Closing summary
We’re ending our live coverage for the day, thanks for following along. Some links and key events from the day:
Liz Cheney, former Republican congresswoman and longtime opponent of abortion rights, condemned Republican bans on the procedure and urged conservatives on Monday to support Kamala Harris.
Jill Biden acknowledged on Monday that her husband made “the right call” by stepping down from his run for re-election.
Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, said Elon Musk’s plan to give away $1m a day in support of Donald Trump is a reflection of a ticket with “no plan”.
The Central Park Five sued Trump for defamation after he falsely said during the presidential debate that they had pleaded guilty to a brutal rape 35 years ago, despite the fact that they had their convictions overturned.
A Republican county supervisor in Arizona who refused to certify the 2022 midterm election has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
The politics writer Olivia Nuzzi and New York magazine have parted ways after she was placed on leave following the disclosure that she had engaged in a “personal” relationship with Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Key rightwing legal groups tied to Trump and his allies have banked millions of dollars from conservative foundations and filed multiple lawsuits challenging voting rules in swing states.
Trump doubled down on false claims about the federal government’s hurricane recovery efforts and promoted baseless conspiracy theories about immigration.
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Donald Trump campaigns in North Carolina
Donald Trump is now on stage at a campaign event in Concord, North Carolina, with faith leaders. His former housing secretary, Ben Carson, spoke before the ex-president arrived, saying the election would determine whether the US is a secular nation or one under God: “We’re as close to losing it right now as we have been at any point in time.”
The former president leaned into religious messaging, saying of his assassination attempt, “God saved me for a purpose.” He also said: “We embrace followers of Jesus,” and later added:
I’m here tonight to deliver a simple message to Christians across America. It’s time to stand up and save your country.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has embraced a rightwing Christian worldview, working with evangelical leaders who have claimed he is “anointed” to fight “spiritual warfare” against Democrats, the AP recently reported.
Read more here form the Guardian’s past reporting on Christian nationalists’ embrace of Trump during the election:
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Joe Biden gave a shoutout to Kamala Harris at a ceremony honoring winners of the National Medals of Arts and National Humanities Medals, AP reports:
“I know the power of the women in this room to get things done” and boost the next generation, Biden told the crowd, which included singer and actor Queen Latifah and poet Joy Harjo. He added that female winners were “proving a woman can do anything a man can do, and then some, that includes being president of the United States of America”.
Biden’s nod to the vice-president was met with a standing ovation, according to the AP. Hollywood heavyweights were in attendance, including Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg and Aaron Sorkin.
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Arizona GOP official who refused to certify election pleads guilty
A Republican county supervisor in rural Arizona who refused to certify the 2022 midterm election has agreed to a plea deal, becoming the first person criminally sanctioned for refusing to certify an election since 2020.
Peggy Judd, a Republican supervisor in Cochise county, Arizona, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for failing or refusing to perform an official duty by an election officer. She will serve an unsupervised probation of at least 90 days and pay a maximum $500 fine, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, said in a press release announcing the plea deal on Monday.
Judd, who is still in office, will preside over the presidential election next month and be required to certify its results. The attorney general’s office said in court on Monday that the probation term lasted through the 2024 certification and that if Judd again refused, she would be in violation of her probation and would face up to 30 days in jail for the violation, the local outlet Capitol Media Services reported.
More here:
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Judges reject Republican challenges to overseas ballots
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina have ruled against two Republican lawsuits today seeking to challenge the legitimacy of ballots from Americans overseas, NPR reports.
A state judge in Michigan dismissed a recent Republican National Committee legal complaint that alleged certain overseas voters from the state were not eligible to cast ballots. The Michigan judge said the law “bars this 11th hour attempt to disenfranchise these electors” and that Republicans were seeking to challenge language from the state secretary of state’s office that is “consistent with federal and state law, and the Michigan constitution”.
And a North Carolina judge rejected a “request for the court to order that returned ballots of some overseas voters be set aside and not counted until the voters’ eligibility can be confirmed”, NPR reported. That judge said there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone had taken advantage of the overseas rules and cast a fraudulent ballot.
From 2023 through September 2024, the committee and its affiliates have filed or been involved in 72 election lawsuits, a major legal blitz that experts say is designed to sow doubt about the results if Trump loses.
More background on those cases here:
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Fact-checking Donald Trump's hurricane claims
Donald Trump repeated a litany of falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Hurricane Helene and the federal government’s response while campaigning in North Carolina today.
The former president falsely suggested, once again, that federal money meant for hurricane relief was “spent … on illegal migrants”. There is no basis for the claim that disaster funding was reallocated to services related to immigration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees the major US immigration agencies. But money allocated for a program to help migrants is separate and unrelated to disaster response funds.
Trump also falsely implied that the Democrats were spending money on undocumented people so that they could “vote in the election”, reiterating his frequently cited baseless claim about election fraud.
He also claimed Fema’s money is “all gone”. But this is false, CNN noted, as the federal agency told the network last week that its disaster relief fund had roughly $8.5bn remaining.
More here:
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As Kamala Harris’s Michigan rally with Liz Cheney comes to a close, moderator Maria Shriver asks the vice-president how she copes with the stress of the race and what her message is to voters who are struggling with anxiety over the election.
Harris says, “I wake up in the middle of the night usually these days … but I work out every morning. I think that’s really important [for] mind, body and spirit … I try to eat well. I love my family, and I make sure that I talk to the kids and my husband every day … My family grounds me in every way.”
The vice-president adds:
We cannot despair … Every individual has the power to make a decision about what this will be … so let’s not feel powerless. I get the overwhelming nature of this all makes us feel powerless … That’s not our character as American people. We are not one to be defeated. We rise to a moment.”
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Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman now campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, outlines Trump’s threats on foreign policy:
He heaps praise on the world’s most evil people, while he attacks with venom his political opponents here at home … If you look at where the Republican party is today, there’s been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants …
Don’t think that Congress can stop him … all he has to do is what he’s doing and say, I won’t fulfill our Nato treaty obligations, and Nato begins to unravel.
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Liz Cheney, campaigning with Kamala Harris in Michigan, criticizes commentators who assert that the vice-president isn’t ready to be president:
She is supremely qualified to be president of the United States. There sometimes are some men who suggest that she’s not, but if you look at her qualifications, there’s no question that she’s somebody that I know I can count on, who will put the good of this country first.
Cheney also emphasizes her conservative credentials while explaining her support for Harris: “The very first campaign I ever volunteered in was for President Gerald Ford … and ever since then, I have been voting for Republicans. I’ve never voted for a Democrat.”
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Liz Cheney: 'Vote your conscience ... vote him out'
Maria Shriver asks Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney if they ever imagined they would be campaigning together. Harris says she has long worked with Republicans, and given the threat Donald Trump poses, she is not surprised to be standing with the former Republican congresswoman:
What is at stake in this election is so fundamental for us as Americans … Do we take seriously the importance of a president who obeys the oath to be loyal to the constitution of the United States? Do we prioritize a president … who cares about the rule of law?
Cheney says: “Everyone who watched January 6th knows what Donald Trump is willing to do.” She adds:
I could have just said I’m going to do everything I can to work against Donald Trump, and there are a lot of Republicans who have said that … I have decided, and I am very proud, and I’m honored to have made the decision to endorse Vice-President Harris … As a mother, I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model.
Shriver asks Cheney if she was afraid to endorse Harris, knowing the backlash she’d face. Cheney shares a message to Republicans who want to support the Democratic ticket, but are afraid: “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody … Vote him out.”
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Maria Shriver hosts discussion with Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney
Maria Shriver, former first lady of California, has taken the stage at Kamala Harris’s campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, with Liz Cheney.
Shriver starts off by making a pitch for bipartisanship, saying: “I served as a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration in California. So I get this bipartisan thing. I’ve seen it up close. And now I’m a proud independent … People of both parties used to get along really well.”
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Harris and Cheney to appear together again for town hall event
Kamala Harris will soon make another appearance with Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan.
Earlier in the day, the vice-president and former conservative congresswoman made their pitch in Pennsylvania, geared toward Republican voters. Cheney said:
I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
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Trump then went on to insinuate that he had been told he was a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
He was harping on the border and the alleged ills of undocumented people, before going on to say that the border patrol had endorsed him. That’s not quite true – the government agency has not endorsed him, but its union, the Border Patrol Council has. Undeterred, Trump went on:
They’re great. They endorsed your favorite president. They didn’t only endorse me, saying I’m the greatest president there’s ever been … What about George Washington? No, you’re better. What about Lincoln? What about Abraham Lincoln? No, you’re better, they said, I’m tougher on the border than Abraham Lincoln.
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The former president appeared to try to hit back at claims that, at the age of 78, he is “cognitively impaired”.
But Trump raised more questions than he answered by jumbling his words.
The moment came as he told the crowd in North Carolina, in a somewhat confusing anecdote, that he was talking to someone from the state on the phone, but was then distracted by watching one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets land.
He told the person on the phone to wait while he watched the rocket, then forgot he was on the phone. “I forgot he was on the phone because, and now they, all these idiots back there, will say he’s cognitively impaired because he put he’s cognitively impaired,” Trump said, apparently referring to reporters in attendance.
“You know, I do this stuff, five, six, seven times a day for 52 days without a break,” he said, by way of explanation for his misstatements. He appeared to then lose his train of thought:
I’ll tell you what they are, really not all of them, not all of them. I’d say about 92% couple of good ones. That’s a lot of cameras going on. There are a couple of good ones back there. Now it is crazy in the crazy what they do, and the level of meanness.
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Trump is now onstage in Greenville, North Carolina, where he’s been whipping up the crowd with his usual attacks on Kamala Harris.
Earlier in the day, he took note of Harris’s campaigning alongside Liz Cheney. On Truth Social, Trump implied that Arab voters – significant communities of which live in Michigan, a battleground state – are unlikely to look kindly on the vice-president associating with the daughter of Dick Cheney, who, as vice-president under George W Bush, was an architect of the US invasion of Iraq:
Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with “dumb as a rock” War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) October 21, 2024
Arab voters are indeed a source of concern for Democrats, though mostly over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Stephen Starr:
Trump rallies in swing state North Carolina
Donald Trump is scheduled to soon take the stage in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008 but where polls have indicated Kamala Harris may have a fighting chance this year.
Trump earlier in the day visited western parts of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene, and is now rallying in Greenville, on North Carolina’s eastern side. He was introduced by adviser Stephen Miller, who was the architect of the hardline immigration policies Trump allowed during his presidency.
“For eight long years, Donald Trump has been fighting for us in the arena. What he has endured, what he has been through on this journey,” Miller said. “They came after him, they came after his family, they came after his children, they came after his businesses, they came after his freedom, and they came after his life, and he’s still standing strong. He is still standing tall. And with your help, North Carolina, Donald J Trump is going to save the United States of America.”
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The former president then invited Adam Smith, a former Green Beret who has helped relief efforts in the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene devastated the area just over three weeks ago, to speak.
At the podium, Smith thanked Trump for coming to the area.
“The biggest fear that western North Carolina is sitting on right now, at least in the communities we’ve talked to, is being forgotten,” Smith said.
“To have you here and have an opportunity to have this conversation at a national level, will keep western North Carolina on the map, and not leave the communities holding the bag on the back end of this, so we’re very grateful that you’ve shown up,” Smith said to the former president.
Trump continued his remarks by accusing the federal government of leaving North Carolinians “helpless and abandoned” after Hurricane Helene.
“In the wake of this horrible storm, many Americans in this region felt helpless and abandoned and left behind by their government, and yet, in North Carolina’s hour of desperation, the American people answered the call much more so than your federal government, unfortunately,” Trump said.
“Citizens poured into western North Carolina from all over the country, bringing food, water, fuel, medical aid, even helicopters.”
“Nothing is more inspiring than to see the American spirit triumph over adversity with the most selfless acts of generosity and love” he added.
Trump again attacks Hurricane Helene response in North Carolina visit
Donald Trump held a press conference in western North Carolina, where he surveyed the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and attacked the federal government’s recovery efforts.
“Driving up here you see the kind of destruction, actually incredible” he said. “The power of nature, nothing you can do about it but you got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House, because it’s not good, not good.”
“I’m here today in western North Carolina to express a simple message to the incredible people of the state, I’m with you and the American people are with you all the way” Trump said. “We are going to continue to be with you, we will see what happens with the election and on January 20th I think you are going to have a new crew coming in to do it properly and help you in a proper manner.”
Trump also addressed those who had lost family members and loved ones to the storm. “To everyone who has lost a loved one ... we ask God to give you comfort and peace,” he said.
“It’s been a terrible ordeal and this area was hit about as hard as anyone has ever seen....the communities were ravaged and destroyed, we are praying for you and we will not forget about you.”
Trump’s repeated criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Helene comes as the director of Fema condemned the former president and his supporters for spreading misinformation about the hurricane and the response by the federal disaster agency, which, the director said, has hampered the government’s ability to get people the help they need.
Donald Trump has long drawn criticism before over his statements about the Central Park Five, a group of men who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted for a crime and who earlier today sued him.
After the jogger’s assault, he spoke out about the case and took out a full-page ad in several New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, Reuters reports.
Trump in 2019 stood by his prior comments about the Central Park Five, and declined to apologize.
The Guardian adds that at the debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump said of the men: “They pled guilty…They killed a person, ultimately.”
The five then-boys, who were tried as adults, actually pleaded not guilty. And the victim, Trisha Meili, although almost killed, was found unconscious in the park, survived and testified in court.
Yusef Salaam watched the debate in Philadelphia, afterwards telling the Washington Post in an interview: “Here we are right now, full-circle moment, being able to be participants in this great democracy on the cusp of everything really powerfully supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I’m ready for it.”
Central Park Five sue Trump
The five Black and Hispanic teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park have sued Donald Trump for defamation over statements he made at last month’s US presidential debate, Reuters reported.
Known widely as the Central Park Five, the defendants spent between five and 13 years in prison before they were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and the confession of another person.
Trump falsely said at the September 10 debate with presidential rival Kamala Harris that the Central Park Five had killed a person and pleaded guilty.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia by Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise, called Trump’s statements “demonstrably false.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called the case “just another frivolous, election interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Shanin Specter, said in a statement that Trump’s remarks “cast them in a harmful false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.” The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages for reputational and emotional harms as well as punitive damages.
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The day so far
Kamala Harris is on tour of the three Great Lakes swing states with Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who broke with her party over their support for Donald Trump. In their first event together in a Philadelphia suburb, Harris warned voters to take Trump seriously, while Cheney said she came around to backing the Democrats because she does not think the former president will stand up for American allies. They will appear together in metro Detroit and then Milwaukee before the day is through. Meanwhile, Tim Walz was on daytime talk staple “The View”, where he said that Trump’s comments about deploying the national guard against his political enemies was a sign that he planned to bend the country’s “constitutional guardrails”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The White House proposed an expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow women to access birth control without a prescription.
Harris has scheduled an interview with NBC News from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday.
A new poll found Trump may have lost his edge among voters when it comes to handling the economy, while Harris is viewed more favorably overall.
Kamala Harris’s push for the support of Republican voters won her the support of the daughter of Gerald Ford, the late Republican former president who served from 1974 to 1977.
Susan Ford Bales’s endorsement is perhaps most consequential in Michigan, the ex-president’s home and also a swing state coveted by both candidates. The Detroit News has Bales’s statement:
Susan Ford Bales, daughter of Republican former President Gerald Ford, endorses Democrat Kamala Harris, according to the Harris campaign: pic.twitter.com/Lyqip1IFlR
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) October 21, 2024
As they wrapped up their joint event in Pennsylvania, Liz Cheney was asked to give something of a closing argument to her fellow Republicans for why they should support Kamala Harris.
The former congresswoman said:
I think that in this election, and especially here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are, and we have the chance to say, you know, we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny from Donald Trump and JD Vance. And we have the chance in this race to elect somebody who, you know is going to defend the rule of law.
You know, vice-president Harris is going to defend our constitution. We have the chance to remind people that we are a good country. We are a good and honorable people. We are a great nation and in this race, we have the opportunity to vote for and support somebody you can count on. We’re not always going to agree, but I know vice-president Harris will always do what she believes is right for this country. She has a sincere heart, and that’s why I’m honored to be here.
Thus concluded the first of three joint events the pair will do today. They now fly to Michigan for an event in the Detroit suburbs, followed by another in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
All three states are part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of swing states along the Great Lakes where voters traditionally back the party, but where polls show Harris is locked in a tight race against Donald Trump.
Cheney explains Harris support: Trump 'won't defend this nation'
Liz Cheney’s support for Kamala Harris is somewhat inexplicable.
She was a conservative Republican in Congress who supported almost none of the Democrats’ legislative priorities, but her break with Donald Trump led to her falling out with the party, and losing her seat. She is also the daughter of Dick Cheney, the former vice-president who was an ardent supporter of the US invasion of Iraq.
Asked at the event alongside Harris about how she came around to backing Democratic national security priorities, Cheney noted that hundreds of national security officials have endorsed the vice-president, and said Trump’s policies were too dangerous to tolerate:
The choice here, with respect to national security policy, is a man who has proven, he’s absolutely proven, that he will not stand up, he won’t defend this nation with respect to our own constitution and rule of law. And vice-president Harris, who has been clear in terms of support for Ukraine, in terms of recognizing and understanding across the board that America cannot maintain our own freedom and security if we walk away from our allies around the world.
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Harris's message to voters: take Trump seriously
Donald Trump has taken an almost humorous tack to his campaign lately, including holding a staged campaign event at a McDonald’s over the weekend that saw him work the drive-thru window.
Speaking alongside Liz Cheney, Kamala Harris warned voters not to fall for his jokes:
In many, many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of him being president of the United States are brutally serious. There are things that he says that will be the subject of skits and laughter and jokes, but words have meaning coming from someone who aspires to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. These are the things that are at stake.
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Harris and Cheney’s event in Malvern, Pennsylvania is set up as a moderated conversation with Sarah Longwell, the publisher of the Bulwark and the leader of a group called Republican Voters Against Trump.
Longwell began by asking Harris and Cheney about their unusual decision to campaign together. Harris replied:
I think that this moment, with the choice that the American people have in this election, in two weeks and one day, this election is presenting, for the first time, probably in certainly recent history, a very clear choice and difference between the two nominees.
And I think that is what, as much as anything, is bringing us as Americans together who are understanding that we cannot, with such fundamental stakes being presented, afford to be mired in ideological differences without really staking our claim to the most fundamental ideals upon which our country stands.
And here’s Cheney’s answer:
For me, every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part in my decision to endorse vice-president Harris. And, you know, that that begins with the fact that I’m a conservative, and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the constitution. And you have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the constitution, who will be faithful, and Donald Trump, who is not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election.
Harris to campaign with Liz Cheney in battleground state Pennsylvania
Kamala Harris is soon to take the stage in Malvern, Pennsylvania, where she will be campaigning with Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney.
It’s one of three events in each of the Great Lakes battleground states she will do today with Cheney, who lost her primary two years ago after falling out with Donald Trump. The push is part of the Harris campaign’s efforts to win over moderate voters in key areas who they believe can be persuaded not to back the former president.
We’ll let you know what the vice-president has to say.
Walz warns Trump bending 'constitutional guardrails' with attacks on 'enemy within'
Kamala Harris’s running mate is being interviewed on ABC daytime talk staple “The View” right now, where he warned that Donald Trump’s recent comments about sending the national guard after “the enemy within” – as he has taken to calling his political enemies – is a sign that he is willing to bend America’s “constitutional guardrails”.
“The guardrails are off with Donald Trump right now,” Walz said. “I’m an optimist, but our systems are strained, and the ability to politicize the military has never been tried in this country. He’s trying it.”
Walz also took a crack at answering the question of what Harris would do differently as president than Joe Biden. Trump’s campaign attacked the vice-president last week after she said she wouldn’t do anything differently, comments she then had to walk back. Here’s what Walz said:
Tim Walz tells "The View" what Kamala Harris would have done differently than Biden:
— The Recount (@therecount) October 21, 2024
"This expansion on Medicare is something that I wished would have been proposed sooner. But look, they're tackling the issues that they needed to." pic.twitter.com/ufLDidrr7F
Liz Cheney squabbled by text with Mike Johnson over election certification - report
Kamala Harris will be joined on the campaign trail today by Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who lost her primary because of her opposition to Donald Trump.
Earlier this month, Cheney, who was the top Republican on the January 6 committee, expressed doubts that Republican House speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson would certify Harris’s election win. “I do not have faith that Mike Johnson will fulfill his constitutional obligations,” she said on NBC.
Axios reported yesterday that Johnson reached out to Cheney by text message to object to her comments. “We had a little debate in conversation, on text message, back and forth and agreed to disagree,” the speaker told Axios, adding that he told Cheney “how disappointed I was in that, to make things personal, because I’ve not done that.” He continued:
You know the idea that President Trump is somehow a danger to the Republic, and that any of us who support him are a danger or would not fulfill our constitutional obligations, all these things that have been said are it’s just nonsense.
She knows, she knows me. She used to know me well and knows that I’m a constitutional conservative, and I take all matters at this level very seriously, and I will fulfill my constitutional oath. And to say otherwise is just dishonest.
In her own statement to Axios, Cheney said: “Mike knows this is a conscious choice between right and wrong and can’t honestly rationalize supporting Trump on this.”
Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has suggested that law enforcement should investigate Elon Musk’s handout of checks to encourage people to vote for Donald Trump, the Guardian’s Anna Betts reports:
Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, said law enforcement should look into Elon Musk’s new ploy to give $1m to a registered voter who signs a petition supporting free speech in key swing states each day until the US presidential election.
Legal experts have said it appears to violate laws that prohibit giving incentives to people to register to vote. On Sunday, Shapiro expressed similar concerns. Monday is Pennsylvania’s deadline to register to vote.
“I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “That is deeply concerning.”
Later in the interview Shapiro added: “I think it’s something that law enforcement should take a look at. I’m not the attorney general any more of Pennsylvania, I’m the governor, but it does raise serious questions.”
Harris to sit for NBC News interview on Tuesday
Kamala Harris will sit for an interview with NBC News tomorrow from her home at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC, the network announced.
The vice-president will speak to Hallie Jackson as she steps up her interviews and media appearances ahead of the 5 November election.
The interview is set to air at 6.30pm on Tuesday.
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Poll finds Harris viewed more favorably than Trump, former president losing edge on economy
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released this morning contained some positive news for Kamala Harris, though there’s no telling if it is predictive of the election outcome.
The survey found that Harris is viewed more favorably than Donald Trump, including among the independent voters that could decide the seven swing states. It also reported that Trump no longer appears to have the advantage he once did on handling of economic issues, even though the former president has made that a centerpiece of his campaign with accusations that Democratic policies have driven up prices. That’s one of two main messages he’s been pushing, along with promises to crack down on migrants – an area on which the poll finds Trump maintains his advantage.
Here’s what it found about the two candidates’ favorability:
Registered voters’ opinions of the candidates have not changed much since last month. In general Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are viewed more positively than Trump or JD Vance. A large majority of Democratic voters have positive views of Harris and Walz, and Republicans voters feel favorably toward Trump and Vance. Independent voters are closely divided in their opinion of Harris while most have a negative view of Trump. Independent voters have similar opinions about both vice-presidential candidates.
When it comes to economic issues, 40% of registered voters trust Harris to handle the cost of groceries and gas, and 42% trust Trump. Six percent trust both equally, and 12% neither. On the cost of housing, Harris is more trusted with 42% support to Trump’s 37%, while 7% truth both and 14% trust neither.
The Washington Post released a comprehensive new poll this morning that tells us … not much new.
For weeks, surveys of swing states have found Donald Trump and Kamala Harris effectively tied, and the Post’s poll, conducted with George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, is no different. The two candidates are neck-in-neck nationally, and within the poll’s margin of error in the seven states that are expected to decide the election.
Here’s what they found:
A Washington Post-Schar School poll of more than 5,000 registered voters, conducted in the first half of October, finds 47 percent who say they will definitely or probably support Harris while 47 percent say they will definitely or probably support Trump. Among likely voters, 49 percent support Harris and 48 percent back Trump.
Trump’s support is little changed from the 48 percent he received in a spring survey of six key states using the same methodology, but Harris’s standing is six percentage points higher than the 41-percent support registered for President Joe Biden, who was then a candidate.
…
Among these key-state voters, Harris runs strongest in Georgia, where she has an advantage of six percentage points among registered voters and four points among likely voters, which is within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Harris also is slightly stronger than Trump in the three most contested northern states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — but by percentages within the margin of error.
The seventh battleground state, Nevada, is tied among likely voters though Harris is three points stronger than Trump among registered voters.
Our own poll tracker reaches much the same conclusion:
We reported earlier that Kamala Harris has a huge advantage in campaign cash over Donald Trump. But the former president has his own deep-pocketed backer in the former of Tesla boss Elon Musk, who held a strange town hall in swing state Pennsylvania this weekend where he started handing out mammoth checks to voters to get them to back Trump. The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland witnessed the spectacle in person:
Standing before a large US flag, which spanned the breadth of a vast stage, the world’s richest man told an assembled crowd that he loved them.
“This kind of energy lights a fire in my soul,” he said, having just made one of the crowd a millionaire after everyone chanted his name.
His love – and that $1m – of course, was contingent on them all doing exactly as Elon Musk wanted: signing a petition tied to his political action committee (Pac) , which is dedicated to sending Donald Trump back to the White House.
The spectacle was both surreal and potentially illegal. But no one here, not least Musk himself, seemed to care in the slightest.
The billionaire was in Pittsburgh on his final stop across the vital swing state of Pennsylvania, having donated $75m to help get Trump re-elected, and seemingly willing to accept a job offer in Trump’s government should he win.
Musk’s latest ploy to assist Trump to attain more political power, has been to give away $1m every day to a member of the public, provided they also live in a swing state and are registered to vote.
The stunt is prohibited and akin to buying votes, in the view of some experts, as it violates federal election law preventing payments for registering to vote. The state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, on Sunday described it as “deeply concerning” and encouraged law enforcement to “take a look at”. Musk’s America Pac did not respond to a list of questions from the Guardian after the Pittsburgh town hall.
In a statement released as his administration announced a proposed rule that would allow women to receive birth control without a prescription under the Affordable Care Act, Joe Biden signaled that the move was part of an effort to highlight the differences between the two parties on the issue.
“Since Roe v Wade was overturned more than two years ago, Republican elected officials have made clear they want to ban or restrict birth control, defund federal programs that help women access contraception, and repeal the Affordable Care Act. And Congressional Republicans have repeatedly blocked federal legislation to safeguard the fundamental right to birth control for women in every state. It’s unacceptable,” the president said, continuing:
Today, my Administration is taking a major step to expand contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act. This new action would help ensure that millions of women with private health insurance can access the no-cost contraception they need. Vice President Harris and I have worked tirelessly to protect and build on the Affordable Care Act. We lowered costs for Marketplace coverage by an average of $800 per year for millions of Americans, and more Americans than ever before have signed up for health insurance through the law.
At a time when contraception access is under attack, Vice President Harris and I are resolute in our commitment to expanding access to quality, affordable contraception. We believe that women in every state must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions, including the right to decide if and when to start or grow their family. We will continue to fight to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore reproductive freedom and safeguard the right to contraception once and for all.
While the Biden administration has moved to expand contraception access, Donald Trump, if returned to the White House, will likely pursue policies that make it harder to access reproductive care, particularly abortions. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Carter Sherman:
When Jennifer Adkins and her husband were considering having a second child in Idaho, they vaguely thought how the state’s near-total abortion ban could affect them. But Adkins’ first pregnancy had gone so smoothly, she didn’t even use an epidural when she gave birth. Her next pregnancy, she expected, would be similar.
But in April 2023, 12 weeks into her second pregnancy, an ultrasound scan shattered that hope.
The ultrasound indicated a litany of issues with the fetus, whom Adkins and her husband had taken to calling “Spooky”, since Adkins’ due date was Halloween. Spooky, Adkins learned, showed multiple signs of a chromosomal disorder as well as dangerously severe swelling. Together, these conditions usually lead to a miscarriage or death shortly after delivery, Adkins’ doctors told her. And if the pregnancy continued, Adkins herself was at risk of developing life-threatening pre-eclampsia and swelling.
As the mother of a toddler son, Adkins was not willing to take that chance.
“I don’t think that you understand, until you are in that situation, how scary and how awful that actually is,” Adkins said during a recent interview at a coffee shop outside Boise.
Under Idaho law, abortions are permitted in medical emergencies. But although Adkins’ health was in jeopardy, her doctors didn’t believe her case was enough of an emergency to legally end the pregnancy. They were too afraid of Idaho’s ban to even refer her to an out-of-state abortion clinic.
So Adkins and her husband frantically called clinics in Washington, Oregon and Utah, trying to find somewhere within driving distance that was not booked up for weeks with other patients fleeing the abortion bans now blanketing the US. The couple also scrambled for financial support to pay for the procedure and travel. If they had to shoulder all those costs on their own, the family would be at risk of being unable to afford their mortgage.
“We’re thinking about all these logistics when all you want to think about is grieving the loss of a baby that you really wanted,” Adkins said. “None of us feel good about making that decision. But it is a loving choice that we should be able to make for our family.”
Harris cheers proposal to expand contraception coverage under Obamacare
The Biden administration has proposed allowing women with private health insurance to receive birth control without a prescription, in a major expansion of contraception access.
The rule is under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and comes as Kamala Harris and Democrats nationwide seek to make voters aware of their support for reproductive rights ahead of the 5 November election.
Here’s what Harris had to say about the proposed rule:
Today, our Administration is proposing the largest expansion of contraception coverage in more than a decade. This new proposed rule will build on our Administration’s work to protect reproductive freedom by providing millions of women with more options for the affordable contraception they need and deserve. That includes coverage for no-cost over-the-counter contraception without a prescription for the first time in our nation’s history. These lower contraception costs would be in addition to the billions of dollars that women have already saved on contraception under the Affordable Care Act which President Biden and I have strengthened since taking office.
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On Thursday, former Democratic US President, Barack Obama, is expected to campaign with Kamala Harris in Georgia, a state Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. Michelle Obama plans to join Harris for a rally - to encourage people to get out and vote - in Michigan on Saturday as early voting begins in the state that helped propel Donald Trump to victory in 2016, before Biden took it back in 2020.
Barack Obama, who become America’s first black president when he was elected in 2008, campaigned for Harris for the first time, appearing alone in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in early October. He held a rally for Harris in Las Vegas over the weekend on the first day of early voting in Nevada.
As my colleague Michael Sainato notes in this story, the Obamas and Harris have a friendship stretching over two decades.
Harris was an early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign in the closely contested 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, and one of the few elected officials in California to back him over Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination.
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Trump allies spending millions to dissuade voters in key states from polls
Key rightwing legal groups with ties to Donald Trump and his allies have banked millions of dollars from conservative foundations and filed multiple lawsuits challenging voting rules in swing states that are already sowing distrust of election processes and pushing dangerous conspiracy theories, election watchdogs warn.
They also warn that the groups appear to be laying the groundwork for a concerted challenge to the result of November’s presidential election if Trump is defeated by Kamala Harris.
America First Legal and the Public Interest Legal Foundation together reaped more than $30m dollars from the Wisconsin based Bradley Impact Fund and its parent, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, from 2017 through 2022, according to a financial analysis from the Center for Media and Democracy.
Lawsuits filed by the groups, which overlap with some Republican party litigation, focus in part on conspiratorial charges of non-citizen voting, which is exceedingly rare, and bloated voter rolls, and pre-sage more lawsuits by Trump if his presidential run fails, in an echo of his 2020 election-denialist claims, say watchdogs.
“It seems clear that the lawsuits these rightwing groups are bringing attacking the integrity of the voting rolls, methods of voting and how the ballots are counted are an attempt to make it harder for people to vote, disenfranchise and intimidate legitimate voters, and create confusion,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission.
Noble added: “At the same time, they also appear to be laying the groundwork to challenge the results of the election after November 5, if Trump loses.”
You can read the full story here:
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Trump to campaign in North Carolina as Harris visits three swing states
As we mentioned in the opening summary, Donald Trump will be campaigning in North Carolina – a crucial swing state – today.
The Republican presidential nominee is visiting the city of Asheville to survey the damage Hurricane Helene brought last month.
Communities in western North Carolina have been reeling since the storm ravaged the region, killing about 100 people and destroying homes and causing widespread power outages.
Trump has falsely accused Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of deliberately diverting assistance away from Republican areas.
As well as visiting Asheville, Trump will be holding a rally in Greenville this afternoon, before attending a meeting of 11th Hour Faith leaders, alongside his son Eric and Dr Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, former US housing secretary, in Concord. You can keep up-to-date with Trump’s campaign schedule here.
Kamala Harris, meanwhile, will join Republican Congresswoman and vocal Trump opponent Liz Cheney in Chester County, Pennsylvania, for a campaign event before heading to Waukesha County, Wisconsin, and Oakland County, Michigan.
There are mounting concerns from Trump’s Republican allies that crippling damage from Hurricane Helene will depress turnout in the battleground state’s conservative mountain regions.
Trump won about 62% of the vote in 2020 in the 25 counties declared to be a disaster area after Helene, while Biden won about 51% in the remainder of the state. New emergency voting arrangements have been put in place by the state board of election covering some of the most devastated counties.
The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s polling average shows North Carolina is too tight to call with confidence, with Harris, the US vice president and Democratic nominee, trailing behind Trump by 0.7 percentage points.
More than one million North Carolinians have already voted in the November general election, according to estimates. More than 400 early voting sites opened as scheduled on Thursday.
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New finance filings show Harris campaign's huge financial advantage in presidential race
The Harris campaign reported raising $221.8m (£170.4m) in September, compared to Trump’s campaign raising $62.7m (£48.2m), the Washington Post reported after new federal campaign finance filings showed her huge financial advantage in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
The Federal Election Commission filings, released yesterday, also showed that the Democratic National Committee raised $98.6m (£76m) last month, compared to the Republican National Committee raising $37.8m (£29m).
The Washington Post reported:
New reports filed on Tuesday showed that Harris’s primary fundraising vehicle for big-dollar donations, the Harris Victory Fund, brought in a staggering $633m (£486m) during the third quarter. That was more than four times as much as the $145m (£111m) that the victory fund’s GOP counterpart, the Trump 47 committee, brought in, according to reports filed last week.
Despite that huge spending edge and Harris’s sprawling ground game, her campaign has still struggled to significantly outpace Trump in key swing state polls. The vice president’s campaign has a much larger footprint than Trump’s, which relies on outside groups to help it turn out voters, and her advisers are worried about whether they will have enough money to secure victory. Harris’s advisers believe that the race remains close in all of the key swing states, and point to the high cost of targeting hard-to-reach and infrequent voters in seven very different states.
Harris is running a campaign that is about three times the size of Trump’s operation, spending more money on ads and having more staff, volunteers and a larger surrogate operation than her Republican opponent, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign spending.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, is making an unexpected visit to Ukraine today to reaffirm Washington’s support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he meets him later.
Austin is also expected to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov. US backing is crucial if Kyiv is to get support from other allies for proposals Zelenskyy believes are necessary to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and ahead of any peace negotiations.
There are concerns that a second Trump administration could suspend military support for Kyiv, at a time when Ukraine is in desperate need for financial support and military equipment, much of which is supplied by the US. Kamala Harris seems set to follow Joe Biden’s policy towards Ukraine, supplying Kyiv with military aid and supporting them diplomatically. She has ruled out meeting one-on-one with Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine unless leaders from Kyiv are involved.
“It’s been absolutely remarkable that Ukraine has been able to do what it’s done,” Austin told reporters.
“It’s been able to do that, of course, because of the fact that we have supported them from the very beginning, and we’ve rallied some 50 countries to be a part of that support,” he added.
KYIV—Secretary Austin has just arrived in Kyiv for meetings with President Zelensky and Defense Minister Umerov. pic.twitter.com/B3d8BaVCoO
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 21, 2024
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Kamala Harris says Donald Trump's language 'demeans office of the presidency'
Good morning, US politics readers.
There are now only 15 days to go until voting day and the attacks traded between the two presidential candidates – Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R) – are intensifying. On Sunday, Harris celebrated her 60th birthday and gave an interview with Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC.
Sharpton asked her about Trump calling her a “shit vice-president” at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Harris, who became the first black vice-president and woman in the role after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, responded:
The American people deserve so much better. That is how I come at it. And to your point, the President of the United States must set a standard – not only for our nation but understanding the standard we as a nation must set for the world.
We representing the United States of America walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy, of rule of law and have been thought of as a role model … of what it means to be committed to certain standards, including international rules and norms, but also standards of decorum.
And what you see in my opponent, a former President of the United States, demeans the office. And I have said – and I am very clear about this – Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States. He has not earned the right … and that is why he is going to lose.
Vice President Kamala Harris tells @TheRevAl during an exclusive interview that the president of the United States must set a standard for the world and what we see in Trump, "demeans the office."
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 20, 2024
Watch the full interview today at 5pm ET on @PoliticsNation. pic.twitter.com/SXhha8ibGw
The presidential race is essentially deadlocked, both nationally and in so-called battleground states. The contest on 5 November will be decided by the slimmest of margins. In order to appeal to voters in the critical swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), both Trump and Harris are trying to appeal to moderate, swing voters and ensure their bases are enthused enough to go out and vote.
Later today, Harris will be targeting suburban Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – holding a series of conversations with Republican Liz Cheney that will be moderated by Republican strategist Sarah Longwell and conservative radio host Charlie Sykes.
Trump has three North Carolina stops on Monday, including a visit to see storm damage in Asheville. He beat Biden in the state by 1.3% in 2020, but the polls this year are extremely tight, giving the Democrats a rare chance of winning the state.
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