 Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump Debate

The Washington Post

Who is ahead in Harris vs. Trump 2024 presidential polls right now?

US-ANNIVERSARY-ATTACK-9/11-TRUMP

Contributor

New York City Marks 23rd Anniversary Of September 11, 2001 Attacks

Staff

Taylor Swift

INVL

For The Washington Post

POLLUPDATE0909 ONLY

A Court Case in Georgia Pitted Election Skeptics Against a Local Attorney

Staff Photographer

Primary Voting - Concord, NH

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Campaign

Liz Cheney

Kamala Harris NH

"Raising McCain" Series New York Premiere

Stringer

Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago

Kamala Harris,Donald Trump

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show expanded byline information on articles

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Show the Balance of Power component on the new Election subnav component

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Enable new Elections subnav on Site pages

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

If true, will use a spoofed user agent to scrape and summarize content from paywalled sources

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Election 2024 live updates: Harris, Trump attending 9/11 events after contentious debate

Reporting and analysis from the Hill and the White House

See more on this topic in your recommendations

Politics

Make sense of political news -- fast. Sent daily.

The 5-Minute Fix newsletter

Politics alerts

Adam Gray

The father of an 11-year-old boy who died last year delivered an emotional speech ahead of the presidential debate Tuesday, rebuking Republican presidential candidate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>, his running mate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/jd-vance/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">JD Vance</a> and others for mischaracterizing the circumstances around his son’s death.

“Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose,” Nathan Clark said Tuesday evening, with his wife at his side, during a<a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/S2v8-HIvvoU?t=2537s" target=_blank> public meeting</a> in Springfield, Ohio. “And speaking of morally bankrupt politicians, Bernie Moreno, Chip Roy, JD Vance and Donald Trump. They have spoken my son’s name and use his death for political gain. This needs to stop now.”

Moreno is the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Ohio and Roy is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

Aiden Clark was killed on Aug. 22, 2023, after the school bus he was on was hit by a vehicle driven by Hermanio Joseph. The driver, a 36-year-old immigrant from Haiti, did not have a valid driver’s license at the time of the crash and in May was sentenced to a prison term of nine to 13½ years, <a href="https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/judge-we-cant-fix-this-minivan-driver-in-fatal-clark-county-school-bus-crash-sentenced-to-prison/WPF262IOXNFTLCQKOTQPZYEKBA/" target=_blank>the Springfield News-Sun</a> reported.

Clark’s death has been amplified by Trump, Vance and other Republicans who have sought to attack Vice President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/kamala-harris/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Kamala Harris</a> on immigration and attempted to portray Americans as less safe because of undocumented immigrants who have entered the United States since President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Joe Biden</a> and Harris took office.

“REMEMBER: 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed on his way to school by a Haitian migrant that Kamala Harris let into the country in Springfield, Ohio,” Trump’s official campaign account wrote on Monday to their more than 3 million followers <a href="https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1833158652389208198" target=_blank>on X</a> and <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@TeamTrump/posts/113108197504295128" target=_blank>TruthSocial</a>. “Kamala Harris has refused to say Aiden’s name.”

Vance went further, <a href="https://x.com/JDVance/status/1833505359513661762" target=_blank>writing</a> Tuesday morning on X: “Do you know what’s confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here.”

In the public meeting later that evening, Clark noted that he “will listen to them one more time to hear their apologies” but denounced hateful rhetoric toward Haitian immigrants that has amplified since his son’s death.

“To clear the air, my son, Aiden Clark, was not murdered,” Clark said. “He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti. This tragedy is felt all over this community, the state and even the nation. But don’t spin this towards hate.”

Spokespeople for Trump and Vance did not apologize for how they talked about the younger Clark’s death, nor back away from their prior statements.

Election 2024 context box

Follow <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/09/11/election-2024-presidential-debate-harris-trump/" target=_blank>live updates on the 2024 election</a> and catch up on the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/10/harris-trump-presidential-debate/" target=_blank>first presidential debate</a> between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/11/presidential-debate-takeaways/" target=_blank>key takeaways from the night</a>.

Who is ahead in 2024 presidential polls right now?

Check out how Harris and Trump stack up according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/presidential-polling-averages/" target="_blank">The Washington Post’s presidential polling averages</a> of seven battleground states.

Social share image for election 2024 policy pages project

We’ve collected <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/presidential-candidates-2024-policies-issues/" target=_blank>Harris’s and Trump’s stances on the most important issues</a> including abortion, economic policy, immigration and more.

US state map showing upcoming Senate elections by current party

Promo for senateracestowatch

Senate Democrats are at risk of losing their 51-49 majority this fall. The Post breaks down the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/2024-us-senate-races-to-watch/" target=_blank>eight races and three long shots that could determine Senate control</a>.

themoment-campaign-nl-23

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/campaign-moment/" target=_blank>Sign up for The Campaign Moment</a>, reporter Aaron Blake’s guide to what you really need to know about the 2024 election.

“We hope the media will continue to cover the stories of the very real suffering and tragedies experienced by the people of Springfield, Ohio — many which haven’t been given nearly the level of attention they deserve until now because they don’t fit the liberal mainstream media narrative,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said.

In response to a follow-up question about Clark’s request for an apology for the Republican candidates’ rhetoric, Leavitt sent a statement that read in part, “We are deeply sorry to the Clark family for the loss of their son.”

Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for Vance, also said in a statement that “Kamala Harris should apologize to the angel mothers who testified before Congress yesterday” and added “Will she apologize to Tammy Nobles, Alexis Nungaray, or Anne Fundner? They hold her and her open borders policies accountable for the deaths of their children. The Clark family is in Senator Vance’s prayers.”

Reagan McCarthy, a Moreno campaign spokeswoman, argued that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), whom Moreno is trying to unseat, and Harris “are the ones who should be apologizing.”

“The reckless open border policies of Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris are causing death and destruction across our entire nation,” McCarthy added. “The Clark family will always be in Bernie’s prayers.”

A spokesperson for Roy did not immediately provide a comment.

Trump and Vance have also spread baseless conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/10/trump-immigrants-eating-dogs-springfield-ohio-fact-check/" target="_blank">killing and eating pets</a> in the area — a claim that has been unsubstantiated by the local police and officials. Trump repeated the claim during Tuesday night’s debate with Harris, even after moderator David Muir of ABC News said no credible evidence of the claim has surfaced.

“I’ve seen people on television … the people on television claimed, ‘My dog was taken and used for food,’” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/09/11/highlights-debate-memorable-lines-trump-harris/" target=_blank>Trump said</a>.

University at Albany, B.A. in English

Paybarah joined The Washington Post in 2022. He previously covered politics for the New York Times, Politico New York and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow in 2017.

Azi Paybarah

washpost

Father of Aiden Clark blasts Trump, Vance for using son for ‘political gain’

the-washington-post

AFP/Getty Images

Biden administration

The Fix

The Briefs

Polling

Democracy in America

Election 2024

Balance of Power Pair

U.S. House Aggregate

U.S. Senate Aggregate

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.

prism://prism.query/site,/politics/the-fix&limit=6