Harris pressed on key issues by undecided Pennsylvania voters in CNN town hall

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris, asked about the grief of losing her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, to cancer, said: “You don’t stop grieving.”

She said there were two sides to the coin: having the blessing of a close and important relationship, but also an even deeper grief upon their loss.

However, she said, it’s important to remember them for the life they lived.

Harris also said there was no “correct or proper way to grieve.”

“The most important thing is, I think that, people do not suppress what they’re feeling at any moment. And the rest of us should give them grace to to go through it as as they will,” she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris said her proposal for tax credits will ease the cost of living for middle class families.

“I will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, but we do need to take seriously the system that benefits the richest and does not help out working middle class Americans,” Harris said. “I come from the middle class, and I believe that the middle class needs tax breaks to be able to actually not just get by, but get ahead.”

Harris has proposed up to a $50,000 tax deduction for new small businesses, up from $5,000.

Harris’ proposal would restore the American Rescue Plan’s popular expansion of the child tax credit to as much as $3,600, up from $2,000, and call for it to be made permanent.

The enhancement was only in effect in 2021.

Plus, the proposal would also add a new child tax credit of up to $6,000 for middle-class and lower-income families with children in their first year of life.

Additionally, Harris has proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, where it has been since former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts in 2017.

“I’m saying that there is going to be a parity around what the richest people pay, in terms of their taxes,” Harris said.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday was asked about what weaknesses she brings to the table and mistakes she has regretted — but she largely avoided answering those questions directly.

Voter Joe Donahue, a registered Republican who works in customer service and as an election worker in Pennsylvania, asked the vice president at CNN’s town hall: “What weaknesses do you bring to the table, and how do you plan to overcome them while you’re in office?”

Later, after talking about the impact of the decisions she had to make as a prosecutor and state attorney general, Harris said: “I take my role and responsibility as an elected leader very seriously, and I know the impact it has on so many people I may never meet. And that is why I engage and bring folks around. So I may not be quick to have the answer as soon as you ask it about a specific policy issue sometimes, because I’m going to want to research it, I’m going to want to study it. I’m kind of a nerd sometimes, I confess, and some might call that a weakness, especially if you’re … being asked a certain question and expected to have the right answer right away, but that’s how I work.”

Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about a mistake she has made, Harris said she has made many.

“If you’ve ever parented a child, you know you’ve made lots of mistakes.”

She later said as vice president, she works hard to make sure she’s well-versed on issues — and that not doing so would be a mistake.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called former President Donald Trump “dangerous” as she, again, brought up reporting that former chief of staff John Kelly said in a series of interviews that the former president spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

Asked by Anderson Cooper if she would be “more pro-Israel” than Trump as president, Harris dodged the question, instead calling out her opponent as dangerous.

She added that Trump “admires” dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Trump reportedly spoke with several times when he left office and sent a shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment for Putin’s personal use during the height of the pandemic, that latter of which was confirmed by Russia.

Context: Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, told The New York Times the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government” and fits “into the general definition of fascist.”

Kelly also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

After President Joe Biden called Kamala Harris to tell her that he was ending his bid for reelection, the first phone call the vice president made was to her pastor.

She recalled that Sunday morning and said that she “instinctively understood the gravity of the moment.”

“I needed that spiritual, kind of, connection. I needed that advice. I needed a prayer,” Harris said at a CNN town hall on Wednesday, adding that the conversation with her pastor was “comforting for me.”

The pastor was the Rev. Amos Brown, a veteran of the civil rights movement and pastor at Third Baptist Church of San Francisco.

Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she prays every day, “sometimes twice a day.” She talked her faith and her upbringing, saying she was raised that “you live your faith.”

This post has been updated with additional remarks from Harris.

Former President Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign rally on August 30, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Vice President Kamala Harris said that former President Donald Trump has a plan to put in place a “national sales tax of at least 20% on everyday goods and necessities” that would cost American consumers an additional $4,000 a year.

Trump has repeatedly said he plans to impose an across-the-board tariff of either 10% or 20% on every import coming into the US, as well as a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He’s also floated a 100% or 200% tariff on cars made in Mexico or on products made by companies that move manufacturing from the US to Mexico.

Together, a 20% across-the-board tariff with a 60% tariff on Chinese-made goods would amount to about a $3,900 annual tax increase for a middle-income family, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal think tank.

If the 20% tariff was just 10%, as Trump sometimes suggests, the total impact for middle-class families could be $2,500 a year, according to CAP.

Separate studies estimate that the impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs would also raise prices for families, but by a lower amount. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated the new duties would cost the average middle-class household about $1,700 annually. And the Tax Policy Center said the impact could be $1,350 a year for middle-income households.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she would combat antisemitism by enacting laws against it and talking with people so that they can better understand “the roots of what we are seeing so that we can actually have people be more understanding.”

Jewish Americans have been a core part of the Democratic coalition for generations. But Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza and the turmoil it set off, including protests and a spike in antisemitic incidents, make Republicans believe they can make inroads with Jewish voters.

Harris went on to reference newly surfaced reported comments from former President Donald Trump, where he pined for the loyalty of the “kind of generals that Hitler had.”

When asked by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper whether she thinks Trump is antisemitic, Harris did not directly answer and responded that she believes he “is a danger to the wellbeing of America.”

And when pressed on whether she would be more pro-Israel than Trump, who has claimed himself to be a protector of Israel, Harris doubled down that simply, he “is dangerous.”

More on Harris’ stance on Israel: After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late July, Harris gave a forceful and notable speech about the situation in Gaza. She echoed President Joe Biden’s repeated comments about the “ironclad support” and “unwavering commitment” to Israel, as well as the need to get the Israeli hostages back from Hamas captivity. The country has a right to defend itself, she said, while noting, “how it does so, matters.”

However, the empathy she expressed regarding the Palestinian plight and suffering was far more forceful than what Biden has said on the matter in recent months.

CNN’s Tami Luhby, Stephen Collinson, Dana Bash, Courtney Pence and Way Mullery contributed reporting.

A CNN presidential town hall sign is seen in Aston, Pennsylvania, on October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday said she hopes the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could lead to an opening for potential peace talks in the Middle East.

Asked in the CNN town hall by Annalise Kean, who said her vote might hinge on Middle East policy, about what she would do to ensure not another Palestinian is killed by US-funded bombs, Harris said: “I will say and I think this is to your point: far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed.”

Asked by moderator Anderson Cooper what she would say to voters thinking about voting third party or staying home due to their feelings on the war in Gaza, Harris added: “I am not going to deny the strong feelings that people have.”

“I don’t know that anyone who has seen the images, who would not have strong feelings about what has happened, much less those who have relatives, who have died and been killed,” she said.

But, she later added, those same people are also concerned about grocery prices and the threat against American democracy.

Vice President Kamala Harris reminded the voters at the CNN town hall Wednesday that in 2016, Donald Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the border wall he was campaigning to build to stem illegal immigration at the southern US border — and Mexico didn’t.

In response to CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s follow-up question on whether she would spend to further build the wall, Harris said she would instead work on a bipartisan, comprehensive bill to strength and secure the border that deals with the “broken immigration system.”

She referred back to the question of a Pennsylvania voter, saying it acknowledged that “America has always had migration, but there needs to be a legal process for it. People have to earn it.”

When Cooper pushed Harris on whether she was now in favor of Trump’s idea of a border wall, the vice president referred back to her criticism of his promise and said, “I think what he did and how he did it did not make much sense, because he actually didn’t do much of anything.”

This post has been updated with additional remarks from Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris answers a question during a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday vowed to bring new life experiences and perspectives when asked by a voter how her policies would differ from President Joe Biden’s — but offered no specifics on how her and Biden’s positions would differ.

Part of her lived experience, Harris said, includes caring for her sick mother before she died of cancer. She also noted: “I have raised children,” a possible reference recent criticisms from prominent Republicans about her lack of biological children. Harris is the step mother to two children.

Harris added she offers a new approach she believes is “well overdue.”

Vice President Kamala Harris touted her record as a prosecutor while arguing why she is the right candidate to secure the country’s borders.

“America’s immigration system is broken, and it needs to be fixed, and it’s been broken for a long time,” she said at a CNN town hall on Wednesday.

Answering a question from Pennsylvania voter Jaxon Weiss, who is a student at Drexel University and a registered Republican, Harris said she has spent “a significant part of my career” making sure the border is secure and that criminals and traffickers do not come in.

Donald Trump on the other hand, Harris argued, “would prefer to run on the problem instead of fix the problem.” She also attacked the former president for helping to kill a bipartisan border deal in the Senate.

She said she believes the issue of the border will ultimately be “fixed through congressional action” and pledged as president that she will “work across the aisle to fix this long-standing problem.”

Harris also said she wants to see things such as more border agents and personnel, including more judges, to process asylum claims.

This post has been updated with additional remarks from Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday again suggested she would support eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion rights.

Asked by Anderson Cooper during CNN’s town hall what she would do if Congress cannot pass legislation codifying abortion rights, Harris said: “I think we need to take a look at the filibuster, to be honest with you.”

“But the reality of it is this: Let’s talk about how we got here. When Donald Trump was president, he hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended,” she said.

Harris also discussed going on the campaign trail with GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney and speaking with Republican women voters who now oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Remember: Harris told Wisconsin Public Radio last month that “We should eliminate the filibuster for Roe.”

Doing so would lower the Senate’s threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority of 51 to advance legislation to protect abortion rights. Defenders of the filibuster say preserving the tool forces consensus in the body, unlike in the House, where legislation can be rammed through by a majority vote. But critics say the tactic has been abused to prevent the Senate from acting on legislation backed by large swaths of the American public.

This post has been updated with additional remarks from Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to work across party lines in order to pass major policy goals like housing and reproductive rights across the country.

The vice president said she has worked across party lines before, referencing the bipartisan infrastructure deal signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021.

She said that as president, she would work with both Democrats and Republicans on “a number of issues,” including making housing affordable, reinstating “the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do” as well as investing “in a substantial way in the industries of the future in American-based manufacturing.”

“All of those areas I plan on working across the aisle and with Congress including the issue of immigration, which we’ve got to fix,” Harris said.

The post has been updated with more of Harris’ remarks about working across the aisle.

Vice President Kamala Harris said the price of groceries is “still too high” and said her proposed ban on price-gouging would help that.

“That is the first time that we will have a national ban on price gouging, which is companies taking advantage of the desperation and need of the American consumer and jacking up prices without any consequence or accountability,” Harris said.

Harris unveiled that proposal to ban price gouging in August. “My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” she said at a campaign event that month.

Some economists are not a fan of Harris’s plan. Gavin Roberts, the chair of Weber State University’s economics department, previously told CNN that such a price gouging ban could have adverse effects.

Some context: Inflation and the cost of living are on top of voters’ minds.

Inflation has cooled significantly since its decades-high peak of around 9.1% in June 2022. Yet price levels remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels, causing strain on consumers.

Inflation cooled to 2.4% year-over-year in September, down from 2.5% year-over-year in August, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index data.

Yet average prices are up over 20% since 2020, according to Consumer Price Index data.

Vice President Kamala Harris listens to a voter in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she pledges to be “a president for all Americans,” in response to a voter question at CNN’s town hall Wednesday.

Natasha Kwiatkowski, a student at Bryn Mawr College who is a registered Republican and anti-Donald Trump, asked the vice president how she would create more unity in a polarized political landscape if she was elected. Kwiatkowski said she is looking for a reason to vote for Harris.

“People are frankly exhausted with what has been happening over the last several years, which is this environment that is suggesting that Americans should be pointing fingers at one another, that we are divided as a nation,” Harris said.

“The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. And I think that the American people deserve to have a president who is grounded in what is common sense, what is practical, and what is in the best of the people, not themselves,” she added.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday she believes former President Donald Trump is a fascist.

The vice president noted that several people who served in Trump’s administration “have all called him unfit and dangerous.”

“They have said, explicitly, he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. They have said he should never again serve as president of the United States. We know that is why Mike Pence is not running with him again; why the job was empty,” Harris said.

Harris’ comments come after Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly told the Atlantic that the former president had remarked to him about the loyalty of Hitler’s generals. Trump’s campaign denied the exchange about Trump and Hitler reported in The Atlantic.

“This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this,” campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer said.

Harris also reiterated that she believes that Trump is “unable and unfit to serve.”

Harris, in the closing stretch of the race, has ratcheted up her attacks on Trump’s basic mental competence, increasingly describing the former president as incoherent and “unfit to be president of the United States.”

The headline and post has been updated with additional remarks from Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23.

A CNN town hall with Vice President Kamala Harris is now underway in Aston, Pennsylvania, a township southwest of Philadelphia.

The Democratic presidential nominee will face questions from undecided and persuadable voters as she looks to capitalize in the key battleground state in the waning days of the presidential election.

The town hall, which is being moderated by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, features a live audience. Harris will field questions from audience members selected by CNN to participate in the event, according to a network spokesperson.

About the audience: They are Pennsylvania voters that are composed of Democrats, Republicans and independents — all of whom confirmed they intend to vote in November and remain undecided or persuadable on the presidential candidate for whom they will cast a ballot. They were chosen from a pool of people identified by a nonpartisan research organization and CNN editorial producers working with local and state business groups, civic organizations, religious groups and universities, according to the network.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the presidential campaign has come down to a handful of states and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — the biggest prize, in terms of electoral votes — that will determine the next president of the United States.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was invited but declined to participate in the town hall, as well as a debate CNN offered to produce in the final days of the cycle. Harris accepted both invitations; the debate was canceled.

Read more details on the town hall here.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said voters should be allowed to cast provisional ballots in person at their polling place if their mail ballots are rejected because of certain defects, in a ruling Wednesday that could give thousands of Pennsylvanians the opportunity to vote even if their mail ballots were disqualified due to errors.

The ruling is a loss for the Republican National Committee, which appealed an intermediate court’s ruling that sided with Butler County residents who sued because the county refused to count their provisional ballots in their 2024 primary.

The practice of provisional voting is offered at in-person polling places when there is some question raised about a person’s eligibility to vote; the provisional vote is counted only after the person’s eligibility to vote is confirmed. In this case, the provisional vote would only count if the person’s mail ballot had been rejected.

While the case arose out of Butler County, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which represented the voters in the case, is interpreting the ruling as applying to all counties. Lawyers for the RNC, which joined Butler County in defending the county’s policy, did not respond to CNN’s inquiry. The Democratic National Party intervened to argue in favor of allowing the provisional voting.

In the majority ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said the relevant state statutes could not be read as barring provisional voting by voters whose mail ballots were rejected for errors like a lack of outer envelope or an incorrect date on the envelope. The court also said this interpretation aligned with the Pennsylvania Constitution’s voter protections.

The potential impact of the ruling isn’t entirely clear. Only about two-thirds of Pennsylvania counties notify mail voters ahead of Election Day if there is a fatal error on their mail ballot envelopes, but another pending case before the state Supreme Court is seeking to require that notice statewide.

In addition to the option of provisional voting, at least 36 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties also let mail voters correct errors on their mail ballots.

Vice President Kamala Harris will face questions Wednesday night from undecided and persuadable voters in Pennsylvania during a CNN town hall. But she is no stranger to spending time in the Keystone State — the most important battleground of the 2024 election.

Both Harris and former President Donald Trump have held many events and spent millions of dollars in the commonwealth because they have made Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes central to their respective paths to victory.

According to AdImpact, Pennsylvania voters have seen nearly $300 million worth of presidential advertising — the most of any state in the nation.

In 2016, Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988, carrying the state by just over 44,000 votes. In 2020, Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native, flipped the state, winning by just over 80,000 votes.

Come Election Day, Trump is expected to run strong in central Pennsylvania and is hoping to make inroads in northeastern Pennsylvania, where a large swath of working-class, blue-collar voters reside.

Harris is betting on her strength in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and the suburban “collar counties” outside of Philadelphia.

The stage for Vice President Kamala Harris' town hall in Philadelphia.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night will deliver a final pitch to voters, less than two weeks out from the election and with early voting already underway, at a CNN town hall in Chester Township, Pennsylvania.

The event, which will start at 9 p.m. ET, comes on the date CNN proposed a second debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump, which Harris accepted but Trump turned down.

Harris, in the closing stretch of the race, has ratcheted up her attacks on Trump’s basic mental competence, increasingly describing the former president as incoherent and “unfit to be president of the United States.” She has also zeroed in more sharply on his role in the gutting of federal abortion rights, calling his often-callous discussion of the issue a mark of “cruelty.”

Trump, in turn, has continued to swing wildly at Harris and, over the past few weeks, seen fit to question – and sometimes assail – Jewish, Black and Latino voters who are supporting the Democrat.

But for all the rhetoric, organizing and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, the race is looking like a coin-toss – as both campaigns show signs of frustration with the relative stability of national and battleground state polling.

Here are five things to watch for during Harris’ town hall, moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

Trump talk: Harris’ campaign has over the past few weeks increasingly questioned whether Trump is mentally and physically fit for another four years in the White House.

“He’s becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged, and it requires that response,” Harris told reporters last weekend in Detroit. “I think the American people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable.”

It is many ways a reversal of the strategy Trump and allied Republicans used for years to pillory  President Joe Biden, before the 81-year-old incumbent dropped out of the 2024 race in July. Harris, who just turned 60, has kept up a frenetic campaign schedule and derided Trump for dropping out of scheduled interviews – with one report citing “exhaustion” as the cause. She has also appeared more willing to reference bizarre behavior, like when the 78-year-old Republican stopped a recent town hall to sway and dance for 39 minutes in front of a confused-looking Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor meant to be moderating the event.

At the same time, surveys of undecided voters continue to signal that they want to know more about Harris and her policy plans. She has already pitched one of the most ambitious expansions of senior care in modern US history, though it rarely gets a thorough hearing.

Harris does not necessarily need to choose between pitching herself and deriding Trump, but town hall questions often give candidates the leeway to steer the conversation. Where she goes will provide new insight into how she and her campaign view the race.

Keep reading for more things to watch ahead of tonight’s CNN town hall.

In this 2020 photo, a woman walks past the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

Less than two weeks before the 2024 election, the Justice Department announced several new developments in cases against individuals accused of threatening election workers and officials, issuing a stark warning as election day approaches.

The new developments include the sentencing of Brian Jerry Ogstad of Alabama to 30 months behind bars for threats of violence against election workers in Arizona following the 2022 primary as well as recent charges against others for allegedly making similar threats.

A Florida dentist, Richard Glenn Kantwill, was charged this week in a superseding indictment for threats he allegedly made against an election official, the Justice Department announced. The new charge is part of Kantwill’s ongoing case in Florida, where he was previously charged with making threats spanning across several years against other individuals because of their political beliefs.

The Justice Department also announced Wednesday the guilty plea of Teak Brockbank from Colorado for making threats against election officials in Colorado and Arizona as well as federal law enforcement agents and a Colorado state judge over the past few years and into this summer.

Each case was brought by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement the cases served as “examples of the kinds of threats election workers are unfortunately facing” and also “represent the FBI’s dedication in holding accountable those who undermine our democracy with this conduct.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed former White House chief of staff John Kelly is part of the “deep state” and labeled him a liar after the retired Marine general said in interviews published Tuesday that Donald Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

Kelly claimed in an interview with The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II and recounted the moment.

This post and headline have been updated.

John Kelly watches as Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with North Korean defectors at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 2, 2018.

Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked his former chief of staff John Kelly after Kelly said in a series of interviews that the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

His attack on his former chief of staff comes after Kelly told The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government” and fits “into the general definition of fascist.”

Kelly also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment.

Former President Bill Clinton speaks during the DNC on Wednesday, August 21, in Chicago.

Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday said he believes Democrats “in theory” are “in better shape” polling-wise in the Grand Canyon State than in other Democratic-leaning states.

Clinton was the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the state of Arizona since 1948. Biden carried the state in 2020 by less than 10,500 votes.

“And I’ve watched with joy the way … the state has become increasingly diverse, people have become increasingly empowered, and that means we have a chance to win this race,” Clinton said.

Clinton argued that the choice in the election is “clear, unless you don’t want a solution, unless you want to keep people miserable, unless you think you can blame your way to kingdom come. So that’s why I think [Harris] is a clear choice.”

He poked fun at Trump and his running mate JD Vance declining to debate Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for a second time. “For all their macho talk, those boys didn’t want to get anywhere near another debate, did they?”

Clinton was joined by Susan Rice, former US ambassador to the United Nations, and Harris’ brother-in-law Tony West.

Former President Donald Trump and his team still have not taken critical steps toward preparing for a potential presidential transition if he wins the White House, with nonpartisan experts and Democrats raising alarms just 13 days before Election Day.

Trump’s team has blown past a pair of key deadlines for the transition, breaking with precedent in a way that could pose challenges for a peaceful transfer of power.

By September 1, both the Trump and Harris campaigns were expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with the General Services Administration that gives them access to office space, communications, equipment and IT support. The campaigns were also expected to submit an ethics plan and to identify the initial people who would need security clearances to begin receiving classified information during a transition.

By October 1, both campaigns were expected to sign a separate memorandum of understanding with the White House detailing the terms of access to agencies, including personnel, facilities and documents.

As of Wednesday, Trump’s team has failed to sign either memorandum or submit an ethics plan, while Harris’ team has completed those tasks.

Max Stier, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, cautioned that poor transition planning could prevent a potential Trump second term from addressing threats on Day 1.

“It presents a significant challenge to their ability to do the preparation work that is essential for them to be ready to pick up the baton without dropping it, if, indeed, former President Trump is reelected,” Stier told CNN.

Read more about the transition duties here.

JD Vance speaks to supporters in Las Vegas on October 23.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested Wednesday that Title IX should be amended or enforced differently to prevent transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, arguing that it’s against Nevada’s constitution to “declare a forfeit for reasons related to gender identity or expression.”

Vance, as a father of a 2-year-old daughter, said having transgender athletes compete in women’s sports is also a “public safety issue, especially with contact sports.”

“I don’t want my little girl to grow up to compete in sports and then to get bludgeoned by a man. That’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful. It can’t happen in the United States of America,” Vance said.

Remember: In August, the Biden Administration implemented changes to Title IX, including the prohibition of discrimination “based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics in federally funded education programs.”

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to deliver a final-stretch closing argument address next week at the same location her rival delivered a fiery speech on January 6, 2021, that set in motion the attack by his supporters at the US Capitol.

Harris’ speech Tuesday at the Ellipse, a park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, will amount to a high-profile denunciation of Donald Trump’s fitness for office and a warning about the chaos she says the former president would bring to the Oval Office should he win.

More about the remarks: Coming a week ahead of Election Day, Harris will use the major address to contrast her own vision of the presidency with her rival’s, painting pictures both of what her first term would look like and a dire portrait of Trump’s potential return.

Harris campaign advisers previewed the speech on the condition of anonymity to discuss an event they said was still in the development stage.

After he lost the 2020 election, Trump sought to convince his supporters he won, including during a now-infamous speech from the Ellipse. He told his supporters during the speech to march to the Capitol so they could pressure lawmakers to overturn the election while they met for a joint session of Congress to formally certify President Joe Biden’s victory.

In the hours afterward, a riot unfolded at the Capitol; Trump has been indicted for his role in working to overturn the election results in the run-up to the insurrection attempt.

A permit application for Harris’ event obtained by CNN estimated a crowd of roughly 7,500 at the event, with 250 staff, organizers and volunteers.

Read more about the speech here.

CBS News signage ahead of the first vice presidential debate at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, on September 30.

Lawyers for CBS News are rebuffing a legal threat from Donald Trump over the network’s “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, telling the former president his demands are based on a “faulty premise.”

In a blunt letter to Trump’s legal counsel, the network on Wednesday said the First Amendment “fiercely protects” the editorial judgments made by “60 Minutes,” the network’s flagship newsmagazine.

“For that reason,” CBS said, Trump has no legal basis to sue, “and I note that you do not identify one,” the letter from CBS News senior Vice President for legal affairs Gayle C. Sproul stated. “Nor is there any legal basis for your demand that we provide you with the unedited transcript of the interview, which we decline to do.”

The interview in question is Bill Whitaker’s sit-down earlier this month with Trump’s opponent, Vice President Harris. When Trump backed out of a planned interview with “60 Minutes,” CBS went ahead with its plans to interview Harris and produced a Trump-less prime time special on October 7.

Observers subsequently noticed that CBS had aired two different answers from Harris to a question about why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not listening” to the United States.

In a preview of the interview on the Sunday morning program “Face the Nation,” Harris was seen responding to the question by defending America’s influence and advocacy. In the actual “60 Minutes” segment on Monday, she was seen answering by saying “we are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

Read more about CBS’ response to Trump’s attacks here.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference following a Senate Republican party policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 17.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, delivered a scathing assessment of the modern Republican Party in an upcoming biography, saying the “MAGA movement is completely wrong” and that Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize” the party today.

McConnell added that the former president has “done a lot of damage to our party’s image and our ability to compete.”

“Trump is appealing to people who haven’t been as successful as other people and providing an excuse for that, that these more successful people have somehow been cheated, and you don’t deserve to think of yourself as less successful because things haven’t been fair,” he said.

Some of McConnell’s strongest comments were focused on Trump’s behavior after he lost the election in 2020, calling him “erratic.”

The Republican Leader eventually voted to acquit Trump during the second impeachment trial, focused on the former president’s involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. However, Tackett reports that McConnell had leaned towards voting to convict at certain points.

“I’m not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense. I think it is. Urging an insurrection and people attacking the Capitol as a direct result … is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine, with the possible exception of maybe being an agent for another country,” said McConnell.

The Kentucky Republican did not mince words, calling Trump a “sleazeball,” a “narcissist” and saying that the former president is “stupid as well as being ill-tempered.”

The Georgia secretary of state’s office this month fended off a cyberattack believed to have come from a foreign country against the website voters use to request absentee ballots, the office told CNN.

The state’s cyber defenses — aided by tech firm Cloudflare — repelled the hackers’ attempts to knock the website offline, and there was no disruption to voters’ ability to request ballots.

“It slowed our systems down for a little bit, but it never stopped our systems from working,” Gabe Sterling, an official in Georgia’s secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections in the battleground state, told CNN.

The cyberattack likely originated from overseas and had “the hallmarks of a foreign power or a foreign entity [acting] at the behest of a foreign power,” Sterling said.

US officials have yet to publicly confirm that assessment.

Hundreds of thousands of IP addresses from numerous countries flooded the Georgia website with bogus traffic, Sterling said in an interview on Wednesday.

“From talking to experts, it felt like a probing attack, saying, ‘Hey, if we do this, what will they do in response?’” Sterling said.

CNN has requested comment from Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based firm that protects large portions of the internet from cyberattacks.

The FBI and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are aware of the cyberattack and worked with the Georgia secretary of state office in the aftermath of the incident, sources told CNN. The FBI declined to comment. CISA referred questions to officials in Georgia.

Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris' hands are seen as she delivers remarks before departing Washington, DC, on October 23.

With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, a co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign said the vice president is focused on reaching as many voters as possible.

The former Louisiana Democrat said that in this final sprint to the election, it is most important that people “know who she is.”

Harris will participate in a CNN town hall tonight where she will take questions from undecided and persuadable voters in Pennsylvania in an effort to make that pitch.

“She’s working and she’s talking to people every day,” Richmond said. The response comes after former President Donald Trump’s comments earlier this week that Harris was “lazy,” in an attack on her schedule.

Richmond said that the campaign is specifically using technology — a difference, he pointed out, compared with presidential campaigns in previous decades — and that there is “a lot of excitement” at campaign events.

Campaigns aide previously said that much of that outreach will come in the form of tactics that are new to presidential campaigns, including through direct text messages, digital ads and putting celebrities on the trial.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the party affiliation of Cedric Richmond.

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, on October 22.

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him recently as he continues to tout his close relationship with the leader on the campaign trail.

Trump made the comments at a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” in Zebulon, Georgia, that was moderated by Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Trump told reporters on Sunday that Netanyahu had called him on Saturday and said the Israeli leader “calls me on occasion.”

CNN has reached out to Netanyahu’s office for comment.

In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office said that Trump in a call expressed his “shock at the attack on the Prime Minister of Israel.” It came shortly after a drone attacked Netanyahu’s beachside home in Israel.

Former President Barack Obama said at a private fundraiser Monday evening that Donald Trump is “somebody who White nationalists explicitly rally around,” going further than how he has ripped into the former president in a series of recent campaign rallies.

The comments, relayed to CNN by two people who heard the remarks, came in response to a question Obama took from the small audience at the Chicago home of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. The fundraiser brought in $4 million for Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Some background: As CNN previously reported, Obama is in the middle of his busiest end-of-election push since his own last campaign, appearing so far in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. He has another stop planned Thursday evening in what will be his first joint appearance on the trail with Harris – and with Bruce Springsteen set to perform.

Obama’s speeches at these rallies have been a combination of him mocking Trump and attempting to dismantle the former president’s claims about his record, with a major emphasis on arguing that the strong economic record Trump often points to was from “my economy.”

Read more about Obama’s comments here.

Elon Musk participates in a meeting to promote early and absentee voting at Ridley High School in Folsom, Pennsylvania, on October 17.

The Justice Department warned Elon Musk’s America PAC in recent days that his $1 million sweepstakes to registered voters in swing states may violate federal law, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

The tech billionaire, who has thrown his support behind Donald Trump and is spending millions of dollars supporting the former president’s candidacy, has publicized the $1 million prize by his political action committee aiming to increase voter registrations in hotly contested states.

Musk’s initial promise to pay prizes to registered voters immediately raised concerns from election law experts and some state officials who questioned whether it ran afoul of the law.

Federal law bars paying people to register to vote. The language of the petition promises $1 million prizes to people chosen at random for signing a petition in support of First and Second Amendment freedoms. But to sign the petition, you must be registered to vote in specific states.

A letter from the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which investigates potential election-related law violations, went to Musk’s political action committee, according to people briefed on the matter.

CNN has reached out seeking comment from Musk, several email addresses listed on the super PAC’s website, the group’s treasurer and Musk’s press team at the X platform.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Read more about Musk’s giveaway here.

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is buying TV advertising time in Texas booked to coincide with her visit to the state on Friday to campaign with Senate candidate Colin Allred and spotlight abortion rights.

The ad bookings are small, just about $42,000 on broadcast TV in the Houston media market, and the reservations stretch only from October 24 to October 28. But according to AdImpact data, it’s the Harris campaign’s first time going up on local broadcast in Texas.

It’s some of the only ad time that the Harris campaign has reserved in the campaign’s final stretch outside of seven key battleground states, plus some money targeting the up-for-grabs electoral vote in Nebraska.

More on the Texas trip: Harris’ campaign announced on Monday that it would travel to Texas later this week, as she seeks to draw a contrast with Donald Trump over abortion ahead of Election Day, according to a senior campaign official.

During her remarks, the vice president is expected to warn of the threat a second Trump term poses to women’s reproductive freedom and, according to the official, will again place blame on the former president for extreme abortion bans, including in Texas, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She will be joined by women who have been impacted by the restrictive laws.

President Joe Biden spoke with union leaders in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to thank them for their work supporting Democratic candidates in the state, the Harris-Walz campaign said.

During the call, the campaign says union leaders “thanked the President for his Investing in America Agenda.”

CNN reported earlier Wednesday on Pennsylvania Democrats’ recent push to counter former President Donald Trump’s growing rise with union workers.

Vice President Kamala Harris is in Aston, Pennsylvania, tonight for a CNN Town Hall.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens during a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, in Glendale, Arizona, on August 23.

A month after demanding that New York election officials keep his name on that state’s presidential ballot, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to remove him from the ballot in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

In a long-shot emergency appeal, Kennedy argued, in part, that Wisconsin is violating his First Amendment rights by keeping his name as a choice for voters. Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign in August and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy is attempting to get his name removed from ballots in battleground states but has simultaneously told supporters they can vote for him in other states, where third-party and independent candidates are unlikely to influence the outcome.

In his latest appeal, Kennedy indicated he intends to bring a similar claim to the Supreme Court to get off the ballot in Michigan.

Kennedy filed his latest emergency appeal with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who handles such requests rising from the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against him.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said the “joy is gone” from Kamala Harris’ campaign and claimed she sounds like a “vice principal” scolding Americans.

Vance made a similar attack against Harris in late August following her speech at the Democratic National Convention, where she warned about the consequences of reelecting Trump.

He has also previously criticized Harris for dancing and laughing at campaign rallies while “Americans are suffering under her policies.”

On housing: Vance’s remarks in Vegas centered on high housing costs and he claimed that prices will drop if more homes are built and undocumented immigrants are deported. He also said he doesn’t “begrudge” those who want to come to the United States but blames Harris for opening the border.

As CNN previously reported, housing supply is a major factor driving prices and undocumented immigrants only make up a tiny portion of the mortgage market.

People wait in line to cast their early votes at the Madison Public Library Central in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 22.

New data released by the Wisconsin Elections Commission show that more than 97,000 people voted early in-person on Tuesday, the first day of early in-person voting in the state.

In 2020, more than 75,000 people voted on the first day of in-person early voting, according to WEC data and news reports at the time.

The start of in-person early voting has been marked by a minor computer systems glitch that has slowed the process this year.

Because of “higher than expected turnout,” the computer system used by some of the state’s clerks to print labels for in-person absentee certificate envelopes has experienced slowdowns Tuesday and Wednesday, the commission said in a news release. Officials initially believed they had resolved the issue Tuesday night after increasing the system’s capacity, but said Wednesday that some clerks are still seeing lags and the problem “appears to also be affecting some non-election related state systems as well.”

Printing a label is not required for in-person absentee voting, and clerks are allowed to hand-write the required information on certificate envelopes if they need to. “No voters should be turned away due to label printing,” the commission said.

Wisconsin does not have partisan voter registration, so the early vote data does not include party breakdowns. Notably, several Milwaukee suburbs saw disproportionately high rates of early in-person voting on the first day. The city of Brookfield in Waukesha County (which former President Donald Trump narrowly won in 2020) had the third-highest number of early in-person votes cast of any Wisconsin municipality, even though it is the 16th largest municipality in the state by population. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney, a Republican former house member supporting Harris, held an event there on Monday evening.

Mail-in vote totals are lagging behind levels in 2020, when many voted absentee due to the pandemic.

In total, 475,460 Wisconsin voters have returned their ballots as of this morning (including both the early in-person absentee numbers and mailed absentee). In 2020, on the equivalent day in the cycle, 1,021,397 voters had returned absentee ballots.

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein speaks during a rally in Dearborn, Michigan, on October 6.

Yesterday evening, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launched its second TV ad targeting Green Party candidate Jill Stein and warning that “a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.” It reflects Democratic anxiety over the possibility of a third-party spoiler in key battleground states.

The ad, which was a joint buy with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), began airing in Wisconsin and has since aired in Pennsylvania and Michigan, with just $6,000 behind it so far. It follows another anti-Stein ad that the Harris campaign and DNC launched earlier this month, targeting the same three states. That ad has seen $80,000 worth of airtime.

The new spot draws unfavorable associations between Stein and notorious figures including Russian President Vladimir Putin, referencing a 2015 gala that both Stein and Putin attended. It also brings up former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke — who has endorsed Stein, the latest in a long series of political publicity stunts. The ad warns that Donald Trump’s “MAGA allies” are helping Stein, referencing Wall Street Journal reporting on GOP efforts.

“You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep,” the ad says, arguing that “a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”

The first ad from the Harris campaign and DNC contained a similar messaging, saying that Stein was “key to Trump’s 2016 wins in battleground states,” and including the refrain, “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”

More context: While Stein has repeatedly denied she played a role in helping Trump get elected in 2016, Democrats often point to Stein’s vote share in Midwestern battleground states, including in Wisconsin, where her vote share was larger than the margin of victory for Trump in the state, as being a key factor in Trump’s 2016 path to victory.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, abortion access and reproductive rights became a galvanizing issue for Democrats. Now, it’s a key part of Vice President Kamala Harris’ pitch for the White House.

Ava Pallotta from Port Chester, New York, told CNN abortion is the most important issue to her this election. Following the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe in 2022, she said she felt helpless during finals week of her first year at Harvard University and decided she wanted to turn that feeling into action.

Pallotta, 20, decided at the time to host a rally in support of abortion rights and has since made an effort to engage in civil discourse with the anti-abortion group at her college, push abortion rights visibility and do grassroots voting work on campus.

Since Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris in July, Pallotta said the energy has changed and she’s seen young people become more excited for the vice president.

“I think there’s so much fear that’s present in the reality of Gen Z that I don’t find fear to be a mobilizing issue, or like how Gen Z is going to get to the ballot box. So it’s nice to not have fear be the pervasive emotion motivating people to vote,“ she said. “I feel like the conversation has changed to focus around hope, and I think that’s a really wonderful thing.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz stressed the need for an immigration policy “that works” while touting Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposals to curb illegal immigration while creating a pathway to citizenship and criticizing former president Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric.

Walz said in an interview with Univision Radio that aired Wednesday that fixing problems with the immigration system “doesn’t need to be as difficult as it is” while endorsing the bipartisan border security bill that failed to pass Congress earlier this year and attacking Trump for using language that puts immigrants “at risk.”

Walz continued to attack Trump’s rhetoric, specifically about his comment that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of this country,” and he praised the impact Hispanic Americans and immigrants have on communities across the country.

“I talked about this as a veteran myself of 24 years, we have Hispanic Americans serving at a huge rate. We need to make sure that we’re investing in them, that we’re transitioning them out of the military into good-paying jobs and value them. And I think the contrast with Donald Trump talking about ‘poisoning the blood of this country,’ that is unacceptable. We are strengthened by our immigration policies, we are strengthened by the community, and we’re investing in the middle class,” he said.

Election officials oversee tabulators as voters cast their ballots during the first day of early voting at a polling station in Detroit, Michigan, on October 19.

New CNN Poll of Polls averages in the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan and Wisconsin both find no clear leader between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

In Michigan, Harris holds an average of 49% support to Trump’s 46% among likely voters; in Wisconsin, Harris also averages 49% to Trump’s 46%.

In both states, the individual surveys included in the averages show either no clear leader or an edge for Harris. The averages include a set of new polls from Quinnipiac University, which find Harris taking 49% to Trump’s 46% in Michigan, and the two candidates tied at 48% in Wisconsin.

Quinnipiac’s latest Michigan survey shows Harris performing better against Trump than she did in the university’s early October poll (50% Trump, 47% Harris) and is similar to their results in mid-September (50% Harris, 45% Trump). Quinnipiac’s polls this autumn have consistently found a close race in Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden believes his former presidential election rival former President Donald Trump is a fascist, the White House press secretary said Wednesday.

Asked by CNN’s MJ Lee if the president was aware of John Kelly’s assertion that former Trump “meets the definition of a fascist,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre launched into a lengthy answer on January 6th before saying, “yes,” the White House agrees with that assertion.

Here’s what she said:

Lee then asked “so just to be clear, when you said, ‘we do agree’ — President Biden believes that Donald Trump is a fascist?”

“I mean, yes. We have said — he’s said himself, the former president has said he is going to be a dictator on day one. We cannot ignore that,” the White House press secretary responded.

Some context: Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Trump’s White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019, said in a series of interviews published Tuesday that the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had.”

Biden previously called the philosophy that underpins MAGA Republicanism “semi-fascism.”

The empty stage before the CNN town hall, featuring Vice President Kamala Harris, is seen on Wednesday.

In a searing new television ad slated to air for the first time before CNN’s town hall featuring Vice President Kamala Harris Wednesday, the Harris-Walz campaign will close in on their argument over reproductive rights.

The spot will feature the testimony of Ondrea of Texas and her harrowing experience after being denied vital reproductive care.

The ad features graphic images of Ondrea’s incision after she went into pre-term labor and suffered a miscarriage. She was refused an abortion and sent home for three days where she eventually delivered a non-viable pregnancy. The woman went into septic shock so severe, her lung collapsed and they could not properly sew the incision for three days.

It is these devastating stories the campaign believes will reach women in battleground states and beyond, as they argue more than one in three women live in a state with a restrictive abortion ban. The ad uses former President Donald Trump’s own words against him, a strategy Harris has employed with ramped up frequency in the past few days.

And in appeal to men, the campaign has cut a separate short digital ad featuring the story of Ondrea’s husband to further underscore reproductive rights is a men’s issue, a strategy the campaign has been leaning on the last several weeks.

JD Vance leaves after speaking during a campaign rally in Peoria, Arizona, on October 22.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance projected confidence that the Trump campaign would win Nevada, but spoke frankly with Republicans, warning they will “get killed” if they don’t engage in all methods of voting, including early and mail-in voting.

Vance told the crowd at a Las Vegas rally that he was speaking to the Nevada GOP chair, Michael McDonald earlier today about how Republicans “have a chance in Nevada” of being up by thousands of ballots on Election Day, rather than down.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was running for vice president — literally — during a jogging interview with a social media influencer where he answered questions about Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, his home state of Minnesota and his history with running.

Walz joined Kate Mackz, a social media personality who conducts interviews with runners, for a mile-long run in New York City’s Central Park while the Democratic vice-presidential nominee was in New York for interviews and fundraisers on Monday.

Walz has been a regular runner during the campaign and had previously jogged in Central Park the morning after the vice presidential debate in New York City earlier this month.

Walz also shared details of his biography and his record as governor of Minnesota, praising the people of Minnesota as “optimistic” and calling the implementation of a free breakfast and lunch program in public schools the proudest moment of his political career. He also made a direct case on behalf of Harris on the issues of reproductive health care, gun violence and the economy.

Walz told the young audience viewing Mackz’s social media video that they should “get out and vote,” regardless of who they vote for, emphasizing the role the presidential election could have in shaping environmental policy, foreign policy and health issues over the next four years.

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign launched a new TV ad on Wednesday reflecting her campaign’s push to shore up its standing with Black men, a key area of concern for Democrats.

The ad, which first began airing in Pennsylvania, features a younger Black man sitting on his front steps and comparing Harris to his aunt, saying she “shows a lot of empathy” and is “strong,” “powerful,” and “stern.”

Turning out young Black men is a key concern for the Harris campaign as the White House race enters the final sprint, the focus of a concerted effort on the ground and on the airwaves, illustrated by the new spot.

Elected officials and nonpartisan voter engagement groups have also focused in on young Black men, amid concerns that a significant number will decide to stay home. The efforts have focused on stressing the importance of voting but also reducing the barriers and misinformation around how to vote and who is eligible.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event on October 21 in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

Vice President Kamala Harris said for the first time Tuesday that she backs hiking the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour after blasting former President Donald Trump for dodging a question about whether he wants to raise it.

As the two rivals race to win over voters in the final weeks of the campaign, Harris and Trump have both tried to demonstrate their support for working-class Americans. The federal minimum wage — which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009 — has become a talking point recently, especially after Trump temporarily worked as a fry attendant at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday.

While Harris has said for months that she would push to raise the minimum wage, she did not specify a threshold until asked by NBC News on Tuesday.

“At least $15 an hour, but we’ll work with Congress, right? That’s something that is going through Congress,” Harris told NBC as part of its interview with the candidate.

Trump, however, didn’t answer directly when asked during his brief stint at McDonald’s whether he thinks the federal minimum wage should be lifted, saying “Well, I think this: I think these people work hard, they’re great.”

Asked to respond to Harris’ support for a $15 minimum wage, the Trump campaign cited a statement from Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly that accused Harris of “lowering real wages and raising prices via reckless spending.”

Read more about the longtime Democratic goal of a $15 minimum wage here.

Election materials are displayed on a table at the Santa Clara County registrar of voters office on October 21 in San Jose, California.

The United States Postal Service touted strong election mail performance so far this month but is still urging voters to mail ballots early to avoid delivery delays.

During the first three weeks of October, USPS delivered 99.9% of mail-in ballots to election officials within seven days, and 99.7% within three days, Postal Service officials said during a press call Wednesday.

The Postal Service recommends voters put their ballot in the mail at least one week before Election Day to ensure it arrives on-time to be counted.

Ahead of Election Day, USPS said it has rolled out several “extraordinary measures” to address voter mail delays, including extra deliveries and pickups, local handling and transportation of ballots, and specialized sorting plans for election mail at postal service facilities.

Election officials have been raising red flags about mail delays and a potential impact on this November’s election for months.

“We have ongoing outreach and communication,” USPS Director of Election and Government Mail Services Adrienne Marshall said. “We’ve amplified that, of course, as we get closer to the election. Nationwide, we have excellent election mail performance, and when we are made aware of issues, then we jump right in and we resolve those and address those very quickly. We’ll continue to do that as we leading up to the general election.”

As communities in North Carolina and Florida recover from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, officials have raised concerns about election mail delivery for voters in impacted areas. Postal Service officials say they are down to 4,600 non-deliveries in North Carolina and 600 in Florida.

“We work with the election officials, and the election officials are also putting measures in place to ensure that that voters have the opportunity to vote, whether it’s through mail or through other means in those impacted areas,” USPS Executive Vice President Steve Monteith said.

President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly in May 2017 in Arlington, Virginia.

Vice President Kamala Harris warned Wednesday that former President Donald Trump would not have “people like John Kelly” to curb his tendencies in a potential second term.

She continued, “Those who once tried to stop him from pursing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to reign him in.”

Following Harris’ remarks, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the vice president a “stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing,” suggesting in a statement that her “dangerous rhetoric” has put Trump’s safety at risk.

Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Trump’s White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019, said in a series of interviews published Tuesday that the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

Harris’ response to Kelly’s remarks come with less than two weeks until Election Day as she continues to sharpen her message against her Republican rival and portray him as unfit for a second term.

Harris is scheduled to participate in a CNN presidential town hall later today outside Philadelphia, where she will take questions from a live audience of undecided and persuadable voters.

Clarification: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect what Kelly told The New York Times.

CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday accused rival Donald Trump of wanting “unchecked power” in response to comments by John Kelly, the former president’s onetime chief of staff, that Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

Speaking less than two weeks before Election Day, Harris said Kelly’s remarks offered a “window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best,” while also calling it “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler.”

Harris specifically criticized Trump’s alleged comment that he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had.”

Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, spoke about his onetime boss in a series of interviews published Tuesday. He also told The New York Times that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

Kelly confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II. Kelly also told The Times that Trump had praised Hitler: “He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’”

Trump’s team has denied that the former president praised Hitler and accused Kelly of fabricating stories. Responding to Harris’ remarks Wednesday, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the vice president a “stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing” and suggested her “dangerous rhetoric” has put Trump’s safety at risk.

Democrats have quickly seized on Kelly’s comments as warnings continue to pour out from former Trump White House aides about how the former president views the office and how he would exercise power if elected again.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said Tuesday night at a rally in Wisconsin that the reported comments about Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect what Kelly told The New York Times.

CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz declined to directly address reports that Russian operatives created and amplified false content online attempting to smear him, but said it’s “very clear” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants Donald Trump to win” November’s presidential election.

Walz was in St. Paul and casted his vote on Wednesday, afterward reporters asked the vice presidential nominee about reports that US intelligence agencies have assessed he is the subject of an effort by Russia to influence the presidential election through creating false online content.

Walz declined to address the specific details of the reporting but sought to link former president Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I got nothing to say on this misinformation, but it’s very clear the — Putin wants Donald Trump to win. Donald Trump wants Putin to win. And so, that’s all I would say,” Walz said.

Some background: US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday that Russian operatives created and amplified false online content in an attempt to smear Walz. Some posts circulating the fake content on X garnered hundreds of thousands of views and were amplified by right-wing personalities, in an episode that had echoes of the bizarre and false “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that attempted to smear Democrats in 2016.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Washington, DC, on October 23.

Vice President Kamala Harris again detailed her plans for immigrants who are seeking a pathway to US citizenship during a pretaped interview with Telemundo.

“We need smart, humane immigration policy in America that includes a pathway to citizenship, putting more resources at the border in terms of security, honoring America’s history as a country of immigrants, not vilifying people who are fleeing harm, but instead, creating an orderly system for them to actually be able to make their case. That’s where I stand,” Harris said to Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro.

Harris criticized Donald Trump for his extreme rhetoric around immigration as she drew a contrast with the former president on the issue.

“I stand on the principle that we should not be talking about immigrants as “poisoning the blood of America,” Harris said in reference to past comments from Trump that is often employed by White supremacists and nativists in comments that drew rebuke from civil rights groups.

The vice president stressed the importance of Latino voters ahead of Election Day as she seeks to shore up support from the key demographic.

“I cannot emphasize more strongly, the Latino vote in this election is very important. And I know well enough that the people that we are talking about believe in our country, love our country, are dedicated to its growth, its prosperity, and the opportunity that everyone should have to dignity and the ability to be treated with respect,” Harris said.

“That is not Donald Trump’s future. Donald Trump is trying to take us backward. He is not trying to take us forward,” she added.

Former President Donald Trump said he will be voting early in the November election, after expressing some hesitation and admitted that he’s feeling “very mixed” about how he wants to vote.

“I really feel, I’m very mixed, you know, I have the old standard of the Tuesday vote and all,” Trump said on Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade Show in an interview that aired Wednesday. “Voting early, I guess would be good. But, you know, people have different feelings about it. But the main thing is, you got to get out. You got to vote,” he added.

Asked which battleground state worries him the most, Trump said, “All of them, I mean, they cheat.”

He responded to former President Barack Obama’s comments that the reason the economy was strong under his presidency was because he inherited Obama’s economy. “We had a whole different thing, a whole different philosophy. My economy did good because I got the tax cuts,” Trump said.

Of his upcoming rally in Madison Square Garden, Trump said he chose the venue because, “We’re really looking to win New York, if we can.”

“We think there’s a chance of winning New York first time since, well, long time, many, many decades. And we think there’s a real chance with what’s going on, with the migrants taking over the city, taking over, the whole state, frankly,” he said.

He also predicted that the New York Yankees would beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally in support of Kamala Harris in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 22.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz thanked John Kelly, the retired Marine general and former chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, for coming forward in a series of interviews on Tuesday with revealing comments from the Republican presidential nominee that “fits into the general definition of fascist,” according to Kelly.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee added, “Look Donald Trump made it very clear that this is an election about Donald Trump taking full control of the military to use against his political enemies, taking full control of the Department of Justice to prosecute those who disagree with him, taking full control of the media on what is told and what is told to the American public.”

Walz said that he appreciated Kelly for revealing that Trump does not understand the Constitution or respect the rule of law. “If there was ever a red line, he has stepped across it, and so I appreciate General Kelly coming out at this moment,” Walz said.

Gold Star parent Khizr Khan on Wednesday called Donald Trump a “wannabe dictator” as he encouraged senior military officials to denounce the former president.

Khan — whose son, Humayun, was killed in Iraq in 2004 — was speaking with Jim Acosta on “CNN Newsroom” following statements by Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who said Trump is an admirer of authoritarians.

“(Military officials) must stand, and they must announce and denounce Donald Trump and his rhetoric and his threat to our democracy,” Khan told Acosta.

Khan said Kelly was fulfilling his oath to serve by highlighting a legitimate threat against democracy.

“Our flag officers, when they retire, their oath to defend the country does not expire,” Khan said. “They are under oath to defend verbally and stand up to defend our democracy and our country and our nation.”

Kelly said in an interview with The New York Times that was published on Tuesday that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said.

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement that Kelly had “totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The elder Khan emerged as a vociferous critic of Trump during the 2016 election, when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention and told the then-candidate that he has “sacrificed nothing” and accused him of “smearing the character” of religious minorities like his family.

In the interview with Acosta on Wednesday, Khan, who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, spoke of the nearing election in urgent terms.

“Trump has stated in public, by statements that … if he’s not elected, this will be end of democracy. So our democracy is under threat. Our founding values are under threat,” Khan said.

An updated CNN Poll of Polls average of national polling, released Wednesday morning, continues to find no clear leader in the presidential race, with an average of 50% of likely voters supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and 48% backing former President Donald Trump.

The latest average includes a YouGov/Times of London/SAY24 poll that finds Harris taking 48% to Trump’s 45% among likely voters nationally, within the survey’s margin of sampling error.

A new Monmouth University poll — which is not included in the average because it does not ask a question directly testing the candidates against one another — finds that 48% of registered voters say they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Harris, and 45% for Trump.

“Shifts of a single point can be consequential to the outcome but are beyond the ability of most polls to capture with any precision,” Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray wrote in the poll’s release. “The bottom line is this race is a toss-up and has been since August.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz enters the Ramsey County Elections office with his wife, Gwen, and son, Gus, to early vote in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, October 23.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz voted early in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, casting his ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris and himself, a campaign official told CNN.

Walz voted in-person at the Ramsey County Elections office in St. Paul, along with his wife, Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz, and his son Gus — who recently turned 18 and voted for the first time today.

As Walz finished filling out his ballot, he walked over to Gus and spoke with him as he filled out his ballot. The two of them together submitted their ballots into the vote processing machine. As Gus submitted his ballot, a poll worker announced that Gus had voted for the first time, prompting cheers from others at the polling place.

The Walzes voted for Democrats down the ticket, a campaign official told CNN, including for Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Betty McCollum.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a press conference in Atlanta on March 12.

A review of the millions of registered voters in Georgia found just 20 noncitizens were registered to vote, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday.

Those 20 people were removed from the state’s voter rolls – which total 8.2 million - and have been referred to local law enforcement, he said. “Georgia is a model when it comes to preventing noncitizen voting,” Raffensperger said, adding, “We need to remain constantly vigilant.”

Of the 20, nine had voted before and eleven had not, Raffensperger’s office said.

The findings underscore how rare it is for people who are not US citizens to register to vote. It’s illegal in federal elections and those who do register risk incarceration or deportation.

But former President Donald Trump and his conservative allies have latched onto the issue this election season, claiming it’s a widespread problem and that Democrats are relying on noncitizens to swing the election in their favor in November.

“There’s no proof that there is this overwhelming number of noncitizens on the rolls,” Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in Georgia Secretary of State’s office said Wednesday. “Because, the reality is, if you’re a noncitizen and you’re a legal resident and you’re on a path to citizenship, if you try to register to vote, you will never get to be a citizen. It is very high risk, very low reward for one vote thing.”

Raffensperger said his office has opened case files on another 156 individuals whose citizenship status requires additional human investigation.

Vice President Kamala Harris will attend a volunteer appreciation event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ahead of tonight’s CNN’s town hall, according to a campaign official.

The event will take place at a local deli, which the campaign called a staple of its community. Since Harris launched her presidential bid, volunteers in Pennsylvania have knocked on more than one million doors to reach voters across the Commonwealth, the campaign said.

Harris is set to take questions from voters during CNN’s town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper at 9 p.m. ET. The campaign is hoping to win over the support of persuadable voters in the final sprint to Election Day.

Today marks Harris’ second visit to battleground Pennsylvania this week. On Monday, she participated in a moderated conversation alongside former Rep. Liz Cheney in the suburban area of Chester County.

"I voted" stickers are seen during early voting on Wednesday, October 16, in Des Moines, Iowa.

In an election year like few others, the race for the White House is down to a thinly stretched wire — not unlike the nerves of anxious voters unclear on how a divided country will respond to the winner.

“We are in a generally heightened state of stress caused by events around the world,” said neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where research on Tibetan Buddhist practitioners found that meditation literally changed their brains.

Davidson also founded Healthy Minds Innovations, a nonprofit wellness organization that provides meditation and wellness guides on a free app. For the first time, wellness experts from Healthy Minds will be available live on election night, November 5, to provide meditation and stress busting tips, Davidson said in an email.

As the countdown to a new presidency unfolds, here are some expert-approved methods on how to handle anxiety and stress.

Read more about ways to cope with election season stress.

Donald Trump’s campaign has accused Britain’s governing party of “blatant foreign interference” in the US presidential election over a trip by its activists to help Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid, igniting a spat with one of Washington’s closest allies in the final stretches of the race.

A lawyer for the former president filed a complaint on Tuesday to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against both the UK’s Labour Party and the Harris campaign, after a Labour staffer wrote a LinkedIn post advertising a trip to the US on which “nearly 100 Labour Party staff” members would campaign for Harris in four key swing states.

Under FEC rules, foreign nationals are allowed to campaign for a US electoral candidate, but only “as an uncompensated volunteer.”

The spat has the potential to sour relations between Trump and Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has worked to remain neutral on the upcoming election.

Starmer told reporters on Wednesday that any Labour Party staffers involved in the trip were there in a personal capacity.

But the Trump campaign elevated the dispute in heightened language on Wednesday. Its co-manager, Susie Wiles, said that “Americans will once again reject the oppression of big government that we rejected in 1776” and described the center-left Labour as a “far-left” party that has “inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies.”

Keep in mind: The Trump campaign’s complaint does not contain any evidence that the individuals were compensated; instead it references the LinkedIn post and various media reporting, asking the FEC to investigate further.

Read the full story.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris faces the latest high-profile moment in her condensed candidacy as she heads Wednesday to the biggest battleground prize on the 2024 map – Pennsylvania – to field questions from one of the most coveted groups in the election – undecided and persuadable voters.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump is set to return to the trail with a pair of events in Georgia – a faith town hall in Zebulon and a rally in Duluth hosted by Turning Point Action – as he seeks to flip the state and its 16 electoral votes back to his column in November.

Town hall test: The CNN town hall in Delaware County outside Philadelphia comes at a critical point in the presidential race with 13 days until Election Day, more than 20 million votes already cast and Harris locked in an exceedingly close race with her Republican rival. The event falls on the same night as a proposed CNN debate between the two candidates that Harris accepted but Trump turned down.

In the closing days of the campaign the vice president has sharpened her attacks against the GOP nominee by questioning his fitness for office, while also warning about the serious policy consequences of a second Trump term, with an emphasis on the issue of reproductive rights.

For Harris, Wednesday marks her 95th day as a presidential candidate – a reminder of the reduced timeline she has had to introduce herself to voters. Her aim Wednesday will be to continue working to give voters a better understanding of who she is personally and where she stands politically, while at the same time reminding movable voters about the reasons they remain resistant to the former president.

Sounding the alarm: The vice president is not alone in sounding the alarm about the potential danger of a second Trump presidency. Some of the loudest warnings are coming from those who worked in his administration, including John Kelly, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff and Secretary of Homeland Security.

While Kelly had previously voiced concern about the former president, the decision to weigh in so forcefully in the final weeks of the election represented a stunning development. In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.”

The retired Marine general also recounted to The Atlantic an exchange where Kelly says Trump told him he wished US military personnel gave him the same deference that Adolf Hitler’s generals showed the Nazi dictator during World War II. A Trump campaign adviser denied Kelly’s claim, calling it “absolutely false.”

The Harris campaign quickly seized on the comments, with vice presidential nominee Tim Walz telling a crowd at a rally in Wisconsin that the episode proves Trump “is descending into madness.”

Focus on rhetoric: But it’s not just Trump’s reported comments from years ago that are drawing scrutiny in the final days of the election as the former president increasingly leans on inflammatory claims in media appearances and campaign events.

During an event Tuesday in Florida aimed at appealing to Latino voters, Trump attacked his Democratic rival with a racist trope, calling the vice president “lazy as hell” as he criticized her for not holding any public campaign events. Harris participated in a pair of television interviews Tuesday, a day after holding separate campaign events in each of the Blue Wall states.

The former president also told those gathered at his Doral golf resort that presidents “have extreme power” to be able to address immigration.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks on October 18 in Detroit.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin is touting former Rep. Liz Cheney’s endorsement of her Senate bid in Michigan, just after the former Republican congresswoman visited the state to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Slotkin is running against former Republican congressman Mike Rogers in a highly competitive race for retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat.

Slotkin notes that she was the first Democrat that Cheney endorsed during her 2022 congressional race against Tom Barrett, who’s running now to occupy the seat Slotkin is vacating.

Former President Barack Obama speaks at a rally on October 22 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Former President Barack Obama appeared on “The Young Man & the Three,” a basketball-focused podcast hosted by Indiana Pacers player Tyrese Haliburton, to encourage young people—particularly young men—to vote, saying “that’s the main message I have for folks. It’s not that hard to vote.”

Obama argued against “the idea that we wouldn’t just spend half an hour to vote,” before directly addressing young people, saying “you’re going to let a bunch of old people decide your future? You wouldn’t do that about your music, you wouldn’t do that about your clothes, but you’re going to let them decide what your future, your potential careers, what the environment’s going to look like, you’re going to let them decide that and you’re just going to opt out? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t think it’s any secret that I think Donald Trump is not somebody who is going to work hard on behalf of ordinary people. I think his agenda is basically about himself, his status, his ego,” Obama said about his successor in the Oval Office.

“We’re at one of these moments where we’ve got to kind of decide who we are as a country and what Kamala represents, what I tried to represent when I was president, is the belief that everybody in the country should have a fair shot, that we have some mutual obligations towards each other and that we’re part of a community, an American family,” he said, also pointing to the Affordable Care Act and health care initiatives in the Biden-Harris administration.

The Trump campaign and a top allied super PAC both launched new TV ads this morning, first airing in battleground Pennsylvania, highlighting comments from Vice President Kamala Harris on “The View” earlier this month that have become a major focus of GOP attacks.

On “The View,” Harris was asked by host Sunny Hostin, “Would you have done something differently than President Biden?,” and Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions.”

Harris’ answer was quickly seized on by GOP critics, eager to exploit the link between the vice president and outgoing President Joe Biden, with his approval rating stuck underwater. The Trump campaign launched its first ad featuring the clip on Oct. 16, and has since spent more than $13 million airing that spot.

And according to AdImpact data, Republican advertisers in the presidential race have spent more than $20 million so far this month airing broadcast TV ads replaying Harris’ answer, which has emerged as a key point of attack in the White House race’s closing sprint.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on October 17 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is trying to get Americans to see a second a second Donald Trump presidency as taking the country further off track and to view Harris as an acceptable agent of change in the final sprint to Election Day, a dozen top aides and outside allies told CNN.

As Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told top donors in Philadelphia during a retreat last week, they may not believe that the race could still be tied, but in the battleground states where the presidency will be won, it is.

Some of the outreach will include reviving Biden-style themes around Trump’s unfitness for office, trying to make the argument for a stable commander in chief while convincing wavering voters to make the leap toward electing the first Black female president.

But rather than moralistic and abstract messaging, Harris and her ads will focus on how much worse they believe a second Trump presidency would be. And in a way Biden never could, this would include more hammering of Trump as unfit for the presidency, specifically because of their claims that he is in mental and physical decline.

Reproductive rights will remain central, but the outreach will also keep pressing Harris’ biography and economic plans, convinced her campaign has real room to grow with non-college-educated White women repelled by Trump, who aides believe she can win if they feel she’s more middle class than radical left.

The team also expects to build on its efforts among seniors and maximize the enthusiasm for Harris among Black women, while pushing to grow support among Black men and Latinos.

US Democratic Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania speaks to UAW Local 677 members on October 20 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Wild holds a critical swing seat that could determine control of the House this cycle.

Bushy-bearded United Auto Workers leader Dan Vicente has watched first-hand as his fellow union workers have drifted away from the Democratic Party here in Pennsylvania.

He was almost one of them.

The plain-spoken UAW Region 9 director told a bustling hall on Sunday that he nearly voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Now, two elections later, Vicente said he’s still “not super into” either party but is backing Kamala Harris because she “at least comes from the working class.”

But he worries that Trump is still the one breaking through in many union shops like his.

The labor leader’s warning is yet another alarm bell for Democrats about their clout with labor nationally, which has been slipping for decades, according to interviews with more than a dozen union workers and local Democrats. Trump’s strength in places like eastern Pennsylvania have made it a far more urgent problem for Harris, whose ability to win the White House could come down to a few thousand votes here in the state.

Read more about the challenge Democrats face in courting union workers.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former President Donald Trump.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz accused Donald Trump of descending into “madness” on Tuesday, following a report that the former president pined for the loyalty of the “kind of generals that Hitler had.”

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate seized on the report in The Atlantic as top party figures warned of dark days ahead if Trump wins the presidency in 13 days given his often-expressed autocratic instincts.

A tense atmosphere around a neck-and-neck election ratcheted up significantly following the article by Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg that said Trump had noted in a private conversation while president: “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” The report was substantiated in the article by Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly. Trump’s alleged fixation with Hitler was also supported by material in several books, including one by CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

In a separate interview with The New York Times, Kelly said Trump fit the definition of a fascist.

During a rally in Wisconsin, Walz capitalized on new suggestions of Trump’s extremism on a day when other senior Democratic figures raised what they see as the dire specter of an unchained Trump second term as they try to rally support for Harris.

“Don’t be the frog in the boiling water and think this is okay,” the Minnesota governor, who served in the Army National Guard, said, referring to the revelations in The Atlantic.

Read the full analysis.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a town hall on October 21 in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Vice President Kamala Harris will take questions at a CNN presidential town hall tonight at 9 p.m. ET in the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania.

The event, which will be moderated by Anderson Cooper, will take place outside of Philadelphia and feature an audience of undecided and persuadable voters.

It comes as the vice president is working to make her final pitch to voters with less than two weeks to go until Election Day — especially to voters in battleground states who have not yet made up their mind.

CNN also invited former President Donald Trump to participate in a town hall, but he declined.

“(Donald) Trump may want to hide from the voters, but Vice President Harris welcomes the opportunity to share her vision for a New Way Forward for the country. She is happy to accept CNN’s invitation for a live, televised town hall on October 23 in Pennsylvania,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said previously in a statement.

The network previously proposed a debate between Harris and Trump in Atlanta on October 23. Harris quickly accepted the invite, but Trump repeatedly shrugged it off, despite the Harris campaign’s attempts to goad him into participating.

CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed reporting to this post.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

There are less than two weeks until Election Day, and the candidates are hitting battleground states as they try to get voters to the polls.

Former President Donald Trump will be in Georgia on Wednesday, while Vice President Kamala Harris heads to Pennsylvania for a CNN town hall tonight.

Here’s a rundown of today’s campaign events:

Harris: CNN will moderate a live CNN presidential town hall with the vice president on Wednesday from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. The town hall will be moderated by Anderson Cooper and begin at 9 p.m. ET.

Harris will take questions from undecided an persuadable voters in the audience. It comes as Harris is working to continue to make her case to the American people as early voting is already underway in many states.

Tim Walz will join an interview with Univision Radio before travelling to Louisville, Kentucky for a fundraiser.

Trump: The former president will deliver keynote remarks at a “Georgia for Trump” rally in Duluth on Wednesday. The event is hosted by Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action.

JD Vance will be in Nevada to speak in Las Vegas and Reno.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton will hold a campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, where he will encourage Arizonans to vote for the Harris-Walz ticket.

Clinton has been campaigning in battleground states for Harris, as has former President Barack Obama.

With 14 days to go before Election Day, more than 20.2 million Americans have already cast their ballots in the November election, either by mail or through early in-person voting, getting a head start on shaping the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

CNN is monitoring who is casting pre-election ballots in the 36 states that offer early voting, as well as how early voting numbers compare with four years ago, when pre-election voting reached historic levels during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Democrats held a wide advantage over Republicans in early voting four years ago, but the gap could be narrower this time as top Republican officials urge supporters to embrace voting before Election Day on November 5.

Here are the pre-election voting breakdowns, by party preference, in key battleground states where registration information is available: