s how that looks:

Pennsylvania is clearly the biggest prize of all. Both candidates start around 220 electoral votes with all of these races in play (225 for Harris and 219 for Trump). Pennsylvania would account for 42 percent of the electoral votes Harris needs to get to 270; for Trump, it would provide 37 percent.

The Washington Post’s polling average shows Harris leading by an average of three points in Pennsylvania, while Trump leads by two in Georgia. Those are actually among the bigger swing-state margins right now, though all of these states are close and generally within the margin of error in most polls.

That suggests that if Harris can somehow close the gap and win Georgia or Trump could somehow overtake her in Pennsylvania, they would be putting themselves on course for victory.

Just because these are looking like the two key states right now doesn’t mean it will always be the case. If Trump is asserting a real lead in Georgia, for example, you could see the Harris campaign begin to focus more strongly elsewhere. And if Harris is looking stronger in Pennsylvania, you might see the Trump campaign begin to spread the wealth more than its current ad reservations suggest.

But for now, if you want to understand where the presidential race is headed, keep an eye on those two states.

Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that there was “no conflict” or “fighting” when he visited Arlington National Cemetery last week, despite multiple reports of an altercation involving Trump campaign staff at the cemetery.

Trump was at the cemetery Aug. 26 to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops during the evacuation of Afghanistan. Trump and his staff defied requests from cemetery officials to avoid taking photos or videos among the gravestones, with the aim of adhering to a federal law that forbids campaign activities at military cemeteries. A female cemetery worker was “abruptly pushed aside” by male Trump aides as she sought to enforce the guidelines, cemetery officials said.

In a post shared on Truth Social, Trump falsely claimed that reports of the altercation were “made up” by Vice President Kamala Harris, who had no involvement in the Republican candidate’s visit. The altercation has been confirmed by both Arlington National Cemetery — which in a statement said “there was an incident, and a report was filed” — and U.S. Army officials.

But in his post Tuesday, Trump claimed without evidence that Harris “made it all up” because she wanted to “make up for the fact” that the Biden-Harris administration pushed for what he called an “INCOMPETENT” withdrawal from Afghanistan.

While Trump denies that an altercation took place during his visit, Department of Defense officials have said a cemetery staff member sought to enforce guidelines the campaign had received not to take photos and videos near the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years — an area known as Section 60 — because federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries.

During the incident, which was first reported by NPR, the employee tried to enforce the rules by blocking Trump’s team from bringing cameras to the graves, according to a senior defense official and another person briefed on the incident. A larger male Trump campaign aide insisted that the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee, leaving her stunned.

Trump and his campaign have been criticized for the incident.

On Tuesday, Army 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain — son of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain — told CNN that he viewed Trump’s visit to the cemetery as a “violation.”

“It just blows me away,” the younger McCain, who has served in the military for 17 years, said. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for Trump’s political campaign.

John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, was a U.S. Navy captain who was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for five and a half years. The decorated veteran served in the U.S. House and Senate for years. He died in August 2018 and is buried at the U.S. Naval Academy.

John McCain’s father, John Sidney McCain Jr., and grandfather, John Sidney McCain Sr., were U.S. Navy admirals. They are both buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

John McCain has long been one of Trump’s top targets for criticism. During the 2016 campaign, Trump said McCain was “not a war hero” because he had been captured after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. In 2019, after McCain’s death, Trump said McCain “didn’t get the job done” for veterans and complained that he did not receive proper gratitude for McCain’s funeral.

In his interview with CNN, Jimmy McCain — who currently serves as an intelligence officer in the 158th Infantry Regiment — said that those who have “done a lot of time in their uniform” inherently understand that Arlington National Cemetery is “not about you.”

“It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country,” he said. The younger McCain told CNN that, just a few weeks ago, he changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to vote for Harris.

“It was a violation,” McCain said. “That mother, that sister, those families, see that — and it’s a painful experience.”

As The Washington Post has reported, Department of Defense officials were concerned about Trump’s visit to the cemetery because Republicans have frequently used the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a political cudgel.

While Defense officials and Arlington Cemetery leaders have said the altercation during Trump’s visit did happen, the Trump campaign has insisted that it did not.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesman, said that “there was no physical altercation as described,” that the campaign was given permission to bring a photographer and that it is “prepared to release footage” to defend against “defamatory claims.”

Such footage has not yet been released, and Cheung did not immediately reply to a request for comment on this plan.

Cheung also claimed without evidence that the employee was “suffering from a mental health episode.” Defense officials have said that the employee was trying to do her job and that the claim of a mental health episode was false.

And Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita described reports of the altercation as a “100% manufactured story” and called members of the Army “hacks” while sharing a video of Trump’s visit.

In his post Tuesday, Trump said his visit to the cemetery “could not have been a nicer moment.”

Harris said this past weekend that the former president “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.” In response, the Trump campaign posted numerous videos in which family members of some of the 13 U.S. troops killed during a suicide bombing in the 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan accused President Joe Biden and Harris of killing their children by placing them in harm’s way.

President Joe Biden’s decision to end his 2024 campaign could wind up being one of the best things he ever did for the Democratic Party, if Vice President Kamala Harris can win the presidency.

It might also have been one of the best things he’s done in a long time for views of Joe Biden.

A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Tuesday shows Biden’s approval rating rising from 41 percent in late June, shortly before his fateful June 27 debate with Donald Trump, to 48 percent today. While Biden was more than 15 points underwater in his approval back then, his approval rating is now nearly even with his disapproval rating (49 percent).

Those are Biden’s best numbers in Suffolk polling since he was inaugurated in January 2021.

It is but one poll, and the evidence of an image bump for Biden is mixed so far, with some pollsters (Reuters/Ipsos, YouGov and Fox News) showing his image relatively static in their most recent surveys.

But it’s not the first poll to suggest he’s rising and seeing some of his best numbers in years:

• A Quinnipiac University poll last week featured Biden’s best numbers since the summer of 2021. He went from nearly 20 points underwater in June and July of this year to just seven points underwater (45 percent approval vs. 52 percent disapproval).
• Gallup showed his best numbers since August 2022. He went from 36 percent approval shortly before he dropped out in late July to 43 percent in a poll conducted through Aug. 20.
• An NPR/PBS/Marist College poll in early August showed Biden’s best numbers since March 2022: 47 percent approval to 51 percent disapproval.
• A Wall Street Journal poll last week also showed his numbers improving since dropping out.

Biden hadn’t been less than nine points underwater in a single high-quality poll since early 2023, per FiveThirtyEight’s compilation of polls. He has now been better than that mark in four polls over the past month (Suffolk, Quinnipiac, Gallup and Marist).

That suggests he has gained at least some ground, even as the Suffolk poll looks better for him than the others.

As for why that is?

There’s certainly something to be said for absence making the heart grow fonder. Former presidents often become more popular upon leaving office. (A case in point: George W. Bush’s numbers rebounded substantially shortly after his presidency.) Perhaps Biden has sped up that process somewhat by bowing out early politically and being less visible in recent weeks without a campaign to run.

You could perhaps chalk up some of it to a “convention bounce” from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago two weeks ago (where Biden spoke and speakers reflected fondly on his presidency). That might suggest a more temporary effect. But the Marist and Gallup polls, notably, predated the convention.

Harris’s rise — her image ratings have steadily improved since she replaced Biden on the ticket in late July — could also help, in that the administration has a more effective, sympathetic and consistent messenger playing up its attributes.

Another plausible reason is that Biden’s biggest issue liabilities (immigration and the economy) have waned somewhat, as illegal border crossings have dropped, inflation has eased and the gross domestic product looks strong.

It could also partially be something I spotlighted last month: the possibility that dim views of Biden had plenty to do with concerns about his age, rather than just concerns about his policies and record. Almost instantly, after all, Harris did better than Biden across an array of very specific issues.

Any or all of these factors could play a role, and we’ll await more data to see if his image bump holds up.

But as Trump’s campaign makes clear that one of their top strategies is to tie Harris tighter to Biden, it’s looking like less of a potent strategy. After all, if Biden’s approval rating is in the mid-40s, he’s about where your average politician tends to be these days.

“My son Joshua was 18 years old when he was murdered by an illegal alien. He was tortured, strangled to death and then set on fire. When I hear Kamala Harris making a joke about the border and just laughing it off, it’s painful. Kamala Harris was in charge of securing our border and she’s done nothing. If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse. If it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours.”

— Laura Wilkerson, speaking in an ad by the pro-Trump group Preserve America PAC, released Aug. 21

Preserve America PAC is a pro-Trump group, largely funded by billionaire Miriam Adelson, that expects to spend $100 million in this election cycle, according to one news report. This ad, which comes in 30-second and 60-second versions, links the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the murder of a teenager nearly 14 years ago.

Harris at the time was the district attorney for San Francisco. The murder took place in Texas. But if viewers aren’t looking carefully at the date of the tombstone depicted at the start of the ad, they could easily conclude that this murder happened during the Biden administration as a result of its border policies.

The Facts

The ad packs a punch because the only voice is that of an aggrieved mother, Laura Wilkerson, who chokes up at points.

“Josh was 18 and he was the baby of our family,” she says in the longer version of the ad. “He went to school one day and never came home, and that’s where our nightmare began. He was murdered by an illegal alien. He was tortured, strangled to death and then set on fire. He didn’t deserve to be murdered by somebody that should not have been in this country. I don’t want sympathy from you. I want our leaders to change this.”

In 2016, when Donald Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, his campaign ran a similar ad featuring Wilkerson talking about the death of her son. “Hillary Clinton’s border policy is going to allow people into the country just like the one that murdered my son,” Wilkerson said in the 2016 ad.

Wilkerson, who has been politically active for some time, testified on Capitol Hill in 2015 for stronger policies at the southern border.

Hermilo Moralez, a Belizean who arrived in the United States as a 10-year-old, was convicted of murder in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison in the 2010 beating death of Joshua Wilkerson, his classmate at an alternative education school, according to news reports. News reports at the time also said that, according to the police, the two had known each other for about five years.

Moralez was 19 at the time of the murder, which took place before the Obama administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that permitted undocumented children to remain in the United States as adults. Less than five months before the murder, Moralez was arrested on charges of stalking his girlfriend, but officials said it was unclear why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to identify him as an undocumented immigrant and deport him at that time.

After the introduction, both versions of the ad shift to attacking Harris on two false pretenses — that she was the “border czar” and that she made a joke about the border situation.

“When I hear Kamala Harris making a joke about the border and just laughing it off, it’s painful,” Laura Wilkerson says in the short version. “Kamala Harris was in charge of securing our border and she’s done nothing. If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse.”

“Kamala Harris was given that charge and she didn’t do one thing about it,” Wilkerson says in the long version. “She thinks it’s a joke. It’s like a kick in the gut to my family.”

But Harris was not in charge of immigration issues, though she was given a role, and she certainly wasn’t a czar. Moreover, it’s false to claim she had “done nothing” or “didn’t do one thing about it.”

In 2021, President Joe Biden assigned Harris to manage the “root causes” strategy — essentially a diplomatic effort with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to stem migration from those countries. The efforts appear to have had some impact — border arrests from those countries dropped from 700,000 in the 2021 fiscal year to fewer than 500,000 in 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. The downward trend has continued in 2024. For instance, nearly 77,000 migrants from those countries crossed the border in June 2021 — and the figure dropped to 17,000 in July of this year.

But the problem shifted. Migrants surged from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti — countries that were not part of the “root causes” strategy. In July, about 88,000 people from countries other than the three Harris oversaw were arrested at the border — though that is down from a peak of 239,000 in December. On June 4, Biden issued an emergency order to curb asylum access, and illegal crossings have dropped significantly since then.

As for the supposed joke, a Preserve America PAC source pointed to an exchange Harris had with NBC’s Lester Holt in June 2021 during a visit to Guatemala as part of her root-causes work. Holt twice asked her if she planned to visit the border. Harris offered a peevish response, with a bit of a scornful laugh, but it’s not really a joke — and she’s certainly not joking about the situation at the border, as the ad implies.

• Harris: “I’m here in Guatemala today. At some point, we are going to the border; we’ve been to the border …”
• Holt interjects: “You haven’t been to the border.”
• She answers: “And I haven’t been to Europe. I don’t understand the point that you are making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border. … I care about what’s happened at the border. I’m in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration.”

Asked why the ad would feature a murder that Harris was not associated with, the Preserve America PAC source pointed to this line in Wilkerson’s monologue: “I want our leaders to change this.”

The PAC did not provide an on-the-record statement or respond to a request to make Wilkerson available for an interview.

The Pinocchio Test

Wilkerson, having suffered the anguish of losing a child, is an advocate for tough policies on the southern border. But this is a highly misleading ad, especially the closing line: “If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse. If it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours.”

The ad flashes an image of the tombstone at the start — and the longer version cites a 2010 news report — but Harris had no role in immigration when the tragedy happened. It also falsely claims she was responsible for border security and made a “joke” about it. The ad also ignores the fact that the border surge has all but ended in recent months as a result of tougher policies implemented by the Biden administration.

The tragic story of Joshua Wilkerson is recounted accurately, but the rest of the ad is mostly false, so it earns Three Pinocchios.

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The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Biden administration to strip millions of health-care dollars from Oklahoma over its refusal to direct patients to information about abortions — a federal requirement that the state says would be at odds with its strict ban on terminating pregnancies.

Last year, the Biden administration diverted $4.5 million from Oklahoma’s family planning program, which primarily serves low-income or uninsured patients.

In challenging that decision, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the Supreme Court that state health-care organizations cannot be punished for not advising patients about ending their pregnancies. The Health and Human Services Department, the state said, is illegally imposing conditions on funding that are not specified in the half-century-old nationwide family planning program known as Title X.

After the Supreme Court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, Oklahoma was one of more than a dozen states to broadly prohibit the procedure. State law also makes it a crime for any person to try to persuade a woman to terminate a pregnancy or to procure an abortion for any woman.

In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the federal government’s right to deny the funding. A divided three-judge panel noted that the Health and Human Services Department had told the state that it could meet its obligation by giving patients a phone number for a national hotline that provides neutral information about pregnancy options, including abortion.

Oklahoma then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, seeking action by Aug. 30 to stop the Biden administration from withholding another year’s worth of the health-care funding.

As is typical in emergency orders, the Supreme Court majority did not explain its reasons for refusing Oklahoma’s request to immediately intervene. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have granted the state’s request.

While the federal government has long prohibited organizations from using Title X money to pay for abortions, the rules for implementing the statute and distributing about $286 million in annual federal funds have differed depending on the administration in power — and have repeatedly been subject to litigation.

In 2019, the Trump administration rewrote the rules, barring clinics that receive federal family planning aid from referring patients for abortions. That sparked a long-running legal battle with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other groups over what opponents criticized as an “abortion gag rule.”

The Biden administration reversed course in 2021, saying it would no longer ban clinics from receiving funding. It later began to withhold funds from organizations that refused to make referrals.

Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, defending the administration, told the court that there was no reason for the justices to take emergency action while litigation over the matter continues. The Oklahoma legislature has already provided substitute funding to make up last year’s shortfall, she wrote in a court filing, “and there is no reason to doubt that it can do the same this year.”

The court, she added, “should not encourage the invocation of its emergency docket in cases with such modest practical stakes.”

In a filing, Oklahoma’s attorneys said the Biden administration’s position also is not compatible with the Supreme Court’s decision in June to get rid of the 40-year-old legal doctrine known as Chevron. The high court’s ruling means judges no longer have to automatically defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous language in a statute — which is what Oklahoma says is at issue with sections of Title X.

Oklahoma and 11 other states initially challenged the administration’s new rules requiring them to make referrals. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled against the states, in part because the federal government said providers with religious or moral objections would not be required to refer patients for abortions.

That case is still pending in the lower courts, and the issue could eventually return to the Supreme Court.

Separately, the 6th Circuit on Aug. 26 rejected a similar challenge from Tennessee after the federal government stripped $7 million in Title X funds from that state. As it had with Oklahoma, HHS told Tennessee officials that they could meet the conditions for funding by providing patients with the phone number for a hotline that offers counseling about prenatal care, adoption and abortion as well as information about where those services can be obtained if a patient requests it.

The appeals court said Congress made clear that complying with the federal government’s requirements is a “clear and unambiguous condition of receiving a Title X grant.”

The late Sen. John McCain’s youngest son, Army 1st Lt. Jimmy McCain, told CNN on Tuesday that he’s changed his voter registration to Democrat and plans to support Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

McCain’s endorsement — which the Harris campaign promoted in a news release and on social media Tuesday — is the latest in a long line from Republicans who have come out against voting for Donald Trump. As Democrats make the case for Harris with independent voters and disaffected Republicans, the push for the party’s big tent was recently on display at the Democratic National Convention, which included several Republicans and former Trump officials in the lineup of speakers.

McCain explained the change after years as a registered independent and expressed outrage over a recent altercation involving Trump campaign staff at Arlington National Cemetery. He called it a “violation” and “a painful experience.”

Trump was at the cemetery last month to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops during the evacuation of Afghanistan. Trump and his staff defied requests from cemetery officials to avoid taking photos or videos among the gravestones, with the aim of adhering to a federal law that forbids campaign activities at military cemeteries. A female cemetery worker was “abruptly pushed aside” by male Trump aides as she sought to enforce the guidelines, cemetery officials said.

“It just blows me away,” said McCain, who has served in the military for 17 years. He added that “these men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for Trump’s political campaign.

“I just think that for anyone who’s done a lot of time in their uniform, they just understand that inherently — that it’s not about you there. It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country,” McCain remarked.

Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump on Tuesday claimed that there was “no conflict” or “fighting” when he visited Arlington National Cemetery last week. In a post shared on Truth Social, the former president falsely claimed that reports of the altercation were “made up” by Harris, who had no involvement in the Republican candidate’s visit. The altercation has been confirmed by Arlington National Cemetery — which in a statement said “there was an incident, and a report was filed” — and Army officials.

Meghan McCain, John McCain’s daughter, said Tuesday that she does not plan to support either Harris or Trump.

“I greatly respect the wide variety of political opinions of all of my family members and love them all very much,” Meghan McCain wrote on X. “I however, remain a proud member of the Republican Party and hope for brighter days ahead. (Not voting for Harris or Trump, hope that clears things up).”

While other members of the McCain family have distanced themselves from Trump, Jimmy McCain is the first to publicly join the Democratic Party. It follows years of tension between the late senator’s family and the Republican presidential nominee.

Jimmy McCain told CNN that he feels that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), “embody a group of people that will help make this country better, that will take us forward.” He also said he “could never forgive” Trump for what he said about his father.

John McCain, a senator for Arizona who was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, was a U.S. Navy captain who was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for 5½ years. Trump has for years mocked McCain, saying he was not a war hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese and asserting after McCain died that the late senator’s book “bombed.” Trump also complained during this campaign cycle about the senator’s vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act, and earlier claimed that the McCain family did not thank him for approving the senator’s state funeral.

Despite political differences, McCain maintained a close bond with Joe Biden, with whom he served in the Senate.

The late senator’s widow, Cindy McCain, crossed party lines and endorsed Biden in 2020. After becoming president, Biden appointed her the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture, and she has been serving as the executive director of the World Food Program since last year.