October 21, 2024, presidential campaign news

Former President Donald Trump on Monday argued Vice President Kamala Harris campaigning with Republican Liz Cheney would hurt her with Arab American voters.

Cheney’s opposition to Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – including her vote to impeach him – led the House GOP to oust her as conference chair and replace her with a top Trump ally, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Cheney went on to serve as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and later crossed the aisle to endorse Harris.

Cheney was campaigning Monday with Harris in three Great Lakes swing states.

Former President Donald Trump said “you have to be able to speak,” when asked about a North Carolina man’s arrest earlier this month for allegedly threatening harm against Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees and whether Trump’s claims about the agency were helping the recovery effort.

“Well, I think you have to let people know how they’re doing. If they were doing a great job, I think we should say that too because I think they should be rewarded, but if they’re not doing, does that mean that, if they’re doing a poor job we’re supposed to not say it,” Trump said.

Trump said, “You have to be able to speak. Does that mean let’s not talk about it? Because by doing that, they’ll do a better job the next time.”

William Jacob Parsons, 44, was arrested the weekend of October 12 in Rutherford County and charged with Going Armed to the Terror of the Public, a misdemeanor

More on Trump’s claims: Trump has made several false claims about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, including one he repeated on Monday about how money that was appropriated for disaster response was used on undocumented immigrants. Trump also falsely claimed that the Biden administration’s response to the hurricane has been roundly criticized despite the response receiving bipartisan praise, including from Republican governors.

Rutherford County is southeast of the hard-hit Asheville area.

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21 in Chicago.

Geoff Duncan, a Republican and former Georgia lieutenant governor, is making a final push to convince swing state voters in his party to vote for Kamala Harris.

He said Republicans who are unhappy with Donald Trump should vote for Harris “not because they are Democrats, not because they plan to be a Democrat, but because they want to be a patriot.”

Duncan, who has endorsed Harris, said the former president is a “boat anchor around Republicans neck” and that Trump does not represent what Republicans stand for.

He said he and other Republican officials who are backing Harris are “truly, genuinely embarrassed every time (Trump) sees a microphone or a camera, every time he walks and talks to the military, every time he speaks about faith, every time he talks about fiscal conservatism — he’s a fraud.”

Some background: Duncan delivered a speech on the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August at which he said that after Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election, he realized the former president was a “direct threat to democracy.”

Before Harris became the Democratic nominee, Duncan said that he was going to vote for President Joe Biden.

Poll workers help voters inside an early voting site on October 17 in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday expressed confidence in North Carolina’s voting system as the state grapples with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Trump, who spoke to reporters in an area of Asheville, that had significant storm damage, was asked: “Is there any concern or specific reasoning that you have to believe at this point in time … that the results of the election in North Carolina will not be credible or legitimate because of the storm’s aftermath?”

The former president also praised Michael Whatley, who serves as the chair of the Republican National Committee and previously served as the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. Trump said Whatley, who attended his remarks Monday, called him to tell him that “they’re setting records in North Carolina voting.”

“It’s just that they’re great people. I mean, they lost their house and they’re standing outside voting,” Trump said adding, “Voting is the least of it right now. They gotta vote, they want to vote because it’s very important but they have to survive. That’s why I can’t believe the early voting, the early voting is records.”

Trump’s remarks come after the Trump campaign asked North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who is a Democrat, and the state legislature to expand voter access for those affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections reported a strong turnout last week, saying more than 200,000 early voting ballots were cast as of Thursday afternoon, the day early in-person voting began in the state.

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney on Monday appeared to take issue with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision ending the constitutional right to an abortion, saying that women can’t get the care they need. Cheney initially supported the decision when it was handed down in 2022.

The event with Cheney and Harris was the first of several as the vice president’s campaign courts Republicans and independents in key swing states.

“I think this is not an issue that we’re seeing break down across party lines, but I think we’re seeing people come together to say what has happened to women, when women are facing situations where they can’t get the care they need,” Cheney said. “That’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”

In 2022, the former Wyoming congresswoman approved of the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v Wade, saying she has “always been strongly pro-life” and that the ruling “returns power to the states and the people of the states to address the issue of abortion under state law.”

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s campaigns are putting money and time into trying to motivate voters to turn out to the polls, the director of the center for politics at University of Virginia said.

With just 15 days to go until Election Day, Larry Sabato told CNN that even the smallest fractions of a percentage could make a difference. The presidential race remains tight nationwide and a new poll shows voters are closely split between the candidates in seven swing states.

He said when he looks at undecided voters, he sees that they are conflicted and “a lot of them will decide not to vote because they are conflicted.” Sabato said for this reason, undecided voters won’t make much of a difference — underscoring why it is so critical for the candidates to motivate others to get to the polls.

Sabato said the Harris campaign and Democrats have a “superb get out the vote effort,” while the Trump campaign has been delegating those efforts to other organizations.

Harris “has a big edge in money and a lot of that is going to be invested, or already has been invested, in voter contact and get out the vote,” Sabato said.

President Joe Biden listens as David Mitchell, not pictured, President and Founder, Patients for Affordable Drugs, speaks about lowering prescription drug costs at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, on December 14, 2023.

President Joe Biden and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road together in New Hampshire on Tuesday to promote the administration’s efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs, a White House official says.

The president is also expected to make a stop by the state’s coordinated campaign office working to elect Vice President Kamala Harris and other New Hampshire Democrats in November. The state is leaning blue in the presidential contest and is home to the country’s most competitive governor’s race.

More context: Biden so far has participated in very few traditional campaign events since dropping out of the presidential race in July. Instead, he’s focused mostly on official White House travel to battleground states to promote popular agenda items, including this upcoming appearance with Sanders, who twice won the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire.

The former rivals who were previously on opposite ends of the health care debate have teamed up for a prescription drug costs event in the past.

National Democrats’ top Senate super PAC is making its first, limited move into Texas after refraining from spending on the race for months.

Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, announced in a news release on Monday that it would begin a “multi-million dollar digital and radio investment” in the Texas race between Democratic Rep. Colin Allred and incumbent GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.

The group notably excluded TV advertising — traditionally the largest component of most political advertisers’ budgets — from its announcement and said its campaign would “focus on reaching targeted voters statewide.”

The Texas Senate race has loomed as a potential offensive opportunity for Democrats, under pressure to expand a challenging map — though the party has been restrained to invest heavily in the race after Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s narrow 2018 loss to Cruz.

In late September, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced that it would launch a multi-million dollar on the race, but SMP, the leading super PAC, initially declined to follow.

Despite the lack of outside support, Allred — a prolific fundraiser — has bombarded Cruz with advertising, outspending him by about $73 million to $18 million since the start of 2024, through today.

Including the outside support to date, Democrats have outspent Republicans on the race by about $85 million to $48 million, with a few GOP groups giving Cruz a lift, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, so far, spending about $11.6 million on a joint buy with Allred.

For the final two weeks, Republicans are set to reverse that dynamic, with about $7.8 million in remaining ad bookings, compared to about $1.7 million for Democrats. Those numbers could change as more outside support flows in, and the new spending from SMP is placed, but the DSCC does not currently have any remaining ad bookings, and Allred’s campaign accounts for virtually all of the existing Democratic reservations.

Top attorneys for Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote cease-and-desist letters sent by Florida’s health department threatening to criminally prosecute local TV stations over their airing of an abortion rights ad, the department’s former general counsel said in court documents.

In an affidavit filed on Monday, John Wilson, the former general counsel for Florida’s Department of Health, said that Sam Elliot, a top attorney for the DeSantis administration, provided him with pre-written letters to the TV stations on October 3. Wilson was directed by Ryan Newman and Jed Doty, both general counsel for the DeSantis administration, to send the letters under his own name, he stated in the affidavit.

Wilson resigned from his post the following week, a decision he said he made “in lieu of complying with directives from Newman and Doty to send out further correspondence to the media outlets,” after the threats to local outlets ignited outrage.

Some background: Wilson’s allegations come after local TV stations began airing an ad by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the state’s “Yes on 4 Campaign,” promoting a ballot measure seeking to overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban by enshrining abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

Following the cease-and-desist letters, Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit last week against Wilson and Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, accusing the pair of engaging in “unconstitutional coercion and viewpoint discrimination” while pressing the court to block them from following up on their threats.

On Thursday, a federal judge agreed that the department’s threats constituted “viewpoint discrimination,” granting a temporary restraining order against Ladapo.

Spokespersons for DeSantis and the Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to CNN requests for comment.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz attacked tech billionaire Elon Musk for pledging to give away $1 million daily to registered voters in battleground states, arguing that Musk’s gambit comes from Republicans having “no plan for the public.”

When asked on ABC’s “The View” about the giveaway, which has drawn scrutiny from some election law experts, Walz avoided discussing its legality but said Musk is engaging in “these type of tactics” to convince voters to support former president Donald Trump rather than address critical issues. Musk has endorsed Trump and has given more than $75 million to prop up his pro-Trump super PAC.

Throughout the interview, Walz contrasted Harris’ vision with Trump’s and portrayed the former president as dangerous and unfit for the presidency. He also again attacked Trump for suggesting he would use the military to go after political opponents and tried to compare that to Harris’ vision for an “opportunity economy.”

“I think what you’re seeing in these final days, it is going to be close, but this is where people are making up their mind, and it’s very clear that, as you said, Donald Trump is spiraling down, unhinged,” he said.

Sen. Deb Fisher and Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn.

In another sign of the intensifying campaign for control of the Senate, a top GOP super PAC made its first ad buy today for a race in Nebraska that has emerged as an unexpectedly competitive contest.

Senate Leadership Fund, the leading GOP super PAC engaged in Senate races, bought about $700,000 worth of ad time to support GOP incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer in Nebraska, with reservations beginning this week and stretching through Election Day.

It’s a major infusion of Republican cash into a race that before this year was not on either party’s radar. But Independent candidate Dan Osborn, on the back of several buzzy ads and anti-establishment animus, has prompted some GOP anxiety, reflected in the new advertising buys. Earlier this month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee also entered the race and has spent nearly $1 million buying ad time so far, according to AdImpact data.

Some outside groups with links to national Democrats have engaged in the race to support Osborn, however, providing fodder for GOP attacks. Retire Career Politicians, a super PAC that has spent nearly $12 million on pro-Osborne ad buys, has received several six-figure contributions from a series of dark money groups that includes the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a hub for Democratic political financing.

Nebraska is a reliably red state, and Fischer is seeking her third term after winning reelection in 2018 by nearly 20 points. Osborn faces steep odds in his fight for an upset victory, but National Republicans appear willing to take no chances, illustrated by the new ad buys from SLF, which is also under pressure to boost GOP efforts in a series of other top battleground contests.

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the damage and federal response to Hurricane Helene on October 21 in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday visited hurricane relief workers in North Carolina — where he said he can relate to their hard work because of his campaign schedule.

Trump added: “We didn’t have to be. A lot of them didn’t have to be. I didn’t have to be. I could have been on a beautiful beach, but I’d much rather be right here with you, because we’re going to turn the country around.”

Trump discussed visiting a McDonald’s and the Sunday Night Football game featuring the Steelers and Jets.

Local residents line up to enter a polling site on the first day of early in-person voting in a region still severely impacted by the storm, in Asheville, North Carolina, U.S. October 17, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

As former President Donald Trump hits the campaign trail in battleground North Carolina over the next two days, more than one million votes have been cast early in the Tar Heel State, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Just under 940,000 voters have voted early in person so far, while about 92,000 have cast their ballot by mail.

Compared to this point in 2020, early voting turnout is down nearly 40 percent.

Democrats account for 35% of early votes cast, followed by Republicans (33%) and unaffiliated voters (31%).

At this point four years ago, Democrats accounted for 44% of early votes, followed by unaffiliated voters (31%) and Republicans (24%) according to Catalist.

While early in-person voting is slightly higher than it was at this point in 2020, according to state data, the number of ballots cast by mail is down significantly from the pandemic-era 2020 levels. There has also been a shorter period of mail voting this year, as the state delayed mailing ballots to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name.

Nationally, more than 13.5 million pre-election ballots have already been cast as of Monday morning.

That’s according to data from 45 states gathered by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit advocacy groups, including insights into who is voting before November.

This post has been updated with more details on the North Carolina figures.

Vice President Kamala Harris, left, holds a moderated conversation with former Rep. Liz Cheney at People's Light performing arts theater Malvern, Pennsylvania, on October 21.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday vowed that her administration “will not be a continuation” of President Joe Biden’s.

Harris was asked by moderator Sarah Longwell in Malvern, Pennsylvania, during a conversation with Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney what her vows to “turn the page” as president mean.

The vice president responded: “Well, first of all, I will say that it is a metaphor that is meant to also describe my intention to embark on a new generation of leadership.”

“And needless to say,” the vice president added, “mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.”

More about the campaign swing: The vice president on Monday is holding a series of events in three vote-rich suburban Blue Wall counties where she will be joined by Cheney as she seeks to win over independent and Republican voters.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said that under a potential Harris administration, Medicare expansion and home care benefits for seniors would be handled differently compared to the Biden administration.

During an interview on ABC’s “The View,” Walz was asked to point to a policy decision made by President Joe Biden that would have been made differently under a potential Harris administration. He referred to Harris’ proposal to expand Medicare and other policies “focusing on the care economy” as examples, while praising the Biden administration for managing the post-pandemic economy.

“I think she’s — this expansion on Medicare is something that I wish would have been proposed sooner. But look, they’re — they’re tackling the issues that they needed to. They came out of a pandemic that Donald Trump had left a mess for, an economy with supply chains that were broken,” Walz said. “But I think focusing on this care economy. The two things that the Vice President proposed that I hear everywhere, especially in rural America, is this issue of affordability on child care and the ability of seniors to get health care, protecting that.”

Walz also highlighted the campaign’s proposals to incentivize health care workers to move into rural communities, to ease access to credit for first-time home buyers and to expand the child tax credit as part of his argument that Harris will be “her own leader.” He again stressed he isn’t being “pejorative” toward Biden for not addressing those issues during his presidency.

Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald Ford and former First Lady Betty Ford, speaks in Washington, DC, on March 6.

Susan Ford Bales, the daughter of late Republican president Gerald Ford, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday.

She noted in a statement that when her father was sworn into office in the wake of former President Richard Nixon’s resignation, “the nation was in need of a serious, compassionate and honorable leader who had the courage to do what was right and always to defend our Constitution.”

“Vice President Harris and I likely disagree on some policy matters, but her integrity and commitment to those same principles that guided Dad have led me to conclude that Kamala Harris should be elected 47th President of the United States,” she continued.

The endorsement by Ford Bales, a Republican who lives in Grand Rapids, comes as Harris makes a multi-battleground state swing with Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney in an attempt to reach out to GOP voters who are turned off by former President Donald Trump. Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also endorsed Harris this year.

Harris and Cheney will hold an event in Oakland County in Michigan later on Monday, following stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Monday said he thinks voters will differentiate his past misstatements about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests from Donald Trump’s constant false statements, calling the former president “a pathological liar.”

Walz, asked by “The View” co-host and CNN commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin about misstatements he’s admitted making about his whereabouts during the pro-democracy protests, responded “I think people do separate that between a pathological liar like Donald Trump.”

But the Democratic vice presidential nominee admitted some degree of fault for his previous misstatements: “I do think it’s important that we’re careful about how we speak.”

While Walz said he has a tendency to “speak in the moment,” he added that the public is exposed to a “massive amount of misinformation that gets poured out there,” so “it is important to be detailed.”

Rep. Jared Golden poses for a portrait in his office on Thursday, July 27, 2023 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden launched a new TV ad this morning showing how some of the party’s vulnerable members are working their messaging to appeal to crossover voters, touting how he “stood up to Biden” and “worked with the Trump administration.”

Golden represents Maine’s 2nd congressional district, a largely rural seat that’s ranked as a top battleground in recent cycles, and his race is one of national Republicans’ top targets as they look for offensive opportunities to shore up their razor-thin majority.

Under pressure to pick up votes from Independents and Republicans, Golden’s new ad details his work in Congress on behalf of key Maine constituencies, including lobsterman and loggers, and includes references to some of the top motivating issues for conservative voters, including illegal immigration and border security.

“Washington wasn’t listening to me. So we brought Maine to Washington to deliver the message together,” Golden says in the ad. “We stood up to Biden to protect Maine lobstermen, worked with the Trump administration to build a vein treatment center, delivered $1 million to train Maine loggers, and worked with Republicans to secure our border and fund our police. And we’re just getting started.”

Golden’s campaign has consistently emphasized independence and highlighted breaks with his party, and specifically his efforts on behalf of Maine lobsterman, as he’s waged his battleground campaign.

Since September 11, the day after the final set of congressional primaries, through yesterday, Golden’s race in Maine’s 2nd congressional district ranks 6th among all House contests seeing the most ad spending; Democrats outspent Republicans by about $9.3 million to $8.5 million during that stretch.

Over the final two weeks of the race, however, Republicans are poised to seize the edge, with about $3.4 million in remaining ad bookings, to about $2.6 million for Democrats.

Golden is facing GOP nominee Austin Theriault, a former NASCAR driver who was among national Republicans prized recruits. In his ads, Theriault has focused on criticizing Democrats’ economic record, slamming inflation, and promoting his unique background.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Monday said the question of whether Donald Trump would use the military to suppress his political rivals if he were reelected president is “a legitimate one.”

Asked on “The View” about Trump’s recent statements that he would use the National Guard against an “enemy from within,” Walz responded that “the guardrails are off” when it comes to Trump.

“It’s pretty foundational to our democracy that the person who’s in charge can’t use the military to suppress their political rivals,” Walz said. The Democratic vice presidential nominee said laws like the Insurrection Act serve as guardrails that prevent presidents from using the military against their own civilians.

“These are constitutional guardrails,” Walz said. “And I think what we saw with Senator Vance’s answer about the 2020 election is the guardrails are off with Donald Trump right now. And I think we know that.”

Nella Domenici and Sen. Martin Heinrich.

National Democrats made their first advertising buy for the New Mexico Senate race on Monday, sending money to the defense of another member while already under pressure to compete on a challenging map.

According to AdImpact data, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee bought about $96,000 worth of ad time in New Mexico beginning tomorrow and running through the end of the month, in a joint ad buy supporting incumbent Sen. Martin Heinrich.

More about the race: Heinrich is seeking a third term in traditionally blue New Mexico, but he’s facing a Republican challenger, Nella Domenici, with deep roots in the state, as the daughter of the longtime former New Mexico GOP Senator Pete Domenici.

To date, the New Mexico race has seen very little activity from outside groups, and while the DSCC’s ad buy could be a precautionary defensive move, it could also reflect growing concern among Democrats about a potentially expanding map.

How Republicans compare: The group’s GOP counterpart, the National Republican Senate Committee, has spent about $1.4 million on the race in a joint ad buy with Domenici, and began running ads in in August; the NRSC had its largest bookings the week of October 8, when it ran about $347,000 worth of advertising, up with ads slamming Heinrich’s record on immigration and crime.

Since the start of 2024, and including bookings through Election Day, Democrats have outspent Republicans on advertising for the New Mexico Senate race by a total of $7.3 million to $6.2 million; the candidates account for most of the advertising, Heinrich’s campaign spending about $5.9 million, Domenici’s campaign spending about $4.6 million, not including its joint ad buy with the NRSC.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally in Papillion, Nebraska, on October 19.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Monday said some of Donald Trump’s recent comments are “so strange that they’re hard to imagine.”

Asked on “The View” by co-host Joy Behar about Trump’s lewd comments about golfer Arnold Palmer over the weekend, the Democratic vice presidential nominee responded: “It’s very clear that, as you said, Donald Trump is spiraling down, unhinged.”

But he added that other recent comments made by Trump trouble him more.

“What worries me about these comments, some of these that are just so strange that they’re hard to imagine — it’s the dangerous ones in the middle of that, ‘the enemy from within’ and some of that.”

Walz then sought to turn the conversation toward his campaign’s pitch of an opportunity economy.

Former President Donald Trump taped an interview with Fox News at a barbershop in the Bronx and took questions from men in the shop and Fox News host Lawrence Jones.

In the interview, which aired Monday, someone in the shop asked Trump what his plans were to address “food health care industry and getting the artificial foods banned in our urban communities that have less access to organic whole foods.”

“So, Bobby Kennedy, right, everybody likes Bobby. And he’s so big into the health food and women things, everything. He wants to do things in the environment, and he endorsed me,” Trump said, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “He would be so perfect, he doesn’t like artificial foods and he doesn’t like pesticides and all the stuff they put on em.”

“So no artificial foods, we don’t want our, we have plenty of food. The food isn’t our problem, and our farmers are great,” Trump said.

Trump, who has vowed to abolish the Department of Education, said, “I want one person and a secretary to just make sure they’re teaching English.” He said he wanted to see “reading, writing and arithmetic” taught in schools.

Trump repeated the false claim he often says on the campaign trail about how schools are secretly providing gender-affirming surgeries for children.

Democrats have outspent Republicans on advertising for the presidential race across the board since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the ticket — but that’s set to change over the final two weeks of the contest, with Donald Trump and his allies poised to seize the edge in a few key battleground states.

According to AdImpact data, Republicans have about $43 million worth of ad time booked for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania from tomorrow through Election Day, while Democrats have about $38 million reserved, an advantage of about $5.2 million.

And in North Carolina, Republicans are set to outspend Democrats by about $2.2 million for the final fourteen days, $18.3 million to $16.1 million, after weeks of Harris and her allies pouring money into the state – Democrats had outspent Republicans in North Carolina by more than $18 million during the first three weeks of October.

Democrats have more ad bookings in the five other top swing states for the last two weeks until Election Day – Harris and her allies lead by $2.3 million in Michigan, $7.2 million in Georgia, $5.3 million in Arizona, $4.4 million in Wisconsin, and about $649,000 in Nevada.

Future ad bookings are subject to change, and the campaigns and their allies can be expected to continue pouring money into the race, altering the current balance. But the totals as of this morning are a departure from previous weeks, when Democrats widely outspent Democrats across all seven key battlegrounds.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump enter the final 15-day sprint to Election Day locked in an exceedingly close race nationally and across the seven battleground states where they are spending the bulk of their time and resources with both candidates holding onto multiple pathways to victory in November.

The map: Harris and Trump are zeroing in on those seven pivotal battlegrounds with events aimed at targeting key groups of voters whose support could prove decisive in an election with razor-thin margins. The vice president on Monday is set to hold a series of events in three vote-rich suburban Blue Wall counties where she will be joined by former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney as she seeks to win over independent and Republican voters who remain resistant to the former president but may still hold reservations about her candidacy.

Chester County, Pennsylvania, and Oakland County, Michigan, are two areas that saw Joe Biden expand the Democratic advantage from Hillary Clinton’s performance in 2016, while Waukesha County, Wisconsin, is a longtime GOP stronghold that has shown signs of erosion for Republicans during the Trump era.

Trump is set to hold three events in North Carolina, the state that provided him with his narrowest margin of victory four years ago. The state’s 16 electoral votes are critical to the former president’s pathway to victory in November. If Harris were able to flip the Tar Heel State — which hasn’t backed a Democrat at the presidential level since Barack Obama in 2008 — it would mean Trump would need to pull back at least one of the Blue Wall states in addition to the rest of the Sun Belt contests in order to win the White House.

The money: When it comes to political campaigns — money isn’t everything — but it still matters. The latest fundraising reports show Harris started October with $346 million in reserve across her political operation, far outpacing the nearly $285 million in funds available to her Republican rival. The vice president’s main campaign committee more than tripled the sum raised by Trump in September, allowing it to press that advantage in paid messaging. David Wright and Fredreka Schouten report the Harris campaign spent about $196 million on advertising in September compared to $73 million by Trump, according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact.

The message: Harris and Trump spent the weekend sharpening their attacks as the closing arguments of both candidates take shape in the closing days of the campaign.

For Harris, the strategy is centered around amplifying Trump’s rhetoric, using his comments from interviews and campaign appearances to portray her Republican rival as unfit for the presidency. The former president, meanwhile, is embracing increasingly inflammatory rhetoric and tactics aimed at discrediting his Democratic opponent as he closes out his third bid for the presidency. On Sunday, Trump’s campaign staged an event at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, where the former president briefly made fries as he claimed without evidence that Harris had never worked at the fast food established as she has claimed. A campaign official told CNN that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in California during the summer of 1983 when she was still a student at Howard University.

The Supreme Court brushed aside an appeal Monday from Michael Cohen, the one-time fixer for Donald Trump, who accused the former president of retaliating against him for promoting a critical tell-all book.

Without comment, the justices declined to hear the case, leaving in place decisions from lower courts that had dismissed Cohen’s lawsuit.

Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and other federal officials in 2021 for alleged retaliation in response to public comments he made about the book.

After declining to sign an agreement barring him from speaking with the media, Cohen was taken back into custody — after initially being released during the pandemic — and placed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks, court records show.

A US District Court dismissed Cohen’s lawsuit for damages, and the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in January.

Underscoring the uphill fight Cohen faced, both Trump and the Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to reject his appeal. Trump’s attorneys called the case “entirely devoid of merit.” The Justice Department said Cohen made “no meaningful effort to show that the legal issues raised by this case recur in other cases” and that his claim was therefore “outside the mainstream” of the court’s role.

This February 2022 photo shows packs of various condoms on a shelf of a convenience store in Washington, DC.

Vice President Kamala Harris touted a newly announced proposed administration rule that would require private insurance plans to cover over-the-counter contraception without a prescription at no cost and criticized congressional Republicans.

Reproductive health has emerged as a key issue in the race for the White House in the wake of the Dobbs decision and has featured prominently on the campaign trail.

She added: “President Biden and I stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support access to contraception.”

Voters make selections at their voting booths inside an early voting site on October 17, in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

The presidential candidates will bring their pitches to voters in critical battleground states on Monday as the race for the White House enters its final leg with just 15 days to go until Election Day.

Here are some of the key campaign events to watch for today:

• Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in a moderated conversation with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney in Malvern, Pennsylvania, this morning. The conversation is a part of a series happening in “Blue Wall” battleground states. The vice president is also expected to make stops in Michigan and Wisconsin as part of the series on Monday.

• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is in New York and will participate in a live interview on ABC’s “The View.” An interview taped for the “The Daily Show” will air at 11 p.m. ET.

• Former President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, this evening. Earlier in the day Trump is also expected to deliver remarks to reporters in Swannanoa, North Carolina. The former president will also address faith leaders in Concord.

• Ohio Sen. JD Vance will be participating in closed-door events in Dallas, Texas, today and is then expected to travel to Arizona.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ political operation entered the final full month of the election with a substantial cash advantage over former President Donald Trump’s network, campaign reports filed Sunday night show.

The Democrat began October with $346 million in the coffers of the committees she controls with the national Democratic Party, surpassing the nearly $285 million available to her Republican rival for the final sprint to Election Day, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covering the month of September.

Harris has consistently outraised Trump since entering the race for the White House in late July and quickly collected $1 billion in support of her candidacy — a pace unmatched by any previous presidential contender. Last month, her principal campaign committee outraised Trump’s by a more than 3-to-1 margin, the new filings show.

But Harris campaign aides have struck a cautious tone — saying they need to keep raising money at a fast clip to remain competitive, given the truncated window for Harris to introduce herself to voters and the growing sums that Trump’s billionaire supporters have injected into the contest.

Read the full story.

First lady Jill biden embraces her husband President Joe Biden following his remarks at the DNC on Monday, August 19.

First lady Jill Biden in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” said it was the “right call” for President Joe Biden not to run for reelection.

She made the comments as part of a broader interview highlighting the expanded and updated White House Public Tour that she will be unveiling later today.

When asked what legacy she wants to leave as first lady, Biden pointed to the important role of education.

“Education has been my life’s work. It’s important to me that people learn. And learn about the white house, about the presidency, learn about our government and our democracy and how blessed we are to live in America,” she said.

Former President Donald Trump, speaks during a town hall campaign event at the Lancaster County Convention Center on October 20 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Even by his haywire standards, Donald Trump’s latest rhetoric and behavior is erratic, autocratic and vulgar and hints at four years of unpredictable leadership that may lie ahead if he’s elected president in 15 days.

Vice President Kamala Harris and top Democrats are seizing on the Republican nominee’s bizarre antics to inject new urgency and a sharper focus into her campaign. Democrats are suggesting that he is “unstable” and showing cognitive decline, using the same critique he once used against President Joe Biden. The Harris campaign, for example, immediately highlighted the 78-year-old Trump saying on Sunday that he’s “not that close to 80” when calling for cognitive tests.

The former president this weekend described Harris as a “sh*t” vice president, opened a rally with a rambling and explicit story about late golfing legend Arnold Palmer’s anatomy, and justified his previous threat to use the military on enemies “from within” even as House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump meant nothing of the sort.

Yet Trump’s years of trashing expectations of presidential behavior have seemed to offer him a kind of immunity from the ramifications of what would be career-ending actions for most other politicians. The twice-impeached, once-convicted ex-president’s outlandish displays only underscore his anti-establishment authenticity for millions of Americans who adore him.

His alarming behavior may look to some like a candidacy melting down when the pressure is at its most extreme. But the election may be decided by other factors.

With polls deadlocked, Trump’s behavior hasn’t yet disqualified him. And he consistently leads surveys when voters are asked who they most trust to manage high prices for housing and groceries and to handle immigration.

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

A new set of Washington Post-Schar School polls in seven key states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — finds likely voters in each state closely split between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the race for the presidency.

The polls, conducted Sept. 30 through Oct. 15, did not ask a traditional horserace question, but instead measured voters’ likelihood of voting for each candidate separately.

In each of the states, the share of likely voters saying they’ll “definitely” or “probably” support Harris and the share who say they’ll “definitely” or “probably” support Trump is within the margin of error for that state.

The Post-Schar poll, which conducted a May survey in each swing state but North Carolina, finds that Trump’s level of support has remained roughly steady since then, while the share of voters who say they’re likely to support Harris outpaces the share who formerly said they were likely to back President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate.

The survey suggests that about 21% of swing state likely voters are not yet fully committed to Harris or Trump, with those voters more likely to be younger or voters of color.

Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney greet attendees during a campaign event at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, on Thursday, October 3.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making an aggressive bid to win over independents and moderate Republicans in the suburbs, visiting vote-rich counties in three Great Lakes swing states Monday with former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

In the presidential race’s closing days, Harris’ campaign is courting a small but potentially decisive group across what it sees as similar terrain in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — a trio of battleground states that tipped the 2016 race for Donald Trump but swung back in Democrats’ favor in 2020.

They’re the kinds of voters who might have backed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose supporters in the 2024 Republican primary tended to be moderate and college-educated. And the push to reach them comes as Trump says he expects to deploy Haley in the race’s final stretch.

The blitz of the “blue wall” states will see Harris and Cheney travel to suburban counties of Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin. The conversations will be moderated by Bulwark publisher and Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, and Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator who for decades shaped Wisconsin politics with his talk radio show before declaring in 2016 that the conservative movement had lost its way. Both support Harris. 

Read more as Harris and Cheney travel across Blue Wall states to court undecided voters.

Campaign signs and empty water bottles are seen on the ground of a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The House task force investigating the first assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump released its interim report on Monday that included excerpts of new testimony from local law enforcement officials who provided firsthand accounts of the lack of communication and security failures at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.

Based on 23 interviews with local law enforcement officials and thousands of pages of documents from various authorities, the bipartisan task force concluded “the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened.”

The report could bring more pressure on the leadership of the US Secret Service after a Homeland Security independent panel called for a complete leadership overhaul.

The testimony in the report from unnamed Butler officials details the chaotic sequence of events from when local officials first spotted the Trump rally gunman, Thomas Crooks, to when Crooks was finally shot down.

One local emergency services official testified, for example, that he had texted his colleague that Crooks had a rangefinder at 5:17 p.m., but that colleague did not see the message until approximately 5:40 p.m. It’s unclear whether these local officials notified their leadership about seeing Crooks’ rangefinder as they were trying to track him down, the task force found.

The task force has also not received any evidence to suggest that the message from local law enforcement about Crooks possessing a weapon reached Trump’s Secret Service detail prior to shots fired, according to the report.

The task force will issue a final report on its findings no later than December 13.

In the final stretch of her bid for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris has made improving housing affordability a core promise of her campaign.

In addition to pledging to provide up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers and a plan to drive new housing construction, Harris has also vowed to take on “abusive corporate landlords,” whom she partially blames for rent increases.

Nearly half of all renter households spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs, qualifying them as “cost-burdened,” according to US Census data in September.

While rent prices are undoubtedly rising, it’s unclear how much of the jump is due to corporate investors who buy up multiple properties. There isn’t a universal definition for “corporate landlords,” though Harris has called on Congress to pass a law that would remove key tax benefits for investors who acquire 50 or more single-family rental homes.

A CNN analysis found that rent increases recently outpaced wage growth in cities with a meaningful presence of big investors. But overall, these investors’ sway on the housing market is difficult to measure, said Michael Seiler, a real estate and finance professor at the College of William & Mary.

Read more about how Harris’ housing plan may affect your rent.

Three years ago, major internet platforms including Meta, Twitter and YouTube responded to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots with decisive action — suspending thousands of accounts that had spread election lies and removing posts glorifying the attack on US democracy.

But since 2021, the social media industry has undergone a dramatic transformation and pivoted from many of the commitments, policies and tools it once embraced to help safeguard the peaceful transfer of democratic power.

The public got a taste of the new normal this summer, when social media was flooded with misinformation following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and the platforms said nothing.

Though platforms still maintain pages describing what election safeguards they do support, many who have worked with those companies to contain misinformation report a decline in their engagement with the issue.

The shift took place against the backdrop of a yearslong intimidation campaign led by Republican attorneys general and state and federal lawmakers aimed at forcing social media companies to platform falsehoods and hate speech and thwarting those working to study or limit the spread of that destabilizing content.

Those efforts coincided with the rise of a vocal cadre of elite Silicon Valley reactionaries, an increasingly ideological group that bristles at notions of corporate social responsibility. The people involved are among the world’s wealthiest and most influential, with the power to shape the products and services used by billions. And they are growing more politically assertive — warning government leaders to back off or face millions of dollars in campaign contributions to their opponents and laying down political manifestos that serve as litmus tests for startup founders who need funding.

Read the full story.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania on October 16.

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in moderated conversations with former Rep. Liz Cheney in Chester County, Pennsylvania; Oakland County, Michigan; and Waukesha County, Wisconsin before returning to Washington, DC.

On Wednesday, Harris will participate in a CNN town hall in Chester Township, Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, Harris will travel to Georgia for a campaign rally with former President Barack Obama.

On Saturday, Harris will travel to Michigan for a campaign rally with former first lady Michelle Obama.

Signs direct people where to go to cast their votes on the first day of early voting at Atlanta Metropolitan State College on Tuesday, October 15, in Atlanta.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the Southern swing state will probably see record numbers of people voting early in the 2024 election, predicting 65% to 70% of Georgia voters will cast their ballots before Election Day.

Referring to former President Donald Trump’s recent comment that Raffensperger and GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp are “doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win,” the secretary of state said such a comment “doesn’t influence me” and reiterated the voting security measures that have been implemented in the state.