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Thank you for your interest in Albany State University. We invite you to visit our campus to learn more about our heritage, academic excellence, and Life At ASU . Campus tours are hosted by our Holley Ambassadors. Holley Ambassadors are student leaders who serve as the official host and hostesses of Albany State University.

You will receive an email notification that your entry has been received. A follow up email is sent with campus tour logistics. To better serve our guests, advanced scheduling is mandatory for all tours. Tours will not be given in inclement weather or on holidays.

COVID-19 Campus Tour Protocols:

• Face masks or a covering must be worn in campus buildings and during the tour.
• Social distancing must be observed as guided by signage throughout campus.
• Campus Tour capacity is limited to two families per tour guide. (We ask that families bring no more than two to three guests)
• Pop-up tours (defined as any persons arriving on campus without a written confirmed appointment will not be permitted.
• If any guests have tested positive or been in contact with someone who is showing COVID-19 symptoms/positive, we ask that they not attend the campus tour.

We look forward to meeting you!

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Albany State University Campus Tours are available on the following days:

Campus tours will not be available during our holiday breaks. For additional information, please contact Campus Tour Coordinator:

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In the event of rain, a campus tour may be canceled and rescheduled, however a presentation will be conducted to provide information about the University and an opportunity to re-schedule will be offered.

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All of Us Journey Tour Stop

The All of Us Research Program Brings the Future of Health to Buffalo, New York.

This week, the University at Buffalo’s Abbott Library in Abbott Hall on the South Campus will host the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Journey, a traveling, hands-on exhibit that raises awareness about the All of Us Research Program. The experience will allow interested visitors to join the program right on board, where they can answer surveys and give their physical measurements and blood and urine samples. The All of Us Journey will be in Buffalo, New York on April 30-May 3, 2024, as part of its national tour.

• An augmented reality experiences.
• Fun games to learn more about what the All of Us Research Program is and the value of participation.
• An interactive station where participants can access a video testimonial library to learn why others have decided to participate in the program.

The All of Us Research Program aims to speed up health research and medical breakthroughs. To do so, All of Us is asking 1 million volunteers to share different types of health and lifestyle information—information like where they live, what they do, and their family health history.

The program is open to people both healthy and sick, from all communities. Unlike a single research study focused on a specific disease or community, the All of Us Research Program will create a research resource to inform thousands of studies, covering a wide range of health conditions. This information could help researchers learn more about different diseases and treatments and improve health for generations to come.

The future of health begins with us. If we want better health care for all of us, medical research needs to include all of us. The All of Us Journey is excited to work with University at Buffalo: Abbott Library in Abbott Hall to bring communities together to help change health for generations to come.

The All of Us Journey engages community members nationwide and raises awareness about the All of Us Research Program through various educational activities and experiences.

Please join us in Abbott Hall on UB’s South Campus on:

To learn more about the All of Us Research Program, please visit JoinAllofUs.org/tour 

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Moscow State University

• Guide to Russia

What is the history of Moscow State University?

• Moscow State University was founded on the initiative of Mikhail Lomonosov on 12th January 1755 . It inspired the democratisation of education in Russia, with students and teachers of non-noble backgrounds, lectures and library open to the public, and publishing houses. The university soon flourished into the educational, scientific and cultural centre of Russia • MSU expanded greatly in the Soviet period . Emphasis was placed on science and technology, culminating in truly pioneering research and discoveries. However, the ideology of the regime negatively affected academic development across the board, particularly in the humanities • Today, Moscow State University remains Russia’s top university , attended by over 40,000 students studying nearly all branches of modern science and humanities. It works closely with universities throughout the world and is involved in many educational and research projects

Moscow State University is Russia’s oldest university and the educational and scientific centre of the country, counting Noble Laureates, renowned scientists, intellectuals and political figures among its current and former staff and students. Its main campus is perched on a hilltop overlooking Moscow and is home to one of the capital’s most commanding buildings. Aside from exploring the campus to get a glimpse of life at Russia’s top university, you can visit Moscow State University’s many affiliated attractions on campus and around the city, including the Zoological Museum, Museum of Geology, Botanical Gardens, and viewing platform from the 32nd storey of the main building.

History of Moscow State University

Moscow state university during imperial russia.

Photo by I.s.kopytov on Wikipedia

Moscow State University was established in 1755 on the initiative of acclaimed intellectual and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, and was known as the Imperial Moscow University until 1917. At the time of opening it consisted of three faculties – philosophy, law, and medicine – and was attended by 100 students. Lectures were delivered either in Latin, the language of educated people at the time, or in Russian. The university was initially located in the Principal Medical Store on Red Square, whose position is now occupied by the State Historical Museum.

Did you know? Moscow State University was founded on 12th January 1755 (Old Style, corresponding to 25th January New Style), the day of Saint Tatiana. Since then, Tatiana has been considered the patron saint of students, and Students’ Day is celebrated on 25th January every year. It has become customary on Students’ Day for the university Rector to treat students to mead brewed according to his secret recipe.

Imperial Moscow University played an outstanding role in the democratisation of education in Russia. Mikhail Lomonosov pointed out that European universities valued first and foremost the academic achievements of a student, and not their social standing or family background, and from its establishment, elitism was alien to the spirit of the university community. Non-nobles were allowed to enrol, and only serfs were not admitted; by the late 18th century, the majority of students and professors were of non-noble backgrounds. Initially, tuition at the university was free for all students, and later scholarships were funded by rich merchant families who were the patrons of the university. Lectures were open to the public, as was the university library, which remained Moscow’s only public library for a century. A publishing house and bookshop were established on campus in 1756, printing Imperial Russia’s most popular newspaper, Moskovskie Vedomosti (Moscow Gazette), as well as Moscow’s first literary periodical, Poleznoe Uveselenie (Useful Entertainment).

By the 18th century, Imperial Moscow University had become the educational, scientific, and cultural centre of Russia and was well established in the international community. This continued into the 19th century, as the university was a melting pot for all sections of society and attracted freethinking people concerned with the future of Russia. It was often a real battleground between the Westernisers and Slavophiles (supporters of Western ideas and those who thought Russia had its own unique way of development). With the abolition of serfdom, the university went through a period of reforms, as the country required highly qualified specialists in all sectors of work. In the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Imperial Moscow University founded a large number of scientific and intellectual societies and educational, historical, and cultural institutions including the Zoological Gardens, Anthropological Museum, and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, and the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.

Did you know? The French invasion of Moscow in 1812 desecrated the university, with the total destruction of the library, archives, museum, and laboratories. Thanks to the donations of intellectuals from all over the country, the restoration of the university was soon made possible.

As a powerful centre of knowledge which closely followed intellectual developments elsewhere in Europe, university life became increasingly politicised. This came to a head at the beginning of the 20th century, when the emergence of social-democratic organisations caused the Tsarist government to threaten to close the university, bring troops onto campus, and expel professors and students. This conflict continued until the outbreak of the First World War.

Moscow University During Soviet Russia

Photo on Wikipedia

The Russian Revolution changed the entire system of higher education: in accordance with a decree issued in 1918, any person over the age of 16, regardless of gender or background, could attend any higher educational institution even without a certificate of secondary school graduation. What’s more, tuition fees were abolished and grants were provided to all. These measures hugely opened up higher education to the wider population, and by 1922 over 20,000 students attended Moscow State University. As science and technology were considered a national priority, distinct emphasis was placed on practical classes and scientific and mathematic disciplines. By the outbreak of the Second World War, MSU comprised 75 departments, 11 research institutes, 66 laboratories, four museums, and two observatories.

Nevertheless, the university’s primary focus was training as many students as possible for the Soviet state apparatus. The quality of teaching fell as many esteemed scholars left (or were expelled from) the university. Faculties which were considered to be ‘poisoned’ by the ideology of the old regime, such as the Faculties of Law, History and Philology, were abolished and replaced with the Faculties of Social Sciences, whose aim was to disseminate Soviet ideology and the ideas of scientific socialism; the humanities were only reintroduced 10 years later in a separate institute altogether. Stalin’s political repressions negatively affected the development of academic research. Soviet scientists and scholars were deprived of contact with their colleagues abroad, persecuted, imprisoned, and even executed, and certain branches of science were condemned as propagating an ideology alien to Communist ideas. Many thousands of students and staff were drafted to fight in the Second World War, 3000 of whom lost their lives. During the war, the university focused on military science, inventing new explosives and developing aircraft.

In 1940, the university was renamed the Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov , the name which it holds to this day. In the post-war period, the new campus was built on Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills) and equipped with state-of-the-art lecture halls and laboratories. Funding to the university increased fivefold, new research institutions were created, and international collaboration was once again fostered.

Did you know? 12% of all scientific discoveries registered in the USSR are attributed to alumni of Moscow State University.

Moscow State University During Russia Today

Photo by Eldar Vagapov on Wikipedia

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow State University was instated as a self-governing institution. Today, the university is attended by over 40,000 students, and offers over 150 Bachelor’s degree programs and 500 Master’s degree programs in nearly all branches of modern science and humanities. It comprises 43 faculties and 380 departments staffed by more than 5,000 professors and instructors, among them 300 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other Russian state academies, and a library of almost 10 million volumes. Amongst its activities, MSU organises educational programmes attended by 10,000 high school students, Olympiads participated in by 200,000 high school students, and the All-Russia Science Festival, which attracts millions of participants each year.

The university’s long-standing democratic traditions continue in the ‘University Without Borders’ project, which provides online courses to over 300,000 students from 120 countries. MSU works closely with international universities and research institutes, and has branches in 8 other countries including China, Slovenia, and the CIS countries. Current developments at the university include the Vorobyovy Gory Scientific and Technological Valley, which aims to unite research institutes, educational organisations, and start-ups on one site.

Did you know? Projects of the Scientific and Technological Valley include a ‘Noah’s Ark’ biomaterials bank similar to the World Seed Store in Svalbard, and a Space Research programme which has successfully constructed and launched six satellites.

Alumni of Moscow State University

As Russia’s top university, Moscow State University counts many acclaimed figures among its alumni throughout the centuries, such as writers Mikhail Lermontov, Ivan Turgenev, and Anton Chekhov, the ‘father of Russian socialism’ Alexander Herzen, and statesman Grigory Potemkin. Of 18 Russian Nobel Laureates, 11 are graduates and professors of Moscow State University, and include Boris Pasternak, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, and Andrei Sakharov and Mikhail Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1975 and 1990 respectively.

What can you see at Moscow State University?

• Main campus: Located on Vorobyovy Gory ( Sparrow Hills ). The campus is home to the world’s largest educational building, with a viewing platform on its 32nd floor, expansive and verdant grounds, the Museum of Geology, Botanical Garden, and a famous viewpoint offering a panorama over Moscow

•   City centre campus : Home to other attractions affiliated with Moscow State University, including the Zoological Museum, Museum of Anthropology, and Apothecary Garden

Main campus

The main campus of Moscow State University is located on Vorobyovy Gory, the highest point in Moscow. It comprises over 1,000 buildings, including the main university building constructed by Lev Rudnev – at 240 metres high, this is the tallest of Stalin’s ‘Seven Sisters’ skyscrapers and the largest educational building in the world. Although the buildings themselves are off-limits to the public, visitors can explore the expansive and verdant campus grounds, and visit the hilltop viewpoint at the front of the university which provides a panorama across Moscow and a commanding view of the main building across 500 metres of gardens. It is possible to arrange a private tour to the open-air 360-degree viewing platform on the main building’s 32nd floor.

Did you know? The main building is crowned with a gigantic 12-ton star!

Museum of Geology of Moscow State University

Photo by Ivtorov on Wikipedia

The museum was founded in 1950 and occupies the 24th – 31st floors of MSU’s main building. Its expositions cover the geology and geography of Russia and the world, the tundra, forest, and steppes of Russia, volcanoes, earthquakes, sea activities, the ancient history of the world, minerals of the world, and the structure of the universe. More information can be found here .

Did you know? Visitors to the Museum of Geology can even see a meteorite!

Moscow State University Botanical Gardens

Photo by Marcel Heil on Unsplash

The gardens were established in 1706 by Peter the Great for the cultivation of medicinal herbs. The newer Botanical Garden of the Biology Faculty is situated on the main campus and comprises fruit trees, a rock garden, lake, and thousands of varieties of flowers. The older Apothecary Garden is located north of the city centre on Prospekt Mira and is home to manicured flower gardens, an arboretum, and greenhouses of exotic and rare plants.

City centre campus

Zoological museum of moscow state university.

Photo by Andrew Butko on Wikipedia

The museum was founded in 1791 as the Cabinet of Natural History of the Imperial Moscow University, and opened to the public in 1866. It contains exhibits of birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, fish, and rare animals from around the world. The museum is located on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa. Further information can be found on the website .

Did you know? The Zoological Museum is also home to a woolly mammoth skeleton, and visitors can hold reptiles in the Scientific Terrarium!

Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University

Photo by GaKaGaMa on Wikipedia

Founded in 1883, the museum belongs to the university’s Institute of Anthropology and is located on Mokhovaya Ulitsa. It traces the activities of mankind from its origin to the present day, and collections include skeletons of hominids and other archaeological items found throughout Eurasia from the Palaeolithic era to the Middle Ages, and 13,000 exhibits of ethnographic interest including clothing, artwork, and home items. Visits are arranged in private tours. See the website for more information.

What’s nearby?

• Luzhniki Stadium – the national stadium of Russia and the country’s largest football stadium, which hosted the 1980 Olympic Games and 2018 World Cup. Visitors can take tours of the stadium or – even better – enjoy a football match there! A 720-metre cable car travels from Vorobyovy Gory to the Luzhniki Stadium, offering unparalleled views over Moscow.

• Novodevichy Convent – one of ancient Moscow’s most sacred sites. It is the most magnificent example of Moscow Baroque architecture preserved in Russia to this day, seen in its churches, palaces and towers, is home to a treasure trove of religious artifacts and artwork, and is the resting place of Russia’s most eminent figures.

Essential Information for Visitors

Address and Contact Details Moscow State University, Ulitsa Leninskiye Gory, 1, Moscow, Russia, 119991 Tel: +7 (495) 939-10-00 Website: www.msu.ru Email: [email protected] Nearest metro: Lomonosovskiy Prospekt (1.1km), Universitet (1.8km), Vorobyovy Gory (2.9km, with a scenic walk through the riverside park and university groun

Opening Hours The buildings and grounds of the main campus on Vorobyovy Gory can be viewed from outside at any time of day. Opening hours for the university’s museums and tours may be found on their websites.

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Election Updates: Praising police, Trump calls crackdown at Columbia a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’

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Chris Cameron

Donald Trump again attacked Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate who polls suggest is taking some support from Trump voters , in a post on his social media site, pleading that Republicans “don’t waste your precious vote on this phony liberal activist” while also insisting that Kennedy’s candidacy hurts President Biden more than it hurts him.

In an interview with local television in Waukesha, Wis., Donald Trump again said he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected , after a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine in which he suggested he would consider other federal abortion limits. He has struggled to strike a balance between siding with the anti-abortion activists who helped elect him in 2016 and what he sees as a risk to his electability.

Anjali Huynh

Trump has finished speaking in Freeland, Mich., where he blasted his New York criminal trial, laying into the judge who fined him, falsely suggesting the case amounts to political persecution and claiming, without evidence, that the trial is helping his poll numbers. The comments, among the first he’s made on the trail since the trial started, show how he plans to use the trial to rally supporters whenever he can hit the road.

In Michigan, Donald J. Trump again insists abortion should be left “to the states,” rather than supporting a federal ban. He praised the justices who overturned Roe but alluded to the electoral risk to Republicans, saying, “A lot of bad things will happen beyond the abortion issue, if you don’t win elections.” Kamala Harris, in Florida today, tried to make Trump the face of the state’s six-week abortion ban.

Michael Gold

At his second rally of the day, Donald J. Trump has spoken far more extensively about his criminal trial in New York, though he is mostly expounding on his view that the trial is, as he put it, “an unlawful exercise in very stupid and very evil politics” that is keeping him from campaigning.

Former President Donald J. Trump has taken the stage in Freeland, Mich., a state he visited last month for an event focused on illegal immigration and border policy. He opened today by briefly praising Mike Rogers, the Republican he endorsed in Michigan’s Senate race, before pivoting to criticizing the economy under President Biden.

Migrant crossings on the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped significantly in the first three months of the year, according to official figures , from a peak of 301,981 in December to under 200,000 a month from January to March. That could ease political pressure on President Biden, but Republicans are likely to continue attacking him by pointing out that border crossings remain relatively high.

Donald J. Trump, at a rally in Waukesha, Wis., called for tougher action against campus protests and again suggested some of the protesters were paid actors. He called on college presidents to “remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the locals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”

At his rally in Wisconsin, former President Donald J. Trump is again trying to walk a fine line on abortion. He is celebrating that the issue was returned to states after Supreme Court justices he appointed overturned Roe, while also criticizing Democrats for being too liberal and anti-abortion activists who are pushing for broader bans.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who has campaigned on a tough law-and-order message while facing criminal charges and criticizing the legal system, commended the New York police for arresting dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University. “That’s one good thing that really happened,” he said, adding later, “It was a beautiful thing to watch.”

Nicholas Nehamas

On the day that a six-week abortion ban went into effect in Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris warned a crowd in Jacksonville that Donald J. Trump would bring “more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” if he won in November. Harris and Democrats have sought to tie abortion bans directly to Trump, seeing abortion as a winning political issue.

Donald J. Trump at a rally in Waukesha, Wis., again contended without evidence that the protests at college campuses over the war in Gaza were an effort by the left to distract attention from the surge of migrants at the border. “Some people are saying they do the colleges so they can get your eyes off the border,” he said, repeating an assertion that he made on social media last night.

Donald J. Trump just took the stage in Waukesha, Wis., for his first rally since his trial in New York began. He noted that Republicans would hold their national convention in Milwaukee in July, telling the crowd of hundreds of his supporters, “That means you’ve got to vote for us because we’re spending our money in your state.”

Alyce McFadden

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed that his campaign and President Biden’s campaign jointly conduct a poll in October to see who would do better against former President Donald J. Trump in a hypothetical two-way race. He teased the idea that the underperformer should drop out. But Biden really has no incentive to do this, and by October, it'd be too late drop off the ballot anyway.

Rebecca Davis O’Brien

The Libertarian Party is one of the more established third parties — it is on 37 state ballots, with plans for more. Angela McArdle, the party’s chair, said: “For 50 years, we’ve been trying to get our candidates on the main stage with major party POTUS candidates and we’ve finally succeeded in bringing one to our stage. We will do everything in our power to use this incredible opportunity to advance the message of liberty.”

Shane Goldmacher

Former President Donald J. Trump called Libertarians “some of the most independent and thoughtful thinkers” ahead of his speech to the party later this month and urged them “to remember that our goal is to defeat” President Biden. He added, “If Libertarians join me and the Republican Party, where we have many Libertarian views, the election won’t even be close.”

Reid J. Epstein

The Biden video, recorded Tuesday when he was in Wilmington, Del., is part of the Biden campaign’s effort to extend the news cycle surrounding former President Donald J. Trump’s interview with Time. Polling has shown abortion rights is Biden’s best issue against Trump; talking points the campaign sent to surrogates Tuesday urged them to focus attention on Trump’s abortion comments.

President Biden called former President Donald J. Trump’s comments on abortion in the Time interview published yesterday “shocking” in a video released by the president’s campaign Wednesday . “This should be a decision between a woman and her doctor,” Biden said. “And the government should get out of people’s lives.”

The Libertarian Party's invitation to Trump, to speak at the party's national convention , is an intriguing one at a moment when third-party candidates and ballot lines are a major focus of the 2024 race. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Neil Vigdor

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, compared the student protesters who occupied a building at Columbia University to Juan M. Merchan, the judge presiding over Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in New York. It was not the first time that he tried to make such an equivalency in Trump’s defense. In 2018, he likened the F.B.I. probe into Russia’s election interference to the “Gestapo.”

Michael Gold and Anjali Huynh

Michael Gold reported from Waukesha, Wis., and Anjali Huynh from Freeland, Mich.

Trump praises police crackdowns on campus protests.

Holding his first campaign rallies since his criminal trial in Manhattan began, former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday urged college presidents to take a tougher approach to protests over the war in Gaza that have swept across campuses and praised police action at the demonstrations.

Calling protesters “raging lunatics” and suggesting without any evidence that they were hired by liberal groups to draw attention away from the surge of migrants at the border, Mr. Trump commended New York City police officers who, in riot gear, arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University and cleared a building that they had occupied.

Speaking to supporters in Waukesha, Wis., Mr. Trump called for similar actions at universities across the country.

“To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately,” he said. “Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”

Both in Wisconsin and at a later rally in Freeland, Mich., Mr. Trump promoted a strong a law-and-order message, even as he contends with a criminal case in New York in which he is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal.

Mr. Trump, who on Tuesday was held in contempt and fined $9,000 for violating a gag order in the trial that bars him from attacking witnesses and jurors, criticized the order. He laid into the judge who fined him, calling him “crooked” and “conflicted” at both rallies.

“I have a judge who gags me,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m not allowed to talk about things. And nobody’s seen anything quite like it.”

And he reiterated his typical complaints about the criminal case: that it is a sham, that it is impossible for him to get a fair trial in deep-blue Manhattan and that the whole ordeal amounts to political persecution by President Biden — a claim made without a shred of evidence but that has helped him bolster support among his base.

“What you’re witnessing in New York is not a legal proceeding — it’s an unlawful exercise in very stupid and very evil politics,” he said.

As Mr. Trump is tied down in court proceedings, he and Republicans have seized on the campus demonstrations as a wedge issue. They hope to foment discontent among Mr. Biden’s Democratic base over his handling of Israel, while also pointing to the protests to support Mr. Trump’s frequent contention that Mr. Biden is a weak leader.

In the past week, Mr. Trump has also used the protests to diminish violent episodes involving right-wing extremists that took place during his presidency. He tried to downplay the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, by calling it “peanuts” compared with the campus protests. One woman was killed and nearly 40 people were injured when a neo-Nazi plowed his car through a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville.

And building on his bid to portray federal prosecutors as politically motivated, Mr. Trump suggested the government would be lenient with the protesters, comparing them to supporters who he has said were treated harshly after they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Though he has made small campaign stops in New York City, Mr. Trump has in the weeks since his trial started been visible more as a criminal defendant than as a political candidate. A planned rally in North Carolina last month was canceled at the last minute because of weather.

“I’ve got to do two of these things a day,” Mr. Trump told the crowd in Michigan. “You know why? Because I’m in New York all the time with the Biden trial.”

Mr. Trump’s energetic demeanor at Wednesday’s rallies stood in stark contrast to the stern speeches he has given in the hallway outside the courtroom, and to reports from the court that depict him as dour, glowering or, at times, asleep. He bantered lightly with members of the crowd in both states and repeatedly expressed pride at the size of his crowds.

But Mr. Trump’s dark, and sometimes coarse, campaign message has changed little. He again argued that Mr. Biden’s leadership was steering the country toward doomsday and stoked fears about immigration, accusing Democrats of creating “mayhem” at the border. He also repeated unsubstantiated claims that Democrats were encouraging migration in order to register undocumented immigrants to vote.

On a day when abortion was in the spotlight again, with Florida’s six-week ban taking effect and Arizona lawmakers repealing their state’s 1864 ban , Mr. Trump largely kept his focus elsewhere. But he defended his position in an effort to neutralize an issue that Democrats hope to make central in 2024.

Mr. Trump has tried a balancing act on the issue, arguing that all abortion rights should be left to the states even as he has voiced opposition toward strict six-week bans. And he stressed the need to consider the political implications of calling for further abortion restrictions as Republicans try to win in November, saying in Michigan that “a lot of bad things will happen beyond the abortion issue, if you don’t win elections.”

In Wisconsin, he presented his views as a kind of compromise. “Some people will be very happy,” he said. “Some people won’t be as happy. But time will make this.”

Still, in Michigan, he praised the conservative justices who had overturned Roe v. Wade, singling them each out by name. His remarks there came shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris visited Florida , where she called the state’s new restrictions “another Trump abortion ban,” part of a larger effort by Democrats to tie Mr. Trump to strict limits on the procedure.

At both rallies, Mr. Trump also railed against Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, arguing that the president’s economic policies were hurting the middle class and that Mr. Biden had not done enough to fight inflation.

Both parties are focused intently on winning Michigan and Wisconsin, two battleground states that were critical to Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory but flipped to Mr. Biden in 2020. Mr. Trump visited both states last month, shortly before his New York criminal trial began.

The Republican National Committee is holding its 2024 convention in Milwaukee, which Mr. Trump acknowledged in nearby Waukesha. “That means you’ve got to vote for us, because we’re spending our money in your state to have the big convention,” he said.

The two states were also central in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Last week, he was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an investigation by the Michigan attorney general’s office into efforts he and his allies took to subvert Mr. Biden’s victory in the state. So far, 15 Republicans who acted as fake electors have been charged.

An earlier version of this article misquoted a statement from Donald J. Trump at a

campaign rally. He called on college leaders to “vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students,” not “vanquish the locals.”

How we handle corrections

Michael Gold and Chris Cameron

Michael Gold reported from Waukesha, Wis. Chris Cameron reported from Washington.

Donald Trump, repeating his 2020 election lies, tells a Milwaukee newspaper that he will not commit to accepting the 2024 outcome.

Former President Donald J. Trump told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday that he would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election, as he again repeated his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that,” Mr. Trump said, according to The Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

In an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, he also dismissed questions about political violence in November by suggesting that his victory was inevitable.

When pressed about what might happen should he lose, he said, “if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

Mr. Trump’s insistent and fraudulent claims that the 2020 election was unfair were at the heart of his efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden, and to the violent storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of supporters who believed his claims. Mr. Trump now faces dozens of felony charges in connection with those events.

Mr. Trump’s vow to “fight for the right of the country” also echoes his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, where he told his supporters that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” before urging his supporters to march to the Capitol.

As he campaigns in battleground states this year, Mr. Trump has repeatedly tried to sow doubt about the integrity of the fall election, while repeating many of the same lies that he used to assail the integrity of the 2020 election. Months before any voting has taken place, Mr. Trump has regularly made the baseless claim that Democrats are likely to cheat to win.

“Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, but we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election — the most important day of our lives — in 2024,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Freeland, Mich.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Trump has for years promoted the lie that he won Wisconsin in 2020, and he did so again in the Journal Sentinel interview. Even after Jan. 6, 2021, and years after his exit from office, he has repeatedly pressured Assembly Speaker Robin Vos , the top Republican in the State Legislature, to help overturn Mr. Trump’s loss in the state and to impeach the state’s nonpartisan chief of elections.

More than 1,250 people have been charged with crimes in connection to the Jan. 6 attack — and hundreds of people have been convicted . Mr. Trump said in a recent interview that he would “absolutely” consider pardoning every person convicted on charges related to the storming of the Capitol. A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with that attack.

The former president and his allies have also installed election deniers in influential positions in his campaign and in Republican Party institutions. In March, Trump allies newly installed to the leadership of the Republican National Committee appointed Christina Bobb , a former host at the far-right One America News Network, as senior counsel for election integrity. A self-described conspiracy theorist, she has relentlessly promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Ms. Bobb was indicted in Arizona last week, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf in that state and others, on charges related to what the authorities say were attempts by the defendants to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona.

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have made an aggressive approach to “election integrity” — a broad term often used by Republicans to cast doubt on elections that the party lost — central to their efforts heading toward November.

Last month, the committee announced a plan to train and dispatch more than 100,000 volunteers and lawyers to monitor the electoral process in each battleground state and to mount aggressive challenges.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said at the rally in Freeland that his campaign and national and state Republican parties would put together “a team of the most highly qualified lawyers and other professionals in the country to ensure that what happened in 2020 will never happen again.”

“I will secure our elections because you know what happened in 2020,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Waukesha, Wis., on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump lost Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes .

Reporting from Jacksonville, Fla.

In Florida, Harris looks to make Trump the face of the state’s abortion ban.

Harris blasts trump over florida abortion ban, on the day that florida began to enforce its six-week abortion ban, vice president kamala harris delivered a searing attack on former president donald j. trump in jacksonville, fla., calling the measure “another trump abortion ban.”.

Today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, four million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night. This is the new reality under a Trump abortion ban. The contrast in this election could not be more clear. Basically under Donald Trump, it would be fair game for women to be monitored and punished by the government. Whereas Joe Biden and I have a different view. We believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor. [crowd cheering]

On the day that Florida began to enforce its six-week abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a searing attack on former President Donald J. Trump in Jacksonville, calling the measure “another Trump abortion ban” and saying he was forcing women to live a “horrific reality” without access to essential medical care.

“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” Ms. Harris said to about 200 supporters at a convention center in a historically African American neighborhood.

If Mr. Trump were to win in November, she argued, Americans would be compelled to endure “more bans, more suffering, less freedom.”

President Biden has made abortion — a rare issue on which he polls strongly against Mr. Trump — a pillar of his re-election campaign. He and Ms. Harris have campaigned aggressively in states that have imposed abortion restrictions, including Florida, where the president spoke last week , and Arizona, where legislators voted on Wednesday to overturn a near-total ban dating to 1864.

The president and vice president have used their appearances to illustrate the consequences of electing Republicans, and have placed the blame for the bans squarely on Mr. Trump, whose appointments to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade. “Donald Trump did this” has become a frequent refrain in Mr. Biden’s ads and speeches — a pointed and direct attack from a campaign that has struggled to sell its message to voters.

Ms. Harris’s appearance in Jacksonville also allowed her to capitalize on an interview Mr. Trump gave to Time magazine that was published on Tuesday. In the interview, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a federal abortion ban — which seemed to contradict recent statements from him — and said he would permit states to punish women who violated abortion bans.

“Just this week, in an interview, Trump said that states have the right to monitor pregnant women to enforce these bans, and to punish pregnant women for seeking out abortion care,” Ms. Harris warned.

In talking points distributed to surrogates on Tuesday, the Biden campaign urged them to focus attention on Mr. Trump’s abortion comments. And on Wednesday it released a video of Mr. Biden speaking directly to the camera.

“There seems to be no limit to how invasive Trump would let the state be,” the president said. “This should be a decision between a woman and her doctor, and the government should get out of people’s lives.”

On Wednesday, the six-week ban had already started to change lives. About 15 minutes away from Ms. Harris’s campaign event in Jacksonville, a reproductive health clinic called A Woman’s Choice received calls from women seeking abortions.

One woman said she was calling from Georgia, which also has a six-week ban. An official at the clinic informed her that a six-week ban was now in effect in Florida, too.

“Oh, Lord Jesus,” the woman responded, before opting to make an appointment in North Carolina, the nearest state where an abortion for someone at her stage of pregnancy would be available.

Many women do not know that they are pregnant at six weeks. And Florida’s ban means patients in the Southeast will have to travel as far away as North Carolina and Virginia to seek abortions, an unaffordable expense for many.

“The extremists who wrote this ban either don’t know how a woman’s body works, or they simply don’t care,” Ms. Harris said.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the six-week ban last year ahead of a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in which he tried to court social conservatives. Floridians will have the chance to overturn the law with a ballot referendum in November. That has revived faint hopes among Democrats that Florida could be in play in the presidential election, although the Biden campaign has yet to invest significant resources in the state and Republicans hold a major advantage in voter registration.

“This is going to be a game changer here in Florida. It’s going to be a motivator,” said Christina Diamond, the chief executive of Ruth’s List Florida, a group that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.

“The reason we have a six-week ban,” Ms. Diamond added, “is because the State Legislature and our statewide offices are held by Republicans.”

To emphasize that point, the Democratic National Committee put up billboards around Florida with Mr. Trump’s face that told women how far they would have to drive to reach a state where they could receive an abortion. And it also hired a plane to fly over Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s home in Palm Beach, Fla., trailing a banner that read: “Trump’s Plan: Ban Abortion, Punish Women.”

(Mr. Trump is campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday as the criminal trial against him in Manhattan is on break for the day.)

Republicans in Florida responded to Ms. Harris’s visit by talking about everything except abortion.

“In Florida, especially in Jacksonville, families are suffering under the train-wreck Biden-Harris Bidenomics,” Evan Power, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said in a statement. “Groceries cost more. Gas prices are surging. And the cost of housing continues to push Americans’ wallets to the breaking point. Meanwhile, the open border lawlessness of the Biden Bloodbath has made all states — including Florida — a border state.”

Jacksonville has one of the largest Black populations in the United States, and the six-week ban will most likely have a disproportionate impact on African American women, who receive the procedure at higher rates than other groups.

The Biden campaign has been working to shore up its support among African Americans. Polling shows that Black voters are more likely to say abortion is their top issue. At the Jacksonville event, a marching band from Edward Waters University, a historically Black university, warmed up the crowd. Ms. Harris’s introductory speakers included Fentrice Driskell and Tracie Davis, two of the state’s most prominent Black politicians.

“We want the little girls of Florida to have the same freedom that their mothers and their grandmothers did,” said Ms. Driskell, a Tampa Democrat and the state House minority leader. “So let’s say it loud enough that they hear it from Jacksonville all the way to shake the walls of Mar-a-Lago: Get out of our health care. Get out of our exam rooms. We are taking our rights back.”

Abigail Geiger contributed from Jacksonville, Fla., Reid J. Epstein from Washington and Patricia Mazzei from Miami.

Chris Cameron and Michael Gold

Chris Cameron reported from Washington, and Michael Gold reported from Waukesha, Wis.

Trump says at rally that he wanted to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he asked his Secret Service detail to take him to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, acknowledging a key detail of his actions that were central to the findings of the House committee established to investigate the attack.

During a campaign rally in Waukesha, Wis., Mr. Trump brought up a sensational but disputed element of testimony given to the House Jan. 6 committee by a Trump White House aide: that Mr. Trump had lunged for the wheel and physically struggled with Secret Service agents when they refused to take him to join the large crowd of supporters who were marching toward the Capitol.

“I sat in the back,” Mr. Trump said, giving his version of events. “And you know what I did say? I said, ‘I’d like to go down there because I see a lot of people walking down.’ They said, ‘Sir, it’s better if you don’t.’ I said, ‘Well, I’d like to.’”

“It’s better if you don’t,” Mr. Trump recounted an agent saying. The former president said he replied, “All right, whatever you guys think is fine,” and added, “That was the whole tone of the conversation.”

President Biden’s campaign immediately highlighted Mr. Trump’s comments, amplifying that the former president had intended to participate in what would become an attack by his supporters on the Capitol in an effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

It is not the first time that Mr. Trump has spoken of his effort to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6. He has said in several interviews that he regretted not marching on the Capitol with his supporters that day, and that his Secret Service detail prevented him from doing so.

“Secret Service said I couldn’t go,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post in April 2022 . “I would have gone there in a minute.”

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, later testified to Mr. Trump’s conversation with Secret Service agents during televised hearings held by the House Jan. 6 committee. Ms. Hutchinson was not in the car with Mr. Trump, and said that her testimony to those events came secondhand or thirdhand from what other people had told her that day.

In an interview with the same committee, Mr. Trump’s driver, whose name was not disclosed, said: “The president was insistent on going to the Capitol. It was clear to me he wanted to go to the Capitol.”

Mr. Trump at the rally on Wednesday portrayed his requests to his Secret Service detail as casual ones.

In the interview with investigators for the House panel, the driver said that while he did not see Mr. Trump accost agents or reach for the steering wheel, “what stood out was the irritation in his voice, more than his physical presence.”

After Mr. Trump was driven back to the White House by his Secret Service detail, the former president sat and watched the ensuing violence play out on television, according to testimony by an array of former administration officials . After Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse where he repeated his false claims that the election was stolen from him and urged attendees to march on the Capitol , a mob of his supporters overran police barricades to storm the building, temporarily disrupting the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.

In a lengthy interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning every person who had been convicted on, or pleaded guilty to, charges related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. He also would not rule out the possibility of political violence after this year’s election.

“I think we’re going to win,” he said. “And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

Shane Goldmacher ,  Neil Vigdor ,  Nicholas Nehamas and Maggie Astor

more news from the campaign

Trump to address Libertarian Party, hundreds of Black women endorse Alsobrooks in Maryland and more.

The Libertarian Party announced that Donald J. Trump will address the party’s national convention in late May in Washington, D.C., calling it the first time a former president will speak to a gathering of the party. — Shane Goldmacher

Over 650 Black women — ranging from House members to local activists — endorsed Angela Alsobrooks against Representative David Trone in Maryland’s Democratic Senate primary and criticized a recent ad from Trone. The ad featured Black officials questioning the qualifications of Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George’s County, and suggesting she might need “training wheels”; the statement said that the ad “echoes tones of misogyny and racism.” Race has been a major undertone in the contest; Alsobrooks is Black and Trone is white. Some of Trone’s supporters hit back: State Senator Jill P. Carter, who is also Black, said she thought the ad was not an attack but simply “a campaign ad where some individuals are speaking about their specific experience.” — Maggie Astor

Almost four in 10 local election officials who were surveyed by the Brennan Center of Justice for a new report said they had experienced threats, harassment or abuse, another sign of the duress that the group has been under since the 2020 election. Sixty-two percent said they were worried about political leaders trying to interfere with how they or other election officials did their jobs. — Neil Vigdor

Florida’s six-week abortion ban takes effect today, giving Democrats another opportunity to press their case against former President Donald J. Trump. In a statement, President Biden called the ban “extreme” and a “nightmare,” and said voters would teach Trump “a valuable lesson” in November. — Nicholas Nehamas

Katie Glueck

From Florida to Arizona, abortion politics are dominating the 2024 race.

In Florida, a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect.

In Arizona, state lawmakers repealed a stringent abortion ban that dates to the Civil War era.

And across the country, the presidential campaign trail on Wednesday was brimming with reminders of just how central Democrats hope the abortion rights debate will be to voters’ decisions this fall.

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade , Democrats are betting that the tangible effects of abortion restrictions that many Americans are already experiencing — and the threats of more to come — will help their party power through an ominous and volatile political environment, as Republicans struggle to address an issue that has become a significant, sustained liability for them.

“Donald Trump is to blame for the harm state abortion bans are doing to women every day in our country,” Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on social media on Wednesday morning, ahead of delivering remarks n Jacksonville, Fla., about the state’s “extreme” new ban.

Mr. Trump, she said there, would bring “more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” if he won re-election.

As they did in the midterm elections in 2022, Democrats are borrowing from language long favored by Republicans — about freedom and limiting the reach of government — to make their case.

They believe that Mr. Trump, whose Supreme Court nominees helped overturn Roe, recently bolstered their argument further.

In a Time magazine interview released on Tuesday, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban and said he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violated abortion restrictions.

“There seems to be no limit to how invasive Trump would let the state be,” President Biden said in a video released on Wednesday morning. “This should be a decision between a woman and her doctor, and the government should get out of people’s lives.”

The focus on abortion rights propelled Democrats in the midterm elections, when candidates harnessed voter anger over abortion restrictions to overcome challenging national headwinds in key contests.

And it has remained a potent force in subsequent elections.

State Representative Mike Caruso of Florida, a Republican who opposed the six-week ban, noted that a number of states including Florida are expected to have abortion rights-related measures on the ballot this fall.

“It’s going to hurt Republicans,” he said. For Democrats who were unenthusiastic about Mr. Biden, he said, “now they’ve got reason they can show up. I think it’s going to have a major impact on the elections in November.”

But it is not yet clear how galvanizing the issue will be across the country in a presidential election shaped by economic concerns at home and crises abroad, with two well-known and unpopular men — one of whom, Mr. Trump, faces multiple criminal cases — at the top of their party’s tickets.

“President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement. “Women want a president who will secure our nation’s borders, remove violent criminals from our neighborhoods and build an economy that helps hardworking families thrive.”

And even as Democrats sought to keep the issue at the forefront of voters’ minds on Wednesday, they were competing with unrest at college campuses across the country, including in critical battleground states, as students protested the war in Gaza, with many objecting to Mr. Biden’s support for Israel.

Such scenes of turmoil, some party strategists have warned, can be damaging for the party that controls the White House.

Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting.

A new progressive PAC is targeting 8 key House races in California.

Democrats nearly pulled off the impossible in the 2022 midterms.

In the final weeks of the campaign, with an unpopular president in his first term, polls forecast a red wave that would sweep the country and flip control of the House and the Senate — prompting alarm from Democrats and predictions from Republicans of a decisive victory.

But that wave never materialized, a mirage of bad polling and inflated expectations . Democrats came close to maintaining a national trifecta, but Republicans eked out a thin majority in the House — prevailing in a handful of seats in New York and California, each by just a few thousand votes .

Now, a new coalition of progressive groups in California has formed a super PAC aiming to bolster Democratic candidates in a state that the party sees as crucial to winning control of the House this fall.

The super PAC, Battleground California, says it aims to spend $15 million this year on eight competitive House races, seven with Republican incumbents — in Northern California, Orange County, the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, the Central Valley and Los Angeles — as well as the seat left open by Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat who is not running for re-election after a failed Senate campaign.

It is an ambitious effort, one that seeks to establish a durable progressive machine in California — advised and supported by local activists and community organizations — to lift swing district Democratic candidates through an extensive field operation, including marathon door-knocking campaigns aimed at driving turnout among minority groups.

“Trusted messengers from the community are a very critical element,” said Steve Phillips, a co-founder of the California Donor Table, the group leading the Battleground California PAC, adding that those residents are not only more trusted by voters but are better able to provide feedback on what messages work and what messages don’t.

Pablo Rodriguez, the executive director of Communities for a New California, a group focused on civil rights, is among the activists working with the PAC. He said that focusing on local issues, and less on the “national noise” generated by President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, would be the key to victory.

“The path towards victory,” Mr. Rodriguez said, “is not making big TV or radio buys or even digital ad buys, right? We need to actually have face-to-face conversations with voters.”

Battleground California has set a challenging goal. Only two of the seven Republicans that the PAC will spend against — Representatives David Valadao and John Duarte, who represent predominantly Latino districts in the Central Valley region — won their 2022 races by what would be considered close margins. They will both face rematches with their 2022 opponents: Rudy Salas and Adam Gray, two Democratic former state assemblymen.

The PAC’s target spending figure of $15 million, while substantial, will not go far in a state where House races can get expensive. In the Central Valley, the race for Mr. Valadao’s seat in 2022 fielded more than $25 million in outside spending . Ms. Porter also spent more than $28 million on her re-election campaign . Michael Gomez Daly, political strategist at California Donor Table, said the coalition had raised about $1.3 million to date, aiming for $5 million by July.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Daly said their targets were within reach for Democrats with enough investment of resources.

“All the districts should be flippable,” Mr. Daly said. He declined to say how many victories would be considered a success, adding that “failure is not really an option this cycle.”

Both Mr. Gray and Mr. Salas attributed their losses in 2022 to depressed turnout, and in interviews they both highlighted their efforts to start get-out-the-vote efforts early. They also had high expectations for a boost in presidential-year turnout.

Mr. Valadao and Mr. Duarte declined interview requests, but Republican pollsters, strategists and consultants in California have said that demographic changes and new efforts to reach voters of color have shifted the balance of power in their favor. They point to Mr. Valadao’s close victory in 2020, as well as wins by minority candidates like Representatives Young Kim and Michelle Steel in that same year. Others say that the presidential race is just as likely to inflate turnout among Republicans.

“It’ll be close, but Valadao will win,” said Cathy Abernathy, a Republican campaign consultant in Kern County. “And he’ll win most likely because Trump’s on the ballot.”

The Republican voter base is also growing in the Central Valley districts represented by Mr. Valadao and Mr. Duarte, according to registration records by the California secretary of state’s office, a net gain of several thousand voters in both districts from September 2022 to February this year — exceeding the narrow margin of victory in those seats in the 2022 races.

“It’s a little bit of contrast to, I think, the typical narrative that people of color are more progressive-minded,” said Rachel Hernandez, a member of the City Council in Riverbank who is running for mayor. Instead, she added, “what we’re seeing in the Central Valley is that the Latino community is electing more conservative candidates.”

Ms. Hernandez added that, for now, that is not an irreversible trend, but a warning sign for Democrats to pay attention to the nuances of the Latino electorate. She encouraged many of the same tactics that Battleground California says it plans to use: molding a message for the needs of a specific community, and working with staff members and volunteers who represent the community.

“My volunteers, for example, up until just this weekend actually, were all young women,” Ms. Hernandez said. “Young Latina women, college-aged, who approached me because they were saying ‘Wow, this is like our campaign.’”

Trump is heading to two Midwest battlegrounds, his first major campaign events since his criminal trial began.

Former President Donald J. Trump will return to the campaign trail today, with stops in Wisconsin and Michigan, his first major events in battleground states since the beginning of his felony criminal trial three weeks ago.

Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks “about the fight for reproductive freedoms” in Jacksonville, Fla., as a six-week abortion ban begins in that state. Her visit is part of a national tour aimed at energizing Black voters in battleground states. In Washington, President Biden will attend a campaign reception at the Mayflower Hotel.

Mr. Trump will first deliver remarks in Waukesha, Wis., before holding a rally later in the evening in Freeland, Mich. Thousands of voters in the county, Saginaw, backed Nikki Haley in the Republican primary, though Mr. Trump has so far not directly appealed to her voters for support.

With friendly audiences, Mr. Trump is likely to use his bully pulpit during his Midwest trek to attack the justice system. He has repeatedly asserted without evidence that his legal troubles are a conspiracy to interfere in the election, and he has argued that he should be immune from criminal charges for actions he took as president — while simultaneously promising to wield the Justice Department to go after President Biden and his family .

But Mr. Trump became familiar with the limits of those attacks on Tuesday, when the judge in his criminal trial held him in contempt for violating a gag order for attacking witnesses and jurors. He was fined $9,000 and ordered to take down offending posts on his social media site, Truth Social. Mr. Trump complied and took the posts down before a midafternoon deadline.

The former president is also expected to speak about escalating clashes between the police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses. Mr. Trump has painted the mostly peaceful protests as “riots,” filled with “tremendous hate.” He has also repeatedly distorted the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 in comparing the two events, describing it on Tuesday morning as “a big hoax” when compared with the campus protests.

Reporting from Atlanta

Federal judges block Louisiana’s newly drawn congressional map.

A newly drawn congressional map in Louisiana was struck down on Tuesday by a panel of federal judges who found that the new boundaries, which form a second majority Black district in the state, amounted to an “impermissible racial gerrymander” that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The 2-to-1 ruling now leaves uncertain which boundaries will be used in the November elections, which are just six months away and could play a critical role in determining the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

Critics warned that the decision could have broader implications on voting rights. Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said the “ideological nature of the decision could not be more clear.”

Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, a Republican, indicated on Tuesday that the case could advance to the U.S. Supreme Court. “I’ve said all along the Supreme Court needs to clear this up,” she wrote on social media .

The judges have scheduled a hearing on May 6 to discuss next steps. The Louisiana secretary of state has ordered that the congressional map be finalized by May 15.

Read the Federal Judges’ Ruling

A newly drawn congressional map in Louisiana was struck down by a panel of federal judges who found that the new boundaries, which form a second majority Black district in the state, amounted to an “impermissible racial gerrymander” that violated the U.S. Constitution.

The new districts had been outlined in January during a special session of the State Legislature. Lawmakers had been ordered to sketch out the new boundaries after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the previous map had very likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of Black residents.

But the new maps went before another panel of federal judges after a group of residents scattered across the new congressional district who describe themselves as “non-African American” voters challenged the maps. They argued that lawmakers had moved to “segregate voters based entirely on their races,” and to achieve that they stitched together “communities in far-flung regions of Louisiana.”

The new majority Black district cuts across a long, narrow swath that reaches from Baton Rouge, the capital city in the toe of Louisiana’s boot, to Shreveport, in the northwest corner of the state. About 54 percent of the district’s population is Black.

In the ruling on Tuesday, Judges David C. Joseph and Robert R. Summerhays, both of the Western District of Louisiana, acknowledged that factors other than race, like protecting certain incumbents, had figured into the process. Even so, they said, it was evident that creating a second district with a majority of Black voters was lawmakers’ overarching objective.

“The predominate role of race in the state’s decisions,” the judges wrote, “is reflected in the statements of legislative decision makers, the division of cities and parishes along racial lines, the unusual shape of the district and the evidence that the contours of the district were drawn to absorb sufficient numbers of Black-majority neighborhoods to achieve the goal of a functioning majority Black district.”

The judges noted that the ruling did not decide “whether it is feasible to create a second majority Black district in Louisiana that would comply” with the Equal Protection Clause. But they added that the Voting Rights Act “never requires race to predominate in drawing congressional districts at the sacrifice of traditional districting principles.”

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Carl E. Stewart of the Fifth Circuit argued that the challengers had failed to prove that their constitutional rights were violated.

“The totality of the record,” he wrote, “demonstrates that the Louisiana Legislature weighed various political concerns — including protecting of particular incumbents — alongside race, with no factor predominating over the other.”

The ruling is the latest wrinkle in the lengthy legal battle over the shape of Louisiana’s congressional districts and comes as other Southern states have also been forced by courts to redraw district lines amid accusations of racial discrimination.

Louisiana was obligated to redraw congressional districts after the 2020 census to take into account population changes. The census had found that the Black population in the state had increased by 3.8 percent over the past decade, meaning that roughly a third of the overall population was Black. But in the map drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature, only one of the six congressional districts had a majority Black population.

In June 2022, a federal judge found that the map had been racially gerrymandered and illegally weakened the electoral power of Black voters. The judge ordered lawmakers to create another district that would give Black voters the chance to elect a candidate of their choice. But the disputed map was still used in the 2022 election.

Other Southern states had also been ordered to redraw maps after a surprise U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year in which the justices threw out Alabama’s congressional boundaries, finding that they did not adequately account for the state’s Black population. The ruling reaffirmed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had been diminished over the years by the court’s conservative majority.

Critics of Tuesday’s ruling argued that the repercussions in Louisiana could extend beyond a single election, or even partisan divisions. Ashley Shelton, who leads the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, which was part of the challenge to the original 2020 map, said she and others remained undeterred.

“We will continue to fight for a map that reflects our communities, that honors the promise of the Voting Rights Act,” Ms. Shelton said, “and that respects the voices of thousands of Louisianians who have engaged throughout the redistricting process. We have been clear since day one in our call for a fair and representative map.”

Nicholas Fandos

Democrats win a special House election in New York, narrowing the Republican majority.

Timothy M. Kennedy, a Democratic New York State senator, easily won a special House election on Tuesday to replace a retiring congressman in western New York, according to The Associated Press .

The victory was hardly a surprise. Democrats have controlled the Buffalo-area district for decades. And Mr. Kennedy outspent his Republican opponent, Gary Dickson, by an eye-popping 47 to 1 .

But his victory will have an immediate impact on the House at a time when Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is laboring to hold onto a narrow Republican majority and fend off a rebellion on his right flank.

Once Mr. Kennedy is seated, Mr. Johnson’s margin will effectively shrink to just a single, tenuous vote on partisan issues. A handful of special elections in Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado and California are expected to offer Republicans reinforcements, but not until this summer.

In the meantime, Mr. Kennedy, 47, is expected to provide a reliably liberal vote. He campaigned on a familiar Democratic platform, promising to fight for federal infrastructure dollars for a region that has struggled economically, for federal abortion rights and against former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face President Biden this fall.

Mr. Dickson, a former F.B.I. agent and local town supervisor, ran a relatively moderate campaign for a Republican in the Trump era. He had endorsed the former president, but called the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “a travesty.” He supported Ukraine’s war against Russia and federal investment in transportation projects, spending priorities that more conservative Republicans forcefully oppose.

But it was not enough to win over a district that counts more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. With 62 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Kennedy was beating Mr. Dickson by 34 percentage points, 67 to 33.

The seat was vacated in February by the retirement of Brian Higgins , a moderate Democrat who had represented the Buffalo area for 19 years.

Mr. Higgins, who left the job early to lead Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, was part of a wave of seasoned lawmakers from both parties heading toward the exits this year. Like many others, Mr. Higgins, 64, cited an increasingly toxic and unproductive environment on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Kennedy is a former occupational therapist who has served in the New York State Senate since 2011. In Albany, he led an important legislative committee on transportation and supported a tough package of gun safety measures after a racist shooter killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022. He also earned a reputation as a prolific fund-raiser.

He was selected directly by party leaders as the Democratic nominee to serve the remainder of Mr. Higgins’s term. Mr. Kennedy will likely remain in campaign mode this year, with a Democratic primary in June and November’s general election still ahead.

The district sweeps north from Buffalo, including the city, many of its suburbs and Niagara Falls.

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