CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Whether scenic or slightly sinister —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.michigan.gov/sos/elections/voting/2024-i-voted-sticker-contest">angry werewolf</a>, anyone? — the designs on the front of “I Voted” stickers are attracting a lot of attention this year. But have you ever considered the back of your&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024">Election Day</a>&nbsp;souvenir?

“Garment-safe adhesive, it’s incredibly important,” said Janet Boudreau, one sticker designer. “You can ruin leather, silk, fine wool if you don’t use garment-safe adhesive on any sticker that goes on fabric.”

Boudreau should know. She designed the iconic sticker that has been a polling place staple for decades: a simple ellipse featuring a rippling red, white and blue American flag. And while the company she once owned now has competition, she is delighted by the new versions cropping up around the country, many of them designed by children.

“I am all for it,” she said. “And I’m all for younger people getting involved and understanding the power of voting and having faith in it.”

Two years ago, a New York county’s stickers featuring a wild-eyed crab-like creature created by a 14-year-old boy became an online sensation. This year the smash hit — one of nine designs distributed in Michigan — depicts a werewolf shredding its shirt in front of an American flag.

The 12-year-old Michigan designer declined an interview request, but other young artists described rewarding experiences.

In Milton, New Hampshire, 10-year-old Grace was treated like a celebrity when she visited the polls for the presidential primary in January and town elections in March.

“I definitely did see a difference in everyone’s attitude, like everyone seemed happier and more excited to vote because they’d get a cool sticker that I designed,” she said. “And I really think it was cool that I made an impact on the way people vote and how they feel about voting.”

New Hampshire’s contest was open to fourth graders and more than 1,000 submitted entries. Grace, whose design features the state’s fallen but not forgotten Old Man of the Mountain rock formation, not only got to attend a pizza party at the Statehouse but has since become pen pals with one of the other two winners.

While Grace settled on her design quickly, 11-year-old Rilynn drafted three versions and had her family vote on their favorite. The winner? A moose standing on a ledge overlooking colorful fall foliage and the state’s highest mountain.

Like Grace, she was excited to see her stickers in action earlier this year.

“They had a huge pile of stickers and people were literally picking out my sticker,” she said. “By the time my dad got there, he didn’t get one.”

Not all of the new stickers are designed by children.

In Denver, incarcerated individuals designed two stickers, one featuring the Colorado flag with a brick building, sun and purple mountains comprising the “D” in “voted.” The design competition was aimed at promoting civic engagement and fostering a sense of purpose and community.

In King County, Washington, a graphic designer developed a sticker showcasing the Seattle cityscape on the top and the countryside on the bottom. In New York City, those who voted on Halloween got stickers showing a pigeon wearing a witch's hat. And a contest open to adults and college students in San Francisco was won by illustrator Hollis Callas, who included flowers, birds, a seal, the Golden Gate Bridge and “I voted” in multiple languages.

“I love it,” said Allison Tichenor, who picked up a sticker when she voted earlier this week. “It’s beautiful, just like the city.”

Tichenor and others said they enjoy wearing the stickers to remind others to cast their ballots.

“I think they are important because you never know who it might inspire to vote,” said Deanna Long of Raleigh, North Carolina, who went to a Kamala Harris rally Wednesday with a voting sticker on her bag depicting a child riding a purple-maned unicorn.

“The designs have been fun and are from young kids, who have to rely on others to vote for their needs,” Long said. “The value of voting is hopefully becoming clearer to the younger generations, and I hope the artwork is inspiring to them as well.”

In 2019, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission launched a national contest for the best sticker as part of its efforts to honor innovative best practices in election administration. The latest batch of winners includes the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office in New Mexico, where the contest focused specifically on “Future Voter” and “First Time Voter” stickers.

“Running elections is hard, and those ‘I voted’ sticker contests are both a nice way to potentially engage the community, but also some creativity and some fun,” said Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the nonpartisan federal commission.

Jason Wickersty certainly showed creativity with the sticker he fashioned out of pork roll, a type of processed meat favored in New Jersey also known as Taylor ham. He shared a photo on the social platform X in 2020 of the meat stuck to his shirt and explained himself in an email this week.

“We Jersey people are fiercely proud and loyal to our state, and since they haven’t yet made official ‘I Voted’ slices of pork roll, I took an x-acto knife to a slice and carved my own quintessentially Jersey ‘I Voted’ badge,” he said.

Though a writer once called her a “veritable Betsy Ross” of “I Voted” stickers, Boudreau wasn’t the first to produce them. But she did come to dominate the market. By 2000, some 13 years after she sketched out the design at her kitchen table, her election supply company was selling more than 100 million stickers every two years before she sold the company in 2015. Officials there did not respond to an email seeking current sales figures.

The stickers started as a way to diversify the company’s offerings and attract new business, said Boudreau, who remembers her 6-year-old son affixing the colorful stickers to the black-and-white ads she mailed to potential clients.

“But this just made people happy,” she said. “It opened doors for us, and it made the voters happy.”

Associated Press journalists Haven Daley in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730470072069.png" alt="-Voters enrolled in BallotTrax ahead of the 2024 General Election will receive a new digital “I Voted” sticker this year. This artwork was submitted by Cosmo Bell from Compass Community Collaborative School in Fort Collins" />
 <figcaption>-Voters enrolled in BallotTrax ahead of the 2024 General Election will receive a new digital “I Voted” sticker this year. This artwork was submitted by Cosmo Bell from Compass Community Collaborative School in Fort Collins</figcaption>
 </figure>CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Whether scenic or slightly sinister —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.michigan.gov/sos/elections/voting/2024-i-voted-sticker-contest">angry werewolf</a>, anyone? — the designs on the front of “I Voted” stickers are attracting a lot of attention this year. But have you ever considered the back of your&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024">Election Day</a>&nbsp;souvenir?“Garment-safe adhesive, it’s incredibly important,” said Janet Boudreau, one sticker designer. “You can ruin leather, silk, fine wool if you don’t use garment-safe adhesive on any sticker that goes on fabric.”Boudreau should know. She designed the iconic sticker that has been a polling place staple for decades: a simple ellipse featuring a rippling red, white and blue American flag. And while the company she once owned now has competition, she is delighted by the new versions cropping up around the country, many of them designed by children.“I am all for it,” she said. “And I’m all for younger people getting involved and understanding the power of voting and having faith in it.”Two years ago, a New York county’s stickers featuring a wild-eyed crab-like creature created by a 14-year-old boy became an online sensation. This year the smash hit — one of nine designs distributed in Michigan — depicts a werewolf shredding its shirt in front of an American flag.The 12-year-old Michigan designer declined an interview request, but other young artists described rewarding experiences.In Milton, New Hampshire, 10-year-old Grace was treated like a celebrity when she visited the polls for the presidential primary in January and town elections in March.“I definitely did see a difference in everyone’s attitude, like everyone seemed happier and more excited to vote because they’d get a cool sticker that I designed,” she said. “And I really think it was cool that I made an impact on the way people vote and how they feel about voting.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730471158066.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>New Hampshire’s contest was open to fourth graders and more than 1,000 submitted entries. Grace, whose design features the state’s fallen but not forgotten Old Man of the Mountain rock formation, not only got to attend a pizza party at the Statehouse but has since become pen pals with one of the other two winners.While Grace settled on her design quickly, 11-year-old Rilynn drafted three versions and had her family vote on their favorite. The winner? A moose standing on a ledge overlooking colorful fall foliage and the state’s highest mountain.Like Grace, she was excited to see her stickers in action earlier this year.“They had a huge pile of stickers and people were literally picking out my sticker,” she said. “By the time my dad got there, he didn’t get one.”Not all of the new stickers are designed by children.In Denver, incarcerated individuals designed two stickers, one featuring the Colorado flag with a brick building, sun and purple mountains comprising the “D” in “voted.” The design competition was aimed at promoting civic engagement and fostering a sense of purpose and community.In King County, Washington, a graphic designer developed a sticker showcasing the Seattle cityscape on the top and the countryside on the bottom. In New York City, those who voted on Halloween got stickers showing a pigeon wearing a witch's hat. And a contest open to adults and college students in San Francisco was won by illustrator Hollis Callas, who included flowers, birds, a seal, the Golden Gate Bridge and “I voted” in multiple languages.“I love it,” said Allison Tichenor, who picked up a sticker when she voted earlier this week. “It’s beautiful, just like the city.”Tichenor and others said they enjoy wearing the stickers to remind others to cast their ballots.“I think they are important because you never know who it might inspire to vote,” said Deanna Long of Raleigh, North Carolina, who went to a Kamala Harris rally Wednesday with a voting sticker on her bag depicting a child riding a purple-maned unicorn.“The designs have been fun and are from young kids, who have to rely on others to vote for their needs,” Long said. “The value of voting is hopefully becoming clearer to the younger generations, and I hope the artwork is inspiring to them as well.”In 2019, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission launched a national contest for the best sticker as part of its efforts to honor innovative best practices in election administration. The latest batch of winners includes the Santa Fe County Clerk’s Office in New Mexico, where the contest focused specifically on “Future Voter” and “First Time Voter” stickers.“Running elections is hard, and those ‘I voted’ sticker contests are both a nice way to potentially engage the community, but also some creativity and some fun,” said Benjamin Hovland, chairman of the nonpartisan federal commission.Jason Wickersty certainly showed creativity with the sticker he fashioned out of pork roll, a type of processed meat favored in New Jersey also known as Taylor ham. He shared a photo on the social platform X in 2020 of the meat stuck to his shirt and explained himself in an email this week.“We Jersey people are fiercely proud and loyal to our state, and since they haven’t yet made official ‘I Voted’ slices of pork roll, I took an x-acto knife to a slice and carved my own quintessentially Jersey ‘I Voted’ badge,” he said.Though a writer once called her a “veritable Betsy Ross” of “I Voted” stickers, Boudreau wasn’t the first to produce them. But she did come to dominate the market. By 2000, some 13 years after she sketched out the design at her kitchen table, her election supply company was selling more than 100 million stickers every two years before she sold the company in 2015. Officials there did not respond to an email seeking current sales figures.The stickers started as a way to diversify the company’s offerings and attract new business, said Boudreau, who remembers her 6-year-old son affixing the colorful stickers to the black-and-white ads she mailed to potential clients.“But this just made people happy,” she said. “It opened doors for us, and it made the voters happy.”___Associated Press journalists Haven Daley in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.

Creative 'I Voted' stickers branch out beyond the familiar flag design

Kansas’ Republican House and Senate committees and Gov. Laura Kelly’s PAC invested hundreds of thousands in competitive legislative races.

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/akaminski/">ANNA KAMINSKI</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s PAC and the Kansas Republican Senatorial Committee have poured around a half-million dollars each into competitive legislative races across Kansas, campaign finance reports released this week show. The Republican House Campaign Committee spent almost $1 million.

More than $470,000 from Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC has been spent since the August primary on Democrats embroiled in battleground races, according to records published Monday through the Kansas Secretary of State’s campaign finance reporting system. The Republican Senatorial committee spent more than $498,000 during the same time period on the four races at risk of flipping to Democrats. The Republican House committee has spent its $978,000 since August on advertising-related costs for a dozen candidates and the state Republican party, finance records show.

Republicans have held a supermajority in the Kansas House since 2010, and Senate Republicans have held a supermajority since 1997. Democrats must flip two seats in the house and three in the senate while holding their existing cache in order to break the supermajorities.

The Senatorial committee’s treasurer, Michelle Schroeder, said the group’s spending was “focused solely on protecting and expanding our Republican supermajority.”

Kelly, a Democrat, launched the Middle of the Road PAC in&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/07/gov-laura-kelly-forms-pac-to-support-moderate-gop-democratic-legislative-candidates/">August 2023</a>&nbsp;to back moderate candidates, from either major party, and in an attempt to break the Republican legislative supermajority. Recipients of the nearly $500,000 were 12 Democrats. Those expenditures are just a fraction of the nearly $1.5 million the PAC has spent since late July.

Senate District 5 incumbent Sen. Jeff Pittman, a Leavenworth-area Democrat, received the highest cumulative dollar amount from the Middle of the Road PAC. Election forecasts favor a Pittman win over his opponent, Republican Jeff Klemp, of Lansing, by a thin margin. The senatorial committee spent almost twice as much on Klemp as Middle of the Road spent on Pittman.

Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State during the Trump Administration and former Kansas GOP congressman, endorsed Klemp on Oct. 30.

Both the Middle of the Road PAC and the Senatorial committee spent on the other three toss-up Senate races in Johnson County. Middle of the Road PAC also spent on another Johnson County-area district, Senate District 35, with an open seat that’s been held by the same Republican for the past decade.

Middle of the Road PAC spent the least on Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat running for reelection. His Republican opponent, Kyler Sweely, was recently the subject of a Wichita police investigation and online backlash after a video circulated in which he appears to jump on and hold a pillow over the head of a motionless woman on a bed. The Republican House committee spent just under $9,000 on Sweely while Middle of the Road spent more than $13,000 on Probst, according to campaign finance records.

Will Lawrence, senior advisor for the Middle of the Road PAC, said in a statement that the PAC “invested in hard-working candidates” and those “who aligned with Governor Kelly’s values.”

“The PAC deployed a strategic program that included mail, digital ads, and support for GOTV (get out the vote) efforts,” Lawrence said. “Supporters of our PAC can rest assured their investments were well spent.”

Representatives for the Republican House committee did not respond to Kansas Reflector’s requests for comment Friday.

The final day for voting in legislative races as well as for U.S. president is Tuesday.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730582245512.png" alt=" Gov. Laura Kelly tours the Axe Shedd during an April 25, 2024, visit to Emporia. Her Middle of the Road PAC since August has spent $470,000 on a dozen Democrats seeking legislative seats. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption> Gov. Laura Kelly tours the Axe Shedd during an April 25, 2024, visit to Emporia. Her Middle of the Road PAC since August has spent $470,000 on a dozen Democrats seeking legislative seats. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Kansas’ Republican House and Senate committees and Gov. Laura Kelly’s PAC invested hundreds of thousands in competitive legislative races.</h2>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/akaminski/">ANNA KAMINSKI</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s PAC and the Kansas Republican Senatorial Committee have poured around a half-million dollars each into competitive legislative races across Kansas, campaign finance reports released this week show. The Republican House Campaign Committee spent almost $1 million.More than $470,000 from Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC has been spent since the August primary on Democrats embroiled in battleground races, according to records published Monday through the Kansas Secretary of State’s campaign finance reporting system. The Republican Senatorial committee spent more than $498,000 during the same time period on the four races at risk of flipping to Democrats. The Republican House committee has spent its $978,000 since August on advertising-related costs for a dozen candidates and the state Republican party, finance records show.Republicans have held a supermajority in the Kansas House since 2010, and Senate Republicans have held a supermajority since 1997. Democrats must flip two seats in the house and three in the senate while holding their existing cache in order to break the supermajorities.The Senatorial committee’s treasurer, Michelle Schroeder, said the group’s spending was “focused solely on protecting and expanding our Republican supermajority.”Kelly, a Democrat, launched the Middle of the Road PAC in&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/07/gov-laura-kelly-forms-pac-to-support-moderate-gop-democratic-legislative-candidates/">August 2023</a>&nbsp;to back moderate candidates, from either major party, and in an attempt to break the Republican legislative supermajority. Recipients of the nearly $500,000 were 12 Democrats. Those expenditures are just a fraction of the nearly $1.5 million the PAC has spent since late July.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730582200042.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Senate District 5 incumbent Sen. Jeff Pittman, a Leavenworth-area Democrat, received the highest cumulative dollar amount from the Middle of the Road PAC. Election forecasts favor a Pittman win over his opponent, Republican Jeff Klemp, of Lansing, by a thin margin. The senatorial committee spent almost twice as much on Klemp as Middle of the Road spent on Pittman.Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State during the Trump Administration and former Kansas GOP congressman, endorsed Klemp on Oct. 30.Both the Middle of the Road PAC and the Senatorial committee spent on the other three toss-up Senate races in Johnson County. Middle of the Road PAC also spent on another Johnson County-area district, Senate District 35, with an open seat that’s been held by the same Republican for the past decade.Middle of the Road PAC spent the least on Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat running for reelection. His Republican opponent, Kyler Sweely, was recently the subject of a Wichita police investigation and online backlash after a video circulated in which he appears to jump on and hold a pillow over the head of a motionless woman on a bed. The Republican House committee spent just under $9,000 on Sweely while Middle of the Road spent more than $13,000 on Probst, according to campaign finance records.Will Lawrence, senior advisor for the Middle of the Road PAC, said in a statement that the PAC “invested in hard-working candidates” and those “who aligned with Governor Kelly’s values.”“The PAC deployed a strategic program that included mail, digital ads, and support for GOTV (get out the vote) efforts,” Lawrence said. “Supporters of our PAC can rest assured their investments were well spent.”Representatives for the Republican House committee did not respond to Kansas Reflector’s requests for comment Friday.The final day for voting in legislative races as well as for U.S. president is Tuesday.

Kansas Republican committees, Democratic governor’s PAC spend big on battleground races

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the millions of Americans on the radar of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;campaigns and those of their allies, the apocalypse is only a text message away.

The very future of the republic is at stake, some of the texts say and many others imply. But you — yes, YOU, Sally, Jose or insert-your-first-name here — can save it. For as little as $7.

Texting is a cheap and easy way to reach potential voters and donors, without all the rules meant to keep traditional paid broadcast advertising a bit honest. Both sides are working the texting pipeline aggressively. In the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024">last days of the campaign</a>, the pinging of phones can be relentless.

“All day, every day,” Robyn Beyah said of the torrent as she stood in line to get into a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/harris-obama-springsteen-perry-mix-master-atlanta-1ef1c592180db8fcbe0d0480248f9fe6">Kamala Harris rally</a>&nbsp;outside Atlanta last week. “They have my number. We’re practically besties.”

Beyah is cool with that. She considers the text bombing “harmless” because it’s for a candidate she believes in. She even invites the Harris campaign to “harass me with text messages.” Not all voters are so charitable.

“To be honest with you, at this point, I’ve tuned it out of my brain," said Ebenezer Eyasu of Stone Mountain, Georgia, standing in the same Harris rally line. He said the dozen or so texts he gets each day have become “background noise."

Sarah Wiggins, a 26-year-old graphic designer from Kennesaw, Georgia, who supports Harris, prefers face to face persuasion. “I feel like it’s all about people around you," she said. "Word of mouth is underrated.” As for the texts, “I just delete, to be honest. I don’t want to read it.”

Many Trump supporters also get pestered. Several at his rally in Tempe, Arizona, last week professed low-grade aggravation about that.

“They’re more of an annoyance than anything else,” said Morse Lawrence, 57, a physician assistant from Mesa, Arizona. "I get bombarded by text messages outside of political things as well. People wanting to buy my house, people wanting to sell me insurance, it’s all of it.”

He figures it's an effective marketing strategy for campaigns even if the great majority of recipients don't bite. “You go fishing and you catch two fish, you’ve got a meal for the day.”

Jennifer Warnke, 57, of St. John's, Arizona, also at the Trump rally, expressed mixed feelings about what's happening on her phone.

“They’re at least reaching out, because for years nobody ever called me,” she said. “I've been a registered Republican all my life and nobody ever called.”

She added: “It’s annoying, but it’s almost over.”

Trump's campaign, although uniquely fixated on selling hats via text, shares certain traits with the Democrats.

Both sides traffic in dire warnings should the other side win. Both cook up phony deadlines to get you to hurry up with your money. Both play on the fantasy that luminaries — whether Harris, Trump,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/george-clooney">George Clooney</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/nancy-pelosi">Nancy Pelosi</a>&nbsp;or Donald Trump Jr. — are texting you personally, instead of the machinery that really is.

Texts under the name of Trump Jr. come with a twist, if a transparent one: “Please don’t give $5 to help dad before his critical deadline. I’m serious. Don’t. ... Let me explain."

The explanation is a link to a page asking for lots more than $5. You can choose $20.24 if you are a basic Trump supporter in 2024 or $47 if you think the 45th president was the greatest ever and want to make him the 47th.

Trump himself seems to be heavily into merch. “I'm shipping you a Gold MAGA Hat!” say texts in his name. “Should I sign it?”

Tap through and you see the MAGA hat with gold lettering will cost you $50. But there's more.

“Here's my offer to you," the digital Trump says. "If you place your order before the midnight deadline, I may add my signature and a quick personal note right on the brim!” May — or may not.

Thirteen days from Election Day, as she prepared to take the stage for a CNN town hall, Harris took a moment to confide in a Virginian she doesn’t know at all. At least that's the scene sketched by a text in her name.

“Hi Chris, it’s Kamala Harris,” says the message. “It would mean the world to me if you added another donation to our campaign before my town hall on CNN tonight. Donald Trump and his allies are currently outspending us across the battleground states.”

A donation of $40 is suggested. No hat is offered. Despite the message's angst over cash, Harris' campaign and affiliated Democratic groups have raised&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-third-quarter-fundraising-september-donald-trump-f8a21ae87b7a1c7127e8a3b6420dac7d">over $1 billion</a>&nbsp;in mere months and kept a large financial advantage over Trump in the campaign's last leg.

Ping: “It’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/elizabeth-warren">Elizabeth Warren.</a>&nbsp;”

Ping: “From Trump: I JUST LEFT MCDONALD’S."

Ping: “We’ve asked NINE TIMES if you support&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a>&nbsp;… but you never completed the poll.”

Ping: “I just got off the debate stage.” — signed by Harris running mate, Minnesota Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/tim-walz">Tim Walz</a>.

Ping: “This is a BIG F#@%ING DEAL.” — in the name of Democratic strategist James Carville.

Ping: "It's Nancy Pelosi. I need you to see this."

Ping: “But you haven’t stepped up to defend our Senate majority!?! Rush $7 now.”

Ping: “I have a McGift for you! It's President Trump. Want to take a look?”

Despite the sucker-born-every-minute undertone of some of the presidential campaign texts, experts say you can be reasonably confident that donations to the official candidate campaigns or the main party organizations will be used for your intended purpose.

But many more groups are pitching for your election-season cash, not all of them are legit and sorting that out takes work. Some voter-mobilization groups that claim to be funded by the left, for example, may be mischief-makers from the right, or just out to collect personal information on you.

This month, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin wrote to the U.S. and state attorneys general to report that thousands of fraudulent text messages from an anonymous source were sent to young people threatening $10,000 fines or prison time if they vote in a state where they are not eligible to cast ballots.

The scam was meant to intimidate students from out of state who are legally entitled to vote in Wisconsin if they are attending college there, or to vote back at home instead, the letter said.

Last weekend, thousands of Pennsylvania voters received a text message that falsely claimed they had already voted in the election, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Monday. It was from AllVote, which election officials have repeatedly flagged as a scam, the paper said. The group said the false claim was the result of a typo.

Experts say to read the fine print at the bottom of any fundraising link you open. It must outline the name of the group and where the money will go.

From there, people can go to sites such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending">OpenSecrets</a>&nbsp;or the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/?tab=spending">Federal Election Commission</a>&nbsp;to see breakdowns of revenue and spending by groups that are registered political action committees. High overhead and low or no spending on ads or canvassing are red flags.

For all those traps, Beverly Payne of Cumming, Georgia, who has already voted for Harris and volunteers for her, welcomes the pings.

“I get texts every 30 minutes and I answer every single one of them,” Payne said. One favorite was about an ice cream flavor rolled out for Harris by Ben &amp; Jerry’s, Kamala’s Coconut Jubilee layered with caramel and topped with red, white and blue star sprinkles. “I had to donate to that,” she said.

“It’s our culture now, we’re all addicted,” Payne said of texts and Harris' use of them. “Maybe that’s why she has a billion dollars."

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/10/1730390125982.png" alt="Campaign text sent October 19 from the Trump campaign" />
 <figcaption>Campaign text sent October 19 from the Trump campaign</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — For the millions of Americans on the radar of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;campaigns and those of their allies, the apocalypse is only a text message away.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/10/1730389833422.png" alt="Campaign text sent October 25th from the Harris Campaign" />
 <figcaption>Campaign text sent October 25th from the Harris Campaign</figcaption>
 </figure>The very future of the republic is at stake, some of the texts say and many others imply. But you — yes, YOU, Sally, Jose or insert-your-first-name here — can save it. For as little as $7.Texting is a cheap and easy way to reach potential voters and donors, without all the rules meant to keep traditional paid broadcast advertising a bit honest. Both sides are working the texting pipeline aggressively. In the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024">last days of the campaign</a>, the pinging of phones can be relentless.“All day, every day,” Robyn Beyah said of the torrent as she stood in line to get into a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/harris-obama-springsteen-perry-mix-master-atlanta-1ef1c592180db8fcbe0d0480248f9fe6">Kamala Harris rally</a>&nbsp;outside Atlanta last week. “They have my number. We’re practically besties.”Beyah is cool with that. She considers the text bombing “harmless” because it’s for a candidate she believes in. She even invites the Harris campaign to “harass me with text messages.” Not all voters are so charitable.“To be honest with you, at this point, I’ve tuned it out of my brain," said Ebenezer Eyasu of Stone Mountain, Georgia, standing in the same Harris rally line. He said the dozen or so texts he gets each day have become “background noise."Sarah Wiggins, a 26-year-old graphic designer from Kennesaw, Georgia, who supports Harris, prefers face to face persuasion. “I feel like it’s all about people around you," she said. "Word of mouth is underrated.” As for the texts, “I just delete, to be honest. I don’t want to read it.”Many Trump supporters also get pestered. Several at his rally in Tempe, Arizona, last week professed low-grade aggravation about that.“They’re more of an annoyance than anything else,” said Morse Lawrence, 57, a physician assistant from Mesa, Arizona. "I get bombarded by text messages outside of political things as well. People wanting to buy my house, people wanting to sell me insurance, it’s all of it.”He figures it's an effective marketing strategy for campaigns even if the great majority of recipients don't bite. “You go fishing and you catch two fish, you’ve got a meal for the day.”Jennifer Warnke, 57, of St. John's, Arizona, also at the Trump rally, expressed mixed feelings about what's happening on her phone.“They’re at least reaching out, because for years nobody ever called me,” she said. “I've been a registered Republican all my life and nobody ever called.”She added: “It’s annoying, but it’s almost over.”<h2>The campaigns spin a fantasy</h2>Trump's campaign, although uniquely fixated on selling hats via text, shares certain traits with the Democrats.Both sides traffic in dire warnings should the other side win. Both cook up phony deadlines to get you to hurry up with your money. Both play on the fantasy that luminaries — whether Harris, Trump,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/george-clooney">George Clooney</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/nancy-pelosi">Nancy Pelosi</a>&nbsp;or Donald Trump Jr. — are texting you personally, instead of the machinery that really is.Texts under the name of Trump Jr. come with a twist, if a transparent one: “Please don’t give $5 to help dad before his critical deadline. I’m serious. Don’t. ... Let me explain."The explanation is a link to a page asking for lots more than $5. You can choose $20.24 if you are a basic Trump supporter in 2024 or $47 if you think the 45th president was the greatest ever and want to make him the 47th.Trump himself seems to be heavily into merch. “I'm shipping you a Gold MAGA Hat!” say texts in his name. “Should I sign it?”Tap through and you see the MAGA hat with gold lettering will cost you $50. But there's more.“Here's my offer to you," the digital Trump says. "If you place your order before the midnight deadline, I may add my signature and a quick personal note right on the brim!” May — or may not.Thirteen days from Election Day, as she prepared to take the stage for a CNN town hall, Harris took a moment to confide in a Virginian she doesn’t know at all. At least that's the scene sketched by a text in her name.“Hi Chris, it’s Kamala Harris,” says the message. “It would mean the world to me if you added another donation to our campaign before my town hall on CNN tonight. Donald Trump and his allies are currently outspending us across the battleground states.”A donation of $40 is suggested. No hat is offered. Despite the message's angst over cash, Harris' campaign and affiliated Democratic groups have raised&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-third-quarter-fundraising-september-donald-trump-f8a21ae87b7a1c7127e8a3b6420dac7d">over $1 billion</a>&nbsp;in mere months and kept a large financial advantage over Trump in the campaign's last leg.<h2>The pings keep coming</h2>Ping: “It’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/elizabeth-warren">Elizabeth Warren.</a>&nbsp;”Ping: “From Trump: I JUST LEFT MCDONALD’S."Ping: “We’ve asked NINE TIMES if you support&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a>&nbsp;… but you never completed the poll.”Ping: “I just got off the debate stage.” — signed by Harris running mate, Minnesota Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/tim-walz">Tim Walz</a>.Ping: “This is a BIG F#@%ING DEAL.” — in the name of Democratic strategist James Carville.Ping: "It's Nancy Pelosi. I need you to see this."Ping: “But you haven’t stepped up to defend our Senate majority!?! Rush $7 now.”Ping: “I have a McGift for you! It's President Trump. Want to take a look?”<h2>Are they legit?</h2>Despite the sucker-born-every-minute undertone of some of the presidential campaign texts, experts say you can be reasonably confident that donations to the official candidate campaigns or the main party organizations will be used for your intended purpose.But many more groups are pitching for your election-season cash, not all of them are legit and sorting that out takes work. Some voter-mobilization groups that claim to be funded by the left, for example, may be mischief-makers from the right, or just out to collect personal information on you.This month, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin wrote to the U.S. and state attorneys general to report that thousands of fraudulent text messages from an anonymous source were sent to young people threatening $10,000 fines or prison time if they vote in a state where they are not eligible to cast ballots.The scam was meant to intimidate students from out of state who are legally entitled to vote in Wisconsin if they are attending college there, or to vote back at home instead, the letter said.Last weekend, thousands of Pennsylvania voters received a text message that falsely claimed they had already voted in the election, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Monday. It was from AllVote, which election officials have repeatedly flagged as a scam, the paper said. The group said the false claim was the result of a typo.Experts say to read the fine print at the bottom of any fundraising link you open. It must outline the name of the group and where the money will go.From there, people can go to sites such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending">OpenSecrets</a>&nbsp;or the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/?tab=spending">Federal Election Commission</a>&nbsp;to see breakdowns of revenue and spending by groups that are registered political action committees. High overhead and low or no spending on ads or canvassing are red flags.For all those traps, Beverly Payne of Cumming, Georgia, who has already voted for Harris and volunteers for her, welcomes the pings.“I get texts every 30 minutes and I answer every single one of them,” Payne said. One favorite was about an ice cream flavor rolled out for Harris by Ben &amp; Jerry’s, Kamala’s Coconut Jubilee layered with caramel and topped with red, white and blue star sprinkles. “I had to donate to that,” she said.“It’s our culture now, we’re all addicted,” Payne said of texts and Harris' use of them. “Maybe that’s why she has a billion dollars."___

Ping! Harris and Trump are blowing up phones with political texts 

Tenants in two Kansas City-area buildings launched a rent strike on Oct. 1 in protest of poor maintenance and rising rents.&nbsp;They plan to add more tenants to their strike

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/milimansaray/">MILI MANSARAY</a>

Buckets of brown sink water, overflowing roach traps and photographs of clogged bathtubs lined the entrance to the leasing office at Quality Hill Towers. At their most recent rally, tenants brought their frustrations straight to management’s door.

George Pacheco carried two-gallon jugs of murky water from his apartment.

“I gave my daughter a glass of water out of my sink and it was so dirty that she refuses to even come and stay in the apartment,” he said.

On Oct. 1, tenants at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.qualityhilltowers.com/" target="_blank">Quality Hill Towers</a>&nbsp;and Independence Towers launched a rent strike, demanding maintenance repairs, collectively bargained leases and a national 3% rent cap on all buildings that receive federal financing.

At their Oct. 18 rally, tenants said they plan to recruit more tenants to join the rent strike if the director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/" target="_blank">Federal Housing Finance Agency</a>&nbsp;does not engage with them and meet their demands. Although Missouri offers no legal protections for striking tenants and they face risks of eviction or lawsuits, leaders with&nbsp;<a href="https://kctenants.org/home" target="_blank">KC Tenants</a>&nbsp;say the unions are preparing to rally more renters to join their movement.

The tenants “don’t believe that they’re going to necessarily win this in the courts,” said Jaden Powell, a tenant attorney giving KC Tenants legal advice. “The courts are not set up to make these kinds of wide-scale changes. The power is in organizing and public pressure, and that’s where they think they’re going to win.”

Meanwhile, housing finance experts say that a rent strike only hurts landlords, not the FHFA, and they find it unlikely that the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, would risk its investment based on actions at two local apartment buildings.

They also say that a national rent cap would make it harder for landlords to keep up with maintenance and mortgage costs and would perhaps shrink the amount of rental housing on the market.

An annual 3% rental cap “would just kill the rental market,” said Ted Tozer, a fellow at the left-leaning Urban Institute’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/housing-finance-policy-center" target="_blank">Housing Finance Policy Center</a>. “Lenders would be going bankrupt.”

At the Oct. 18 rally, tenant union members said they met with FHFA director Sandra Thompson in May to discuss their living conditions. The agency says Thompson is unavailable to travel to Kansas City. Negotiations are ongoing about a meeting with KC Tenants and other FHFA officials.

The union is putting pressure on the agency because it is the regulator of Fannie Mae, the company that backs the loans in federally financed buildings.

Tenants are organizing a strike drive set for Nov. 1 to recruit more participants.

Later in October, KC Tenants and&nbsp;<a href="https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-cleaver-announces-1350000-independence-towers-address-desperately" target="_blank">U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s office</a>&nbsp;announced that Fannie Mae&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article294555904.html" target="_blank">gave Trigild Inc. $1.35 million</a>&nbsp;for repairs at Independence Towers.

“While we celebrate this step, we remain committed to our rent strike,” the Independence Towers tenant union said in a statement. “This is a one-off bailout for the parties that have neglected their tenants.”

As of Oct. 29, nearly 24% of the 234 occupied units at Quality Hill Towers are on strike, KC Tenants said, while 57% of the 63 occupied units at Independence Towers are on strike.

Tenants said their apartment buildings&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2024/10/08/kansas-city-tenant-union-rent-strike-against-federally-backed-landlords/" target="_blank">need dramatic repairs</a>&nbsp;and better maintenance. Management has said work is underway to fix those problems.

Neither&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sentinelcorp.com/" target="_blank">Sentinel Real Estate Corp</a>., which owns Quality Hill Towers, nor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trigild.com/" target="_blank">Trigild Inc</a>., which manages Independence Towers, responded to The Beacon’s requests for comment.

The tenant strike aims to pressure the FHFA to meet renters’ demands at all federally backed-properties.

“If the federal government is going to be involved with private businesses and financing their profits, we expect the government to exercise every available avenue to protect tenants’ rights,” said Tara Raghuveer, the director of KC Tenants.

But because the funds don’t come from public tax dollars, the FHFA and Fannie Mae don’t have control over their properties in the same way that, for example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has control of the government-funded buildings it manages.

Mark Willis, the senior policy fellow at the&nbsp;<a href="https://furmancenter.org/" target="_blank">New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy</a>, said that Fannie Mae typically has the right under the mortgage to pursue legal action when landlords let properties fall into disrepair. Fannie Mae buys and sells mortgages with the expectation that the property will be properly maintained. And when owners neglect repairs, they’re breaking their mortgage terms.

That gives Fannie Mae the option to declare a default or foreclosure on the property, Willis said. As an alternative to taking ownership of poorly maintained buildings, Fannie Mae can give money to a receiver to step in for the landlord and handle repairs.

In February, Fannie Mae<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article292599874.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;filed a lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against 728 N Jennings Rd Partners LLC, the owner of Independence Towers, for not properly paying back loans for building repairs and failing to maintain living conditions according to the standard outlined in its loan agreement. A Jackson County judge appointed Trigild Inc. as the receiver in charge of managing repairs of the property in May.

Fannie Mae cannot directly instruct the receiver, but it can provide funding and offer guidance.

But Raghuveer argues that the federal backing gives landlords better terms than they’d get in the private market. Since the landlords benefit from public support, she said federal properties should offer more protections for tenants.

“If the government is going to be involved in backing a loan,” she said, “that should come with strings attached.”

In 2023, loans to landlords from Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., known as Freddie Mac, were capped at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/news/news-release/fhfa-announces-2023-multifamily-loan-purchase-caps-for-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac" target="_blank">$150 billion</a>. Raghuveer said that those contracts offer landlords lower interest rates and other perks but offer very few safeguards for tenants. That, she said, can attract slumlords.

So tenants want Fannie Mae to impose the cap on new contracts and apply it to existing contracts when landlords refinance their mortgages.

Raghuveer said the initial financial burden of the strike will fall on landlords, with Sentinel losing at least $3,000 monthly at Quality Hill. And while Sentinel is a large corporation with a broad portfolio, she said nearly a fourth of the occupied units are participating and they will try to recruit more people on Nov. 1.

“It’s not a financial hit that (Sentinel) can sustain long-term,” she said.

While the prospect of altering a national market by pressuring Sentinel appears remote, Raghuveer said that KC Tenants is trying to get tenant unions across federally backed properties in Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Montana, Illinois and Kentucky to launch their own strikes.

What’s at stake for KC tenants who strike?&nbsp;

In Missouri, striking tenants risk eviction. They could be sued for unpaid rent, but Powell said that tenants can argue that their rent isn’t owed because the landlord has failed to maintain habitable living conditions, which is part of the lease agreement. That defense doesn’t fully protect them.

Tenants can also be sued if they remain in the home after their lease ends. Missouri law does not protect tenants from landlords evicting them with or without cause at the end of a lease.

“If a tenant isn’t on a lease or is on a month-to-month lease, they really run the risk of their landlord retaliating against them,” Powell said.

Kansas City ordinance also prohibits retaliatory evictions for any reason, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/home/showdocument?id=5360" target="_blank">joining a tenants’ union</a>. But Powell said that law has not been widely enforced in court cases because there are really no defenses in unlawful detainer cases beyond whether the landlord followed proper protocol in ending the tenancy.

She said that tenants have limited legal defenses when withholding their rent, aside from using uninhabitable conditions as a defense in rent possession cases.

Missouri law also&nbsp;<a href="https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/attachments/landlord-tenantlaw.pdf?sfvrsn=4" target="_blank">allows tenants to make repairs themselves</a>&nbsp;if landlords don’t respond within 14 days of a complaint. They can deduct up to $300 or half a month’s rent, whichever is higher, from their payment. However, Powell said that this approach is insufficient for larger issues.

“When we’re thinking about places like Quality Hill, a lot of the issues are building-wide,” she said, “like plumbing issues, folks without hot water, folks with bathrooms and tubs that won’t drain. And that’s not something that you could fix for $300.”

Because the law doesn’t provide striking tenants with many protections, Powell said the campaign is relying on public support to put pressure on the landlords and the FHFA.

In an Oct. 3&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DAreZ83pR3a/?img_index=1" target="_blank">solidarity letter,</a>&nbsp;Kansas City Council member&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/city-officials/city-council-members/councilman-johnathan-duncan-6th-district" target="_blank">Johnathan Duncan</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;and seven other City Council members called on the FHFA to negotiate with the tenant union and refrain from any “retaliatory actions against the tenants.”

“The lease is a legal agreement that is supposed to work both ways,” he said. “There are always accountability measures for tenants. There are very few accountability measures for landlords and these federal regulators.”

Tozer said a national 3% rent cap on all federally financed buildings isn’t feasible. Instead, it would place a financial strain on landlords that would hurt the market.

“You’d have no more apartments being built,” he said. “And you’d have landlords not renting to people anymore.”

He pointed out that landlords face rising operational costs — including property taxes, insurance and maintenance — which typically go up more than 3% annually.

A rent increase cap would leave property owners unable to cover these rising costs. That could produce even more maintenance issues for tenants.

“If they’re not going to pass that on to tenants,” he said, “then that means that they’re going to&nbsp; have to start cutting other places.”

Tozer said a rent cap would come with immediate pushback from property owners.

“I would sue over that,” he said. “You would have to get congressional action to put on a rent cap.”

Housing finance experts say that measures like a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/insights/new-multifamily-tenant-protections" target="_blank">grace period for late fees or rent increase notices</a>&nbsp;don’t impact mortgage payments, but rent caps are a different matter.

And hurting landlords’ ability to pay their mortgages would put Fannie’s and Freddie’s investments at risk, which Tozer said the FHFA would want to avoid.

Financial analysts say that a rent cap might also push landlords to seek loans from other sources.

“Whether it’s good policy or not, it probably would mean that no one would borrow from Fannie and Freddie,” said Willis.

He said that Fannie can pursue legal avenues against owners who don’t maintain property standards. But a rent cap could create challenges for all owners.

“The one thing you want to do is make sure landlords who want to maintain their buildings well are able to do it,” he said. “You don’t want to set up a system where they can’t even afford to do the right thing.”

Who’s responsible for these living conditions?

Tozer said that the FHFA is several steps removed from tenants and landlords in these situations. Fannie Mae invests in mortgages and shares the risk with a local lender if the landlord defaults. Local lenders handle payments, foreclosures and other mortgage processing on behalf of Fannie.

But federal law prohibits Fannie Mae from direct contact with landlords. Instead, Tozer said, the lender is supposed to play an active role in inspecting the building to make sure the landlord is meeting property standards as required by their loan agreement and complying with local housing codes.

And while these properties receive federal support, Tozer argued that the responsibility for enforcing maintenance standards largely rests with local government agencies.

“General protections should come from the local, county or city code enforcement regarding violations,” he said. “Where are the building code officials in your community? Why are they letting people live this way? They’re the first line of defense.”

<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/health/healthy-homes-rental-inspection-program" target="_blank">The Healthy Homes Rental Inspection program</a>, run by the Kansas City Health Department, inspected Quality Hill&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/healthy-homes-finds-violations-at-quality-hill-towers-amid-rent-strike" target="_blank">after the rent strike began</a>. The program identified several violations, though none was severe enough to require tenant relocation.

Independence Towers has been inspected by Independence’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independencemo.gov/government/city-departments/community-development/business-license-liquor-license-and-employee-permitting/rental-ready-program" target="_blank">Rental Ready program</a>. But despite various complaints, the building&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">passed its most recent inspection</a>&nbsp;in December.

Brent Schondelmeyer, a former Kansas City Star reporter, told the Independence City Council he’d&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">found that 99%</a>&nbsp;of inspections from May 2022 to May 2023 received a perfect score. Critics argue that the inspection process, which relies on third-party inspectors<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;hired by landlords</a>, may fall short in addressing safety issues.

Raghuveer said that the FHFA has the power to improve conditions for tenants in federally backed buildings. She said that the issues in these properties are too widespread for local efforts alone to provide adequate protection.

“This problem is not going to be solved work order by work order,” she said. “It’s not going to be solved building by building.”

This&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2024/10/31/kc-tenants-rent-strike-plans-to-add-more-people/" target="_blank">article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/" target="_blank">Beacon: Kansas City</a>&nbsp;and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730601147932.png" alt=" At their Oct. 18 rally, Quality Hill tenant union members demanded to meet with Federal Housing Finance Authority director Sandra Thompson, depicted in the poster on the right (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon)." />
 <figcaption> At their Oct. 18 rally, Quality Hill tenant union members demanded to meet with Federal Housing Finance Authority director Sandra Thompson, depicted in the poster on the right (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon).</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Tenants in two Kansas City-area buildings launched a rent strike on Oct. 1 in protest of poor maintenance and rising rents.&nbsp;They plan to add more tenants to their strike</h2>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/milimansaray/">MILI MANSARAY</a>Buckets of brown sink water, overflowing roach traps and photographs of clogged bathtubs lined the entrance to the leasing office at Quality Hill Towers. At their most recent rally, tenants brought their frustrations straight to management’s door.George Pacheco carried two-gallon jugs of murky water from his apartment.“I gave my daughter a glass of water out of my sink and it was so dirty that she refuses to even come and stay in the apartment,” he said.On Oct. 1, tenants at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.qualityhilltowers.com/" target="_blank">Quality Hill Towers</a>&nbsp;and Independence Towers launched a rent strike, demanding maintenance repairs, collectively bargained leases and a national 3% rent cap on all buildings that receive federal financing.At their Oct. 18 rally, tenants said they plan to recruit more tenants to join the rent strike if the director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/" target="_blank">Federal Housing Finance Agency</a>&nbsp;does not engage with them and meet their demands. Although Missouri offers no legal protections for striking tenants and they face risks of eviction or lawsuits, leaders with&nbsp;<a href="https://kctenants.org/home" target="_blank">KC Tenants</a>&nbsp;say the unions are preparing to rally more renters to join their movement.The tenants “don’t believe that they’re going to necessarily win this in the courts,” said Jaden Powell, a tenant attorney giving KC Tenants legal advice. “The courts are not set up to make these kinds of wide-scale changes. The power is in organizing and public pressure, and that’s where they think they’re going to win.”Meanwhile, housing finance experts say that a rent strike only hurts landlords, not the FHFA, and they find it unlikely that the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, would risk its investment based on actions at two local apartment buildings.They also say that a national rent cap would make it harder for landlords to keep up with maintenance and mortgage costs and would perhaps shrink the amount of rental housing on the market.An annual 3% rental cap “would just kill the rental market,” said Ted Tozer, a fellow at the left-leaning Urban Institute’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/housing-finance-policy-center" target="_blank">Housing Finance Policy Center</a>. “Lenders would be going bankrupt.”<h2>What’s going on with the rent strike?</h2>At the Oct. 18 rally, tenant union members said they met with FHFA director Sandra Thompson in May to discuss their living conditions. The agency says Thompson is unavailable to travel to Kansas City. Negotiations are ongoing about a meeting with KC Tenants and other FHFA officials.The union is putting pressure on the agency because it is the regulator of Fannie Mae, the company that backs the loans in federally financed buildings.Tenants are organizing a strike drive set for Nov. 1 to recruit more participants.Later in October, KC Tenants and&nbsp;<a href="https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-cleaver-announces-1350000-independence-towers-address-desperately" target="_blank">U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s office</a>&nbsp;announced that Fannie Mae&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article294555904.html" target="_blank">gave Trigild Inc. $1.35 million</a>&nbsp;for repairs at Independence Towers.But they say that money is not enough.“While we celebrate this step, we remain committed to our rent strike,” the Independence Towers tenant union said in a statement. “This is a one-off bailout for the parties that have neglected their tenants.”As of Oct. 29, nearly 24% of the 234 occupied units at Quality Hill Towers are on strike, KC Tenants said, while 57% of the 63 occupied units at Independence Towers are on strike.Tenants said their apartment buildings&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2024/10/08/kansas-city-tenant-union-rent-strike-against-federally-backed-landlords/" target="_blank">need dramatic repairs</a>&nbsp;and better maintenance. Management has said work is underway to fix those problems.Neither&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sentinelcorp.com/" target="_blank">Sentinel Real Estate Corp</a>., which owns Quality Hill Towers, nor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trigild.com/" target="_blank">Trigild Inc</a>., which manages Independence Towers, responded to The Beacon’s requests for comment.<h2>What is KC Tenants’ strategy?</h2>The tenant strike aims to pressure the FHFA to meet renters’ demands at all federally backed-properties.“If the federal government is going to be involved with private businesses and financing their profits, we expect the government to exercise every available avenue to protect tenants’ rights,” said Tara Raghuveer, the director of KC Tenants.But because the funds don’t come from public tax dollars, the FHFA and Fannie Mae don’t have control over their properties in the same way that, for example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has control of the government-funded buildings it manages.Mark Willis, the senior policy fellow at the&nbsp;<a href="https://furmancenter.org/" target="_blank">New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy</a>, said that Fannie Mae typically has the right under the mortgage to pursue legal action when landlords let properties fall into disrepair. Fannie Mae buys and sells mortgages with the expectation that the property will be properly maintained. And when owners neglect repairs, they’re breaking their mortgage terms.That gives Fannie Mae the option to declare a default or foreclosure on the property, Willis said. As an alternative to taking ownership of poorly maintained buildings, Fannie Mae can give money to a receiver to step in for the landlord and handle repairs.In February, Fannie Mae<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article292599874.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;filed a lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against 728 N Jennings Rd Partners LLC, the owner of Independence Towers, for not properly paying back loans for building repairs and failing to maintain living conditions according to the standard outlined in its loan agreement. A Jackson County judge appointed Trigild Inc. as the receiver in charge of managing repairs of the property in May.Fannie Mae cannot directly instruct the receiver, but it can provide funding and offer guidance.But Raghuveer argues that the federal backing gives landlords better terms than they’d get in the private market. Since the landlords benefit from public support, she said federal properties should offer more protections for tenants.“If the government is going to be involved in backing a loan,” she said, “that should come with strings attached.”In 2023, loans to landlords from Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., known as Freddie Mac, were capped at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/news/news-release/fhfa-announces-2023-multifamily-loan-purchase-caps-for-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac" target="_blank">$150 billion</a>. Raghuveer said that those contracts offer landlords lower interest rates and other perks but offer very few safeguards for tenants. That, she said, can attract slumlords.So tenants want Fannie Mae to impose the cap on new contracts and apply it to existing contracts when landlords refinance their mortgages.Raghuveer said the initial financial burden of the strike will fall on landlords, with Sentinel losing at least $3,000 monthly at Quality Hill. And while Sentinel is a large corporation with a broad portfolio, she said nearly a fourth of the occupied units are participating and they will try to recruit more people on Nov. 1.“It’s not a financial hit that (Sentinel) can sustain long-term,” she said.While the prospect of altering a national market by pressuring Sentinel appears remote, Raghuveer said that KC Tenants is trying to get tenant unions across federally backed properties in Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Montana, Illinois and Kentucky to launch their own strikes.<h2>What’s at stake for KC tenants who strike?&nbsp;</h2>In Missouri, striking tenants risk eviction. They could be sued for unpaid rent, but Powell said that tenants can argue that their rent isn’t owed because the landlord has failed to maintain habitable living conditions, which is part of the lease agreement. That defense doesn’t fully protect them.Tenants can also be sued if they remain in the home after their lease ends. Missouri law does not protect tenants from landlords evicting them with or without cause at the end of a lease.“If a tenant isn’t on a lease or is on a month-to-month lease, they really run the risk of their landlord retaliating against them,” Powell said.Kansas City ordinance also prohibits retaliatory evictions for any reason, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/home/showdocument?id=5360" target="_blank">joining a tenants’ union</a>. But Powell said that law has not been widely enforced in court cases because there are really no defenses in unlawful detainer cases beyond whether the landlord followed proper protocol in ending the tenancy.She said that tenants have limited legal defenses when withholding their rent, aside from using uninhabitable conditions as a defense in rent possession cases.Missouri law also&nbsp;<a href="https://ago.mo.gov/wp-content/uploads/attachments/landlord-tenantlaw.pdf?sfvrsn=4" target="_blank">allows tenants to make repairs themselves</a>&nbsp;if landlords don’t respond within 14 days of a complaint. They can deduct up to $300 or half a month’s rent, whichever is higher, from their payment. However, Powell said that this approach is insufficient for larger issues.“When we’re thinking about places like Quality Hill, a lot of the issues are building-wide,” she said, “like plumbing issues, folks without hot water, folks with bathrooms and tubs that won’t drain. And that’s not something that you could fix for $300.”Because the law doesn’t provide striking tenants with many protections, Powell said the campaign is relying on public support to put pressure on the landlords and the FHFA.In an Oct. 3&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DAreZ83pR3a/?img_index=1" target="_blank">solidarity letter,</a>&nbsp;Kansas City Council member&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/city-officials/city-council-members/councilman-johnathan-duncan-6th-district" target="_blank">Johnathan Duncan</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;and seven other City Council members called on the FHFA to negotiate with the tenant union and refrain from any “retaliatory actions against the tenants.”“The lease is a legal agreement that is supposed to work both ways,” he said. “There are always accountability measures for tenants. There are very few accountability measures for landlords and these federal regulators.”<h2>What’s at stake for landlords?</h2>Tozer said a national 3% rent cap on all federally financed buildings isn’t feasible. Instead, it would place a financial strain on landlords that would hurt the market.“You’d have no more apartments being built,” he said. “And you’d have landlords not renting to people anymore.”He pointed out that landlords face rising operational costs — including property taxes, insurance and maintenance — which typically go up more than 3% annually.A rent increase cap would leave property owners unable to cover these rising costs. That could produce even more maintenance issues for tenants.“If they’re not going to pass that on to tenants,” he said, “then that means that they’re going to&nbsp; have to start cutting other places.”Tozer said a rent cap would come with immediate pushback from property owners.“I would sue over that,” he said. “You would have to get congressional action to put on a rent cap.”Housing finance experts say that measures like a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/blog/insights/new-multifamily-tenant-protections" target="_blank">grace period for late fees or rent increase notices</a>&nbsp;don’t impact mortgage payments, but rent caps are a different matter.And hurting landlords’ ability to pay their mortgages would put Fannie’s and Freddie’s investments at risk, which Tozer said the FHFA would want to avoid.Financial analysts say that a rent cap might also push landlords to seek loans from other sources.“Whether it’s good policy or not, it probably would mean that no one would borrow from Fannie and Freddie,” said Willis.He said that Fannie can pursue legal avenues against owners who don’t maintain property standards. But a rent cap could create challenges for all owners.“The one thing you want to do is make sure landlords who want to maintain their buildings well are able to do it,” he said. “You don’t want to set up a system where they can’t even afford to do the right thing.”<h2>Who’s responsible for these living conditions?</h2>Tozer said that the FHFA is several steps removed from tenants and landlords in these situations. Fannie Mae invests in mortgages and shares the risk with a local lender if the landlord defaults. Local lenders handle payments, foreclosures and other mortgage processing on behalf of Fannie.But federal law prohibits Fannie Mae from direct contact with landlords. Instead, Tozer said, the lender is supposed to play an active role in inspecting the building to make sure the landlord is meeting property standards as required by their loan agreement and complying with local housing codes.And while these properties receive federal support, Tozer argued that the responsibility for enforcing maintenance standards largely rests with local government agencies.“General protections should come from the local, county or city code enforcement regarding violations,” he said. “Where are the building code officials in your community? Why are they letting people live this way? They’re the first line of defense.”<a href="https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/health/healthy-homes-rental-inspection-program" target="_blank">The Healthy Homes Rental Inspection program</a>, run by the Kansas City Health Department, inspected Quality Hill&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/healthy-homes-finds-violations-at-quality-hill-towers-amid-rent-strike" target="_blank">after the rent strike began</a>. The program identified several violations, though none was severe enough to require tenant relocation.Independence Towers has been inspected by Independence’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independencemo.gov/government/city-departments/community-development/business-license-liquor-license-and-employee-permitting/rental-ready-program" target="_blank">Rental Ready program</a>. But despite various complaints, the building&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">passed its most recent inspection</a>&nbsp;in December.Brent Schondelmeyer, a former Kansas City Star reporter, told the Independence City Council he’d&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">found that 99%</a>&nbsp;of inspections from May 2022 to May 2023 received a perfect score. Critics argue that the inspection process, which relies on third-party inspectors<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article291221045.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;hired by landlords</a>, may fall short in addressing safety issues.Raghuveer said that the FHFA has the power to improve conditions for tenants in federally backed buildings. She said that the issues in these properties are too widespread for local efforts alone to provide adequate protection.“This problem is not going to be solved work order by work order,” she said. “It’s not going to be solved building by building.”This&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/stories/2024/10/31/kc-tenants-rent-strike-plans-to-add-more-people/" target="_blank">article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a href="https://thebeaconnews.org/" target="_blank">Beacon: Kansas City</a>&nbsp;and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<figure>
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The growing stakes in the Kansas City rent strike as it passes 30 days

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/ghills/">GRACE HILLS</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Kansas women and their allies rallied Saturday at the Statehouse in support of candidates who value women’s rights.

Speakers emphasized the historic struggles women have gone through for rights — specifically with bodily autonomy.

Former Kansas Rep. and Topeka Mayor Joan Wagnon, now 84, recalled her time in high school where women would wear coat hangers on their sweaters to symbolize the back-alley abortion procedures that were common before Roe v. Wade. When Roe was instated, she remembers celebrating while protesters called her a “baby killer.”

“Every year that I was in the House, and every year since then, there has been stronger and more restrictive pushes on Roe,” Wagnon said. “That culminated in Kansas with a conservative majority,” and the placement of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment on the August 2022 ballot.

Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Kansas by an 18-point margin rejected the attempt to rewrite the Kansas Constitution, upending the political landscape.

Joining Wagnon at the rainy afternoon rally were Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman Jeanna Repass, Democratic congressional candidate Nancy Boyda, Democratic Kansas House candidates Alexis Simmons and Jade Pearson Ramsdell, and Kansas Coalition for Common Sense president Ashley All.

Their speeches repeatedly emphasized that Kansans are currently represented by a Legislature that fails to represent their interests. Repass said that even after Kansans voted to keep their right to abortion, Statehouse Republicans have passed bills to restrict that right.

“You are living currently under minority majority rule,” Repass said.

Repass said Kansans have a chance to change that this election. The Republican party currently holds a supermajority in the Legislature, which helped them override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes&nbsp;<a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2023_24/year2/measures/reports/veto_bn/" target="_blank">seven times in the 2024 session</a>. Three of those bills dealt with abortion.

<a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2749/" target="_blank">House Bill 2749</a>&nbsp;requires medical facilities and providers to report the reasons for each abortion performed, based on an invasive questionnaire. Abortion providers challenged the law in court.

Kansas has&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/podcasts/sam-brownback-and-the-arc-of-kansas-politics-since-1975/">a history of electing centrist female governors</a>&nbsp;like Kathleen Sebelius and Kelly. Simmons, who is running in a Topeka district, sees a history of feminist representation across the state — which is why she believes breaking the supermajority is “absolutely critical.”

“We might have voted no, but a whole lot of people voted to keep the same representatives who tried to put that amendment on our ballot,” Simmons said. “So although we may have the right, it is not without the trauma. That’s why we have to show up on Tuesday.”

Simmons said the rally still would have happened if Joe Biden was the presidential candidate, but that she has noticed a shift in energy with Vice President Kamala Harris on the ticket. She said it’s given her hope.

A recent statewide survey that put Harris five percentage points behind former President Donald Trump, compared to the 14 percentage points Biden lost by, also has given candidates hope.

“I don’t think you can emphasize enough what the top of the ticket means for the rest of us down the ballot,” Simmons said.

Repass said she “wasn’t surprised at all” by the poll. She said Kansas is a state that wants change, and Harris reflects that.

“We have fought, we have marched for 100 years,” Wagnon said. “Because we have an election every two or four years, we’re going to keep doing that, because nothing is permanent in a political system.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730599788068.png" alt="Attendees hold signs at the Nov. 2, 2024, rally for women’s rights at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Attendees hold signs at the Nov. 2, 2024, rally for women’s rights at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/ghills/">GRACE HILLS</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a> TOPEKA — Kansas women and their allies rallied Saturday at the Statehouse in support of candidates who value women’s rights.Speakers emphasized the historic struggles women have gone through for rights — specifically with bodily autonomy.Former Kansas Rep. and Topeka Mayor Joan Wagnon, now 84, recalled her time in high school where women would wear coat hangers on their sweaters to symbolize the back-alley abortion procedures that were common before Roe v. Wade. When Roe was instated, she remembers celebrating while protesters called her a “baby killer.”“Every year that I was in the House, and every year since then, there has been stronger and more restrictive pushes on Roe,” Wagnon said. “That culminated in Kansas with a conservative majority,” and the placement of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment on the August 2022 ballot.Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Kansas by an 18-point margin rejected the attempt to rewrite the Kansas Constitution, upending the political landscape.Joining Wagnon at the rainy afternoon rally were Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman Jeanna Repass, Democratic congressional candidate Nancy Boyda, Democratic Kansas House candidates Alexis Simmons and Jade Pearson Ramsdell, and Kansas Coalition for Common Sense president Ashley All.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/11/1730599745034.png" alt=" Former Kansas Rep. and Topeka Mayor Joan Wagnon and Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman Jeanna Repass appear at the Nov. 2, 2024, rally for women’s rights at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption> Former Kansas Rep. and Topeka Mayor Joan Wagnon and Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman Jeanna Repass appear at the Nov. 2, 2024, rally for women’s rights at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>Their speeches repeatedly emphasized that Kansans are currently represented by a Legislature that fails to represent their interests. Repass said that even after Kansans voted to keep their right to abortion, Statehouse Republicans have passed bills to restrict that right.“You are living currently under minority majority rule,” Repass said.Repass said Kansans have a chance to change that this election. The Republican party currently holds a supermajority in the Legislature, which helped them override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes&nbsp;<a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2023_24/year2/measures/reports/veto_bn/" target="_blank">seven times in the 2024 session</a>. Three of those bills dealt with abortion.<a href="https://kslegislature.gov/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2749/" target="_blank">House Bill 2749</a>&nbsp;requires medical facilities and providers to report the reasons for each abortion performed, based on an invasive questionnaire. Abortion providers challenged the law in court.Kansas has&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/podcasts/sam-brownback-and-the-arc-of-kansas-politics-since-1975/">a history of electing centrist female governors</a>&nbsp;like Kathleen Sebelius and Kelly. Simmons, who is running in a Topeka district, sees a history of feminist representation across the state — which is why she believes breaking the supermajority is “absolutely critical.”“We might have voted no, but a whole lot of people voted to keep the same representatives who tried to put that amendment on our ballot,” Simmons said. “So although we may have the right, it is not without the trauma. That’s why we have to show up on Tuesday.”Simmons said the rally still would have happened if Joe Biden was the presidential candidate, but that she has noticed a shift in energy with Vice President Kamala Harris on the ticket. She said it’s given her hope.A recent statewide survey that put Harris five percentage points behind former President Donald Trump, compared to the 14 percentage points Biden lost by, also has given candidates hope.“I don’t think you can emphasize enough what the top of the ticket means for the rest of us down the ballot,” Simmons said.Repass said she “wasn’t surprised at all” by the poll. She said Kansas is a state that wants change, and Harris reflects that.“We have fought, we have marched for 100 years,” Wagnon said. “Because we have an election every two or four years, we’re going to keep doing that, because nothing is permanent in a political system.”

Kansas women mobilize for reproductive rights ahead of Election Day

MONTGOMERY COUNTY —Two people died in an accident just before 4p.m. Saturday in Montgomery County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Chevy Camaro driven by&nbsp; Joseph P.&nbsp; Savage, 45, Coffeyville, was southbound on U.S. 169 just south of 5000 Road.

The car traveled left of center and struck a northbound 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe driven by Connor A. Barba, 18, Normon, Oklahoma, head-on.

After impact the Chevy rotated back into the southbound lanes and collided with a 2012 Dodge Ram driven by Theodore J.&nbsp;Osman, 53, Nowata, Oklahoma.

&nbsp;Savage and Barba were pronounced dead at the scene and were transported to&nbsp;Webb &amp; Rodrick Chapel &amp; Crematory.

EMS transported a passenger in the Hyundai Megan C.&nbsp;Barnett, 41, Norman, Oklahoma, to Coffeyville Regional Hospital. Osman was not injured. All four were properly restrained, according to the KHP.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY —Two people died in an accident just before 4p.m. Saturday in Montgomery County.The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Chevy Camaro driven by&nbsp; Joseph P.&nbsp; Savage, 45, Coffeyville, was southbound on U.S. 169 just south of 5000 Road.The car traveled left of center and struck a northbound 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe driven by Connor A. Barba, 18, Normon, Oklahoma, head-on.After impact the Chevy rotated back into the southbound lanes and collided with a 2012 Dodge Ram driven by Theodore J.&nbsp;Osman, 53, Nowata, Oklahoma.&nbsp;Savage and Barba were pronounced dead at the scene and were transported to&nbsp;Webb &amp; Rodrick Chapel &amp; Crematory.EMS transported a passenger in the Hyundai Megan C.&nbsp;Barnett, 41, Norman, Oklahoma, to Coffeyville Regional Hospital. Osman was not injured. All four were properly restrained, according to the KHP.

Kansas man, teen dead after 3-vehicle head-on crash

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in the final days before the election, playing herself as the mirror-image double of Maya Rudolph’s version of her in the show's cold open.

The first lines the candidate spoke as she sat across from Rudolph, their outfits identical, were drowned out by cheers from the audience.

“It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.”

In sync, the two said supporters need to “Keep Kamala and carry-on-ala,” declared that they share each other’s “belief in the promise of America,” and delivered the signature “Live from New York it’s Saturday night!”

<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Harris</a>&nbsp;made the surprise trip to New York City with the election looming, briefly stepping away from the battleground states where she’s been furiously campaigning in favor of NBC's iconic sketch comedy show, where she was hoping to generate buzz and appeal to a nationwide audience.

Harris came to New York on Air Force Two after an early evening campaign stop Saturday on in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was scheduled to head to Detroit, but once in the air, aides said she’d be making an unscheduled stop and the plane landed at LaGuardia Airport.

Harris arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, where "SNL" tapes, shortly after 8 p.m., enough time for a quick rehearsal before the show airs live at 11:30 p.m. It is the final "SNL" episode before Election Day on Tuesday.

The visit wasn’t previously announced and an official familiar with Harris’ planning only officially confirmed it for reporters traveling with the vice president moments before the live airing began. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss plans before they were made public.

Harris departed immediately after the opening segment. She told reporters, “It was fun!” as she boarded the plane to leave New York.

Host John Mulaney and musical guest&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/chappell-roan-interview-olivia-rodrigo-aa86d43c640feb33cb471894bedb7a0e">Chappell Roan</a>&nbsp;shifted the show away from politics. Neither addressed the election.

Mulaney, the standup comic and former “SNL” writer, hosted for the sixth time and talked about his kids with wife Olivia Munn, Catholicism, and his stint in rehab.

Some expected Roan, the 26-year-old singer who has become a major star in recent months, to make a political statement in her first appearance on the show. She has previously been harshly critical of the Democratic party and declined to endorse Harris, though Roan has said several times she plans to vote for her.

But she played it straight, or as straight as the wildly theatrical performer gets. She sang her hit “Pink Pony Club," on an all-pink set bathed in pink light.

Senator Tim Kaine also made a surprise appearance, in a game-show sketch where the gag was that no one remembered him despite his being Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in the final days before the election, playing herself as the mirror-image double of Maya Rudolph’s version of her in the show's cold open.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Live from New York, it&#39;s Saturday night.<a href="https://t.co/qQ2IJdqqFA">pic.twitter.com/qQ2IJdqqFA</a>&mdash; Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1852921714516103218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>The first lines the candidate spoke as she sat across from Rudolph, their outfits identical, were drowned out by cheers from the audience.“It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.”In sync, the two said supporters need to “Keep Kamala and carry-on-ala,” declared that they share each other’s “belief in the promise of America,” and delivered the signature “Live from New York it’s Saturday night!”<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kamala-harris">Harris</a>&nbsp;made the surprise trip to New York City with the election looming, briefly stepping away from the battleground states where she’s been furiously campaigning in favor of NBC's iconic sketch comedy show, where she was hoping to generate buzz and appeal to a nationwide audience.Harris came to New York on Air Force Two after an early evening campaign stop Saturday on in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was scheduled to head to Detroit, but once in the air, aides said she’d be making an unscheduled stop and the plane landed at LaGuardia Airport.Harris arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, where "SNL" tapes, shortly after 8 p.m., enough time for a quick rehearsal before the show airs live at 11:30 p.m. It is the final "SNL" episode before Election Day on Tuesday.The visit wasn’t previously announced and an official familiar with Harris’ planning only officially confirmed it for reporters traveling with the vice president moments before the live airing began. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss plans before they were made public.Harris departed immediately after the opening segment. She told reporters, “It was fun!” as she boarded the plane to leave New York.Host John Mulaney and musical guest&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/chappell-roan-interview-olivia-rodrigo-aa86d43c640feb33cb471894bedb7a0e">Chappell Roan</a>&nbsp;shifted the show away from politics. Neither addressed the election.Mulaney, the standup comic and former “SNL” writer, hosted for the sixth time and talked about his kids with wife Olivia Munn, Catholicism, and his stint in rehab.Some expected Roan, the 26-year-old singer who has become a major star in recent months, to make a political statement in her first appearance on the show. She has previously been harshly critical of the Democratic party and declined to endorse Harris, though Roan has said several times she plans to vote for her.But she played it straight, or as straight as the wildly theatrical performer gets. She sang her hit “Pink Pony Club," on an all-pink set bathed in pink light.Senator Tim Kaine also made a surprise appearance, in a game-show sketch where the gag was that no one remembered him despite his being Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016.“It’s been less than eight years. What’s my name?,” he said, as the contestants stood silent and flummoxed.Rudolph first played Harris on the show in 2019 and has&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/maya-rudolph-kamala-harris-saturday-night-live-1b7649f6ab82fb0d784e9ae05c6a3153">reprised her role</a>&nbsp;this season, doing a spot-on impression of the vice president, including calling herself “Momala” — a reference to the affectionate nickname her stepchildren gave her.Her fellow former cast member Andy Samberg appeared again Saturday night as Harris’ husband, second gentleman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/doug-emhoff-harris-presidential-bid-4c1c1ae1929aac4b5dc9b4cf6c5ddeb7">Doug Emhoff</a>, standup comic Jim Gaffigan played running mate Tim Walz, and longtime alum Dana Carvey again played President Joe Biden.Rudolph’s performance has won critical and comedic acclaim — including from Harris herself.“Maya Rudolph — I mean, she’s so good,” Harris said last month on ABC’s “The View.” “She had the whole thing, the suit, the jewelry, everything!”Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former president and Republican nominee&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>, expressed surprise that Harris would appear on “SNL” given what he characterized as her unflattering portrayal on the show. Asked if Trump had been invited to appear, he said: “I don’t know. Probably not.”Politicians nonetheless have a long history on "SNL," including Trump, who hosted the show in 2015 — though appearing so close to Election Day is unusual.Hillary Clinton was running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary when she appeared next to Amy Poehler, who played her on the show and was known for launching into a trademark, exaggerated cackle. The real Clinton wondered during her appearance, “Do I really laugh like that?”Harris repeated that line in response to Rudolph’s portrayal of her laugh in Saturday’s episode.Clinton returned in 2016, while running against Trump in a race she ultimately lost.The first sitting president to appear on "SNL" was Republican Gerald Ford, who did so less than a year after the show debuted. Ford appeared in April 1976 on an episode hosted by his press secretary, Ron Nessen, and declared the show’s famous opening rejoinder, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”Then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama appeared alongside Poehler impersonating Clinton in 2007, and Republican Bob Dole was on the show in November 1996 -- a mere 11 days after losing that year’s election to Bill Clinton. Dole consoled Norm Macdonald, who played the Kansas senator.Then there was Tina Fey’s 2008 impression of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — and in particular her joke that “I can see Russia from my house.” It was so good that Fey eventually won an Emmy and Palin herself appeared on the show that October, in the weeks before the election.___Long, Miller and Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.