Former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg became the second-largest individual donor to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign after George Soros, following a reported $50 million donation to the main super PAC funding the vice president’s campaign. 

Bloomberg donated nearly $20 million over the summer to support President Biden’s re-election campaign, but he conspicuously held out any donations to Harris after she replaced Biden on the Democratic Party’s ticket. However, amid pressure from fellow billionaires, Bloomberg did finally cut a check to support Harris, according to The New York Times, which reportedly spoke with four people who are familiar with the donation. 

The $50 million went to Future Forward USA Action, the main dark money super PAC that is supporting Harris. Prior to Harris taking over the ticket, Future Forward was the main political action committee supporting Biden.

Bloomberg’s donation follows another $50 million donation to Future Forward from Bill Gates. Sources who spoke to the Times indicated that Bloomberg and his team had been fielding requests from high-profile Democratic donors, such as Gates, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Ron Conway, urging the former mayor to consider cutting a check for Harris. Two people familiar with the matter said that Bloomberg also recently spoke with Harris over the phone.

Michael Smith, president of House Majority PAC, defended Bloomberg’s decision to wait until the final days before the election to donate, calling the move ‘deliberate’ and ‘sophisticated,’ according to the Times. ‘There should be no expectation that any individual donor is just going to give to you,’ Smith argued. ‘Mike’s not giving money to anyone just to give money.’  

Meanwhile, Quentin James, the founder and president of Collective PAC, told The Times that he ‘very clearly’ disagrees with the strategy ‘because time, not late money, is always our best weapon.’

Prior to Bloomberg’s most recent donation, the former New York City mayor had given roughly $47 million in federally disclosed political contributions this cycle, according to reports. That included his nearly $20 million given to Biden before he dropped out, which went to Future Forward, and another $10 million to support Democrats in the House. 

The Times reported that Bloomberg was hesitant to give additional funds to Future Forward beyond his initial $20 million he gave when Biden was running, with the billionaire citing the success the vice president was already having fundraising.

According to The Times, Bloomberg felt spending his money on ballot initiatives and other state initiatives was a bigger priority. Just this week, Bloomberg gave $2.5 million to oppose a ballot measure in Massachusetts that aims to get rid of standardized testing requirements for high school graduates. 

Bloomberg’s donations this cycle are much smaller than they were in 2020. After breaking spending records on his own campaign that year, Bloomberg dropped out but continued helping Democrats to the tune of around $173 million. It was reported that he gave $100 million alone to Biden just to help him win in the state of Florida. Bloomberg’s $173 million in 2020 is $126 million more than he spent in this current presidential cycle.

Fox News Digital reached out to Bloomberg Philanthropies, but the group declined to comment.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is warning Americans looking to vote by mail to post their ballots today to ensure they are counted.

The USPS said it has already enacted ‘extraordinary measures’ in preparation for Election Day on Nov. 5 in a press release posted Monday.

‘If you choose to vote by mail, please mail early as every day counts,’ the USPS statement said.

‘We continue to recommend that it is a good common-sense measure for voters who choose to mail in their ballots to do so before Election Day and at least a week before their election office needs to receive them. If a ballot is due on Election Day, the Postal Service recommends mailing the ballot by this Tuesday (October 29).’

A majority of U.S. states currently do not accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

However, 18 states and Washington, D.C., have varying grace periods to account for postal delays. 

Alaska gives voters a 10-day window for their ballots to arrive if postmarked by Election Day, while Texas gives an extra day.

Among those 18 is the battleground state of Nevada, where ballots received up to four days after Election Day but postmarked by Nov. 5 are still counted. Ballots with unclear postmarks that arrive up to the third day after Election Day are also counted.

Battleground states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia all require mail-in ballots to arrive on or before Election Day to count.

‘In addition to the processes and procedures specific to Election Mail that the Postal Service deploys all year long, as in previous general elections, the Postal Service is deploying extraordinary measures in the final weeks of the election season to swiftly move Ballot Mail entered close to or on Election Day and/or the state’s return deadline,’ USPS said.

The postal agency said those measures began last week and include additional delivery and pick-ups scheduled, ‘specialized sort plans’ to expedite the movement of ballots, and ‘local handling and transportation of ballots.’

An official within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told colleagues that Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to name Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate ‘feeds into’ activities the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were conducting ‘with him and local government,’ warning that Beijing could ‘target’ him to exert influence on U.S. policy. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., launched an investigation in August into Walz’s alleged ‘longstanding’ ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Last month, Comer subpoenaed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for records relating to those alleged connections after a whistleblower notified the committee of the existence of a non-classified Microsoft Teams group chat among DHS employees, as well as additional intelligence reports that allegedly contained information regarding Walz’s alleged connections to the CCP. 

On Tuesday, Comer penned a letter to Mayorkas, making public the fact that DHS has been ‘unresponsive to the subpoena.’ 

Now, Comer has unilaterally released a portion of DHS internal communications it received from the whistleblower. 

‘Walt’s [sic] got the Vp,’ reads the message, with the identity of the sender redacted. ‘You all have no idea how this feeds into what prc has been doing here with him and local gov.’ 

The official added, ‘It’s seriously a line of the intel. Target someone who is perceived they can get to DC.’ 

‘The Committee is releasing the above message as an example of communications within DHS’s possession in which DHS officials express concern about the CCP targeting politicians and their influence operations at the state and local levels — and specifically, concerns about the CCP’s influence operations as they related to Governor Walz,’ Comer wrote in a letter to Mayorkas Tuesday. 

Comer explained that the message was sent using a Microsoft Teams group chat among DHS employees, entitled ‘NST NFT Bi-Weekly Sync,’ the same chat identified in Comer’s subpoena. 

Meanwhile, Comer said that a whistleblower provided further information to the committee that indicates officials from DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis and Homeland Security Investigations have been involved in the agency’s investigative and/or intelligence work connected with the CCP, the state of Minnesota and Walz. 

‘The Committee’s concerns surrounding CCP elite capture operations seeking to influence public officials like Governor Walz have intensified given recent reports about Governor Walz’s extensive travel history, unusual interactions in the People’s Republic of China, and recent inability to answer basic questions about his involvement in China,’ Comer wrote. 

Comer is also subpoenaing all intelligence information reports and regional intelligence notes from November 2023 to present related to Walz. 

Last month, Comer revealed that Walz had ‘engaged and partnered with’ Chinese entities, making him ‘susceptible’ to the CCP’s strategy of ‘elite capture,’ which seeks to co-opt influential figures in elite political, cultural and academic circles to ‘influence the United States to the benefit of the communist regime and the detriment of Americans.’ 

Comer has pointed to reports that Walz, while working as a teacher in the 1990s, organized a trip to China for Alliance High School students. The costs were reportedly ‘paid by the Chinese government.’ 

Comer is investigating Walz’s 1994-created private company named ‘Educational Travel Adventures, Inc.,’ which coordinated annual student trips to China until 2003 and was led by Walz. 

The company reportedly ‘dissolved four days after he took congressional office in 2007.’ 

Comer said Walz has traveled to China an estimated ’30 times.’ 

Comer also pointed to Walz’s time in Congress, when he served as a fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University — a Chinese institution that characterizes itself as having a ‘long-held devotion to and love for the motherland.’ 

In 2019, Walz headlined the 27th National Convention for the U.S. China Peoples Friendship Association in Minnesota. Walz also spoke alongside the president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. A year later, the State Department exposed that organization as ‘a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments,’ including efforts to ‘directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda,’ the House Oversight Committee revealed. 

Additionally, in March of this year, Walz had a meeting with Consul General Zhao Jian to discuss ‘China-U.S. relations and subnational cooperation.’ 

As for the subpoena, Comer said that DHS has been ‘unresponsive’ and is not operating in ‘good faith.’ 

Comer said the DHS ‘did not produce responsive documents.’ 

Last week, Comer said he spoke with DHS’ senior advisor for legislative affairs during an Oct. 21 phone call, but said that official ‘offered no substantive information, nor any assurance that substantive information would be forthcoming.’ 

‘DHS has been wholly unresponsive, and the Committee is considering all available options,’ Comer wrote. ‘The documents covered by the Committee’s subpoena will inform the Committee’s understanding of CCP political warfare against the United States and how effectively federal agencies are countering the communist regime’s infiltration operations.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign and DHS for comment.

Twenty-six Republican attorneys general joined Virginia on Monday in urging the Supreme Court to halt a lower court decision that restored the voting rights of 1,600 residents.

The amicus brief backs Virginia’s contention that the ruling is overly broad and lacks standing under a provision of the National Voter Registration Act (NRVA), which orders states to halt all ‘systematic’ voter roll maintenance 90 days before an election. It now has the support of every Republican-led U.S. state, giving it outsize attention in the final stretch before the election.

In the amicus brief, attorneys general urged the court to grant Virginia’s emergency motion and ‘restore the status quo,’ noting that doing so ‘would comply with the law and enable Virginia to ensure that noncitizens do not vote in the upcoming election.’

The states also sided with Virginia in objecting to the Justice Department’s reading of NVRA protections, which they said was overly broad.

Moreover, they said, the law in place in Virginia was not designed to ‘systematically’ remove residents from the voter rolls, as Justice Department officials cited in their lawsuit earlier this month.

The Justice Department had argued the removals were conducted too close to the Nov. 5 elections and violated the ‘quiet period’ provision under NVRA. That contention was backed by a federal judge in Alexandria, which ordered the affected voters back on the rolls, and upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the amicus brief, lawyers describe the ruling as a ‘sweeping interpretation of the NVRA’ that ‘converts a procedural statute into a substantive federal regulation of voter qualifications in elections—an interpretation that would raise serious questions about the constitutionality of the NVRA itself.’

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has insisted the voters were removed legally and that the removal process is based on precedent from a 2006 state law enacted by then-Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat. 

That process compared the state Department of Motor Vehicles’ noncitizens list to its list of registered voters. Those without citizenship were then informed that their voter registration would be canceled unless they could prove their citizenship in 14 days.

Youngkin and Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares have argued the lower court rulings are ‘individualized’ and not systematic, as the Justice Department alleged earlier this month. 

They argued that restoring them just days before an election is likely to inject new chaos into the voting process – an argument backed by the group of Republican states in the Monday filing.

‘This Court should reject Respondents’ effort to change the rules in the middle of the game and restore the status quo ante,’ they wrote. ‘The Constitution leaves decisions about voter qualifications to the people of Virginia. And the people of Virginia have decided that noncitizens are not permitted to vote.’

Vice President Harris was surprised to find out a microphone was homing in on her conversation with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as she admitted her campaign was struggling with male voters.

Harris and Whitmer were sitting at a bar in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday and having what appeared to be a serious conversation – so serious that on a video making the rounds online, the Democratic presidential nominee seemed to forget the two of them were surrounded by cameras and microphones.

‘So, my thing is we need to move ground among men,’ Harris was heard telling Whitmer at the Trak Houz Bar and Grill.

Harris then immediately noticed the microphones were picking up on her conversation with the Democratic governor.

‘Oh, we have microphones in here just listening to everything,’ Harris says, looking flustered. ‘I didn’t realize that!’

Fox News has reached out to the campaign for clarification on the comment.

Fox News’ Julian Turner reported that it was both former President Trump’s and Harris’ last chance to close the gender gap that has been widening since Harris became the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.

The latest polls from the New York Times show Harris leading Trump with women voters, 54 percent to 42 percent, while Trump leads Harris among men voters, 55 percent to 41 percent, respectively.

Last week, Harris dismissed her diminishing support among male voters during an interview with NBC’s Peter Alexander, who asked why she thought there was a disconnect between her and men.

At first, Harris dodged the question, pointing to the live audience consisting of people from all backgrounds and genders who continue to show up to her events. She also said she was campaigning to earn the vote of every American.

Alexander pressed Harris even more, asking what might explain the gap in support from men, and the vice president said it was not her experience.

In contrast, the GenForward poll from the University of Chicago that was released last Wednesday revealed that 26 percent of Black men between the ages of 18 and 40 said they would vote for Trump, while only 12 percent of Black women said the same. This is a significant gain since Black voters overall supported Biden over Trump by a nine to one ratio in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump also improved with young Latino men, 44 percent of whom said they would support him compared to about 38 percent who voted for him in 2020. Even so, Harris leads Trump overall 47-35 in the poll, which includes large samples of young voters of color.

Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo, Danielle Wallace, Hanna Panreck and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Harris-Walz campaign is deploying former House Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in a final appeal to Republicans in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin.

Cheney and political commentator Charlie Sykes are featured in a pair of new radio ads being launched on Monday, taking aim at former President Trump and promoting Vice President Kamala Harris. Fox News Digital was the first national outlet to preview the clips.

‘I am a Ronald Reagan conservative. Never voted for a Democrat. But we’ve never faced a threat like this before – what Donald Trump is proposing in terms of withdrawing from NATO, welcoming Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO allies, praising President Xi of China. America will find our very freedom and security challenged and threatened. It’s a risk we just simply can’t take as a nation,’ Cheney said in the ad.

‘Freedom requires that we have a president who understands America has to lead and that our strength comes both from our greatness and also from our goodness. And that’s Vice President Harris.

‘She’s somebody that I know will put the good of this country first. Wisconsin, I ask you to help us elect Kamala Harris, our president.’

Sykes, a former conservative radio host and ex-editor-in-chief of anti-Trump right-wing outlet The Bulwark, said in the second of two ads, ‘I’ve been a conservative for a long time and my values have not changed. But this election is not normal.’

‘It’s not about liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican. It’s about democracy, the rule of law, character, and whether or not America will continue to be a shining city on a hill to the rest of the world,’ he said.

Sykes’ advertisement also invoked the recent New York Times interview with former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, where the retired general said Trump met the ‘general definition of a fascist.’

Trump and his allies have forcefully pushed back on that and other claims in Kelly’s interview.

Outreach to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents has been a core tenet of Harris’ campaign, and one whose benefit will be seen next week after Election Day on Nov. 5.

Multiple polls show Trump and Harris in a near dead-heat with just a few points separating them.

Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, have been two of Harris’ most visible GOP supporters.

In Wisconsin, Harris has been endorsed by the longest-serving state senator, Republican Robert Cowles, as well as Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly, who left the GOP after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but was re-elected to lead the red-leaning city.

Several Republicans, like former House Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., spoke at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August.

But the Trump campaign has dismissed Harris attempts at GOP outreach, with the vast majority of Republicans still publicly supporting the former president.

Cheney, the former vice chair of the House select committee on Jan. 6, lost re-election to a Trump-backed Republican primary challenger in the 2022 elections.

Trump criticized her as ‘terrible’ in comments to Fox News’ Bill Melugin after she endorsed Harris.

‘Liz Cheney is a stupid war hawk. All she wants to do is shoot missiles at people…I really think it hurts,’ Trump said in early October. ‘I think they hurt each other.’

When reached for comment by Fox News Digital, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said, ”Liz Cheney is a stone-cold loser who is so desperate for relevance and attention, she has debased herself by campaigning with a weak, failed, and dangerously liberal in Kamala Harris.’

‘The both of them are made for each other— proponents of endless wars, killers of Social Security, and enemies of American workers,’ Cheung said.