we are virginia tech rhetorical analysis essay

My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle School ELA and High School English

Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis.

I absolutely LOVE teaching rhetorical analysis. I think it might be one of my favorite units to teach to my high school students. There are just so many different text options to choose from. Here is a list of some of my favorite speeches to include in my rhetorical analysis teaching unit.

10 Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis

1. the gettysburg address (abraham lincoln).

Some notable things to mention in this speech include allusion and parallel structure. To make your analysis more meaningful, point out these devices to students and explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text.

Teaching Resource : The Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis Activity Packet

2. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech (Lou Gehrig)

This speech is one that many of my athletes love to analyze, and it is an excellent exemplar text to teach pathos. And like The Gettysburg Address, it is short. This is another speech that you can read, analyze, and even write about in one class period.

When I use this speech in my class, I have students look for examples of pathos. Mainly, I have them look at word choice, tone, and mood. How does Lou Gehrig’s choice of words affect his tone and the overall mood of the speech?

3. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King,  Jr.)

In the classroom, it is important to point out the sermonic feel to the speech and also to have your students look for calls to action and pathos. Have your students look for tone, allusions, and word choice to help them notice these rhetoric expressions throughout it.

Teaching Resource : I Have a Dream Close Read and Rhetorical Analysis

4. Speech at the March on Washington (Josephine Baker)

This is another important speech that held a lot of importance for the changes that needed to be made in America. The speech is a shorter one, so in the classroom, it will not take as long to analyze it, and students can understand the significance of the use of rhetoric in a shorter amount of time than some other speeches.

When teaching this speech, I like to remind my students to search for devices that portray an excellent example of the pathos that is so present in this speech. Some of these devices could be mood, repetition, and diction.

5. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech (Steve Jobs)

In class, it is good to have your students annotate and analyze the speech just as they have done for the others. The organization of the speech will help them to notice the similarities and differences between each point Jobs makes.

6. Space Shuttle Challenger (Ronald Reagan)

This speech represents a strong sense of pathos as a movement to help the American people cope with loss after the deaths of the astronauts aboard the Challenger. It is another speech that is not too long, so it should not take a long time to both analyze and annotate the entire speech.

When teaching this speech in class, be sure to mention how pathos is the driving force behind the speech, through the tone and the diction. How does Reagan use emotion to focus on the astronauts as humans, rather than solely focusing on the tragedy?

7. The Perils of Indifference (Elie Wiesel)

This speech is a good one to teach because it both makes students question their own lives, but also how the world works. The speech relies on pathos, and a little ethos too, to get the audience to feel the full effect of the tragedy of the Holocaust and what the speaker went through. It is a long speech so it may take longer for the students to fully grasp all the details that make it such a persuasive speech.

When I teach this speech, I like to have students annotate every place they notice an example of pathos, and then have them explain why in their annotations this makes them feel an emotion. The same with the ethos, and then we can further analyze the rest together.

8. 9/11 Address to the Nation (George W. Bush)

This speech shows another example of the use of pathos in the midst of a tragedy. The President wanted to show the American people how much he was feeling for those lost in the tragedy of 9/11. It is not a long speech, but the amount of emotion within the words is significant for students to notice.

When teaching this speech, it is essential that students look very closely at each part of it, noticing each piece that reveals tone, mood, and other literary devices. How do the different devices add to the pathos of the speech?

FREE TEACHING ACTIVITY : September 11 Address to the Nation Sampler

Teaching Resource : September 11 Address to the Nation Rhetorical Analysis Unit

9. We are Virginia Tech (Nikki Giovanni)

This speech is probably the shortest speech on this list but provides one of the most emotional and pathos-filled rhetoric. This describes another tragedy that is spoken about with pathos to give the audience a safe feeling after such an emotional thing. Students can spend time analyzing the different devices that make the piece so strong in its emotion.

In the classroom, make sure your students make a note of the repetition, and what that does for the speech. Does it make the emotion more impactful? How does it make the audience feel like they are a part of something bigger?

10. Woman’s Right to the Suffrage (Susan B. Anthony)

This is another short speech that holds a lot of power within it. A lot of students will enjoy reading this to see how much the country has changed, and how this speech may have some part in influencing this change. It is a great speech to help teach logos in the classroom, and it will not take a long time to analyze.

Make sure your students notice, and they also understand, the use of allusions within the speech. These allusions help to establish the use of logos, as Anthony wants the use of American historical documents to show how logical her argument is.

Ready-For-You Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Unit

You might also be interested in my blog post about 15 rhetorical analysis questions to ask your students.

Teaching rhetorical analysis and speeches in the classroom is a great way to teach informational text reading standards.

Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Resources:

These resources follow reading standards for informational text and are ideal for secondary ELA teachers.

• Rhetorical Analysis Unit with Sticky Notes
• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Understanding Rhetorical Appeals\
• Rhetorical Analysis Mini Flip Book

Join the Daring English Teacher community!

Subscribe to receive freebies, teaching ideas, and my latest content by email.

I won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

Built with ConvertKit

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

University Writing Program

Welcome to HokiesWrite.com, an online resource for faculty, students, and others who share an interest in Virginia Tech’s University Writing Program. The program’s leadership team , in consultation with the University Writing Program Committee , program instructional faculty , and the Department of English , curate this site with the goal of giving visibility and circulation to the best of what the program has to offer. Each year, the University Writing Program provides instruction, guidance, and support to nearly 7,600 Hokies in 380 sections of ENGL1105 and ENGL1106, a foundational two-course sequence designed to orient one and all to effective writing practices in and beyond the university.

Latest Entries

• Everyone’s an Author: English 1105 and 1106 Transition Google Documents to move from Understanding Rhetoric to Everyone’s an Author
• Featured Blog Post: “ On the Importance of Signing Your Babouches: Teaching First-Year Writing ” by Arianna (Ari) Corradi
• April 2024 UWP Announcements
• March 2024 UWP Announcements
• February 2024 UWP Announcements
• December 2023 UWP Announcements
• Featured Blog Post: “This Body of Mine: On Being Fat in the Writing Classroom” by Amanda Marzolf
• November 2023 UWP Announcements
• October 2023 UWP Announcements
• September 2023 UWP Announcements
• July 2023 UWP Announcements

Initiatives and Points of Pride

• Antiracist Teaching Resources
• University Writing Program Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement
• University Writing Program Educational Technologies for Writing Instruction Statement
• Distinguished Student Writing
• 2023 Outstanding Teaching Portfolios
• University Writing Program (UWP) Doctoral Fellowship

We’re continuously updating HokiesWrite.com with materials we think will be helpful and informative for instructors, students, staff and administrators, alumni, and colleagues at other universities. Our updates aspire to be responsive to you , so if there is something you would like to see added or a particular question you have that is not addressed here–yet!–we hope you’ll consider reaching out via email to writing -AT- vt.edu .

Rhetoric and Writing (Ph.D.)

Campus:   Virginia Tech Blacksburg Campus,  Instructions: Residential/On Campus

Program Overview

Carolyn Commer, Director, Ph.D. Program in Rhetoric and Writing

The PhD Program in Rhetoric and Writing at Virginia Tech focuses on rhetoric in society. We study language use and rhetorical activity in public, academic, corporate, and governmental settings in a collective effort to engage pressing social and cultural issues through academic discourse, public policy, and community outreach. 

Why choose this program?

• Virginia Tech’s Rhetoric and Writing doctoral program has distinguished faculty whose research attends to social problems, disciplinary questions, and the information demands of a cyberconnected world. Areas of strength include medical rhetoric, data visualization, human rights, human-computer interaction, user experience, and cultural and feminist rhetorics. 
• Virginia Tech is a top-notch research institution and the College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences where English is housed possesses a variety of opportunities available to students which enable students to excel. 
• Our small program enables students to get individualized attention with award-winning and research active faculty. 
• We engage in rhetoric and writing research that contributes to social progress, examines how literate practices create, circulate, and prioritize societal values and the public policies based on those values, and examines how rhetoric and writing empower and control access to power in these social systems. 

What You'll Study

Degree requirements will include 60 hours of graduate coursework past the bachelor's degree plus 30 hours of research and dissertation. Of those 60 hours of coursework, up to 30 may be transferred from an appropriate Master's degree. Because rhetoric and writing are inherently interdisciplinary subjects, this program invites students to complete some coursework in related fields such as Language and Literature, Communication, Science and Technology Studies, Political Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Women's and Gender Studies, Science and Technology in Society, ASPECT, and Engineering Education, as well as courses in preparing the future professoriate offered by the Virginia Tech Graduate School.

Admissions Requirement

• Minimum GPA 3.0 (4 Scale)
• GRE Optional
• TOEFL/ IELTS score Required  (If Applicable)

Learn more 

Tuition and Fee

Tuition & Fee Rates

Funding Opportunities

The Department of English has a limited number of  graduate assistantships and fellowships  available for students applying for full time study on the Blacksburg Campus. Entering students can apply for such funding as part of their admissions application.  No separate application  required.

Find out what loans are available as a graduate student and other opportunities.

How to Apply

Visit this page for information on how to apply, including requirements, deadlines, and application fee.

Course List

• Course List (Blacksburg)

Applications Deadlines

Priority deadline:  January 16 for consideration for funding Final deadline:  January 16

Visit Campus

Visit Campus / Attend an Open House

Contact Program Leader

Carolyn Commer , Director, Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Writing 416 Shanks Hall  181 Turner Street NW  Blacksburg, VA 24061 [email protected]

Contact Program Specialist

Marie Trimmer Graduate Programs Coodinator 310 Shanks Hall 540-231-4659  [email protected]

Current Students

• Download Plan of Study
• Timetable of Classes

Rhetoric and Writing (Ph.D.) Faculty 

• --> General Item Bruce McComiskey -->
• --> General Item Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq -->
• --> General Item Carolyn Commer -->
• --> General Item Chris A. Lindgren -->
• --> General Item Derek N. Mueller -->
• --> General Item James Dubinsky -->
• --> General Item Julie Gerdes -->
• --> General Item Katrina M. Powell -->

Page 1 of 2 | 14 Results

Center for Rhetoric in Society

At the Center for Rhetoric in Society, we examine multiple rhetorics, bridging academic and public discourses to enact engagement and social change. Our mission is to investigate language use through rhetorical and narrative analysis to understand significant social problems. Graduate research assistants participate in all aspects of the Center, including grant writing, assisting faculty in research, organizing research symposia, and writing scholarly articles. 

Faculty Bookshelf

Related Programs

Creative Writing (M.F.A.)

English (M.A.)

Home > Blog > Rhetorical Analysis Essay Examples and Best Practices

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Examples and Best Practices

• Smodin Editorial Team
• Updated: August 13, 2024
• General Guide About Content and Writing

Are you having trouble creating a high-quality rhetorical analysis essay? Then you’ll love the rhetorical analysis essay examples and best practices in this article. We’ll share the best ways to improve the quality of your content and get top marks with your assignment.

Let’s dive in!

What Is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Examples and Key Elements

A rhetorical analysis essay examines how authors or speakers use rhetoric to persuade, inform, or entertain their audience. It is not a persuasive essay . It involves breaking down a piece of communication, such as a speech, article, or advertisement. This helps you to understand the strategies employed to achieve its purpose.

Still want more details about what is a rhetorical analysis essay? No problem! The essay typically focuses on three primary elements, which are as follows:

• Ethos: Ethos refers to the credibility and character of the speaker or writer. You can use it to establish trust and authority. It helps convince the audience of the speaker’s reliability and expertise on the subject. Furthermore, you can convey ethos through the speaker’s qualifications, reputation, ethical behavior, and the use of credible sources.
• Pathos: Pathos appeals to the audience’s emotions. It aims to evoke feelings that will lead the audience to accept the speaker’s viewpoint. You can achieve this through storytelling, vivid imagery, emotionally charged language, and personal anecdotes. Also, pathos is effective in creating a connection with the audience and making the argument more relatable and impactful.
• Logos: Logos is the appeal to logic and reason. It involves the use of evidence, facts, statistics, and logical arguments to support a claim. Therefore, you can add a rhetorical analysis body paragraph about the extent of evidence the author provides.

To write a rhetorical analysis essay, one must first identify the purpose and audience of the text. Next, analyze the rhetorical strategies the author decided to use. This includes considering how effectively they contribute to the overall message. Also, examine the use of language, tone, imagery, and structure.

An Example of a Rhetorical Analysis

Let’s take Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, “I have a dream” as our rhetorical analysis example. The speech masterfully uses rhetorical strategies to inspire action for civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr establishes his credibility (ethos) by aligning with historical figures and documents, which enhances his moral authority.

Furthermore, he evokes strong emotions (pathos) through vivid imagery and the repetitive phrase “I have a dream.” This creates a hopeful vision for the future. Additionally, he employs logical arguments (logos) by highlighting broken promises and referencing American ideals of liberty and equality.

This blend of ethos, pathos, and logos makes his speech a powerful, and a call for justice and equality.

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Best Practices and Top Tips

Now, let’s look at some of the key rhetorical concepts to create an essay that will get you top marks. The idea is to use these best practices to save time and simplify the writing process. Also, they ensure you don’t miss out on important points that deliver on what you shared in the thesis statement.

So, consider the following if you want to know how to write a rhetorical analysis essay and what to include in each section of your essay.

Understand the Text

Thoroughly read and understand the text before you begin the analysis stage. After all, how can you create a rhetorical essay on a piece of literature you don’t fully understand? You may feel like saving time by skimming the content, but it will lead to an inaccurate and slower writing process.

You’ll need to identify the author’s purpose, audience, and the main argument. Additionally, take notes on key points, recurring themes, and the overall tone. Understanding the context in which the text was created is crucial for an accurate analysis. Hence, pay attention to the historical, cultural, and social factors.

Identify Rhetorical Strategies

Focus on the three primary rhetorical appeals, which are ethos, pathos, and logos. Make sure to analyze how the author uses these strategies to persuade the audience. Then look for specific examples, such as language choices, emotional anecdotes, or logical arguments that illustrate these techniques.

Organize Your Essay

Create a clear rhetorical analysis essay outline that includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion format . The rhetorical analysis introduction should present the text being analyzed and your thesis statement. Also, each body paragraph should focus on a specific rhetorical strategy or element by providing evidence and analysis.

You’ll need to create a rhetorical analysis conclusion by summarizing your main points and restating the significance of your analysis. Make sure you summarize the main points in a way that is easy to understand. Also, leave the reader with a few final thoughts you want them to take away from the academic writing.

Use Textual Evidence

Support your analysis with direct quotes and detailed examples from the text. When citing evidence, explain how it illustrates the rhetorical strategy being discussed and its effect on the audience. Additionally, ensure that each piece of evidence is relevant and strengthens your overall argument.

However, don’t add too many direct quotes since it can clutter the flow and feel of the essay. Instead, select a few quotes that allow you to convey the key concepts of the literature piece. Generally, it’s a good idea to focus on a few key concepts rather than covering many in a shallow fashion.

Proofread and Revise

Carefully proofread your essay for grammatical and structural errors. Also, ensure that your analysis is coherent and logically organized. Revising allows you to refine your arguments, improve clarity, and ensure that your essay effectively communicates your analysis.

Furthermore, you may want to use tools that help you proofread and write a good rhetorical analysis essay. They can help you with aspects of the writing process, such as creating a clear thesis statement and logical reasoning.

Contextual Analysis

You can place the text within its broader context. This means discussing the historical, cultural, or social background that influences the text. Also, understanding the context can provide deeper insights into the rhetorical choices made by the author and how they resonate with the audience.

Maintain an Analytical Tone

Write in an objective and analytical tone for the best results. Avoid summarizing the text and instead focus on analyzing how the rhetorical strategies contribute to the author’s purpose. You’ll need to be critical and insightful, which shows a deep understanding of the text’s rhetorical techniques and their impact.

Are you unsure of how to strike the right analytical tone? Then it’s a good idea to look at different examples to learn the best practices. For example, you can look at a rhetorical analysis introduction example to get going.

How To Start a Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Examples To Help You

Do you want to know how to start a rhetorical analysis essay? We’ll now cover the basics of how you can start to get the best results. This ensures that you hit the ground running and finish the project in time for the deadline.

Here’s the step-by-step process about how to start a rhetorical analysis essay with an example to show you how it’s done:

• Understand the purpose: The goal of a rhetorical analysis essay is to examine how an author or speaker uses rhetoric to persuade, inform, or entertain an audience. For example, in analyzing Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, you would explore how King used rhetorical strategies to advocate for civil rights and inspire action.
• Read and annotate the text: Carefully read the text you are analyzing. Also, annotate key passages and note examples of rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, logos, diction, syntax, and imagery. For instance, you might highlight King’s use of metaphors like “the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”
• Formulate a thesis statement: Develop a clear thesis that presents your main argument about how the text uses rhetoric. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. effectively uses ethos, pathos, and logos to inspire his audience to pursue racial equality.

How To Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Factors To Consider

You may need to look at many different examples to craft the best essay for your assignment. This ensures that you can figure out what works to get top marks. However, you shouldn’t directly copy from the example you come across. Instead, use them for inspiration to write an essay with a great writing flow that’s unique.

Here are the top things to consider when looking at a rhetorical analysis essay:

• Thesis statement example: Pay attention to the thesis statement example to better understand the type of issues you may need to address. This allows you to craft your own statement, which makes for a good topic to tackle.
• Analytical depth: Evaluate the depth of analysis in explaining how rhetorical strategies contribute to the text’s purpose. That’s because a strong essay goes beyond surface-level observations to provide insightful commentary on the effectiveness of these strategies.
• Logical organization: Check for a clear and logical structure, with each paragraph focusing on a specific aspect of the analysis. The organization should help guide the reader through the argument in a coherent and systematic way. You can emulate this organizational structure to improve the readability of your own essay.
• Conclusive summary: Look for a strong conclusion that summarizes the main points and reiterates the significance of the analysis. Furthermore, the conclusion should tie together the essay’s arguments and reflect on the overall impact of the rhetorical strategies.

AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

To write an AP Lang rhetorical analysis essay, start by carefully reading the text and identifying the author’s purpose, audience, and main argument. You’ll need to begin your essay with an introduction that includes the title, author, and context of the text. Also, don’t forget about the clear thesis statement.

In the body paragraphs, focus on specific rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos. you’ll also need to focus on using ethos, pathos, and logos, which we covered above.

Maintain an objective and analytical tone throughout your essay. You can achieve this by organizing your paragraphs logically, with each focusing on a different strategy or element.

Finally, conclude by summarizing your main points and reiterating the significance of the rhetorical strategies in achieving the author’s purpose. Make sure to proofread your essay for clarity and coherence to ensure a polished final piece. If you are unsure of how to structure your essay, you can always check out AP Lang rhetorical analysis essay examples online .

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i include in a rhetorical analysis essay introduction.

The introduction to the rhetorical analysis essay should provide background information on the text. This includes the author, title, and context. Also, it should present the purpose of the rhetorical analysis and your thesis statement.

Make sure that the thesis briefly mentions the main rhetorical strategies you will discuss to guide the reader on what to expect in the essay body. You’ll get better at doing this with practice and keep it brief.

How do I analyze ethos in a rhetorical analysis essay?

To analyze ethos in a rhetorical analysis essay, you need to evaluate how the author establishes credibility and authority. Look for references to their qualifications, experience, or reputation. Additionally, consider the tone and language used to build trust and rapport with the audience.

Discuss how these elements contribute to the overall persuasiveness of the text, which means you’ll need to read it in detail. It’s handy to make notes with regard to ethos evaluation as you work on the project.

How do I analyze logos in a rhetorical analysis essay?

To analyze logos in a rhetorical analysis essay, focus on the logical structure and evidence presented in the text. Also, identify examples of facts, statistics, logical arguments, and reasoning used to support the author’s claims.

You’ll also need to evaluate the clarity and coherence of these arguments and how they contribute to the overall persuasiveness of the text. This latter part is more tricky and takes practice before you can get it right.

What are common mistakes to avoid when writing a rhetorical analysis essay?

Common mistakes to avoid when writing a rhetorical analysis essay include summarizing the text instead of analyzing it. This is not the point of the content, and you need to avoid doing this since it can result in a low grade.

Furthermore, you need to avoid neglecting to support claims with evidence and failing to address the effectiveness of rhetorical strategies. Also, avoid focusing too much on one type of appeal (ethos, pathos, or logos) to the detriment of others.

Can I use a first-person perspective in a rhetorical analysis essay?

While rhetorical analysis essays are typically written in the third person to maintain an objective tone, there are instances where a first-person perspective might be appropriate. However, it is essential to use it sparingly and ensure that the focus remains on the text and its rhetorical strategies.

You may want to look at a rhetorical analysis essay example that uses the first person to learn. You can use your findings to improve the quality of your essay and make sure you strike the right balance.

Use Smodin AI To Write Your Rhetorical Analysis Essay

The best practices in this article will help you create a high-quality rhetorical analysis essay. Therefore, you can get top marks in your class or improve on your personal best. You’ll see that there’s a method to the madness, such as following the right structure.

Now that you know how to write a rhetorical analysis essay, you can begin the process. Make sure that you remember the rules about ethos, logos, and pathos to write the best content. This will also help you craft the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion sections.

Do you still need help with your visual rhetorical analysis essay? Then you can use Smodin AI to improve the overall quality of your essay. The tool can proofread your work or help generate text that meets your exact requirements.

So what are you waiting for? Give Smodin AI a try today and craft top-quality essays!

Live Election Updates: Walz Courts Union Members and Derides Trump

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, in his first solo campaign appearance since becoming Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, asked AFSCME members if they could imagine the former president working in a fast-food restaurant, as Ms. Harris did.

• Share full article

Chris Cameron

Here’s the latest on the campaigns.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota held his first solo campaign event since Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate, telling unionized government workers on Tuesday that he would be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan before promising, “I won’t lose my way.”

Addressing a convention for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Los Angeles, Mr. Walz invoked Ms. Harris’s time working at a fast-food chain as a student to draw a contrast with her Republican opponent. “Can you picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s, trying to run a McFlurry machine?” he asked the crowd, which greeted him with a standing ovation.

Here’s what else to know:

Arizona abortion measure: A proposal to establish a right to abortion in Arizona’s constitution will be on the ballot in November — and it could influence turnout in the battleground state . Democrats have leveraged unhappiness about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade into gains in elections up and down the ballot over the last two years, but Republicans are betting that they can also use ballot questions to drive turnout in their favor in Arizona.

Reaching out: Donald Trump plans to meet with Miriam Adelson after his aide sent her angry texts in his name.

Targeting disaffected voters: A coalition of progressive groups has released the first ad in a $25 million campaign backing Ms. Harris that hopes to engage Democrats and disaffected independents in battleground states. The 30-second spot casts the November election as a choice between two futures: one in which Americans control their own lives and another in which their freedoms are curtailed by Mr. Trump and his allies.

On the trail: Mr. Walz and Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, were scheduled to attend separate fund-raisers in California later Tuesday. Neither Ms. Harris nor Mr. Trump are on the campaign trail today, but both are scheduled to appear in North Carolina this week: Mr. Trump will hold a rally in Asheville on Wednesday and Ms. Harris will deliver an economic policy speech in Raleigh on Friday.

Trump on X: Mr. Trump sought to regain the spotlight on Monday night with a lengthy discussion on X with Elon Musk that was plagued by technical problems. Mr. Trump used the conversation to rattle off familiar falsehoods that often went unchallenged by Mr. Musk, who proved a sympathetic questioner.

Kennedy is off the New York ballot: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign was dealt a blow when a judge ruled that his petition to appear on New York’s ballot was invalid . If the ruling stands, it will leave Mr. Kennedy unable to compete in one of the biggest states in the country, and it could endanger his efforts to be placed on the ballot in dozens of other states.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Donald Trump plans to meet with Miriam Adelson after his aide sent her angry texts in his name.

Donald J. Trump is planning to meet privately this week with Miriam Adelson, the widow of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and the Republican donor he attacked over text messages sent by his aide late last month, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

Mr. Trump’s team had asked Mrs. Adelson to attend an event focused on his Jewish supporters to be held at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., this week, according to the people with knowledge of the plans. They are also supposed to speak privately while there, one of the people said.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment. An adviser to Mrs. Adelson did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Mrs. Adelson, who was born in Israel and is a stalwart supporter of the Jewish state, earlier this year reconstituted a super PAC the Adelsons had backed previously, Preserve America, with plans to spend tens of millions of dollars in support of Mr. Trump.

But on July 25, just days after Mr. Trump and Mrs. Adelson had met privately at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Mr. Trump sent Mrs. Adelson text messages through his aide, Natalie Harp, accusing her of having “RINOs” — Republicans in Name Only — running the group, and that her late husband never would have tolerated it. At the time, Preserve America was spending $18 million on ads in three battleground states in support of Mr. Trump.

The text messages were jarring to Mrs. Adelson, according to people with knowledge of what took place. The messages prompted concerns about whether she might curtail her support for him, although those worries appear to have dissipated. Her advisers later discovered that Ike Perlmutter, the billionaire former chief executive of Marvel Entertainment who is supporting a rival super PAC, had encouraged the attacks on Mrs. Adelson.

Mr. Perlmutter, who is said to have hoped for Mrs. Adelson’s financial support to be routed through the super PAC he is backing, acknowledged to an adviser to Mrs. Adelson that he had helped spur Mr. Trump’s broadsides, according to the people with knowledge of what took place.

Mr. Trump has been struggling to find his footing, after President Biden abruptly ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who has pulled even with Mr. Trump in several polls.

Advertisement

Haley, who like Harris is Indian American, also criticized the focus on Harris’s race, insults against her intelligence and the crowd sizes at Harris’s campaign rallies. “I want this campaign to win,” Haley said of Trump. “But the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It’s not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win talking about whether she is dumb. It’s not — you can’t win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they are smart.”

In an interview on Fox News, Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential candidate who endorsed Donald Trump at the convention last month, reiterated her support for Trump but said that he and other Republicans need to “quit complaining” about how Vice President Kamala Harris runs her campaign. “The Republican Party needs to make a serious shift here,” Haley said. “The first thing is: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, people here at Fox, quit complaining that she is not giving an interview. You don’t need an interview from Kamala Harris.”

She added, “We are 80-plus days out. We need him to win. But you got to go out and do the work and the one thing Republicans have to stop doing: Quit whining about her. We knew it was going to be her. She is not going to give an interview.”

Jazmine Ulloa

In one notable exchange in his Univision interview, Trump did not elaborate on his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in the history of the United States, saying only that he would do it immediately because people are crossing into the country from all over the world and attacking New York City. But New York and other major cities have seen a sharp drop in the numbers of migrants arriving as border crossings have been plummeting in recent months.

In a Univision interview being broadcast tonight, Donald Trump briefly touched on his recovery from his assassination attempt, once again insisted he would participate in three debates, and took disparaging shots at President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over foreign policy and the border.

Michael Gold

Kamala Harris has agreed only to a Sept. 10 debate on ABC, which Trump had previously agreed to when he was facing Biden. Trump has also proposed debates on Fox News and NBC, but the Harris campaign has said it has not yet agreed to those yet.

Kellen Browning

Reporting from Los Angeles

Walz forcefully defends his military record in his first solo campaign stop.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota defended himself against Republican attacks on his military service record on Tuesday in his first solo campaign event since being named Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.

Speaking at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees convention in Los Angeles, Mr. Walz responded directly for the first time to the claims pushed by former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign that he exaggerated his military record to suggest he had served in combat when he had not, and that he left his Army National Guard unit to run for public office in order to avoid deploying to Iraq.

“I am damn proud of my service to this country,” Mr. Walz said. “And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record.”

Mr. Walz retired from the National Guard in 2005 after 24 years, a year before his artillery battalion deployed to Iraq. At the time of his retirement, soldiers knew a deployment was possible, but the actual orders came months after Mr. Walz, then 41, had already left to run for a seat in the House of Representatives . On Tuesday, he framed that decision as another act of service.

“In 2005, I felt the call of duty again, this time paying service to my country in the halls of Congress,” Mr. Walz said. Without referring to him by name, he addressed Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, who has led the “stolen valor” attacks against him and who also served in the military.

“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,” Mr. Walz said.

Mr. Walz did not directly address Mr. Vance’s claims that he had misrepresented his record to include combat.

Speaking about gun control in 2018, when he was a member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Walz said “we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”

He deployed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but did not serve in a combat zone. The Harris campaign has said that Mr. Walz misspoke.

Absent a roaring crowd of more than 10,000 packed inside a stadium or airplane hangar and without serving as Ms. Harris’s opening act — the norm for the Democratic ticket over the past week — Mr. Walz gave a 20-minute address to union members that was slightly less raucous than his previous speeches. But his tone and demeanor otherwise mirrored last week’s series of appearances.

Mr. Walz, a former teacher — and, as he noted, the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan — framed himself and Ms. Harris as warriors for the working class, highlighting pro-labor bills he signed in Minnesota and his support for federal legislation like the Protecting the Right to Organize Act , a labor rights bill.

By contrast, Mr. Walz painted Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance as out-of-touch elitists.

“Can you picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s, trying to run a McFlurry machine?” Mr. Walz asked, invoking Ms. Harris’s time working at the fast-food chain when she was a student. “The only thing those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them.”

As governor, Mr. Walz’s own record on labor is not entirely without blemishes. Last year, he vetoed a bill that would have guaranteed a minimum wage and other labor protections to gig drivers who work for Uber and Lyft, siding with the ridesharing companies’ arguments that the minimum pay was too high for the region and would have required them to curtail their businesses in Minnesota and pass on costs to riders. (He signed a similar bill with a lower base pay rate this year.)

Mr. Walz is coming off a string of battleground state rallies that welcomed him to the ticket, and the Los Angeles stop was the first of many events for him this week. He is set to attend a fund-raiser in Newport Beach, Calif., also on Tuesday, and attend fund-raisers in Denver, Boston, Newport, R.I., and Southampton, N.Y., later in the week.

Ms. Harris’s choice of Mr. Walz has seemed to turbocharge the enthusiasm unleashed by her own candidacy. He has leaned on his Midwestern appeal on the stump, while promising he and Ms. Harris would bring joy and lightness back to politics.

Supporters who attended last week’s rallies said they viewed Mr. Walz as “America’s dad,” and they were invigorated by the progressive policies he has signed into law in Minnesota.

But his rollout has not come without scrutiny, some of it inaccurate or misleading . Republicans have seized on his handling of the riots that broke out in Minneapolis in 2020 after a police officer was filmed murdering George Floyd, arguing he did not move quick enough to quell the unrest, looting and arson, and was slow to send in the National Guard. They have derided some of his policies , such as the bill he signed last year requiring menstrual products to be available in the bathrooms of all schools to accommodate transgender students.

Above all, they have hammered Mr. Walz over his military service.

The attacks are reminiscent of the sort deployed against Senator John Kerry in 2004, when he was the Democratic nominee running against President George W. Bush. Chris LaCivita, the co-chair of Mr. Trump’s campaign, was also one of the architects of the “Swift Boat” attacks against Mr. Kerry, which successfully cast doubt on his military service in Vietnam.

U.A.W. files labor charges against Trump and Musk over interview.

The United Automobile Workers union filed charges with federal labor regulators on Tuesday accusing former President Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk of threatening workers during a livestreamed conversation a day earlier.

The union, which has backed Vice President Kamala Harris, accused Mr. Trump of violating the law by voicing support for the practice of firing workers when they go on strike, an approach the former president suggested Mr. Musk had embraced.

In the glitch-delayed conversation on X, Mr. Trump described Mr. Musk as the “greatest cutter” of workers. He claimed Mr. Musk has responded to striking workers by saying, “That’s OK — you’re all gone.” Mr. Musk, the billionaire leader of Tesla and SpaceX, laughed in response, but did not directly address Mr. Trump’s remark before the former president changed the topic.

While Mr. Musk does have a reputation as a ruthless job-cutter — particularly at X, formerly Twitter, where he laid off roughly half the work force shortly after buying the company — and has been found to have engaged in anti-union tactics, Mr. Trump may have conflated different episodes across Mr. Musk’s business empire. Mr. Musk was found by the National Labor Relations Board in 2021 to have illegally fired a single Tesla employee for engaging in union activity. The board also accused him this year of illegally firing employees at SpaceX, but that involved a letter the workers circulated that was critical of Mr. Musk.

The N.L.R.B. said it had received unfair labor practice allegations against Mr. Trump’s campaign and Tesla. Regional offices for the board will investigate, said Kayla Blado, an N.L.R.B. spokeswoman.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment. On X, Mr. Musk insulted Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Brian Hughes, called the complaint against Mr. Trump a “shameless political stunt intended to erode” the former president’s support from American workers.

Mark Gaston Pearce, who was chair of the N.L.R.B. under President Barack Obama, said the U.A.W. was making a “novel” use of labor law in targeting a politician. But, he said, unless the union is able to show that Mr. Trump was speaking on behalf of Mr. Musk’s companies, “It’s not likely a charge is going to be able to stick.”

Under the National Labor Relations Act, it is illegal for employers to threaten to fire workers in retaliation for union activity.

Mr. Fain said in a statement that “Trump stands against everything our union stands for.”

He added, “Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly.”

Reid J. Epstein

Reporting from Washington

Harris and Walz are planning a rally in Milwaukee during the Democratic convention.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota are planning to hold a rally next Tuesday in Milwaukee, making an appearance in the key battleground state of Wisconsin as Democrats gather for their national convention in nearby Chicago, according to four people briefed on the discussions who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the campaign’s plans.

The Harris campaign is in talks to hold its event at Fiserv Forum, the arena where former President Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination last month, two of the people said, though an agreement on the venue has not yet been formalized.

The Harris-Walz rally in Milwaukee would be the latest visit on a tour in which the candidates spoke to crowds of over 10,000 people at five stops in battleground states last week. The campaign has jubilantly pointed to the events’ high energy and Mr. Walz has bragged about the turnout, irritating Mr. Trump to the point that he falsely claimed the Harris crowds were fake .

The planned rally on Tuesday would most likely take place before the prime-time speeches in Chicago, where former President Barack Obama is set to be the night’s featured attraction. Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee is about 80 miles from the United Center in Chicago, where Democrats will gather for their convention.

Holding a rally in the same arena where Republicans gathered last month would provide a direct contrast between the Harris-Walz ticket and Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. It would also test the Harris campaign’s ability to conduct two major events on the same day in professional basketball arenas.

This week, Ms. Harris is scheduled to appear on Thursday with President Biden at an event in Maryland, her first public appearance with him since he dropped out of the race. She is also set to deliver an economic policy address on Friday in North Carolina.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on its campaign schedule next week.

It is not unusual for presidential candidates to hold events away from the convention in the lead-up to the speeches accepting their party’s nomination. In 2012, Mr. Obama did not arrive at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., until the day before he delivered remarks . In 2016, Hillary Clinton arrived at the convention in Philadelphia the day before her speech; she was first seen onstage when she thanked Mr. Obama for his remarks vouching for her on the Wednesday before she spoke.

Mr. Trump sat in the audience at Fiserv Forum throughout all four days of the Republican convention last month.

The fashion designer Tory Burch and the Vogue editor Anna Wintour are scheduled to headline a fund-raiser for the Harris campaign in the Hamptons on Aug. 31, according to an invitation . Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, is also expected to attend.

Univision, the influential Spanish-language television network, is set to run an interview with former President Donald J. Trump this evening. His last interview with the network in the fall — a play to reach Latino voters as he refused to participate in Republican primary debates — stirred loud internal protest. Critics took issue with the gentle questioning and limited follow-ups from the interviewer, the journalist Enrique Acevedo, and the appearance confirmed fears for some that the network was taking a rightward turn under new ownership . Hispanic conservatives, however, praised the move.

📌 Entrevista exclusiva con Donald Trump: Habla de inmigración, el atentado en su contra y critica a Kamala Harris. 📺 La entrevista completa hoy en el Noticiero @Univision a las 6:30 pm/5:30 C. pic.twitter.com/n90KxfpwmD — Univision Noticias (@UniNoticias) August 13, 2024

A short clip of the interview released on X shows Trump criticizing the Biden administration’s immigration policies and describing Vice President Kamala Harris as the “border czar,” a favorite line of attack that mischaracterizes her role addressing the root causes of migration from Central America.

Jonathan Weisman

The party scene for the Democrats’ Chicago convention is taking shape.

The venues are booked, the stars are ready and the talent mostly secured. But a big hole in the schedule of after-parties at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on the final night has prompted a burning question: Could Beyoncé or Taylor Swift show up?

Neither has indicated that they might, and their representatives have remained mum. But that hasn’t stopped eager Democrats from speculating and praying. After all, Beyoncé performed at an event for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, and allowed Vice President Kamala Harris to use her song “Freedom” as a campaign anthem. Ms. Swift endorsed President Biden in 2020 .

“Democracy is at stake,” reads an online petition from the liberal group MoveOn.org , appealing to both singers to appear together.

Democratic conventions have long prided themselves on their star-studded guest rosters, which routinely outshine the Republican conventions. The Milwaukee gathering that anointed former President Donald J. Trump in July included the country star Jason Aldean, the right-wing rapper Kid Rock and the wrestling icon Hulk Hogan. Lee Greenwood performed his “God Bless the U.S.A.” for the former president, who has adopted it as a song of his movement.

But the Democratic entertainment lineup next week is sure to be deeper and more diverse.

“We have encouraged our members to use the super power of the entertainment industry to bring attention to issues that are important to the nation’s social welfare,” said Robin Bronk, chief executive of the Creative Coalition, the nonprofit advocacy arm of Hollywood. “If artists can make a difference, that’s our whole platform.”

Creative Coalition is sponsoring what it hopes will be a contender for biggest and best party of the week, a multi-act concert co-hosted by the actress Octavia Spencer on Wednesday, the second-to-last night of the convention.

Since Vice President Kamala Harris assumed the mantle of the Democratic standard-bearer, there has been a rush to participate in the convention festivities and a rash of late sign-ups. Her candidacy has not only re-energized her party’s rank-and-file, but galvanized high-profile Hollywood stars who had begun to shy away from Mr. Biden.

Harris campaign officials said they were all for celebrities and big-name musical guests brightening up Chicago’s nightlife, but inside the arena, they hope the focus will be on ordinary Americans carrying Ms. Harris’s message, or going after Mr. Trump.

Here is what to expect as the party scene takes shape.

On Sunday, the comedic news team of “The Daily Show” will be near Wrigley Field, promoting dog adoptions as Cubs fans (and out-of-towners with a love for venerable ballparks) head to an afternoon home game in the friendly confines with the Toronto Blue Jays. The host Jon Stewart is not likely to be on hand, but he is scheduled to helm the show from Chicago’s Athenaeum Center on Thursday.

Monday night will feature an Equality PAC party in the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood of Boys Town, with performers who were unlikely to get bookings at the Republican National Convention: stars of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Chad Michaels, Silky Nutmeg Ganache and Jackie Cox.

Not far away, at the House of Blues, the “Daily Show” alum Roy Wood Jr. will host what has been billed as a “Tipping Point States” party with musicians from Wisconsin and Arizona, including the band Jimmy Eat World, which hails from Mesa, and D.J. Shawna from Milwaukee.

And at PRYSM, a Chicago nightclub, the Georgia Democratic Party is holding a D.J. party with the Atlanta rapper Lil Jon.

On Tuesday , the first big splash comes from JB Pritzker, the billionaire governor of Illinois who, along with his wife, MK Pritzker, has been eager to show off his hometown. Mr. Pritzker procured the Salt Shed, a converted Morton Salt factory on the Chicago River and one of the city’s premier concert venues. The headliner: the singer, songwriter and Democratic activist John Legend.

On Wednesday , the Creative Coalition, Giffords, a gun-safety group founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Reproductive Freedom for All, and End Citizens United are talking up what they hope to be the concert of the week, promoting three huge issues for the Democratic coalition: abortion rights, gun control and voting rights.

The headliners at the newly renovated Ramova Theater in the working-class Bridgeport neighborhood will be Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, a band from Ms. Harris’s Generation X youth, Drive-By Truckers, a favorite of the Harris campaign staff, and SistaStrings, from oh-so-important Milwaukee. Ms. Spencer, an Academy Award winner, will host, and the promoters are promising to seed the audience with Hollywood talent, including Uma Thurman; Danai Gurira of “Walking Dead” and “Black Panther” fame; Iain Armitage of “Young Sheldon”; and Uzo Aduba, Crazy Eyes from “Orange Is the New Black,” but perhaps more relevantly in the mini-series “Mrs. America,” Shirley Chisholm, the trailblazing Black female politician. Oh, and Ms. Giffords and her husband, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, will co-host.

Emma Brown, the Giffords executive director, emphasized the coalition of gun safety, abortion rights and voting rights over the star power at the Ramova.

But she added, “This will be the major place to be on Wednesday.”

That leaves Thursday night , the last chance for a surprise or two. Impactual, a Washington consulting firm, and Future Forward, the super PAC supporting the Harris-Walz ticket, is co-producing a concert and fund-raiser for Party at the Polls , a youth-oriented group that sponsors, yes, parties at the polls to bring out young voters. The concert will also take place at the Ramova, which is co-owned by Chance the Rapper, Jennifer Hudson and Quincy Jones .

Rodell Mollineau, a veteran Democratic lobbyist, strategist and former Senate aide involved in the show, said in an interview that the bash was intended to mark the end of the convention season and officially start the sprint to Election Day.

But, he insisted, the talent is not yet set.

Let the speculation continue.

Walz wrapped up his speech after about 20 minutes. He focused on contrasting his ticket’s record of fighting for the working class with the record of Donald Trump and JD Vance. “Can you picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s, trying to run a McFlurry machine?” Walz said at one point, invoking Harris’s time working at the fast-food chain when she was a student.

Walz addressed the attacks from Republicans about his record of military service , saying he was “damn proud of my service to this country,” and that “I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record.” Republicans have said he misrepresented his time in the Army National Guard, implying that he served in combat when he did not, and they have pointed out that he left the military to run for public office not long before his unit was deployed.

Gov. Tim Walz took the stage here at the AFSCME convention in Los Angeles to a standing ovation after being introduced by the union’s president, Lee Saunders. Walz says he would be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan. “But rest assured, I won’t lose my way,” he said.

Doug Ducey, a conservative Republican and former governor of Arizona who resisted pressure from Donald Trump, then the president, to overturn Joseph Biden’s 2020 win in the state, endorsed Trump and Kari Lake, his party’s nominee for Senate, in a social media post on Tuesday. “Differences aside, there is too much on the line and only a Republican in the White House and a majority in the House and U.S. Senate can assure it,” he wrote. Ducey stayed neutral in the Senate primary this year; Lake had called him “do-nothing Ducey” when she ran for governor in 2022.

Donald Trump has resumed posting on X on Tuesday afternoon, sharing a recording of his conversation with Elon Musk on Monday night and pinning that post to the top of his profile.

I’m in Los Angeles at a convention for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a trade union where Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota will make his first solo campaign appearance since being named Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. He’s expected to speak in about 45 minutes, to a crowd of up to 5,000 union members.

After posting 10 times on X yesterday — his first posts on the site in almost a year — Donald Trump’s account on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk has been quiet on Tuesday. The Trump campaign’s advertisements on X, including a banner ad at the top of the site’s Explore page, have also largely disappeared.

Trump has resumed posting on the platform he owns, Truth Social. Shares of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, have been sliding since Monday and are down more than three percent in trading.

Reporting from Washington, D.C.

A progressive coalition released the first ad of a $25 million campaign backing Harris.

Amplify, a coalition of progressive groups, released its first digital ad supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s bid for the White House, part of a $25 million voter outreach campaign targeting Democrats and disaffected independents in battleground states.

The ad reflects a unified message from the left that the organizations began testing in the 2022 midterms, and which they say helped blunt what had been expected to be a sweeping victory for Republicans. The 30-second spot casts the November election as a choice between two futures: one in which Americans control their own lives and another in which their freedoms are curtailed by Donald J. Trump and his allies.

The members of the coalition said they plan to spend $1 million on the ad’s release.

The Amplify campaign began this year in coordination with Way to Win, a national hub of left-leaning Democratic donors and political strategists, the ad agency Gutsy Media and more than 200 grass-roots groups, many based in the crucial states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The organizations created a digital tool kit and online library of ads, documentary-style first-person stories and stock footage that Democratic organizations, activists and influencers are using to create and disseminate content online and on television.

The digital components center on the campaign’s overarching theme: “Our Freedoms, Our Families, Our Futures.” Democrats at every level of the party, including President Biden, began testing that pitch in 2022, staking a claim to language about freedom and personal liberty often used by Republicans. The theme has been widely used by Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that year. Ms. Harris, who has long made discussion of abortion rights a major part of her stump speeches, has also fashioned the freedom theme into a core part of her campaign’s message.

Grecia Lima, the national political director of Community Change Action, which works to build political power among low-income people and is a national partner of Amplify, said her group has used the initiative’s scripts in phone banks and door-knocking outreach, and in a program that pays more than 100 influencers to produce content on Instagram and TikTok.

“We went out and recruited, specifically, young people of color whose audience is not primarily political,” she said. Some of the videos feature online messengers speaking directly to their audiences , while others weave the campaign’s values into tutorials on topics ranging from rapping to makeup.

When Amplify started up this year, the presidential race was set to be a rematch between two older men who didn’t excite some Democrats and independents. Progressive groups initially focused more on empowering voters who had become so disengaged they planned to vote for third-party candidates or not vote at all.

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, a co-founder and vice president of Way to Win, said that their options have expanded since Ms. Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee.

“There was a lot of malaise we had to kind of try to cut through,” she said. “We’re just in a totally different moment.”

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the year the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It was 2022, not 2023.

How we handle corrections

Democrats will for the first time stream video of their convention on TikTok and Instagram next week, the Democratic National Convention Committee said, in another bid by the party to reach younger voters’ social media feeds. Axios previously reported on the plan.

The police say a man broke into a Trump campaign office in Virginia.

A man carrying a backpack broke into a Trump campaign office outside Washington, D.C., on Sunday night in what is being investigated as a burglary, according to the local sheriff’s office in Virginia.

The man, wearing dark clothes and a dark baseball cap, entered the campaign office in Ashburn, Va., around 9 p.m., when the office was otherwise empty, according to the Loudoun County sheriff’s office.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, Thomas A. Julia, said on Tuesday that investigators had a “pretty good lead,” but it was unclear if anything had been stolen after the man forced his way into the office. “We don’t know what, if anything, was removed,” he said.

The sheriff’s office released surveillance video images of a man with a backpack strapped across his chest and asked the public for help identifying him. Mr. Julia said the office expected to provide an update later on Tuesday.

The break-in came less than three months before Election Day in a presidential campaign that has been roiled by an assassination attempt against Mr. Trump and a possible cyberattack on his campaign.

The county sheriff, Michael L. Chapman, described the incident as unusual.

“It is rare to have the office of any political campaign or party broken into,” he said in a statement. “We are determined to identify the suspect, investigate why it happened, and determine what may have been taken as well as what may have been left behind.”

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

The campaign office, in a commercial area about 25 miles northwest of downtown Washington, also serves as the headquarters for the Republican Committee for Virginia’s 10th District. The chair of the committee, Chris Harnisch, said in a statement that he did not have any additional information about the break-in and that the committee was “very grateful” for the support of the sheriff’s office.

Nicholas Nehamas

The actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, of “Veep” fame, will host a panel with Democratic women governors during the party’s convention in Chicago next week, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter . Participants are expected to include Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York. The convention seems to be attracting more buzz from celebrities since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Biden on the ticket.

Kate Zernike

An abortion measure will be on the ballot in Arizona, a battleground state.

Arizona voters will decide in November whether to establish a right to abortion in the state constitution, a measure that could strongly influence turnout in a battleground state crucial to the presidential election and control of the Senate.

The Arizona Secretary of State’s office said it had certified 577,971 signatures collected by a coalition of abortion rights groups, 50 percent more than required to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. It is the largest number of certified signatures for any ballot measure in state history.

A similar question will appear on the ballot in Missouri, after the Secretary of State there said on Tuesday that abortion rights groups had collected 254,871 valid signatures, more than enough to place the measure on the ballot. Missouri, the first state to enact an abortion ban after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, could become the first state where a citizen-sponsored measure overturns a near-total ban.

Abortion rights groups have prevailed in all seven states where the question of how to regulate abortion has been put directly to voters in the two years since the demise of Roe, the 1973 decision that said the United States Constitution protected a right to abortion.

The run of abortion rights successes has put Republicans and anti-abortion groups on the defensive. They have mounted “decline to sign” campaigns, filed lawsuits trying to prevent signatures from being certified, and sponsored legislation trying to make it harder for ballot measures to pass. Before the high court overturned Roe, almost every abortion-related ballot measure had been sponsored by the anti-abortion side.

Measures to establish or protect abortion rights are already on the November ballot in six other states : Florida, South Dakota, Colorado, New York, Maryland and Nevada. But only Arizona and Nevada are seen as presidential battleground states, where Democrats are hoping that support for abortion rights will drive higher turnout in their favor. (South Dakota and Missouri are the only two of those states with near-total abortion bans.)

Democrats have leveraged Americans’ unhappiness over the court’s decision to overturn Roe into gains in elections up and down the ballot over the last two years. The party’s support for reproductive rights has pulled in more young women in particular, a demographic that Democrats hope will prove influential in November. The Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, has campaigned energetically on the issue.

Arizona is also crucial in the fight for control of the United States Senate. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic representative, is facing off against Kari Lake, the Republican nominee, for an open seat. In the House, where Republicans are trying to hold on to a narrow majority, Democrats are hoping the ballot measure, known as Proposition 139, will help them flip two seats in Arizona.

“This is a huge win for Arizona voters who will now get to vote yes on restoring and protecting the right to access abortion care, free from political interference, once and for all,” Cheryl Bruce, the campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition sponsoring the measure, said in a statement.

Joanna De La Cruz, a spokeswoman for It Goes Too Far, a group opposing the amendment, said in a statement that proponents had overstated support for the measure: “This is a far fewer number of signatures than proponents originally touted.”

The group argues that the law in Arizona, which now allows abortion up until 15 weeks of pregnancy and for medical emergencies after that, “is settled” and that the amendment is “extreme.” Proponents, she said, “fail to tell voters that basic safety precautions now in place to protect girls and women will be unenforceable under the language of the amendment.”

The proposed amendments in Missouri and Arizona are similar to those that voters have approved in other states, including Michigan, another battleground state, and Ohio, which has a more conservative electorate. Each would establish a “fundamental right” to abortion, prohibiting the state from banning or limiting the procedure before viability, or when the fetus can survive outside the uterus — generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy — unless those limits are to protect the life of the patient and do not infringe on the pregnant woman’s “autonomous decision making.”

The states could regulate abortion after viability, but would have to continue to allow the procedure in cases where, in the “good-faith judgment of a treating health care professional,” an abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman.

“It’s about giving Missourians the ability to make their own personal private health care decisions without interference from politicians,” Rachel Sweet, the campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said at a news conference after the signatures were certified.

While the Missouri ballot amendment is unlikely to have the national political ramifications that Arizona’s could, a win for abortion rights in Missouri would restore abortion access not only for the state, but also for women in the swath of nearby Southern states that have near-total abortion bans. “The impact will be regional,” said Mallory Schwarz, the executive director for Abortion Action Missouri.

But Stephanie Bell, a spokeswoman for Missouri Stands With Women, an anti-abortion group, argued that the amendment would eliminate safety provisions, including the right to sue doctors for negligence during pregnancy, labor or delivery.

“Missourians are smart and they don’t like their freedom and safety being stolen from them, and once they learn the real truth about this amendment will vote it down,” she said in a statement.

Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who is Arizona’s Secretary of State, noted as he certified the signatures that more legal challenges are inevitable. “It’s going to create a bunch of lawsuits, so that’s got to happen,” he said, just before affixing the seal of the state to the paperwork making the ballot measure official.

Still, the certifications will make it more difficult for opponents to remove the measures from ballots.

In Arizona, Republicans are betting that they, too, can use a ballot question to drive turnout in their favor. The Republican-led legislature approved a measure that will ask voters to make it a state crime to unlawfully cross the border from Mexico, placing another hot-button issue directly before voters.

In a CBS News poll in May , 65 percent of likely Arizona voters said they would support a ballot measure establishing a constitutional right to abortion, while 21 percent said they would not and 14 percent said they were unsure.

A St. Louis University poll of likely voters in Missouri in February found that a plurality of voters — 44 percent — supported the proposed ballot measure there, while 37 percent opposed and 19 percent were unsure.

The Harris campaign and its supporters are mining Donald Trump’s conversation with Elon Musk for material to attack the former president. Unions that back Harris, including United Automobile Workers , highlighted Trump praising Musk for suppressing union organizing at his companies . “They go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone,” Trump told Musk, who laughed at the remark.

The UAW denounced Trump in a statement this morning as a “scab,” a pejorative for those who undermine union labor.

He's for the billionaires. Not for you. Donald Trump is a scab. #StandUpUAW pic.twitter.com/hj10zDPbzw — UAW (@UAW) August 13, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a speech in North Carolina on Friday laying out her economic policy. Her remarks are expected to focus on efforts to lower costs and combat “corporate price-gouging,” her campaign said. Voters have expressed deep concern about inflation and high prices under the Biden administration.

Musk tees up softball questions for Trump on X, after technical problems.

What was supposed to be Donald J. Trump’s triumphant return to a social-media platform central to his presidency was marred by glitches on Monday night, when a livestreamed conversation on X between Mr. Trump and its owner, Elon Musk, was significantly delayed by technical issues.

But once their chat began, 40 minutes after it was scheduled, Mr. Musk’s and Mr. Trump’s newly developed camaraderie was on clear display, with the billionaire tech entrepreneur lobbing softball questions that allowed Mr. Trump to rattle off the talking points that have animated his presidential campaign.

The conversation offered little new information about Mr. Trump’s views. Over the course of more than two hours, Mr. Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, as a “phony” who, along with President Biden, failed to address crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico. He repeated a number of false claims, including that the 2020 election was rigged, the criminal cases against him were a conspiracy by the Biden administration to undermine his candidacy and the leaders of other nations were deliberately sending criminals and “their nonproductive people” to America.

To all of these points, Mr. Musk largely voiced his agreement, offering frequent praise as he proved a sympathetic partner to help amplify Mr. Trump’s views on a social-media platform that once barred him for promoting false claims that promoted political violence. Mr. Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X last year.

“I’ve not been very political before,” Mr. Musk said toward the end of their chat, describing himself as “moderate, if not moderate, slightly left,” and adding that listeners who categorized themselves that way should back Mr. Trump.

Early in the evening, Mr. Musk — who shares with Mr. Trump a contempt for the mainstream media — was clear that he was not conducting an “adversarial” interview but wanted to help “open-minded, independent voters” simply “catch a vibe.”

“I want to emphasize it’s a conversation, and it’s really intended to just get a feel for what Donald Trump is just like in a conversation,” Mr. Musk said.

Whether that gambit will help Mr. Trump win over undecided voters or Mr. Musk restore confidence in his platform remains unclear. The faulty beginning, which Mr. Musk attributed to a cyberattack, threatened to overshadow the conversation itself. And the technical errors recalled similar issues that plagued another political event hosted by Mr. Musk last year, when Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign announcement on Twitter was rife with glitches, hot mics and dead air.

Monday’s conversation — held on Spaces, X’s audio livestreaming platform — followed a series of efforts by Mr. Trump and his team to recapture the momentum he has lost since Mr. Biden ended his re-election bid and Ms. Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked Ms. Harris for not holding a formal news conference and avoiding interviews with journalists. He has played up his willingness to take questions as he tries to take back the political spotlight. At several points, he framed his conversation with Mr. Musk as part of that line of attack.

Last month, Mr. Trump was combative while being interviewed by a panel of Black female journalists at a National Association of Black Journalists convention, where he questioned Ms. Harris’s racial identity. Last week, he grew frustrated by questioning at a hastily scheduled news conference in Palm Beach, Fla., where his answers often meandered and a story he told about a helicopter ride drew significant scrutiny .

By contrast, the conversation with Mr. Musk brought Mr. Trump a social-media vehicle to extend his appeal beyond the right-wing talk radio shows or conservative television outlets where Mr. Trump is often given space to share his views by fawning hosts who rarely interrupt or check facts. According to X, more than a million listeners were tuned in to the conversation.

And the conversation allowed Mr. Musk to air many of his own grievances, including his criticisms of government regulation that he said hampered innovation. Mr. Musk has frequently criticized Mr. Biden in his X posts, and he enthusiastically backed Mr. Trump’s depiction of the president as weak and incompetent and of Ms. Harris as unfit to lead.

“You can actually have a conversation with you,” Mr. Musk said after an hour in which Mr. Trump had done most of the talking. “And you can’t have a conversation with Biden or Kamala. It’s not possible.”

A Harris campaign spokesman, Joseph Costello, mocked X’s technical issues and criticized the pair’s views. “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024,” Mr. Costello said in a statement.

Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Musk capped a remarkable reversal in what had been an icy relationship. Mr. Musk had been critical of Mr. Trump for years but underwent a political transformation as he grew angry with Democrats over transgender rights, immigration and the Biden administration’s treatment of Tesla.

Mr. Musk endorsed Mr. Trump shortly after the former president survived an assassination attempt last month, and he co-founded a super PAC that is looking to spend large sums in order to build a new ground game for Republicans that could aid the Trump campaign’s efforts.

Mr. Trump, for his part, has softened his yearslong diatribes against electric vehicles, increasingly telling crowds at his rallies that he likes them — and particularly those produced by Mr. Musk’s company — even as he knocks them for supposed shortcomings.

And on Monday, he returned to Mr. Musk's website after years of relative silence there, posting eight times before their conversation. His posts largely consisted of campaign videos he and his team have already distributed, including a video that traces his political rise and another attacking Ms. Harris as overly liberal.

Mr. Trump was banned from X, then called Twitter, in 2021 after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Twitter decided that Mr. Trump’s posts encouraged violence.

Mr. Musk reinstated Mr. Trump’s account after he bought the platform in 2022, but Mr. Trump largely eschewed it in favor of his own social media platform, Truth Social. The lone exceptions came in August 2023, when Mr. Trump posted a link to his campaign website and a photo of the mug shot taken after he was booked at a jail in Georgia on racketeering charges and gave an interview to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, who streams his talk shows on X.

Kate Conger , Ryan Mac and Chris Cameron contributed reporting.

Trump regales Elon Musk with familiar falsehoods.

Former President Donald J. Trump repeated a number of inaccurate claims that have become campaign staples in a conversation on Monday night with the billionaire Elon Musk on X, his social media platform.

After describing at length the attempted assassination against him at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, Mr. Trump ran through familiar complaints about immigration — echoed by Mr. Musk — and attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris.

Here’s a fact check:

He inaccurately claimed that a chart he showed at the Pennsylvania rally, which he has repeatedly credited with saving his life, showed that “my last week, we had the best illegal immigration numbers.” (The chart was highly misleading, and unauthorized border crossings were not the lowest when he left office .)

He misleadingly described Ms. Harris as “the border czar.” (She was responsible for addressing the root causes of migration in Central America , not border security.)

He said that 20 million people had illegally crossed the southern border under President Biden. (The number is overstated .)

He claimed, with no evidence, that other countries take unauthorized immigrants “out of jails, prisons” and “bring them to the United States.” (Prison populations are increasing across the world .)

He claimed that crime in Venezuela had declined 72 percent because of an exodus of criminals into the United States. (The decrease is overstated , and there is no evidence that Venezuela had “gotten rid” of criminals.)

He asserted that Mr. Biden “shut down Keystone XL pipeline, which is our pipeline that would have employed 48,000 people.” (Mr. Biden did rescind a permit for the pipeline , which had a projected employment of 35 permanent jobs .)

He falsely described climate change as “where the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.” (Under a worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise by as much as 10 meters by 2300 , or nearly 33 feet, more than 3,100 times what Mr. Trump said.)

He exaggerated grocery price inflation as high as “50, 60, even 100 percent in some cases.” (The index that tracks grocery prices is up by about 20 percent since early 2021 .)

He falsely claimed that inflation was the “worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years.” ( Inflation reached 8 percent in 2022, the highest since 1981. )

He falsely claimed that bacon now cost “four or five times more than it did a few years ago.” (The average price of sliced bacon was $5.83 per pound in January 2021 and $6.83 per pound in June 2024.)

He falsely claimed that the 2017 tax cut was the “largest” in history. ( At least half a dozen others are bigger .)

He claimed, with no evidence, that the Biden administration orchestrated the criminal cases against him because it “went after their political opponent.” (At least two were brought by state or local prosecutors, meaning the Justice Department has no connection to the cases. Two others are overseen by a special counsel, specifically to avoid the perception of politicization.)