Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) endorsed former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat in Maryland, saying he is “just the right person” for the job.
Manchin, a former moderate Democrat who filed as an independent this year, showed enthusiasm for Hogan’s campaign and its embrace of moderate politics this election cycle.
“Forget about being a Democrat or Republican,” Manchin said, according to DC News Now. “Larry Hogan is just the right person with the right attitude for the job.”
Speaking from Hagerstown, Md., Manchin said Hogan won’t be controlled by “any party or any type of ideology.”
Hogan has moved to the middle throughout his campaign, particularly on abortion where he has called himself “pro-choice.” He also drew the wrath of former President Trump after saying Americans should “respect” the guilty verdict in his New York hush money case.
The former governor is up against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) in the race for the senate seat.
Recent polling found Hogan trailing Alsobrooks by 5 points. Hogan enjoys name recognition and high favorability ratings among voters, though more still say they are supporting Alsobrooks’ bid.
According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average, Alsobrooks has a 4.3 percent lead over Hogan.
The Hill has reached out to Hogan’s campaign for comment.
Harris widens lead over Trump in postdebate poll
Vice President Harris has widened her lead over former President Trump in a survey conducted after they clashed at their Tuesday debate.
The Morning Consult poll found Harris leading by 5 points after the high-stakes ABC debate, ticking up from the 3- and 4-point leads she held in the same survey before the event in Philadelphia.
If the election were held today, 50 percent of respondents said they would cast their ballot for Harris, up from 49 percent who were polled before the debate.
Trump, on the other hand, lost support. Ahead of the debate, 46 percent of respondents said they would cast their ballot for the former president if the election were held today. After Tuesday’s debate, that decreased to 45 percent.
A majority of Harris’s support comes from Democrats, but she leads Trump among independent voters with 46 percent support to his 40 percent, the survey found.
“It’s too early to say whether Harris’ debate performance is the key driver of our latest head-to-head numbers, as our short-term trends suggest she was already building momentum ahead of Tuesday’s televised match-up,” Morning Consult analysts wrote.
Still, that debate performance, which was widely seen as successful, will help her sustain that momentum, they wrote.
Harris and Trump met for the first time on the debate stage in Philadelphia, where they sparred over key issues including abortion and immigration.
Other short-term polling found that Harris won the debate after she repeatedly baited Trump into shouting and spreading conspiracy theories.
Trump became visibly angry and refused to make eye contact with Harris.
The debate was seen as a critical moment for the vice president, who needed to introduce her policy ideas to voters and present a stark contrast between her and Trump.
The Morning Consult survey was conducted Wednesday among at least 3,317 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Trump proposes ending taxes on overtime pay
Former President Trump on Thursday called for ending taxes on overtime wages for individuals who work more than 40 hours a week, his latest proposal to slash individual taxes if he is reelected.
“We will end all taxes on overtime. You know what that means? Think of that. That gives people more of an incentive to work, it gives the companies a lot, it’s a lot easier to get the people,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona.
“The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country, and for too long no one in Washington has been looking out for them,” he added.
The proposal would require congressional action. Trump did not offer additional details about how it would work.
The Harris campaign in a statement dismissed Trump’s proposal as “desperate,” contrasting it with the Justice Department under his first administration opting not to defend an Obama-era Labor Department rule that would have extended overtime benefits to more than 4 million workers.
“No matter how much he lies now, Donald Trump’s record and agenda are clear – as president, he stole millions of dollars of wages from the workers he purports to represent,” Harris spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement.
“He is desperate and scrambling and saying whatever it takes to try to trick people into voting for him,” Costello added. “If he takes power again, he will only look out for himself and his billionaire buddies and their big corporations. There’s only one candidate in this race who will actually fight for workers: Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) earlier this year introduced legislation to eliminate income taxes on overtime pay, arguing it would help workers combat rising costs. His proposal noted the bill had never been attempted at the federal level.
Trump has in recent months proposed ending taxes on tipped wages and has called for eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits.
Vice President Harris, who is the Democratic nominee for president, later echoed Trump’s call for eliminating taxes on tips and called for an increase in the minimum wage. Harris’s campaign said her proposal would include an income limit and provisions to keep corporations from taking advantage of the policy.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that exempting tip income from federal income, as well as increasing the minimum wage, could add between $100 billion and $200 billion to the nation’s deficits in a 10-year window.
Meanwhile, the Tax Foundation found that ending taxes on Social Security benefits would increase the deficit by $1.6 trillion over 10 years, and could quicken the insolvency of the program.
