Closing summary
Thanks for joining us today. This blog is closing soon. Here’s where things stand:
Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech in Atlanta, focusing on topics revolving abortion access.
Donald Trump called Kamala Harris “a threat to democracy.” During the former president’s speech in the battleground state Pennsylvania, Trump said Harris “shouldn’t even be the candidate.”
R&B star Usher spoke briefly to a crowd of about 10,000 Saturday at Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta assembled for a campaign rally for Kamala Harris with Barack Obama.
The Michigan-born rapper Lizzo expressed her support for Kamala Harris at a rally in Detroit. Lizzo said she voted early, and encouraged the audience to do the same, calling an early vote “a power move.”
Kamala Harris rallied at a high school in Detroit, Michigan. The Vice President delivered remarks at Western International High School in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday. Her comments come a day after Harris traveled across the state with presidential campaign rallies in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County.
Donald Trump has wrapped up his speech in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, after attacking the Biden administration’s handling of the US-Mexico border and promising to rebuild the country’s military.
“We will not be invaded. We will not be occupied. We will not be conquered,” Trump said, repeating the anti-immigrant remarks present at all his rallies.
Donald Trump invited Republican Senate candidate David McCormick to the stage. McCormick is challenging Senator Bob Casey for the seat in Pennsylvania.
“We’ve got to put you back in the White House,” McCormick told Trump, “to fight back on this crazy liberal agenda, the weakness of Kamala Harris that is taking us over.”
Donald Trump is over an hour into his speech in Pennsylvania. His remarks shifted from the economy to immigration.
He repeated a false claim about the Tren de Aragua gang taking over an apartment building in a Colorado town. Trump then called General Mark Milley, who has labeled the former president as a fascist, a “woke general.”
Referring to the handling of immigration, Trump said: “We have to go back to 1798, when we had real people running our country.”
At Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, a group of more than a dozen steelworkers took the stage. “You’re my hero,” said one of the members of “Steelworkers for Trump.”
He said that, if his rival Kamala Harris is elected, “Pennsylvania will be an economic wasteland.”
The former president is set to hold another rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, this time in Lancaster.
Donald Trump spoke about Pennsylvania-specific issues, including fracking, steel mills and energy prices.
“Pennsylvania was the commercial and industrial powerhouse of the United States,” he said. Trump told the audience that Democrats “annihilated your steel mills, decimated your coal jobs, assaulted your oil and gas jobs, and sold off your manufacturing jobs to China and foreign nations all over the world.”
He repeated his plan to to levy tariffs on all imports in a bid to boost American manufacturing.
Donald Trump called Kamala Harris "a threat to democracy"
During the former president’s speech in the battleground state Pennsylvania, Trump said Harris “shouldn’t even be the candidate.”
“They should have picked a candidate fairly, not just given it to her because they want to be politically correct,” Trump added.
The Republican presidential nominee said that Representative Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer approached Joe Biden about his candidacy and “took it away” from him.
“I think he might have done better than she’s going to do, because all we had to do is expose her as a lunatic,” Trump said, referring to Harris.
At a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump called the word “tariff” the “most beautiful word in the dictionary.”
“More beautiful than love, more beautiful than respect, no less beautiful than religion,” he said. “It’s going to make our country rich.”
Trump expressed his appreciation for SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s endorsement. The former president narrated the time he saw a SpaceX rocket fly across the sky.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is scheduled to host a town hall in Pittsburgh on Sunday in support of Trump.
The billionaire’s political action committee, America PAC, did not say where Musk will hold the rally.
Usher shows his support for Vice President Kamala Harris
Usher, an influential R&B musician and bedrock of Atlanta’s musical contributions, spoke briefly to a crowd of about 10,000 Saturday at Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta assembled for a campaign rally for Kamala Harris with Barack Obama.
Usher did not perform, though he has two concerts scheduled in Atlanta this weekend. He appeared on stage ahead of Obama.
“I feel that this is a momentous opportunity for each and every one of us,” Usher said. “We have an opportunity to choose a new generation of leadership for our country. ...“She fights for everyone’s rights. For freedom. ... We have to strive to not allow our past to define our future.”
Usher, like every other speaker so far at the rally, pressed the crowd to vote early and to reach friends and family for votes.
“How we vote – I mean everything that we do in the next 17 days will affect our children, our grandchildren, all the people we love the most.”
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Donald Trump asked the crowd: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
The audience yelled “No!” in unison. He attacked Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration for its handling of the southern US border and the Middle East crisis.
Trump then falsely claimed that “they stole the election from an American president.”
Former president Donald Trump is delivering his remarks at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Trump is has recently started delivering his speeches on schedule.
He began by telling the story of the Pennsylvanian golfer Arnold Palmer. Trump is holding his rally at the airport in Latrobe named after the golfer.
Former president Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver his remarks at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania soon. Trump will stage a rally at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.
We’ll be following his comments in the battleground state.
In a new TV ad, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, distances himself from President Biden
Senator Bob Casey showed support for some Trump-era policies in his new ad, which aired on Friday in parts of the state,
The ad features a Republican-Democrat couple from Old Forge praising Casey as an independent leader. They say he opposed Biden on fracking and backed Trump on trade issues like ending NAFTA and imposing tariffs on China.
Bob Casey, Senate Democrat in Pennsylvania, touts breaking with Biden on fracking and agreeing with Trump on trade in this new ad… https://t.co/rOz8d6iUzX
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) October 18, 2024
Barack Obama to rally in Las Vegas in support for Harris
Barack Obama will hold an event on Saturday to rally voters for Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting in Nevada.
The Harris campaign said the former president will encourage voters to turn out and vote for Harris, Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Democrats up and down the ballot.
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Former NFL star Antonio Brown is in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, for Donald Trump’s latest rally. Brown has continued to show his support for the former president before next month’s US presidential election.
The ex-Steelers star addressed the crowd of Trump supporters after teasing his appearance on social media earlier this week.
Tampon Tim 😂 LFG pic.twitter.com/t1onAbFkRz
— AB (@AB84) October 19, 2024
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In Detroit, Kamala Harris was asked whether the war in Gaza could cost her the election. She didn’t directly answer the question, but she pointed to the Biden administration’s calls for peace days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
“This creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing hostages home,” Harris told reporters in Michigan.
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Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the Democratic vice-presidential pick, paid a visit to the city of Chicago before heading to a rally in Omaha, Nebraska.
He spoke at a hotel ballroom in the city’s downtown area and was introduced by Senator Dick Durbin.
“It’s pretty clear the tired, divisive and old rhetoric of Donald Trump matches the tired, divisive and old Donald Trump,” Walz said.
Earlier this month, I was proud to cast my vote for @Tim_Walz and @KamalaHarris. And this afternoon in Chicago, it was my honor to introduce the next Vice President of the United States, Governor Tim Walz. pic.twitter.com/7zLjaYXyTy
— Dick Durbin (@DickDurbin) October 19, 2024
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Americans are paying attention to Kamala Harris’s media blitz and Donald Trump’s campaign rallies, according to a CNN poll.
A CNN polling project that tracks what average Americans are hearing, reading and seeing about the presidential nominees throughout the race revealed that the word most commonly used in describing the news about Harris was “interview”.
Survey respondents referenced appearances on CBS’s 60 Minutes and the podcast Call Her Daddy, as well as interviews with Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert.
When Americans were asked to describe the news about Trump, “rally” was the second-most commonly used word in response.
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Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters she’s seeing “record turnouts” of early voting in North Carolina and Georgia.
“In Michigan, I will challenge the folks here to do the same,” Harris said during a campaign stop in Detroit.
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Kamala Harris calls Donald Trump 'increasingly unstable and unhinged'
Kamala Harris told reporters that she’s dedicated more time on the campaign trail and called former president Donald Trump “increasingly unstable and unhinged” as she rallied in Detroit, Michigan.
The vice-president was asked about her rapid response toward her rival, which seems like a more aggressive shift than the way she was handling his attacks before.
“It requires that response,” she said. “The American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.”
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On Friday, the Democratic vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, joined sportscaster Rich Eisen to discuss his football coaching past, which included a high school state championship. He also talked about his love for sports in general.
“Look, people come here to get away from it like I do, I don’t watch political programs on TV. I watch ESPN, I watch sports,” Walz said. “It gives us that commonality. And I think there’s people that are hungry for that, and I’ve seen that at sporting events.”
💻 @Tim_Walz
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) October 18, 2024
Really cool to have the Minnesota governor join us to talk the huge #NFC North battle between the @Lions + @Vikings and his football fandom:#NFL #OnePride #SKOL pic.twitter.com/A4uVBKcZXz
Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat wound
A former Montana park ranger has now publicly accused Tim Sheehy – a Republican running for a US Senate seat in the state – of lying about getting shot while at war in Afghanistan.
In an interview with the Washington Post published on Friday, 67-year-old Kim Peach went on the record about how Sheehy – a former US navy seal – actually shot himself on a family trip in 2015 at Glacier national park. Peach’s account explicitly contradicts Sheehy’s claim that he was shot in the arm during military combat, a story that the Republican candidate has shared throughout his US Senate campaign.
Peach said that Sheehy’s allegedly self-inflicted wound left him with a bullet lodged in his right arm at Glacier national park in Montana’s Rocky Mountains. He told the Post that he first met Sheehy at a hospital in the area of the park during the aftermath of the 2015 episode.
Read the full story here:
Kamala Harris rallies at a high school in Detroit, Michigan
The Vice President delivered remarks at Western International High School in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday. Her comments come a day after Harris traveled across the state with presidential campaign rallies in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Oakland County.
“We’re not falling for the other guy trying to get rid of the Department of Education, because we know what we stand for,” Harris said, referring to her rival Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has previously said he wants to shut down the US Department of Education, saying that it should be disbanded to “move everything back to the states where it belongs”.
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The Michigan-born rapper Lizzo expressed her support for Kamala Harris at a rally in Detroit.
Lizzo, who’s real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, showed her pride in being a Detroit native during the rally.
“They say, if Kamala wins, then this whole country will be like Detroit. Well, I say proud, like Detroit. I say resilient, like Detroit,” said the singer. “This is the same Detroit that innovated the auto industry and the music industry. So put some respect on Detroit’s name.”
Lizzo said she voted early, and encouraged the audience to do the same, calling an early vote “a power move.”
“This is the swing state of all swing states. So every single last vote here counts,” she said.
Lizzo was dropping some knowledge here 👇🏿.#HarrisWalz24 pic.twitter.com/rwqAFrGcTf
— The Chanteezy Is Real ♉️💛🪷 (@iamchanteezy) October 19, 2024
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said Elon Musk as a surrogate in the Trump campaign “could resonate with a demographic in Pennsylvania.”
In an interview with Politico, the Democratic lawmaker recognized Donald Trump’s campaign is perfoming well in Pennsylvania.
“He’s undeniably popular, and it’s going to be very close,” Fetterman said.
He said that Musk, who’s been recently campaigning for the former President, is a “meaningful surrogate in a business where most surrogates really are not that critical.”
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Donald Trump’s campaign announced it will host a “Black Men’s Barbershop Talk Roundtable Event” on Sunday in Philadelphia.
“This event will focus on the challenges facing Black men today, including economic struggles, community safety, and the negative impact of Kamala Harris’ policies on the Black community,” reads the campaign email.
Florida Representative Byron Donalds and local community leaders are scheduled to host the roundtable at 4 pm ET.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, shared a photo from her mother Ethel Kennedy’s memorial, showing her brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alongside President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders.
We love and miss you, Mum ❤️ pic.twitter.com/1SNABVfXRI
— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) October 19, 2024
The image includes Kennedy family members gathered around a portrait of Ethel Kennedy, with Biden at the center next to Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines, seen at the edge, were notably unsmiling. Many family members, including Kerry, criticized Robert’s challenge to Biden, and he now campaigns for Donald Trump after suspending his bid in August.
Mark Cuban on Harris, Trump and not looking for ‘a brawl’ with AOC over Lina Khan
As the US presidential election looms, the billionaire Mark Cuban has emerged as an energetic campaign surrogate for Kamala Harris. Making the case for business leaders to support the Democrat over Donald Trump, Cuban has drawn on his experience (in tech, investments, healthcare and now sports, as minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team), celebrity (as a lead “shark” for 15 seasons of ABC’s Shark Tank) and willingness to confront Trump-supporting billionaires, Elon Musk prominent among them.
The road has not been smooth. Last week, Cuban clashed with congressional progressives after criticizing Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, over her tech-sector antitrust work. That issue and others, including Cuban’s thoughts on Trump’s championing of tariffs and the perennial question of whether Cuban harbors presidential ambitions of his own, are addressed below, in emailed answers to 10 questions posed by Guardian writers and editors.
Read the full interview here:
The Undertaker and Kane, two WWE legends, endorsed Donald Trump in a TikTok video.
The Undertaker said that “ElectionMania” was coming up on November 5, and the people had the choice.
The WWE star told viewers to choose wisely, as the nation depended on it. Donald Trump said that it should be an easy choice.
The Undertaker and Kane with Donald Trump in new TikTok video. pic.twitter.com/tXswBplgRw
— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) October 18, 2024
It’s not the first time Trump gets an endorsement from a WWE legend. Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan also endorsed Trump, and spoke at the Republican National Convention in July.
From Fox News to Call Her Daddy: how Kamala Harris turned up election heat in pivot to media blitz
First came “joy”, with some cosy but unmemorable TV sit-downs with sympathetic hosts, a Vogue cover, and a billion dollars to spend on TV ads. Then reality hit: Kamala Harris’ strategy to win over a mysterious sliver of undecided US voters was not working and she was slipping back in the polls.
So the vice president went on Fox News, part of a pitch to white working-class women, who voted for Trump more strongly in 2020 than 2016. It was a win for Fox’s news division – 7.8m viewers, or four times host Bret Baier’s nightly average – but was it a win for the Harris campaign?
Showing herself to be assertive, Harris avoided serving up a unintelligible word salad, pushed back on Baier’s line of questioning, aired some Democratic talking points, and ran down the clock until the 25-minute slot was up.
“Let me be very clear, my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” Harris said. “I represent a new generation of leadership. I, for example, am someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington DC.”
Then the spin machine started up: according to Democrat voices, Fox News had helped Harris win November’s election. “I think she had a mission she wanted to do and maybe she wanted to have a viral moment,” Baier later said. “And I think she may have gotten that.”
But Fox’s primetime opinion hosts spent three subsequent hours eviscerating her. Donald Trump congratulated Baier “on a tough but very fair interview, one that clearly showed how totally incompetent Kamala is”.
With $15bn spent on this election cycle, the candidates are still grasping for a campaign formula that will give them an edge. Harris has evolved from being interview-shy to embracing an interview blitz. She followed other Democrats on to Fox News because that’s where, the theory goes, independent and Trump-neutral Republican voters are.
But will any of it matter? There are no guarantees that undecided or unengaged voters today will be any less undecided in two-and-a-half weeks’ time.
Read more on Harris’s media blitz here:
Kamala Harris is upping her fire against Trump, pointing to his stamina and physical performance.
On Saturday, the Harris campaign posted on the social media platform X a compilation of videos of her rival “confusing words over and over”.
Here is a montage of a deteriorating Trump confusing words over and over and over again pic.twitter.com/Tw0U6usODO
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 19, 2024
At a rally on Friday, Harris mocked Trump for avoiding debates and cancelling interviews. She questioned whether he has the stamina for a second presidency if voters choose him over her in November’s election.
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Trump ground game in key states flagged as potentially fake
Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter.
The potentially fake door-knocks – when canvassers falsely claim they visited a home – could present a serious setback to Trump as he and Kamala Harris remain even in the polls with fewer than 20 days to an election that increasingly appears set to be determined by turnout.
The Trump campaign earlier this year outsourced the bulk of its ground game to America Pac, the political action committee founded by Elon Musk, betting that spending millions to turn out Trump supporters, especially those who don’t typically vote, would boost returns.
But leaked America Pac data obtained by the Guardian shows that roughly 24% of the door-knocks in Arizona and 25% of the door-knocks in Nevada this week were flagged under “unusual survey logs” by the Campaign Sidekick canvassing app.
The Arizona data, for example, shows that out of 35,692 doors hit by 442 canvassers working for Blitz Canvassing in the America Pac operation on Wednesday, 8,511 doors were flagged under the unusual survey logs.
The extent of the flagged doors in America Pac’s operation underscores the risk of outsourcing a ground-game program, where paid canvassers are typically not as invested in their candidate’s victory compared with volunteers or campaign staff.
America Pac denied it was experiencing that level of actual fraud in Arizona and Nevada and declined to comment on reporting for this story.
A person familiar with the America Pac operation said: “Sidekick was never expected to handle the auditing of America Pac’s door operation. The reason the Pac is confident in its numbers is because of the auditing procedures each canvassing firm puts in place and the auditing procedures of the Pac writ large.”
Here’s more on the potentially fake door-knocks:
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Kamala Harris promises full marijuana legalization – is that a gamechanger?
Kamala Harris announced on Monday that if elected president, she would fully legalize adult recreational cannabis on the federal level – the first time a presidential nominee has taken such an unambiguous stance on ending cannabis prohibition.
As part of her pledge, she said she would take steps to ensure that Black men, disproportionately incarcerated and disfranchised by the “war on drugs”, would stand to profit from the industry.
Vince Sliwoski, a partner at the cannabis law firm Harris and Sliwoski, said he “was happy to see it, because I like the messaging”, but added: “She can’t just snap her fingers and do it when she gets into office. It’s not something that can be done via executive orders.”
Griffen Thorne, also an attorney specializing in cannabis, felt the promise was “clearly political”, given the announcement came just three weeks before the election. Thorne and other experts the Guardian spoke to suspect Harris’s campaign is attempting to shore up numbers with Black voters, particularly Black men, who are currently less likely to support Harris than they were Biden, according to a New York Times poll.
“Federal marijuana legalization is a sound policy and supporting it is a smart strategy – not just with Black voters, but with Americans across the board,” said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation with Drug Policy Action.
“As a Black woman and the first person of color to regulate marijuana for both medical and adult use, I understand the challenges in creating legal marijuana markets that work for Black men. I also recognize the profound harms caused by federal prohibition.”
Packer added that it makes sense for Harris’s plan to include provisions that will remove barriers for Black men in cannabis and other domains.
Notably, the pledge sets Harris apart from both her opponent and her predecessor. While Trump and Biden now support some level of cannabis legalization, Harris is the first to explicitly state that ending prohibition is a priority.
During his administration, Biden made a number of promises on cannabis, including to expunge criminal records for possession convictions and get cannabis rescheduled so that it is eligible for FDA approval. The DEA has made progress on rescheduling, but it won’t go through before the election.
And Biden only expunged a small fraction of cannabis-related convictions during his administration.
“It was kind of embarrassing, because he kept up on his website all this stuff he was promising,” said Sliwoski.
Read more on Harrris’s pledge to fully legalize adult recreational cannabis:
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Kamala Harris will join Liz Cheney on Monday for a slew of moderated conversations in suburban communities across key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
The vice-president and Cheney plan to warn voters about “the risk of a second Trump term for America”, according to a campaign email.
Cheney represented Wyoming for three terms in Congress as a Republican. She was a staunch supporter of former president Donald Trump until he tried to overturn the 2020 election. The former lawmaker joined the House panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, turning Republicans against her as they sought to drive her out of her leadership position.
The events on Monday will be held in Chester county, Pennsylvania, Waukesha county, Wisconsin, and Oakland county, Michigan.
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Could the once united Trump family be fading in this election?
In late afternoon sunshine, Eric Trump shook his fist and led chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The second son of Donald Trump told a fervent crowd: “They tried to smear us, they tried to bankrupt us, they came after us, they impeached him twice … then, guys, they tried to kill him.”
A who’s who of the Maga movement had gathered for a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, less than three months after the Republican presidential nominee survived an assassination attempt there. Trump was joined on stage by running mate JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk. But if he was looking for moral support from his family, he would have to settle for Eric. His other children – and his wife – were notably absent.
The no-shows at Trump’s recent marquee event were indicative of a divided family keeping a lower profile than in past election cycles. When he took the political establishment by storm in 2016, the Trump family business was part of his brand. This time, at campaign stops where he gives disjointed and demagogic speeches, he cuts a more isolated figure.
Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka, is sitting the election out while his younger daughter, Tiffany, is pregnant. His youngest son, Barron, 18, has begun his freshman year of college at New York University. Eric, executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, makes occasional appearances on the campaign trail alongside his wife, Lara, who is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
“I get to go to bed every single night and wake up every single morning listening about voter integrity,” Eric, 40, joked in Butler, with Lara at his side. “It’s really great. I’m really, really excited for November 6 when Lara can turn over in the morning and not talk about voter integrity.”
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, 46, has been less prominent on the campaign trail than in previous election cycles. But appearances can be deceptive. Off stage, Don Jr is more influential than ever as a political operative. He has built a loyal following in the Maga universe via his Triggered podcast on Rumble and gained powerful allies such as Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA.
Here’s more on the Trump family’s absence:
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Harris is panicking over the Black male vote – but polls don’t show full picture
With the US election only 17 days away, Kamala Harris is courting one demographic with particular fervor: Black male voters.
As new polls warn that Black voters – who have consistently voted for Democratic presidential candidates,at rates of at least 80% since 1994 – may be less enthusiastic about the Democratic party, Harris has released a new slate of policies specifically aimed at Black men. Her stated plans include increasing access to the cannabis industry and educational opportunities that would expand pathways to “good-paying jobs … [regardless of] a college degree”.
But some pollsters say that panic around Black male voters is exaggerated and that such narratives ignore their historical support of Democrats. They also note that the focus on Black men elides deeper nuances about Black Republican support as well as gender differences in voting among Black people altogether.
“To say that for any reason we need to worry about Black men not supporting Harris or the Democrats is completely overblown,” said Chris Towler, founder of the Black Voter Project (BVP), a polling initiative about Black voting behavior. “I think a lot of the story around this need to regain Black voters is coming from a mainstream media narrative built around really poor polling on Black voters.”
The latest national data shows that Black men and women overwhelmingly prefer Harris for president, the largest amount of Democratic support she has from any demographic. Still, some polls suggest that such support is eroding. A recent New York Times/Siena College national poll reported that 70% of likely Black male voters support Harris (down from 85% of Black men who turned out for Biden in 2020) versus 83% of likely Black female voters. Twenty per cent of Black male voters said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today, according to the poll, a six-point increase from the percentage of those who voted for the former president in 2016.
Here’s more context:
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Kamala Harris’s campaign is tapping into its star power ahead of the elections.
Lizzo and Usher are just some of the prominent celebrities backing Harris against her rival, Donald Trump. Earlier this week, Lizzo revealed that she voted early for Harris, and Usher said last month that he was endorsing Harris.
This week, the campaign announced a fundraising sweepstakes to win tickets to an upcoming get-out-the-vote concert featuring “superstar musicians”.
“This one’s a real show-stopper,” read a fundraising email signed by Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz.
Other celebrities endorsing Harris include Taylor Swift, Barbra Streisand, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish and others.
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Good morning, and welcome to our continuing coverage of the run-up to the US election. We sit just 16 days from election day.
Today, Kamala Harris is hosting a get-out-the-vote event in Detroit, Michigan, for the city’s first day of early voting, alongside Michigan-born rapper Lizzo.
The Democratic presidential nominee will then travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for a rally with pop singer Usher. The eight-time Grammy-winning singer is currently headlining a three-day sold-out concert tour in the Atlanta. Early voting started in Georgia on Tuesday.
Harris is also preparing to campaign in several battleground states next week when she will be joined by former Republican congressowman Liz Cheney.
Later today, Donald Trump will hold a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where the former president and Republican nominee is scheduled to deliver remarks at the Arnold Palmer regional airport.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Harris questions whether Trump is “fit to do the job” of president again. She used a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday to seize on reports that Donald Trump had been canceling media interviews to question whether he has the stamina for a second presidency if voters choose him over her in November’s election.
In the past week, Trump has gone further than ever in branding his political opponents “the enemy within” and talking about deploying the military against them. The latest polling figures seem to mirror such sharply polarised rhetoric, with the seven crucial swing states almost split down the middle in allegiance.
Harris announced this week that if elected president, she would fully legalize adult recreational cannabis on the federal level – the first time a presidential nominee has taken such an unambiguous stance on ending cannabis prohibition. The pledge sets Harris apart from both her opponent and her predecessor. While Trump and Biden now support some level of cannabis legalization, Harris is the first to explicitly state that ending prohibition is a priority.
