U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in the race for the White House. It is likely that if Ms Harris wins that many of her policies towards India will pick up where Mr Biden left off. There may be some greater emphasis on issues that are important to the left flank of the Democratic party — such as stronger or more public positions if the U.S. has concerns about democratic norms and human rights in the actions of the Narendra Modi government. There will likely also be a greater engagement with groups in the U.S. who raise these concerns.  Inter-governmental discussions on these subjects are largely — but not fully — managed behind closed doors and that is likely to continue.

Any step changes in U.S. policy towards India are more likely to appear if Mr Trump becomes President. These changes may result from first order impacts, such as in trade, the energy sector,  or the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET). But there are second order changes which could be at least as  profound, but felt only in the medium to long term. These might occur through Mr Trump’s approach to the Ukraine-Russia war, the conflict in West Asia, and importantly actions vis-à-vis China, the South Asian neighbourhood and the Indo Pacific.

Outcomes under a hypothetical second Trump administration are uncertain, not least because of the unpredictability that is at the core of Mr Trump’s strategy and approach.

Technology Partnership

Given the breadth and depth of iCET, an initiative launched in 2023 by the Biden administration and Narendra Modi government  and led by the countries’ National Security Advisors, it is likely to continue.

Watch: Why are U.S. Presidential elections held on Tuesdays?

Consider cooperation in the domain of outer space, an aspect of iCET , for instance. Mr Trump – especially since his close embrace of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, is continuing to show signs that he will be supportive of space exploration and its commercialization. He sought to promote private space exploration by scaling down regulation while in office and targeted a moon-landing by 2024. The Trump administration also established the  U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force.

The ground is set for greater space cooperation between India and the US,  whether there is a continuity in policy under a Harris administration or a switch to a Trump administration, especially with India signing the Artemis Accords in June 2023.

However, with Mr Trump there could be some friction points – where manufacturing and iCET projects intersect (for example semi-conductor fabrication in India). If the U.S. is going to support manufacturing in India, Mr Trump may view that as a threat to U.S. manufacturing (it is conceivable that he will think this way about semiconductors).  Given, Mr Trump’s mercantilist world view, he is likely to expect something tangible in return and in the short to medium term, rather than playing “the long game” with India, as the Biden administration has said it is doing.  

That iCET is helping India acquire advance capabilities so it can potentially become an alternative to China as far as supply chains are concerned – a view held in the US – is not likely to satisfy Mr Trump for at least two reasons. One, this outcome is not in the near term. Two, this outcome greatly benefits India as well. He will expect India to pay.

Defence

In general, Mr Trump can be expected to emphasize the defece aspect of the U.S. relationship with India. The Quad was revived during his administration (Mr Biden elevated it to the leader level). Mr Trump is likely to push India to keep spending on arms from the U.S. ( the two countries recently concluded a $ 3.5 billion deal for India to purchase 31 MQ-9B armed drones from made by General Atomics). One of iCET’s domains is defence innovation and technology cooperation.

Trade

More generally, as far as trade is concerned, Mr Trump has a preference for trade deals, rather than the Biden administration’s framework approach. India has not yet signed on to the Indo Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).  Mr Trump said in 2023 that he would undo this framework. He is likely to follow through – he took the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) days after his inauguration.

Mr Trump views trade balances as profit and loss statements. He has repeatedly suggested that India and China ( sometimes also referring to the European Union) as being “tough” on trade.  

He called India the ‘tariff king’ when he was President and took India out of the U.S.’s preferential trading program, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). If elected, Mr Trump is likely to seek the equalization of tariffs across product categories with regard to US-India trade.

Mr Trump is also likely to want tariff equalization across product categories. He told Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait that ‘tariff’ was the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”(since then, as November 5^th got closer,  he had downgraded it to third place, after ‘love’ and ‘religion’).

A Trump administration is also likely to want to sign a trade deal with India, at least a limited-scope trade deal for starters. This was under discussion towards the end of Mr Trump’s first term but nothing came of it.

India had purchase  U.S. energy during Mr Trump’s administration after it slapped sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, cutting off those sources of oil. Given the focus on domestic fuel production during the campaign, Mr Trump is likely to not just drill for more petroleum, but also seek markets for U.S. energy in India and other countries.

China and Russia

Mr Trump has said he will end dependence on China in critical sectors – electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals. India could benefit from this.

There are, however, larger questions about his approach to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mr Trump says he gets  on with Mr Xi,  while also mentioning China in virtually every campaign speech as an economic competitor. Mr Trump began a trade war with China during his time in the White House.  

The former President’s stance on Taiwan is complicated. He has said Taiwan should pay the U.S. for defending it  ( likening the U.S. to an “insurance company”) and has been ambiguous about whether he would go to Taiwan’s defence if China were to attack it. He is nevertheless going to have to negotiate with Republicans  (and Democrats in a split Congress); there is little appetite on both sides of the aisle to placate China. Mr Trump is also expected to have in his inner circle China hawks, e.g. , Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell and  former Defense Department official Elbridge Colby. At this stage it is largely futile , in the case of China and Russia, to identify what the outcomes of a Trump 2.0 situation will be.

With regard to Moscow, since Mr Trump left office, Indian purchases of Russian oil have increased significantly (from about 2% to just over 40% by some estimates between 2021 and May 2024).  India has been accused of helping to fund Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through oil purchases and has defended its purchases as being in its national interest. New Delhi has also noted that had it stopped buying Russian oil, the global price of oil will have increased with restricted supply.

 How these dynamics change in the medium to long term will depend on how the path of the Russia-Ukraine war is shaped under Mr Trump who has suggested a keenness to bring the conflict to a swift end. This is likely to involve significantly more unfavourable terms for Kyiv than are perhaps open to it now, going by the adulatory remarks Mr Trump has made about Russian President Vladimir Putin, his testy relationship with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his distaste for American money going to Ukraine’s assistance.

In the approach to any resolution to that conflict, there is the more immediate issue of sanctions against Russia. Even as recently as last week (October 30), the  U.S. sanctioned 19 Indian entities for providing “dual use” technologies to Russia.

There are Republicans in Congress who would oppose the removal of Russia-related sanctions.

“We don’t know how that is going to factor into Trump’s calculations,” said Lisa Curtis who leads the Indo-Pacific program at the Centre for a New American Security. Ms Curtis was the senior director for South and Central Asia in Mr Trump’s National Security Council.

“ All we know is that Trump will probably put more effort into ending the war than the Biden administration has,” she added.

Alleged assassination plots

Officials who served as bureaucrats in both Democratic and Republican administrations are united in one thing – that neither a Democratic nor Republican president would look the other way if a foreign government attempted to assassinate a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil (abstracting from whether or not that happened in the Sikhs for Justice leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun case, as alleged by the U.S. Department of Justice).

Pro-Khalistan figures, have openly propagated separatism in the Indian context as well as issued threats against Indian assets (for instance, Mr Pannun’s threats in October 2022 with regard to Air India flights). Nevertheless, thus far, these activities have appeared to avail of protections offered by the First Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution).  It is unclear if this would change under a hypothetical Trump administration. 

“I think certainly if there’s any information you know, brought to him [ Mr Trump] that demonstrates any involvement in any kind of terrorism or threats to India, a Trump administration would investigate those and act on those. But it really depends on the information that India presents and how credible it is, and what it means,” Ms Curtis told The Hindu.

“Trump … he is ‘America First’.  He’s going support US citizens … he’s not going to like the idea of another country trying to assassinate a US citizen on US territory,” she said, adding ,

“ I don’t think any US president would look favorably on that kind of thing.”

At least some American policy-makers suggest that the meeting between three Sikh groups and White House officials just ahead of Mr Modi’s visit for the Quad Summit in September this year,  was neither out of line nor something for India to be alarmed by.

Immigration

Mr Trump’s biggest campaign focus has been cracking down on illegal migration (Indians represent the largest group of Asian undocumented migrants in the United States). However, his

Rapport between leaders

Another aspect of the US-India relationship that has been discussed is the apparent connect between leaders.   Mr Biden has emphasized the role of his personal rapport with other politicians – whether from other countries or in the U.S. Congress – in delivering mutually favourable outcomes. He and Mr Modi appeared to have developed a good relationship. There are no signs of an especially good relationship  between While Mr Modi and  Ms Harris appear to have a perfectly good dynamic, there are no signs that it is especially strong.

Mr Modi and Mr Trump also had on display an apparent bonhomie in previous years – seen for example in the ‘Howdy Modi’ rally in Houston in 2019 and Mr Trump’s visit to India in early 2020.   

Officials, past and present, in Washington DC,  have suggested that interpersonal relationships at the leader level are important in setting the overall tone of the engagement at the bureaucratic level and a good rapport between leaders can encourage ministers, negotiators and officers to raise the ceiling of their ambitions.  Notwithstanding the strength of interpersonal bonds, there is a floor; and this likely to be felt sooner in a Trump administration than in a Harris administration , because of Mr Trump’s transactional approach.

Kamala Harris turned 60 on Sunday in the final stretch of a knife-edge election battle with 78-year-old Donald Trump, as she urged a Black congregation in Georgia to embrace compassionate values while others “spread hate, sow fear and cause chaos.”

Harris, speaking at a Baptist megachurch near Atlanta, did not mention Trump by name but the crowd — after spontaneously serenading her with “Happy Birthday” — nodded knowingly to her allusions to her Republican rival.

Georgia is one of the key states that are expected to decide the November 5 election. Both candidates were planning events later Sunday in another of those states, Pennsylvania, which both sides see as a must-win.

With just over two weeks before Election Day, the Democratic vice president and the Republican billionaire are in a fierce race.

Harris, addressing the enthusiastic Black churchgoers — normally a strongly Democratic demographic — delivered a temperate speech, telling the tale of the Good Samaritan but also using it to exhort the crowd to vote and “shine the light in moments of darkness.”

Indeed, Trump is using increasingly angry and dark language in the campaign.

He has likened undocumented migrants to animals, threatened revenge against his perceived enemies, praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin of Russia and described America as a ruined nation only he can fix.

“Where we go from here is up to us as Americans and as people of faith,” Harris said. “What kind of country do we want to live in — a country of chaos, fear and hate, or a country of freedom, compassion and justice?”

In other events, Harris has increasingly raised questions about Trump’s fitness to be president.

“Now he’s ducking debates and canceling interviews because of exhaustion,” Harris told a rally Saturday in Atlanta, mocking his rambling, off-script speeches.

The former president himself has surprised attendees at his rallies with sometimes bizarre references, including a ribald allusion Saturday to the anatomy of a famous golfer.

But Trump’s age and spontaneous remarks have not appeared to be a deal-breaker for voters, as polls show a close battle ahead.

‘Across the finish line’

Harris had also sought to goad Trump with a report on October 12 that described her “excellent health”, but the ex-president’s campaign insisted he, too, is “in perfect and excellent health to be Commander-in-Chief”.

The Republican running for a second go in the White House countered Harris’s accusations with a marathon speech in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a day after saying she “doesn’t have the energy of a rabbit.”

Both candidates are spending their final campaign days in pivotal states, but so are their surrogates.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk has personally hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, holding a series of events in the must-win state.

Speaking in the southeastern city of Harrisburg, he announced he would start to randomly distribute cash awards — $1 million each day until the November 5 vote — to a registered voter in the state who signed his organization’s petition.

Harris deployed surrogates in the form of pop stars Lizzo and Usher to make her case to voters.

Lizzo drew cheers when telling a Detroit rally that America was more than ready for its first woman president, dropping a reference to her own hit song: “It’s about damn time!”

One of Atlanta’s major stars, Usher, told voters there that “I’m counting on you” to get Harris’s “campaign across the finish line” in Georgia.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AP

Former president Donald Trump spent more than an hour ahead of Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate campaigning in a Democratic county that is crucial to Kamala Harris ‘ hopes for winning the key battleground state of Wisconsin.

Republican Trump appeared at a manufacturing facility in Waunakee, a suburb of Wisconsin’s capital city of Madison in the Democratic stronghold of Dane County. Trump had never campaigned in Dane County nor visited as president.

In an event advertised as economic-themed, Trump bounced from subject to subject, also taking on Democratic nominee Harris on issues, including foreign policy, crime and immigration, while intermittently pivoting to criticism of outgoing President Joe Biden.

“I’m asking every citizen to join me in launching sort of a new golden age for America,” Trump told hundreds inside Dane Manufacturing, a metal fabricator that has a long history of hosting Republican candidates and officeholders.

Trump also could not pass up a jab at former president Jimmy Carter on the Georgia Democrat’s 100th birthday.

With hollow praise, Trump declared the one-term Carter “the happiest man” because he “is considered a brilliant president” compared to Biden. Trump did not note Carter’s birthday, nor his status as the longest-living former president.

Later on Tuesday, Trump was to hold an event at a museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city and home to the state’s largest number of Democratic voters and second-largest number of Republicans. His appearance there was also meant to give him reach into the city’s conservative suburbs, a part of Wisconsin where his support has softened but where he must do well to win.

In Milwaukee, Trump was slated to speak in a small auditorium at a science museum along Lake Michigan’s lakefront. His event was not open to the public and his audience was to consist only of news media.

Last Saturday, he held a rally in western Wisconsin where he blamed Harris for crimes committed by people in the country illegally.

Both of his planned stops were ahead of Tuesday’s debate in New York between Trump’s running mate JD Vance, a senator from Ohio, and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.

Dane County, the location of Trump’s first stop, is Wisconsin’s fastest-growing county and an economic engine for the state, fueled by jobs in the health care and tech industries. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin.

Dane County’s population grew by about 30,000 people between 2016 and 2020. It has gone up by another 13,000 since then, based on the most recent US Census Bureau estimate.

That presents a challenge for Republicans, especially given that nearly 90 per cent of registered voters in the county cast ballots in 2020. Biden won 75 per cent of the vote that year in Dane County, beating Trump by 181,000 votes in the county while carrying the state by fewer than 21,000. Hillary Clinton beat Trump in Dane County in 2016 by 47 points, and Trump won the state by less than a point.

It’s a point former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson said he made to Trump. In remarks to the crowd before Trump arrived, Thompson said the former president should “go where the opposition is”.

“And, the retort was, ‘Isn’t Madison very liberal?'” Thompson said. “Yes, but Dane County has the third most Republican votes in the state of Wisconsin and all we have to do is increase them.” Democratic presidential candidates have long come to Dane County to hold massive rallies to fire up the base. Harris campaigned there on September 20, holding a rally in Madison that attracted more than 10,000 people.

Waunakee, which bills itself as the “only Waunakee in the world”, is slightly more Republican than the county as a whole. In 2020, Trump got 36 per cent of the vote there compared to less than 23 per cent countywide.

In Milwaukee, Trump was to speak at Discovery World, a science and technology museum along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night as both she and Republican Donald Trump continue to make frequent trips to Nevada, looking to gain momentum in the swing state as Election Day nears.

The rally is part of Harris’ latest West Coast swing, which included making her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking over for President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket. On Friday, the vice president walked alongside a towering, rust-colored border wall fitted with barbed wire in Douglas, Arizona, and met with federal authorities.

She attended a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday and had plans for a Sunday event in Los Angeles before heading to Nevada, with a return to Washington set for Monday night.

“This race is as close as it could possibly be,” she said Saturday to a raucous crowd of donors. “This is a margin-of-error race.”

Harris said even if there is enthusiasm, she’s running like an underdog. And she invited people to “join our team in battleground states” to help get voters to the polls — even if it’s Californians making calls from home.

On Sunday, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Harris and Walz. He credited them with a “fine character and love of country” and said he wants a president who does not treat political adversaries as enemies or try to subvert the will of voters.

Flake, a longtime critic of the former president, joins a list of anti-Trump Republicans who have said they will vote for the Democratic ticket, not just refrain from voting for Trump. Among them is Dick Cheney, the deeply conservative former vice president, and his daughter, Liz.

On Sunday, Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor and a sharp critic of Trump, said Harris has yet to earn his vote, though Trump won’t get it.

In Nevada, all voters automatically receive ballots by mail unless they opt out — a pandemic-era change that was set in state law. That means most ballots could start going out in a matter of weeks, well before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Harris plans to be back in Las Vegas on Oct. 10 for a town hall with Hispanic voters. Both she and Republican rival Donald Trump have campaigned frequently in the city, highlighting the critical role that Nevada, and its mere six votes in the Electoral College, could play in deciding an election expected to be exceedingly close.

Trump held his own Las Vegas rally on Sept. 13 at the Expo World Market Center, where Harris is speaking Sunday. Her campaign has frequently scheduled events in the same venue where her opponent previously spoke, including in Milwaukee, Atlanta and suburban Phoenix. During his Las Vegas event, the former president singled out people crossing into the U.S. illegally, saying Harris “would be the president of invasion.”

During a campaign stop in the city in June, Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips received by waiters, hotel workers and thousands of other service industry employees. Harris used her own Las Vegas rally in August to make the same promise.

Fully doing away with federal taxes on tips would probably require an act of Congress. Still, Nevada’s Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, has endorsed Harris.

Ted Pappageorge, the culinary union’s secretary-treasurer, said the difference between the dueling no-taxes-on-tips proposals is that Harris has also pledged to tackle what his union calls “sub-minimum wage,” where employers pay service industry workers small salaries and meet minimum wage thresholds by expecting employees to supplement those with tips.

“That shows us she’s serious,” Pappageorge said.

Harris has no public schedule on Tuesday, when her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, squares off against Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance for the first and only vice presidential debate of the campaign. But Harris and Walz will campaign jointly on Wednesday, making a bus tour with various stops through central Pennsylvania.

The campaign says that during that swing, both will emphasize plans to energize U.S. manufacturing, including by using tax credits to encourage steel production and overhaul federal permitting systems to increase American construction.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, his fourth campaign stop in a month in what has become the 2024 campaign’s most hotly contested state.

The former president had begun addressing supporters in Erie, in Pennsylvania’s northwest corner, shortly after 2 p.m. local time (1800 GMT). His rally comes one month to the day after his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, held his own event in the lakeside city, and six days before Trump is due to hold another rally in western Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5.

Many allies and informal advisers to Trump privately characterize Pennsylvania as the most important of the battleground states in the Nov. 5 election.

Of the seven competitive states that both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, have a realistic shot at winning, Pennsylvania is the most populous and awards the most votes in the Electoral College, which in turn is used to select the overall winner of the election.

Trump allies broadly believe that if the former president beats Harris there, he is likely to return to the White House. But if Trump loses to Harris in Pennsylvania, the vice president has the inside track.

In a reflection of the stakes, Harris and Trump have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ads in Pennsylvania in the months before the election, more than any other state in both gross and per capita terms.

Erie, the site of Trump’s rally, is a battleground inside a battleground. Erie County is one of two Pennsylvania counties that favored Trump in the 2016 election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton before favoring President Joe Biden against Trump in 2020.

Trump narrowly won the state and the election overall in 2016, before losing both in 2020.

This time around, Pennsylvania is again competitive, according to surveys. Harris leads Trump by 1.6 percentage points in the state, according to an average of polls maintained by polling and analysis website FiveThirtyEight. That difference is well within almost all polls’ margin of error.

Trump’s next rally in Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, will take place in Butler, about 100 miles (160 km) south of Erie. That town was the site of a failed assassination attempt on Trump in July. A bullet grazed the former president’s ear.

The United States plans to accuse Russia on Wednesday of a campaign to influence the 2024 elections using online platforms to target American voters with disinformation, CNN reported, citing six sources familiar with the matter.

Russian state media network RT will be a focus of the announcement, CNN reported.

The news comes just hours before Attorney General Merrick Garland is due to make public remarks at a meeting of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force.

He will be joined by FBI Director Chris Wray, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, and Matt Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment ahead of the election task force meeting.

The Justice Department has previously warned that Russia remains a threat to the Nov. 5 presidential election.

In a speech last month, Monaco warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin “and his proxies are using increasingly sophisticated techniques in their interference operations.”

“They’re targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes,” she said.

“They’re intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests. They’re working to diminish American support for Ukraine. And they’re always adapting.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Donald Trump said Sunday it was divine intervention that helped him survive an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, and called on Americans to unite.

“It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” the former US president and White House hopeful said on social media, urging fellow Americans to unite in “not allowing Evil to Win.”

Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident set to supercharge political tensions ahead of the US presidential election.

The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood streaked across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the shooter and a bystander were killed and two spectators were critically injured.

President Joe Biden, who is set to face Trump in November’s deeply polarized presidential election, said there was “no place in America for this kind of violence.”

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, confirming that he would attend the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. President Joe Biden claps next to U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is engaged in a delicate balancing act, playing cheerleader for President Joe Biden while standing by as a leading contender to replace him if he ends his reelection bid.

Biden’s dismal performance in last week’s debate with Donald Trump has triggered panic in much of the Democratic Party as people question whether Biden is physically and mentally able to beat Trump and serve another four years.

Former congressman Tim Ryan, while professing his admiration for Biden, wrote in a piece for Newsweek that “the Democratic nominee in 2024 should be Kamala Harris.”

Harris herself has not said anything in public, except to express loyalty to her boss.

“Look, Joe Biden is our nominee,” she said in an interview with CBS News. “We beat Trump once, and we’re going to beat him again, period.”

She said she was proud to be on the current ticket with the president.

Minutes after the debate, Harris had rushed onto TV to defend Biden, saying he had started off slowly in the clash with Trump but finished strong.

The official schedule for Biden on Wednesday says he had lunch with Harris, which is not a regular event, though it was a weekly fixture for Biden when he was vice president under Barack Obama.

– One heartbeat –

Harris, 59, is the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of Asian origin — her mother was from India — to hold the job that puts her a heartbeat from the presidency, as Americans like to say.

Harris would become president if Biden died in office or became incapacitated.

But she would not necessarily replace Biden if he were to end his candidacy, and Biden has insisted he has no plans to do so.

“For three and half years there has always been this drumbeat that someone other than the VP should be the Democratic candidate,” said Ange-Marie Hancock, professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

Hancock said it was possible an “undercurrent of racism and sexism” was at work against Harris.

For years Harris has been less popular among Americans than other Democrats seen as possible candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom or his Michigan counterpart Gretchen Whitmer.

US media have reported extensively on mistakes she made early in this administration, mainly on the diplomatic front, and on tension among her staffers.

But Hancock said things could turn in Harris’s favor, because she has spent time out visiting battleground states, in particular to promote abortion rights as it came under repeated fire from conservatives judges and governors.

Harris is sometimes criticized as disappointing as an orator. But she got a warm welcome recently when she made a tour of universities that was focused on schools with high numbers of minority students.

Polling

A CNN poll released Tuesday had Harris doing better than Biden against Trump, although not beating him.

This poll gave Harris 45 percent of voter intentions against 47 percent for Trump, while Biden scored 43 percent to 49 percent for the Republican former president in a race between the two men.

In the event Biden were to drop out, Harris, thanks to her name recognition, her ties to powerful people in the government and the prospect for brisk fundraising, would go into the Democratic convention next month in a position of strength.

But the Republicans are ready and waiting.

“Kamala Harris is very much on the GOP’s radar,” Hancock said, referring to Trump’s party.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday broadcast a video montage of Biden suffering falls and other embarrassing moments, and questioned whether he can serve another term.

It concludes with the question, “And you know who is waiting behind him, right?” and footage of Harris laughing.

Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!”

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???”

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016.

That support has continued despite his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.

Trump’s stated opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that’s expected to help him turn out voters in his November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

But while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they cheer him as the greatest champion for the cause because of his role in appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned national abortion rights in 2022.

Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, “We did something that was amazing,” but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states.

“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.

While he still takes credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned abortion can be tricky politically for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban.

Last year, when Trump addressed the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there was “a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life” but didn’t offer any details beyond that.

In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has still declined to detail his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Attendees at the evangelical gathering on Saturday said that while they’d like to see a national abortion ban, Trump isn’t losing any of their deep support.

“I would prefer if he would sign a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker and Faith & Freedom member from New Jersey. “I understand though, that as in accordance with the Constitution, that decision should be left up to the states.”

Dickinson said she can’t stand the abortion law in her state, which does not set limits on the procedure based on gestational age. But she said outside of preferring a national ban, leaving the issue to the state “is the best alternative.”

According to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the overall electorate that year.

Beyond just offering their own support in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help get out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.

Trump is also rallying voters in Philadelphia, where supporters were gathering to hear him speak at an arena.

Tyler Cecconi, 25, of Richmond, Virginia, said he’s glad that Trump is stepping out of his comfort zone and going to places that may not be red. At the venue, organizers hung a banner that read “Philadelphia is Trump Country.”

“He’s showing the people that regardless if you vote for him or not, or if it’s a blue county or a red county, it doesn’t matter to him,” Cecconi said. “A president is for everybody in this country.”

The GOP Senate candidate of Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick, attended the rally and appeared on stage to talk to voters about the economy and immigration.

“This economy is not working for most Pennsylvanians and it’s not working for most Americans,” McCormick said.

Earlier in Washington, Trump returned several times during his roughly 90-minute remarks to the subject of the U.S.-Mexico border and at one point, when describing migrants crossing it as “tough,” he joked that he told his friend Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport.

“‘Why don’t you set up a migrant league and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league, these are the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the champion of the migrants,’” Trump described saying to White. “I think the migrant guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.”

His story drew laughs and claps from the crowd.

Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s remarks by saying it was “fitting” that Trump, convicted of a felony, spent time at a religious conference making threats about immigration and “bragging about ripping away Americans’ freedoms.”

“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

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Alexander reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers Tom Strong and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.