October 29, 2024, presidential campaign news

With Election Day one week away, Vice President Kamala Harris made her closing pitch at the Ellipse in Washington, DC on Tuesday evening, laying out her stance on issues like reproductive rights and immigration, as well as contrasting her vision with that of former President Donald Trump.

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Gretchen Carlson says Harris' closing speech was the 'antithesis of division'

03:13 - Source: CNN

The crowd filled the Ellipse to capacity, according to a campaign official. Additional attendees were directed to an overflow area on the National Mall.

Here are key lines and other headlines you should know:

An emphasis on differences vs Trump:

Location importance: 

Trump in Pennsylvania:

Other headlines you should know:

Thousands of voters in Pennsylvania received a confusing text message this weekend claiming they had already voted in the 2024 Presidential election.

“Records show you voted,” the message read, directing people to an official website with information about polling places and early on-demand voting in the state.

The organization behind the texts, AllVote, said the messages contained errors and should have told voters they had cast their ballots in 2022 and directed them to a link with information about voting in 2024. However, “in 2022” was left out, causing confusion. An AllVote spokesperson said the misleading text was followed by an apology message, though those who had replied “STOP” or marked the first message as spam may not have received it.

It’s the latest case of misleading or incorrect election-related information being disseminated by the group, which has been flagged by officials from across the country — including in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona — as a scam.

What AllVote says: Charlotte Clymer, AllVote spokesperson, told CNN the organization estimates “several thousand registered voters were affected by our error” — referring to the text messages received by Pennsylvania voters over the weekend. The texts, Clymer said, were an “unfortunate copy-editing error by staff working long hours,” and the organization has made its “approval process substantially more rigorous to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

About AllVote: The group works to “mobilize progressive voters,” by providing information on how to vote, according to its website. Little is known about the group, its founders or financial backers. A super PAC by the same name registered with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month but hasn’t yet reported any money raised or spent. Clymer declined to provide information about its funding.

Howie Stanger, who is listed as AllVote’s treasurer on the FEC filings, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. Stanger is the founder of Pocketbook Strategies which aims to support “progressive organizations who want to dream big,” according to LinkedIn.

Remember: If voters have questions or concerns about their ballot or the election process, they should consult official sources, said Philip Hensley-Robin, executive director of advocacy group Common Cause Pennsylvania.

A spreadsheet posted to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website that included a hidden tab containing partial passwords to some components of the state’s voting systems was not an election security threat, according to a statement Tuesday from a Colorado Secretary of State spokesperson.

When the department became aware of the issue, officials notified the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an agency in the US Department of Homeland Security, according to the statement. The Secretary of State’s office is working to remedy the situation, it said.

Each piece of Colorado election equipment has two unique passwords and the passwords can only be used by someone with physical access to a voting system, according to the agency.

“Every Colorado voter votes on a paper ballot, which is then audited during the Risk Limiting Audit to verify that ballots were counted according to voter intent,” the statement from the Secretary of State’s office says.

Other security measures include keeping voting equipment in rooms that require a secure ID to access.

Early voting began on October 21 in Colorado.

CNN’s Sean Lyngaas contributed to this alert.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the Ellipse.

Vice President Kamala Harris walked through some of her policy proposals as she delivered a closing argument speech in Washington, DC, while seeking to draw a contrast to former President Donald Trump.

Here’s what she mentioned:

Read more about Harris’ and Trump’s stances on key issues.

Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate, told Fox News that she hasn’t spoken to Donald Trump since June and urged the former president’s campaign to “look at how they are talking about women,” exercise discipline with their messaging and cool off the “masculinity stuff.”

The former South Carolina governor said it was “harmful” to have a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, who made disparaging and racist remarks against Puerto Rico and Latinos.

“Why have a comedian that separates people? This isn’t about people being sensitive. Puerto Ricans, that’s personal for them. They take that personally, so they were right to denounce the comedian. They need to go and tell Puerto Ricans how much, you know, they do value them. They need to tell Latinos that,” Haley said.

Haley spoke at the Republican National Convention and eventually endorsed Trump after ending her own presidential run. CNN reported the Trump campaign is in talks with the Haley campaign to join him on the trail in the final days of the campaign but nothing has been finalized. On a recent Fox News appearance, Trump reminded viewers that he beat Haley “badly” in the primaries.

“They are very aware that we are on standby. We know we would be there to help. I have helped with some fundraising letters and text messages and those types of things,” Haley told Fox News. “Look, we’re on the same team. It is their campaign’s decision on what he needs in these last final days. It does not bother me at all. I think they need to do what they need to do to get across the finish line.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told supporters on Monday that former President Donald Trump has promised to give him “control” of several public health agencies, including the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture, if he’s reelected in November.

Kennedy, who suspended his presidential campaign in August and endorsed Trump, said during a livestreamed organizing event that Trump told him he’d oversee a vast public health portfolio if Trump returns to the White House, and added he’d prioritize his agenda for “making America healthy.”

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Trump has previously told CNN he would consider appointing Kennedy to a role in a potential second Trump administration. Following Kennedy’s endorsement in August, Trump committed to including Kennedy on a panel that would investigate the rise in diagnoses of chronic diseases should he win reelection. Kennedy currently serves on Trump’s transition team and has been campaigning as a surrogate for Trump in key battleground states since exiting the presidential race.

On Sunday, Trump said during a campaign rally in New York that, if reelected, he would let Kennedy “go wild on food” and “go wild on medicines.”

Kennedy has been one of the leading proponents of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories in America. He made false attacks on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and sharp criticisms of public health and agriculture policy a centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday referenced alleged voter fraud in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after election and law enforcement officials announced they were investigating approximately 2,500 voter registration forms for alleged fraud.

“We’ve set an all-time record in the early voting, by the way, so if you have a mail-in ballot get that damn ballot in, please, immediately because, because they’ve already started cheating in Lancaster. They’ve cheated,” Trump said at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

“No, we caught ‘em cold,” Trump said.

At a news conference on Friday, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said that the detectives allegedly found fraud on applications, including inaccurate addresses and personal identifying information, duplicate handwriting, and signatures that did not match.

Ray D’Agostino, vice chairman of the Lancaster County board of elections, said as many as 2,500 voter registration forms were being looked at for potential fraud stemming from two dropped batches.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of two immigrants who stands on the brink of the highest echelon of this country’s political power, said on Tuesday that she has lived the promise that America represents.

“I love our country with all my heart, and I believe in its promise because I’ve lived it,” Harris said.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29.

Former President Donald Trump began his rally in battleground Pennsylvania Tuesday with one of his most distilled messages to voters: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

The crowd, gathered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, responded with a resounding, “no.”

The former president, with a week left until the election, called on his supporters to go out and vote: “Next Tuesday, you have to stand up and you have to tell Kamala [Harris] that you’ve had enough, that you’re not going to take it anymore. Kamala you’re fired.”

Trump called the Biden-Harris administration the worst in American history and took a shot at former President Jimmy Carter, who voted for Harris at the record-setting age of 100 years old.

“Jimmy Carter is a happy man, Jimmy Carter looks like a brilliant, brilliant president by comparison,” to the Biden administration, Trump said.

Meanwhile, Harris at the same time held a rally with her closing remarks in Washington, DC, at the Ellipse, the patch of park where Trump rallied his supporters on January 6, 2021, within view of the White House.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally on The Ellipse in Washington, DC, on October 29.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday sought to confront her biggest political weakness by saying major political figures need to stop using immigration as a political wedge and rather see it as a serious challenge that needs solving.

Harris said while she will focus on prosecuting cartels and transnational gangs, “we must acknowledge we are a nation of immigrants.”

“And I will work with Congress to pass immigration reform, including an earned path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants, like farmworkers and our laborers.”

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally on The Ellipse in Washington, DC, on October 29.

Vice President Kamala Harris argued to voters that she would be a president for all Americas if she is elected.

She is making a final push to win over voters as the presidential race is neck-and-neck, polls show.

Harris also told the crowd that although she was the vice president for four years, she recognizes that some voters still may be getting to know who she is.

She talked about her career as a prosecutor and how she fought against cartels, banks and for-profit colleges — emphasizing that she always tried to help hardworking Americans.

In contrast, if he is elected, former President Donald Trump would “walk into that office,” she said pointing behind her at the White House, “with an enemies list.”

She again emphasized that her presidency would be different from that of President Joe Biden and that she would bring her own life experiences to the job. Harris directly contrasted that to Trump’s proposals, arguing that the former president is not proposing anything different from his first term.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said while she has been “honored” to serve under President Joe Biden, her presidency will be different than his if she’s elected next week.

“I have been honored to serve as Joe Biden’s vice president,” Harris said during her Ellipse address in Washington on Tuesday.

“My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different. Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs, costs that were rising even before the pandemic, and that are still too high,” she said.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally on The Ellipse in Washington, DC, on October 29.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday presented a vision of unity during her address in Washington, telling voters that it is time to “stop pointing fingers, and start locking arms.”

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to the significance of the location of her speech Tuesday night as she delivered her closing arguments to voters — the Ellipse, the patch of park where Donald Trump rallied his supporters on January 6, 2021, within view of the White House.

She emphasized that Trump knew he lost in 2020, but watched the violence of the insurrection unfold on television anyway.

“That’s who is asking you to give him another four years in the Oval Office,” Harris said, directly attacking Trump’s character.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks on The Ellipse just south of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 29.

The crowd attending Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally has filled the Ellipse in Washington, DC, according to a campaign official.

Additional attendees have been directed to an overflow area on the National Mall.

Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that her rival, Donald Trump, is someone who keeps people divided and afraid of each other, but that’s “not who we are” as Americans.

“As Americans, we rise and fall together. America, for too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust. And it can be easy then to forget a simple truth: It doesn’t have to be this way, it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said. “We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms.”

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday launched into a barrage of insults against former President Donald Trump’s personality during her speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday — calling the former president an “unstable” man who is “obsessed with revenge.”

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other.”

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said next week’s election presents a stark choice for all American voters.

“And it will probably be the most important vote you will ever cast. And this election is more than just a choice between two parties and two different candidates,” she said.

Harris added: “It is a choice about whether we will have a country rooted in freedom for every American — or ruled by chaos and division.”

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks on The Ellipse just south of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 29.

Vice President Kamala Harris is now making her campaign’s closing argument at the Ellipse in Washington, DC — the patch of park where Donald Trump rallied his supporters on January 6, 2021, within view of the White House.

Sources familiar with the remarks told CNN that Harris will lean into her background as a prosecutor, using proof points to make her case against her Republican rival.

Harris plans to cite Trump’s record and behavior, including condemning his “enemy from within” comments, and outlining her plans on issues including the economy and reproductive rights, and contrasting them with Trump’s priorities, according to one of the sources familiar with the remarks.

In the speech, she’ll call Trump “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.” Harris, meanwhile, will pledge to “seek common ground and common sense solutions” to improving Americans’ lives.

Tuesday’s high-profile speech is one of the last remaining opportunities for the vice president to try to reach a critical segment of the electorate known inside the campaign as “conflicted voters,” aides said, or those who may have concerns with Trump’s conduct but who are not yet convinced Harris is a candidate of change who can get the country on track.

For Harris, striking a balance between dire warnings about a rival she calls a fascist and forward-looking optimism about the president she would be has become a defining challenge of the campaign’s closing stretch.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be watching Vice President Kamala Harris’ closing argument in a room backstage after his rally in Columbus, Georgia, on Tuesday, according to a pool report.

Walz concluded his remarks at a rally at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center at around 6:45 p.m. and worked the rope line for about 15 minutes before leaving the event space.

Walz is now in a private room at the venue where he’ll watch Harris’ speech before traveling to the airport, according to a pool report.

Vice President Kamala Harris will hold her election night event at Howard University, according to a source familiar with her planning. Harris graduated from Howard in 1986.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance warned Michigan voters in the final stretch of the 2024 race not to get “complacent” or be the “difference” between former President Donald Trump winning and Vice President Kamala Harris winning.

“I am extremely concerned that those margins are too small, which is why I’m here telling everybody to get out there and vote,” Vance said in Holland, Michigan. “Knock on wood. I’m a little superstitious here, but look, we are in a very, very good place in this race. I really do believe that Donald J. Trump is going to win the state of Michigan.”

Arguing that polling has typically “radically understated” Trump’s support, Vance cautioned supporters about the possibility polls are overstating his support this time.

“What if this is the one time the polls are overstating the support of Donald J. Trump? You don’t want to be the person who could have been the difference between President Trump and President Kamala Harris and to have forgotten to vote,” Vance said. “Let’s do this thing. Don’t leave it to chance.”

Remember: Michigan is one of the key 2024 battleground states that is seen as pivotal to Trump and Harris’ win of the presidency.

Voters cast their ballots during Michigan's early voting period in Dearborn, Michigan, on October 29.

As of seven days before Election Day, more than 50.5 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.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some voters were wary to vote in-person with guidelines from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommending social distancing. Four years later, with the country out of the pandemic, more voters could be heading back to the ballot box for in-person voting either before or on Election Day.

CNN’s early voting numbers draw on data from Catalist, election officials and Edison Research.

Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance speaks to supporters during a campaign event in Racine, Wisconsin, on October 28.

JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, would not directly say if a Trump-Vance administration would seek to ban all gender affirming surgeries for transgender minors with or without parental consent. Instead, he said it should stop being encouraged.

Fact Check: Parental consent is required before a minor can undergo gender-affirming surgery, even in states where such a procedure is legal for people under age 18. Available data makes it clear that the vast majority of such surgeries occur among adults — not minors.

The crowd burst into cheers after a reporter began her question saying, “Former President Trump has said that he would ban transgender procedures for minors without parental consent —” with some turning around toward the riser and clapping.

She continued, “Would the Trump-Vance administration consider banning sex changes for minors in all cases with or without parental consent?”

Separately, Vance also defended Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “It just felt like a lot of people were thrilled to be there to celebrate the United States of America, our history and most importantly, what our future could hold if we fix the broken leadership. That’s all that Madison Square [Garden] was about,” Vance said, not addressing racist and vulgar comments made by warm-up speakers.

This post was updated with Vance’s remarks about the New York rally.

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, greet supporters at a campaign rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on October 28.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz gave a brief preview of Vice President Kamala Harris’ remarks in Washington, DC, tonight, billing it as a “spectacular speech” focused on her economic policy proposals and drawing a contrast between her vision and former President Donald Trump’s “chaos and division.”

The setting for her speech – the Ellipse, the site of the former president’s rally on January 6, 2021 – is “not by chance,” Walz noted, saying that it will give her a platform to lay out “the promise of America.”

Walz also reflected on their joint rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Monday, noting it was their first time in-person together in two months. He said Harris was “radiating confidence and joy,” and urged the supporters to harness that same confidence in the election’s final days.

People look at a bronze art installation depicting a pile of feces on former US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's desk on the National Mall near the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 24, 2024.

Two political statues have mysteriously popped up in Washington, DC, drawing crowds of onlookers, just a week before Election Day.

Last week, an unknown artist placed a bronze replica of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk – topped with an emoji-like poop, the size of a basketball – along the National Mall near the US Capitol.

On Monday, a bronze statue of a tiki torch appeared in Freedom Plaza, just a couple of blocks from the White House.

The statue, called “The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame,” appears to mock the former president’s defense of the marchers who attended a White supremacist rally in 2017 that left a woman dead.

A tiki torch statue called “The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame” at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, October 29, 2024.

While the artist – or artists – behind the statues remains unknown, a largely redacted permit approved by the National Park Service shows Civic Crafted LLC and Julia Jimenez-Pyzik requested permission to display the statues. CNN has reached out to Civic Crafted LLC and Jimenez-Pyzik for comment.

What the onlookers said:

The statues won’t make it to Election Day. The desk is scheduled to be removed Wednesday and the torch a day later.

Read more about the mysterious political art popping up in Washington, DC.

Supporters of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris hold Puerto Rican flags during a demonstration ahead of a campaign rally with former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29.

Ahead of former President Donald Trump’s rally tonight in Allentown — a city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in Pennsylvania — a small group of protesters were gathered as close to the venue as possible, carrying signs and waving Puerto Rican flags.

Blasting reggaeton music, they were holding signs reading “Our voice, our vote” and “Nov 5 is trash day, let’s put you where you belong,” chanting in Spanish, “El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido,” a well-known Spanish slogan used in protests worldwide against various regimes.

The demonstration followed Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, where comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made derogatory remarks about Puerto Rico, including that it was “a floating island of garbage.”

In stark contrast, the Trump campaign is handing out “Boricuas con Trump” signs at the event as they try to project confidence that Puerto Rican voters for Trump weren’t impacted by the racist joke. The signs were visible at the entrance, where Trump supporters eagerly awaited entry. “Boricua” refers to a person of Puerto Rican descent.

Puerto Ricans make up more than 35,000 voters in Allentown. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in battleground Pennsylvania.

This post has been updated with additional reporting on the scene outside the rally.

The Electoral College map suggests that the results in all but the seven battleground states are a foregone conclusion, assuming people show up and vote the way polling suggests they will.

However, today’s swing state is tomorrow’s safe state. Take a look:

Missouri: A reliably red flyover state for presidential candidates today, but for about 100 years, Missouri was the ultimate bellwether in presidential elections, voting for the winner in 25 of 26 elections between 1904 and 2004 – within the lifetime of most of today’s voters.

Florida and Ohio: Both are now red states for presidential purposes, but they were hotly contested battlegrounds until this election cycle.

Virginia and Colorado: They were battlegrounds in roughly the same era, but are now essentially blue in presidential years.

The point is that the people and politics of this country are constantly churning and moving. The makeup of the battlegrounds seems immutable in a single election, but battlegrounds have a shelf life, and it might only last about a generation.

Read more about how the makeup of states can change how competitive they are.

The FBI issued a new public service announcement one week before Election Day, warning about scammers looking to use the election to perpetuate financial fraud schemes.

The statement did not cite any specific uncovered schemes.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives for a roundtable at the Drexelbrook Catering & Event Center on Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday sought to temper the uproar over his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden – which included a string of racist and vulgar messages from its speakers, including about Puerto Rico – by telling a group in Pennsylvania that “we love” the island.

Trump was participating in what was billed as a roundtable discussion focused on seniors in Delaware County. Trump’s rally on Sunday generated controversy after one comedian described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

The moderator of the Pennsylvania event introduced a retired medical worker he said was “born in Puerto Rico and came to the United States when she was 17.” The crowd cheered at the mention of Puerto Rico.

The worker told Trump: “I want you to know that Puerto Rico stands behind you, and Puerto Rico loves you.”

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes an announcement on the future of his campaign in Phoenix on August 23.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdraw his name from ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin, battleground states where votes for his now suspended campaign could cut into support for former President Donald Trump.

Kennedy, who left the race in August and endorsed Trump, urged the Supreme Court in an emergency appeal to force the states to yank his name from the ballots. But state election officials countered that early and absentee voting in the states was already well underway. In other words, they said, it was too late.

The Supreme Court handed down its decision without further explanation, which is common on its emergency docket. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a member of the court’s conservative wing, dissented in the Michigan case.

In an unusual twist, Kennedy had asked the high court weeks earlier to help him push his way onto the ballot in New York. After suspending his campaign, Kennedy initially suggested voters could continue to support him in less competitive states. The Supreme Court also rejected that request.

At the center of Kennedy’s case in Michigan and Wisconsin was an argument that the states were violating his First Amendment rights by compelling his speech – in other words, forcing him to suggest to voters that he is still a candidate.

Michigan told the Supreme Court this week that more than 1.5 million voters had already returned absentee ballots with Kennedy’s name as an option on them and that another 263,000 residents had voted early.

Read more here about the court’s ruling

Vice President Kamala Harris spent Tuesday making final edits and revisions to the major speech she’ll be delivering on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, according to an adviser.

The vice president often pours over drafts of her remarks, finetuning them and putting her own stamp on them. And she’s doing the same Tuesday ahead of what’s likely the final major opportunity to make her case to voters.

Sources familiar with the remarks told CNN that Harris will lean into her background as a prosecutor, using proof points to make her case against her Republican rival Donald Trump.

Harris plans to cite Trump’s record and behavior, including condemning his “enemy from within” comments, and outlining her plans on issues including the economy and reproductive rights, and contrasting them with Trump’s priorities, according to one of the sources.

Harris advisers have described the remarks as an opportunity to present their argument to undecided voters, banking on people being tired of Trump.

Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told reporters on Tuesday that Harris’ speech will shine a spotlight on “the clear choice voters are facing this election between Trump and his obsession with himself versus her new generation of leadership that is focused on the American people.”

Officer Tyler Knott of the Vancouver Police Department surveils ballot boxes, where a freshly replaced ballot box stands in the Fisher's Landing Transit Center, in Vancouver, Washington, on October 29.

At least 66 seasonal workers are being hired to monitor ballot boxes 24/7 in Clark County, Washington state, after ballots were destroyed by fires this week in the Pacific Northwest, officials said.

The workers will be stationed at a distance from all 22 ballot drop boxes in Clark County, to observe and call 911 to report suspicious activity but not interfere, said Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey.

The elections office currently has 150 seasonal employees, and hiring additional workers will cost them an additional $75,000 through Election Day, Kimsey told CNN.

The observers will be paid $23 per hour and don’t need to have specific expertise in elections or security, said Kimsey, noting they’ll be trained by elections staff on how to observe without confronting anyone.

In addition to hiring observers, Clark County changed its schedule to pick up ballots from drop boxes by 5:30 p.m. local time and take them to the election’s office that same evening, Kimsey said.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Tuesday unanimously rejected a Republican bid to have election officials segregate overseas ballots cast by people who have never resided in the state. Republicans wanted to have those ballots be pulled aside for additional checks of the voter’s eligibility.

The court’s decision is the latest blow to Republican efforts to attack overseas ballots in critical battleground states.

Earlier Tuesday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a challenge to the vetting procedures for overseas ballots in that state. And last week, a state judge in Michigan sided against the GOP in a case targeting ballots cast by people who had never lived there but were eligible to vote in the state because of familial ties to it.

More context: The Republican National Committee sued North Carolina in early October to block a policy that allows citizens abroad to cast ballots in the state if their parents resided there before leaving the country, even if the voters themselves never lived there.

The law permitting such votes was passed with bipartisan support in 2011 and has been in effect in every election since 2012, but Republicans argued in their suit that it ran afoul of the state Constitution’s requirement that limits voting in the state’s elections “to North Carolina residents and only North Carolina residents.” They claimed that it could expose the election to “fraud and other misconduct.”

The North Carolina State Board of Election and Democratic National Committee, which intervened in the case to defend the state law, pressed the appeals court to maintain the status quo by declining to segregate the ballots, warning that a ruling in favor of the RNC would invite chaos into an election that is already underway.

CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Marshall Cohen contributed reporting to this post.

Officials from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, are pushing back on claims from Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee that “voter suppression” occurred on Monday. The claims stem from an incident at a local polling site where county officials say a woman was removed because she was disrupting others in line.

What the GOP said: RNC Chairman Michael Whatley wrote in an X post that reached more than 2.8 million people by late Tuesday that “a supporter of President Trump’s was arrested today for encouraging people to stay in the early voting line and cast their ballots freely in Pennsylvania.”

“This is voter suppression from the left. Don’t let them turn you away,” the post continued, which included a video of the woman, Vallerie Biancaniello, being taken away in handcuffs. The Trump campaign also amplified the incident in a late Monday press release.

The interaction took place at the Voter Service Center in Media, Pennsylvania, the seat of the suburban Philadelphia county.

What the county said: According to a statement from a county spokesperson, a woman was arrested and removed from the building after she, “according to multiple eyewitnesses, was disruptive, belligerent, and attempting to influence voters waiting in line.”

“Her behavior prompted several complaints from those in line. Delaware County Park Police — who provide security for the Government Center Building — were on-site and responded promptly to the disturbance,” the statement continued.

Biancaniello, the woman who was detained, appears to be one of the GOP certified electors this cycle, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. CNN has reached out to Biancaniello for comment.

In to response to a post by Biancaniello on X after the incident, Delaware County Council chair Dr. Monica Taylor said in a statement to CNN that the county takes “voting rights very seriously.” The Delaware County District Attorney’s office confirmed to CNN Biancaniello was “briefly detained” and said she “will be receiving a citation for disorderly conduct (a summary offense similar to a traffic ticket).”

US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon.

Judge Aileen Cannon is refusing to recuse herself from the criminal case against the man accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump, saying she has no relationship with the former president who nominated her to the federal bench and doesn’t control what he says about her.

In her ruling Tuesday, Cannon said she has never spoken with Trump or met him, and she has no concerns over the “political consequences of my rulings.”

Attorneys for Ryan Routh, who prosecutors say set up a sniper’s nest outside of Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, argued that Cannon’s dismissal of the criminal case against Trump over his handling of classified documents could create the appearance of partiality in their client’s case where Trump is the alleged victim.

Routh’s attorneys noted the many instances when Trump has praised Cannon by name for her decision to toss the documents case, including during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention this summer.

Defense attorneys argued that if Trump were to win the 2024 presidential race, he could elevate Cannon to a higher court, something that might influence her in this case.

“I have no ‘relationship to the alleged victim’ in any reasonable sense of the phrase. I follow my oath to administer justice faithfully and impartially, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of this country,” she wrote.

Vice President Harris plans to accuse Donald Trump of spending the past decade “trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other” in her closing argument speech from the Ellipse on Tuesday, according to excerpts of her address.

By contrast, she’ll pledge to give those who disagree with her a “seat at my table,” as opposed to trying to jail them.

In a bid to contrast her vision for the country with Trump’s, Harris will say her rival is keeping an “enemies list” and note he has promised to “set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on January 6th.”

In the speech, she’ll call Trump “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.” Harris, meantime, will pledge to “seek common ground and common sense solutions” to improving Americans’ lives.

Actress and singer Jennifer Lopez will deliver remarks at Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign rally in Las Vegas on Thursday evening.

Lopez’s remarks come days after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe drew widespread condemnation from the Puerto Rican community, along with Democrats and Republicans, over a joke calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden Sunday evening.

Lopez has been critical of the comments in recent days, posting several posts on her Instagram profile in support of Puerto Rico and urging her followers to vote on Election Day.

“LET’S GET LOUD. Make your voice heard in ONE WEEK. VOTE Nov 5th. Born in the USA. Puerto Rico,” she said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sought to soothe Democrats who are anxious in the final days before the presidential election as he made a closing argument on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Walz also made a pitch to voters who are still undecided, which he noted was “hard to believe,” while pushing back on the idea that former President Donald Trump had a good handling of the economy during his administration. He pointed to the consequences of Trump’s handling of the economy during the Covid pandemic and his tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.

He also criticized Trump’s business record.

“Donald Trump’s a loser in everything that he’s done,” he said, prompting loud cheers from the crowd. “That’s not a pejorative. That’s an observation based on facts. He loses jobs, he loses businesses, he loses in court. And no matter what JD Vance says, he lost the 2020 election,” he said.

Walz closed his remarks by drawing on a football metaphor as he offered a “pep talk” for supporters in the room, projecting optimism about the outcome of the election even while acknowledging “it’s a tie game.”

President Joe Biden speaks about his Investing in America agenda in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 29.

President Joe Biden unveiled a $3 billion investment in clean port infrastructure Tuesday in Maryland, offering a swipe at former President Donald Trump with a week to go until election day.

“Today, I’m proud to announce we’re delivering $3 billion in funding from my inflation Reduction Act to help clean up and modernize ports in 27 different states and territories from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and beyond — including, yes, Puerto Rico,” Biden said during remarks from the Port of Baltimore, seizing on controversial comments made during this weekend’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend.

Standing in front of the Patapsco River, Biden joked, without naming Trump, “I’m gonna take that guy for a swim out there.” He then added that Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland was “lookin’ at me — don’t get going, Joe,” before moving on to the rest of his prepared remarks.

Biden’s appearance in Maryland with seven days until the election underscored the president’s diminished role on the campaign trail, having become a liability for the Harris campaign in its closing days as Vice President Kamala Harris seeks to put some distance between herself and Biden. The state has a semi-competitive Senate race, and Biden joined Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks at a local ice cream shop after his remarks.

Biden told reporters he planned to watch Harris’ closing argument speech this evening on the Ellipse, but he conceded it wasn’t his place for him to attend.

Asked why he wouldn’t be at the event in the backyard of the White House, Biden said, “Cause it’s for her — it’s her night.”

One week out from Election Day, Senate candidates across the most competitive races are launching their closing advertisements, hoping to sway the remaining pool of undecided voters in a series of contests set to decide control of the upper chamber.

Here’s a review of some of the closing ads on the air entering the final seven days:

Montana: In the closing stretch of his challenging reelection fight, Montana Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester is on the air with an ad claiming that GOP opponent Tim Sheehy “doesn’t get it,” and focusing on abortion rights – among the top issues referenced in Democratic campaign advertising this cycle. Sheehy, meanwhile, launched an ad on October 25, featuring a voter synthesizing his anti–incumbent argument, and blaming Tester for “the last four years” that “have been tough on families like mine.”

Ohio: The race in Ohio presents another distinct challenge for Democrats, where like Montana they are defending an incumbent – Sen. Sherrod Brown – in a state that former President Donald Trump carried twice. The most recent spot from Brown’s campaign, which went up Oct. 25, includes an emphatic rebuttal of some of the sharp attacks he’s faced from GOP opponent Bernie Moreno and his allies, including a sustained focus on transgender policies. Moreno’s campaign, on the other hand, went up with a spot on Oct. 25 featuring Trump stumping for the candidate that he helped over the finish line in a crowded and competitive GOP primary earlier this year, while harshly criticizing Sen. Brown.

Pennsylvania: In Pennsylvania, incumbent Democratc Sen. Bob Casey is locked in another very close race against his GOP challenger, Dave McCormick, the former CEO of one of the largest hedge funds in the world, and the latest ad from Casey’s campaign hammers McCormick on abortion, underscoring the salience of the issue in Democratic campaigns. Last week, meanwhile, McCormick’s campaign went up with an ad featuring the candidate recounting his background and biography and urging voters to “make a change,” another example of the anti-incumbent messaging Republicans are leaning on as they aim to flip several seats.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is another one of the party’s vulnerable battleground incumbents, and in the closing stretch of her competitive race, Baldwin’s campaign is on the air with an ad aimed at drawing a stark contrast with her opponent, investment banker Eric Hovde. Hovde, meanwhile, has continued airing TV ads slamming Baldwin in connection with her partner, Maria Brisbane, a Wall Street financial advisor. His most recent spot accuses Baldwin of reneging on transparency pledges, and argues that “after 26 years in Washington, Tammy Baldwin is in it for herself.”

As Election Day approaches, former President Donald Trump keeps telling the same lies at event after event — many about immigration, but many others about a variety of additional topics.

Here is a fact check of some of the false claims in his Tuesday remarks at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Florida. You can see the full list of fact checks here.

Inflation: Trump blamed Vice President Kamala Harris for causing “the worst inflation in our lifetime, maybe the worst inflation we’ve ever had, because I don’t think they’re — I mean, I know for a fact they’re not adding all of the numbers. If they did, I think it’s the worst inflation probably in our — the lifetime of the country.”

Aside from the claim about Harris’ role, it’s not true the US has had its worst inflation ever during the Biden administration or that the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn’t “adding all of the numbers.” Trump could fairly say that the US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920. (And the rate has since plummeted. The most recent available inflation rate at the time Trump spoke here was 2.4% in September.)

Who pays tariffs: Trump repeated his frequent false claim that, through tariffs, “China paid us hundreds of billions of dollars.” US importers make the tariff payments, not China, and study after study has found that Americans bore the overwhelming majority of the cost of Trump’s tariffs on China.

Previous presidents and tariffs on China: Trump repeated his frequent false claim that no previous president had imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, saying, “No other president’s gotten 10 cents from China.” The US was actually generating billions per year in revenue from tariffs on Chinese imports before Trump took office. In fact, the US has had tariffs on Chinese imports since 1789. Trump’s predecessor, Obama, imposed additional tariffs on Chinese goods.

Harris’ border role: Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden appointed Harris “as the border czar,” adding that, regardless of the term, “she was responsible for the borders, totally responsible.” Biden never made Harris “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is inaccurate, and never put her in charge of border security, a responsibility of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the United States.

Gannett, the owner of the nation’s largest newspaper chain, announced that its more than 200 publications, including USA Today, will not publish presidential endorsements in the run-up to the November 5 election.

However, the outlets may still endorse candidates at the state and local levels at their own discretion, Gannett said in a statement.

The decision not to endorse was made by Gannett Media chief content officer Kristin Roberts, a person familiar with the matter said. Roberts determined that Gannett Media, which is comprised of USA Today and the USA Today Network, would not pursue endorsements at the national level, a decision Gannett Media newsrooms were informed of but which the company decided to not share in a statement at the time, the person told CNN.

“This was an editorial decision, it had nothing to do with Gannett corporate, it’s something that I really would like to drive home because the reality is that the perception that our corporate team influenced editorial is not accurate,” Antón told CNN.

This comes a week after the Los Angeles Times announced it would not publish a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, a move that was followed by The Washington Post on Friday. Both the Times’ and the Post’s announcements were followed by a wave of staff resignations and thousands of readers canceling their subscriptions.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz acknowledged criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for being too focused on attacking former President Donald Trump at the expense of focusing on her vision for the country — but defended the campaign’s messaging.

When asked by hosts of the “Dan Le Batard Show” about how he responds to people who feel the campaign is focusing too much on the former president rather than laying out “a progressive path for the country through you and your party,” Walz appeared to embrace the criticism before detailing several policy proposals announced by Harris and him while attacking Trump for.

Walz said the Harris campaign is telling voters about how to “turn the page, new way forward, end the chaos, middle class tax cut, child care tax credit, making housing more affordable, bringing down prices. Those are things we’re talking about. And I would challenge anybody in the media to show me what is Donald Trump’s plan, other than just a list of grievances.”

The comment from Walz comes after Future Forward PAC, the leading super PAC backing Harris, sent a letter to Democrats warning that focusing on Trump’s threats to democracy is a less persuasive argument than drawing contrast messages between Trump and Harris’ plans for the future.

Joseph Yang

Immigration and the southern US-Mexico border have also become central issues in the 2024 election, especially for voters in border states.

Joseph Yang, 21, a first-generation American, also wants to see changes that go further than just security on the border itself. The son of South Korean immigrants, Yang told CNN it was disheartening for him and his parents to see so many people entering the country illegally after they went through numerous steps to navigate the legal process.

Yang, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and is involved in the state’s Young Republican organization, said the volume of people crossing illegally does make him concerned about safety. But still, he acknowledged that there is “no real solution that either party has offered.” He said he thinks there needs to be “bipartisan reform” of the legal immigration system “that is at a deeper level“ to streamline the process.

“That’s what the American Dream is. You can come here with literally nothing, and you can work hard, and you can attain the American Dream for your family,” he said.

CNN reported in September that migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border remain at their lowest levels since 2020, according to new federal data obtained by CNN, as Republicans and Democrats spar over border security.

Noe Nunez, 25, from Zebulon, North Carolina, said that immigration is also one of his top issues because he believes the laws are flawed and don’t keep up with the times.

“I am a first-generation American, so I grew up with the immigrant community,” said Nunez, whose family is Mexican American. “So it’s kind of like a double-edged sword. I’m looking towards my future, but at the same time, I know the struggles that come with trying to find your place in this country.”

He said there were flaws in the migrant vetting process, saying, “It’s just letting random people come in that have not been vetted correctly, which creates crime. There’s a lot of things that they are getting, benefits or demand benefits that regular Americans are not getting, which is one of the things that I don’t find that it’s right.”

A Florida driver said he found an early voting ballot box that fell onto a Miami-Dade County street Monday as election officials said the incident occurred after a worker forgot to lock the back of a truck.

The driver, Lazaro Padron, told CNN he first thought the box and bag were garbage when he first spotted them on the road.

“As soon as I got out from my car, I saw it said ‘Miami-Dade ballots’ and it was completely sealed,” Padron, 37, said.

Footage from dash and rear-view cameras in his car show the moment when he first spotted the items and picks them up as other cars drive by.

Padron said he took the items to a nearby police station, where he was interviewed by officials with the Department of Homeland Security and county elections department.

Elections staff verified that all seals in the box and bag were “intact and nothing was tampered with or damaged” when they arrived at the police station and when the items were taken to the elections headquarters, Rodríguez said.

While everyone thanked Padron for retrieving the ballot box, he said he still has questions.

“How could something like this happen? That’s what I really want to know,” Padron said. “If it was one box, how many others could’ve fallen off?”

“Someone should look into how these boxes are transported,” he added. “Because all I want is a fair election. A fair election.”

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday wouldn’t answer directly when asked if a future Trump-Vance administration would support Israel banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the UN’s nearly eight-decade-old agency that provides essential services for Palestinian refugees, but said the organization needs better vetting processes.

“Look, my understanding about UNWRA is that you actually have explicit connections to terrorists for some of the employees on the ground there, right? That’s disgraceful,” he said. “And that means that whether it’s the entire organization or certainly some of the people on the ground, they have to do better at vetting their people so that you don’t actually have explicit terrorist connections.”

Some background: Israel’s parliament voted this week to ban UNWRA, a move that could have devastating consequences for millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

The Israeli government has claimed that some of UNRWA staff are affiliated with Hamas. UNRWA has strongly denied the allegations, but several governments suspended funding for the agency earlier this year while the allegations were investigated.

In August, a UN investigation found that nine employees from its main agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief, UNWRA, “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack and no longer work at the agency.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday said “it was my honor to be involved” in his recent rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City, calling the event “breathtaking.”

“I don’t think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden. The love, the love, the love in that room. It was breathtaking and you could’ve filled it many, many times with the people that were unable to get in,” Trump said during remarks at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

The rally caused controversy due to a series of insulting remarks made by speakers toward Vice President Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Puerto Rico, which a comedian at the event called a “floating island of garbage.” The Trump campaign later said the comments about Puerto Rico didn’t reflect Trump’s views or his campaign’s.

Trump also referenced how critics likened the event to a 1939 pro-Nazi gathering at the previous arena on the same site, laughing it off and saying that many politicians have used that venue over time.

Trump was recently called a “fascist” by Democratic rivals and a few Republicans and former members of his administration, most notably John Kelly, a retired Marine general who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, who said the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals.

Philadelphia’s district attorney asked a judge to speed up his case against Elon Musk and hold a hearing Wednesday, instead of Friday, to determine whether to shut down the Tesla CEO’s cash giveaway to voters.

District Attorney Larry Krasner, a progressive Democrat, made the request late Monday in a court filing. Krasner sued Musk and his pro-Trump super PAC, arguing that their lawsuit was an “illegal lottery scheme” in violation of state gaming laws.

“This delayed scheduling of the hearing would have been prejudicial because it would allow continued interference with the election over this entire week – the week before the Presidential Election,” Krasner’s office wrote in a filing.

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta has not yet responded to the request. As of now, the matter is slated to be heard at hearing in Philadelphia on Friday morning, just four days before Election Day.

As part of the controversial sweepstakes, Musk has said he would give $1 million, every day until Election Day, to a registered voter in a battleground state who signs his online petition in support of the US Constitution.

Musk has defended the giveaway, even after legal experts and the Justice Department have warned that it might violate federal laws against offering cash or prizes in exchange for voter registration.

His pro-Trump group, America PAC, announced a new winner on Monday, which Krasner flagged to the judge as evidence that the group “intends to continue its unlawful awarding of $1 million” to voters. The super PAC also named another winner Tuesday morning, a voter from Griffin, Georgia.

Tesla vehicles are parked at a logistics drop zone in Seattle, Washington, on August 22.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance said that a Trump-Vance administration would not prioritize Tesla over the “Big 3” automakers — despite Elon Musk’s political and financial support for the GOP ticket.

“Elon was a center left Clinton Democrat four years ago, and now he’s putting on dark MAGA hats because he’s sick of the craziness, and wants to go back to commonsense. I think that’s why Elon is supporting our candidacy. It’s not because he thinks that we’re going to do anything for him. It’s because he thinks that we’re going to make the American nation more peaceful, more prosperous and more secure,” Vance told a local reporter at an event in Saginaw, Michigan.

Vance said he wanted the “Big 3” automakers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis — which all have a significant presence in Michigan — to “thrive and to survive,” adding, “they’re not going to if we keep on forcing electric vehicles made in China down the throats of American consumers.”

He acknowledged that Musk is “very interested” in electric vehicles and that former President Donald Trump “rips him from time to time,” saying his position is, “if you want to make electric vehicles, great. We don’t want to force anybody to drive anything.”

More context: Vance and other Republicans have repeatedly hammered Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats in Michigan over electric vehicle policies, including on Tuesday, where Vance told voters that autoworkers in the state would “pay the price” for Harris’ “obsession” with EVs.

The Ohio senator has downplayed and refused to commit to continuing a $500 million grant issued by the Biden administration to convert a GM facility in Lansing into an electric vehicle plant, a major project in the state.

Harris has attempted to distance herself from the claim that Democrats want to enforce a total EV mandate, telling voters in Flint earlier this month “I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.” Her campaign distributed a fact check earlier this year saying Harris didn’t support a “mandate,” but rather the Biden administration’s goal to have EVs comprise half of all new vehicle sales by 2030.

President Joe Biden steps off Air Force One at Philadelphia International Airport on October 25.

President Joe Biden’s role in the 2024 presidential campaign in the final weeks of the election has been moved even further out of the spotlight as recent campaign trail gaffes prompted a range of responses — from eyerolls to outright anger — from some Harris campaign aides.

Planning for a range of Biden events had been up in the air late last week as the campaign worked to reassess how best to use the incumbent, who now plans to make several solo stops this week, including an infrastructure speech in Baltimore and an address to union members in Philadelphia.

As he’s watched from the sidelines of the race that he was in a little more than three months ago, Biden has embarked on some soul-searching, those close to him say, reflecting on both the long arc of his career and its abrupt end – his decades as a beloved party operative and, more recently, persona non grata.

Biden, these people say, remains firm in his view that he would be able to defeat his predecessor in November if he remained at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Once defiant on his mental and physical fitness in the face of questions from reporters, concerns within his own party and a blistering critique by former special counsel Robert Hur, Biden has become much more circumspect on his abilities, multiple sources told CNN.

Read more about Biden’s soul-searching as he takes a step back from the campaign.

A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a Republican lawsuit that sought to segregate overseas ballots in Pennsylvania for additional vetting.

US District Judge Chris Cooper said that the challengers to Pennsylvania’s policies for overseas ballots filed by GOP members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation and an outside group came too late and that it was too close to the election for a court to intervene.

He said that the court order what Republicans were asking for was a “nonstarter.” Cooper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, also cited other procedural issues with Republicans’ lawsuit as well.

The Republicans were arguing that election officials should take additional steps to verify ballots cast in the state from overseas voters.

The overseas vote has long been viewed as sacrosanct because of its connection to the military vote, and the Pennsylvania lawsuit — which would have jeopardized the ballots of service people abroad — drew a sharp backlash.

In recent election cycles, the civilian expat community has outnumbered military voters casting ballots. Democrats have touted their effort to turn out their voters abroad.

Other overseas ballot challenges: Tuesday’s ruling comes on the heels of court losses for Republicans in Michigan and North Carolina. In those cases the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits that challenged overseas ballots cast by voters who had never lived in those states but were eligible to vote because of familial ties to those states. Those cases have been appealed, but the Michigan appeal will not be resolved before the election.

Voters cast their ballots in Las Vegas on October 21.

In the critical Southwest battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump run near even in the race for the White House, according to new CNN polls conducted by SSRS.

The findings come as large numbers of voters report having already cast ballots and the pool of those open to changing their mind shrinks.

Harris holds 48% support among likely voters in Arizona, according to the poll, to 47% for Trump. In Nevada, 48% of likely voters support Trump and 47% back Harris. Those 1-point margins fall within each poll’s margin of sampling error, finding no clear leader in either state.

The surveys find voters’ views largely set on who would better handle top issues, while on a range of key attributes, neither candidate has convinced a critical mass of voters that they’re the better choice. Voters in both states have at best a narrow preference for which candidate cares more about people like them, shares their vision of the country or would put the country’s interests above their own self-interest.

The Nevada poll suggests little change in the state of the race there since late August, but in Arizona, the new results point to a shift in Harris’ favor. The new poll finds Harris improving there with core Democratic constituencies such as women, Latino voters and younger voters. The shift is notably concentrated among women, who now break for Harris by 16 points, while men continue to favor Trump by a 14-point margin.

Read more about these polls in key battleground states, where the race for the White House remains exceedingly tight.

Puerto Rico Shadow Senator Zoraida Buxo is expected to speak at former President Donald Trump’s rally tonight in Allentown, Pennsylvania, according to a Trump campaign official, as the campaign continues to deal with the fallout from a comedian at Trump’s New York rally referring to Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage.”

The Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from the comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday and said the comment “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

Trump told ABC News on Tuesday that he didn’t hear the comments and does not know the comedian.

NBC was first to report Buxo would speak at the rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign will use the exterior of the Sphere — an iconic Las Vegas landmark — as part of their get-out-the-vote push.

This marks the first time the Sphere has been used by a political campaign.

Harris will visit Nevada later this week for rallies in Reno and Las Vegas.

“Both in-person and online, the Sphere will reach millions of voters both in Nevada and across the country,” the Harris campaign said in a statement, which also touted other efforts to mobilize voters in Nevada to go to the polls, including food trucks near early voting sites and community block parties.

Former President Donald Trump announced that if reelected, he will seize the assets of “criminal gangs and drug cartels” and create a compensation fund for victims of “migrant crime.”

“So, today, I’m announcing for the first time under my administration we will seizing the assets of the criminal gangs and drug cartels. And we will use those assets to create a compensation fund to provide restitution for the victims of migrant crime,” he said. “The government will help with the restitution.”

Trump made the announcement during campaign remarks from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for illegal immigration under the Biden administration.

Trump regularly rails against undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the US as he tries to blame Harris for illegal immigration under the Biden administration. A key part of Trump’s message involves stoking fears about undocumented immigrants committing violent crimes.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.

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Trump delivers remarks at Mar-a-Lago one week before Election Day

00:32 - Source: CNN

Former President Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.

In a speech at Mar-a-Lago, ex-President Donald Trump on Tuesday unleashed a series of familiar attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of her speech in the Ellipse tonight.

Trump said that Harris “obliterated our borders” and “decimated the middle class,” adding that “bloodshed” and “squalor” had taken over in America’s cities and “chaos” was unleashed all over the world.

Trump’s remarks, which were billed as a “prebuttal” to Harris’ speech tonight, resembled his usual stump speech. He has so far not addressed the controversial comments made by a comedian at a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Former President Donald Trump is delivering remarks at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

The remarks are a prebuttal to Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech today in Washington, DC, a Trump campaign official told CNN.

One week from Election Day, Trump is expected to continue trying to draw a contrast with Harris as he speaks to press before traveling to Pennsylvania for a pair of events.

Another Trump campaign official said Trump would continue focusing his closing pitch to voters on the economy and border security. Trump has said in recent weeks that he thinks illegal immigration is the top issue this election.

Later Tuesday, Harris is expected to deliver a closing arguments speech at the Ellipse in the nation’s capital, which is the same location Trump delivered a speech on January 6, 2021, that set in motion the attack by his supporters at the US Capitol.

The White House said a new consumer confidence survey shows “good real income growth, strong employment, and inflation that is back down to the level before the pandemic” in a statement on the Conference Board’s latest consumer survey.

“Consumer confidence increased by the most since March 2021 and optimism about consumers’ Expected Financial Situation reached a series high, reflecting good real income growth, strong employment, and inflation that is back down to the level before the pandemic,” National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard wrote in a statement.

As CNN previously reported, the survey showed that Americans this month became more optimistic about the future of both the labor market and the broader US economy. The monthly survey’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped in October by the fastest clip since March 2021.

“October’s increase in confidence was broad-based across all age groups and most income groups,” Dana Peterson, the Conference Board’s chief economist, said in a release. “The proportion of consumers anticipating a recession over the next 12 months dropped to its lowest level since the question was first asked in July 2022, as did the percentage of consumers believing the economy was already in recession.”

Podcast host Joe Rogan posted on X overnight that he declined an offer from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to do an interview but said he was still hopeful that an interview would take place.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on Rogan’s post.

Rogan will sit down with GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance tomorrow, according to a source, after having former President Donald Trump on his show Friday for over 3 hours.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

With one week until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver her closing argument from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, as she frames the choice for voters, while former President Donald Trump is set to offer a preemptive response from Mar-a-Lago in Florida before traveling to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Harris delivers closing argument: As a former prosecutor, Harris has delivered closing arguments before juries in courtrooms. Tuesday evening in Washington — with the White House as her backdrop — the vice president will present her case to voters on why they should make her the next president of the United States.

For Harris, the moment — coming one week from Election Day — crystallizes the challenge facing her candidacy in these final days. She must both offer sufficient evidence to disqualify her Republican rival in the minds of voters while at the same time put forward an affirmative case for how her presidency would improve their lives. CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny and Priscilla Alvarez set up Tuesday’s speech and how the vice president intends to frame her argument to voters:

“For Harris, striking a balance between dire warnings about a rival she calls a fascist and forward-looking optimism about the president she would be has become a defining challenge of the campaign’s closing stretch,” they write.

To that end — Harris is expected to center her remarks around the competing visions for the country and to ask Americans to think about which candidate they want sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the White House as she portrays Trump as someone gripped by grievances with an “enemies list” while she would prioritize her “to-do list” and represent a break from the era of intense political division fueled by the former president. As part of that pitch Harris plans to emphasize her agenda — particularly on economic issues and aim to lower costs for middle class families, according to a senior Harris campaign official.

Damage control: While the vice president is calling for Americans to “turn the page” from her Republican rival, Trump is trying to move beyond the latest controversy that has ensnared his campaign — the fallout from the Madison Square Garden rally that was overshadowed by offensive rhetoric including a disparaging joke about Puerto Rico that prompted swift backlash.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Steve Contorno report on the finger-pointing within the former president’s operation over the rally and internal concerns about the potential impact in the closing days of the campaign.

But the controversy will be hard to escape Tuesday as Trump heads to Allentown, Pennsylvania, home to a large Puerto Rican population, as the former president attempts to flip the biggest battleground prize on the map in what would be a major barrier to his Democratic rival’s pathway to 270 electoral votes.

The Harris campaign quickly seized on the comments, launching a new ad that features the line from a rally speaker calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and promoting the vice president’s vision for the US territory. Former President Barack Obama also weighed in during a rally Monday evening in Philadelphia — home to a sizable number of Puerto Ricans — as he slammed the rhetoric being offered by allies of the GOP nominee.

Vice President Kamala Harris will rally supporters at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, Tuesday evening where, per Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, she’ll deliver “an optimistic and hopeful message really grounded in her belief in America,” the campaign hopes will sway undecided voters in the final stretch of the election.

The setting, where former president Donald Trump rallied supporters before they continued on to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is a deliberate one, the campaign chair said, serving as “a stark visualization of probably the most infamous example of Donald Trump and how he’s used his power for bad, really focusing on himself and spreading division and chaos and inciting a mob to try to maintain his own power and put himself over the country.”

That contrast will be on full display Tuesday, Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told reporters Tuesday. Per Richmond, tonight’s speech will shine a spotlight on “the clear choice voters are facing this election between Trump and his obsession with himself versus her new generation of leadership that is focused on the American people.”

“And so will you also see that and be reminded that she has always been a voice for the people, she has always talked about that, her entire career, while Donald Trump has been his entire career stamping his own name on stuff,” Richmond said. “She’ll use the powerful symbolism of the location to remind Americans that Trump is someone so all consumed by his grievances and his power and his endless desire for revenges that he is not focused on the needs of the American people.”

Former President Donald Trump told ABC News on Tuesday that he didn’t hear the comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” while speaking at a campaign rally on Sunday.

Trump also said that he didn’t know who Hinchcliffe was — despite the comedian kicking off Trump’s high-profile campaign rally at Madison Square Garden.

The Trump campaign on Sunday night put out a statement saying the comment “does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Hinchcliffe was the first speaker in the pre-program at Trump’s rally and drew swift backlash.

This still from video shows DC Metro Police Chief Pamela Smith.

During a news conference Tuesday, DC Metro Police Chief Pamela Smith said the department is prepared for key upcoming dates, including Election Day, adding that the department will be focused on security around ballot box and polling locations.

“We will pay special attention to ballot box drop off locations and our polling places,” Smith said, noting that she was aware of instances of ballot box tampering in the US and that the department will be fully activated in the days around the election.

Smith, when asked about ballot box security, said officers in DC are “patrolling the area to make sure everything is ok.”

On the election, Smith said the department “will be working closely with all of our partners to monitor events on election night and the days that follow.”

In discussing increased security for January 6, the anniversary of the Capitol riot and the day when Congress will certify the 2024 election, as well as other key dates, Smith stressed that “there are no identifiable threats here in the District of Columbia.”

Smith similarly addressed Vice President Harris’ speech at the Ellipse Tuesday evening, saying the department is “expecting upwards of about 52,000” participants to attend, up from the 20,000 originally expected.

The National Park Service has amended its original permit to accommodate 40,000 participants, according to the permit shared with CNN.

During her press conference, Smith referred to a “break glass moment,” saying she was ready to call on other law enforcement groups outside of Washington, DC to help quell any issues that arise.

Both January 6 as well as Inauguration Day have been designated by the Department of Homeland Security as National Special Security Events where the federal government will help provide significant security for both events.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally on October 28, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Vice President Kamala Harris said that she will ask people to imagine who they want sitting in the Oval Office when a new president steps in, during an anticipated speech just steps away from the White House Tuesday evening.

“Look, I’m about to give a speech at the Ellipse in front of the White House, and part of what I will be talking about is that there is going to be a new president on January 20 of next year, and it’s either going to be Donald Trump, or it’s going to be me,” Harris said in a prerecorded interview with syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club.”

Harris has been previewing the speech in recent days — which will be given in the same spot where former President Donald Trump spoke on January 6, 2021 — and has used the “enemies list” versus “to-do list” comparison on the campaign trail as the election nears.

She said her policies are about “home ownership, lifting up our small businesses, lifting up families with children, and lifting up the discourse in a way that it is not about trashing people all the time.”

This illustration photo shows the Spotify page for "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast displayed on a smart phone in Washington, DC on February 7, 2022.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is taping an interview tomorrow with Joe Rogan for his podcast, a source familiar with the plans told CNN.

The interview will be taped at Rogan’s studio in Austin, Texas, and will air later this week.

On Friday, former President Donald Trump sat down with the popular podcaster for nearly 3 hours, where he made at least 32 false claims.

Workers install security fencing around the White House grounds in preparation for a rally with US Vice President Kamala Harris on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on October 28.

The National Park service has amended the permit for Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech at the Ellipse tonight to accommodate 40,000 participants, up from the original 20,000 expected to attend, according to a permit shared with CNN.

Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said the department is “expecting upwards of about 52 thousand” participants in a presser on election security Tuesday morning.

Harris’ speech, which will be given in the same park where former President Donald Trump spoke on January 6, 2021, will ask people to imagine who they want sitting in the Oval Office when a new president steps in – and where they want that person’s focus to be, she said in a pre-recorded interview with syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club.”

Vice President Kamala Harris greets supporters at Philly Cuts on October 27 in Philadelphia.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday dismissed pundits who say she doesn’t have strong electoral support from Black men – saying she’d heard differently from many community leaders and alleging that idea came from a media “narrative.”

She said “these men, these Black men” she spoke to were “talking about not only their support for me but most importantly their support from my perspective on what we can do that lifts up the community and taps into the ambitions, and the aspiration”

At her recent rallies, Harris said the Black men in particular had told her, “Don’t you listen to that, and they got to stop with all the noise, we support you,” she also said she respected and understood the need to “earn their vote.”

Harris said her poll numbers were actually good with Black men because “folks know I have a genuine commitment based on hard work that I have already done to lift up” the Black community – and attacked Donald Trump for his record with communities of color.

“Donald Trump and Madison Square Garden, with all those tropes,” she said, her voice rising.

“Donald Trump who took out a full-page ad in the New York Times for the Central Park Five, suggesting that these young black and brown – and they were not young men, they were children – should be executed. Donald Trump who, in New York as a landlord, refused to rent to black families. Donald Trump, who called the first black president – called him out and suggested he was not born in the United States and then, most recently, refers to Black Legal immigrants in Ohio, as though they’re eating their pets.”

Vice President Kamala Harris admitted it was “disappointing” that owners of outlets like The Washington Post announced they would not endorse a presidential candidate in this election, but she also said it proves one of her closing campaign messages about former President Donald Trump.

“It’s disappointing, no doubt,” the vice president said on radio show “The Breakfast Club” in an interview that aired Tuesday, “but the other piece of it is it gets back to my point about who is Donald Trump.”

She said Trump’s policies are aimed at protecting the rich.

“That’s why, when he was last president, he put in a place a massive tax cut for billionaires and the biggest corporations,” Harris said, “and that is exactly what he will do again.”

Trump’s policies are “not about middle-class folks,” Harris said.

Billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, in his first public comments since igniting uproar last week over his decision to withhold the venerable newspaper’s endorsement in the presidential race, defended the move in a rare op-ed published Monday evening by the Post, as CNN reported late Monday.

Michael Bloomberg attends a presentation of the Industrial Transition Accelerator during day two of the high-level segment of the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference at Expo City Dubai on December 2, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire entrepreneur and former mayor of New York City, has donated $50 million to entities supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A longtime political juggernaut who launched a failed bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Bloomberg had given $19 million to support Biden’s candidacy in May but stopped short of endorsing Harris when she became the presumptive nominee.

Harris’s economic team recently convened a meeting with Bloomberg, which covered a range of issues including tax policy, and the vice president called in to share her thoughts.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Bloomberg for comment. The New York Times was the first to report Bloomberg’s contributions.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Sunday.

CNN reported last week that Vice President Kamala Harris plans to deliver a final-stretch closing argument address Tuesday 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 former President Donald Trump’s fitness for office and a warning about the chaos she says he would bring to the Oval Office should he win.

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 last week 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.

In the closing days of this year’s presidential election, the vice president and her team have sought to underscore the stakes of the election, repeatedly warning of a potential second Trump term and seizing on the former president’s controversial policies and comments to make their argument.

Stickers are seen at the Chester County Government Services Center in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 25.

Seven states will prove key to electing the next president of the United States: Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

So what is a swing state, and why is their vote so important?

There are 538 Electoral College votes split among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each state gets at least three votes, depending on the size of their congressional delegation.

Congressional seats are assigned to each state based on their population. So, the smallest states get three electoral college votes (they have two senators and one member of Congress). Washington, DC, also gets three. The most populous states get a lot more: California gets 54 electoral votes (it has two senators and 52 congressional districts), Texas has 40, Florida has 30, New York has 28 and so on.

In almost all states, the winning candidate takes all electoral votes. Whichever candidate gets 270 or more electoral votes becomes president.

Some states are historically blue (where Democrats dominate) or red (where Republicans dominate). The swing states are those where voters don’t tend to consistently vote for the same party, but swing states can change from election to election.

The bigger swing states, such as Pennsylvania, have more congressional seats, and are therefore extra important for a candidate’s road to 270. And if a candidate wins three or more swing states, they’re more likely to win the election.

That’s why the seven swing states could determine who becomes president.

Catch up on more key things to know about the election here.

After the 2020 election, chaos erupted at a Detroit counting center as Joe Biden overtook Donald Trump.

This year, election officials have given CNN exclusive access to see how they’re trying to avoid the mayhem and get faster results.

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Detroit covered up windows while counting votes in 2020. CNN goes behind the scenes to see their plans for 2024

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With the presidential contest expected to be the most litigated in US history, both campaigns have spent years laying the groundwork for a post-election courtroom battle by recruiting lawyers in every state, wargaming possible scenarios and drafting potential pleadings.

Courts across the country have been flooded with lawsuits far earlier than in the 2020 election, mostly from Republican-aligned groups challenging everything from ballot rules to voter qualifications. And the legal challenges could continue for weeks or months to come.

In anticipation, both campaigns have assembled teams of lawyers in battleground states and beyond.

Donald Trump’s team: Veteran election lawyer Gineen Bresso is heading up the GOP’s so-called election integrity efforts, while David Warrington is serving as the campaign’s general counsel. Warrington is a Washington, DC-based lawyer who represented the former president during the House select committee’s investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

After courts tossed all but one GOP lawsuit after the 2020 election, and several lawyers lost their licenses or faced criminal charges over efforts to undermine that election, sources close to the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee say they have been focused on recruiting legal talent this time around.

Kamala Harris’ team: Former White House counsel Dana Remus, who led the Joe Biden legal team in the last election, will again lead the legal fight for Harris. Sources familiar with the Democratic strategy say they have recruited hundreds of lawyers across key states with the expertise needed to fight a variety of challenges they could face.

Read the full story.

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

If reelected, Donald Trump has made clear that he plans to exact revenge on those he perceives as a threat. His “enemies” list seems to be constantly growing as the election nears, and includes Democratic politicians, the media, lawyers and political donors who he believes were “involved in unscrupulous behavior.”

Any CEO with a memory of Trump’s first term knows that it’s wise to take those threats seriously, as the president didn’t hesitate to sound off and, with a single social media post, sink a company’s stock or spark a boycott.

While dozens of American business leaders have used their money and power to resist that kind of bullying and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, others are choosing to bend the knee. Or to keep just quiet enough to avoid becoming a target.

Editorial endorsement controversy: Post owner Jeff Bezos didn’t endorse Trump explicitly. Instead, he blocked the paper’s editorial page from endorsing any candidate for the first time in decades — a not-at-all subtle nod to the Republican nominee, and one that legendary former Post editor Marty Baron called an act of cowardice.

Baron, who retired from the Post in 2021, on Saturday told CNN’s Michael Smerconish that Trump has threatened Bezos “continually,” but that Bezos had previously resisted that pressure.

“I was very grateful … for his willingness to stand up to the pressure from Donald Trump in 2015 … until now. But the fact is that Bezos has other commercial interests,” including a large stake in Amazon and a private space company, Blue Origin.

And Blue Origin, of course, competes directly with SpaceX, the rocket maker owned by outspoken Trump supporter Elon Musk, for government contracts.

Read the full analysis of executives doing diplomacy behind the scenes.

Americans faced a nightmare in June 2022: Gas prices spiked above $5 a gallon for the first time ever.

Record-high prices at the pump dealt a financial scare to consumers and created a political wound the Biden-Harris administration has struggled to mend ever since.

But now the situation has reversed. Gas prices, an in-your-face metric that many consumers view as a real-time barometer for the cost of living, are falling fast, just as millions of Americans head to the polls.

Gas is much cheaper in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona than a year ago. And for the first time since 2021, the national average has a real shot at plunging below $3 a gallon in the coming days.

It’s a crucial trend that undercuts one of the biggest arguments Republicans have used to hammer Democrats over the cost of living.

Of course, the cost of living remains a major issue for millions of Americans. And former President Donald Trump continues to poll better than Vice President Kamala Harris on who voters trust more to handle the economy.

Read the full analysis here.

Retired judge J. Michael Luttig, testifies during the third hearing of the US House Select Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 16, 2022.

Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar, is urging Republicans to put the country before their party this Election Day and reject Donald Trump, who, he says, has “ever so betrayed America.”

Luttig, who was put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in August. The election marks the first time the veteran of two Republican administrations will for a Democrat.

Voters, the former judge says, must decide on November 5 “whether Donald Trump is fit to be President of the United States again,” adding: “He is not.”

Invoking Trump’s recent comments on using military force on Election Day to handle the “enemy from within,” he says the former president “betrayed us” when he before sat in the Oval Office.

“There could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate a man who betrayed the nation when he was previously entrusted with the highest office in the land and now threatens the persecution of American citizens who have crossed him. In the almost 250 years since the founding of the nation, no president before Donald Trump has ever so betrayed America,” Luttig writes.

Luttig played a now famous role in persuading then-Vice President Mike Pence to defy Trump to certify the 2020 presidential election and has since emerged as a preeminent constitutional critic of Trump, who he has described as an existential threat to American democracy.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon arrives at a press conference outside the federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut, on July 1.

Steve Bannon was released from federal prison Tuesday, according to a source, emerging just a week before Election Day to retake the helm of his weakened right-wing media platform.

Bannon, a right-wing podcast host and the chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has remained a strident supporter of the former president.

Even as he reported to federal prison in Connecticut in July, Bannon insisted he would influence the presidential race from behind bars and that his “War Room” podcast would continue to energize the Trump base.

While in prison, Bannon digitally kept in touch with a small group of loyalists, including some of those who served as guest host for the podcast, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Bannon would in part discuss news of the day and politics including topics he thought about for the show.

Bannon was met early Tuesday morning by his daughter Maureen. He is expected to host his radio program later on Tuesday.

He was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He is continuing to appeal his conviction.

While in prison, Bannon’s MAGA megaphone has suffered in his absence. “War Room,” which frequently appeared in Apple’s Top Podcasts before Bannon reported to prison, fell off the charts by early July, according to data from Podchaser. By another measure, the podcast was once near the top of the Apple political podcast charts and has since fallen out of the top 25, per Podchaser data.

While Bannon’s show is mainly seen as an energized for the Trump base, data from Edison Research’s podcast metrics found that nearly half of Bannon’s audience was made up of Republicans but about a third of listeners were independents.

Read the full story.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes contributed reporting.

This post has been updated with additional information.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have laid out a broad array of ideas aimed at making life more affordable and strengthening the economy, which rank at the top of voters’ concerns.

Nearly all of the measures on their differing wish lists, which lack detail, would require congressional approval. That could be tough to achieve in the current partisan climate on Capitol Hill.

Here are some of them:

Expiring tax cuts: Some parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, one of Trump’s signature achievements during his time in the White House, are scheduled to lapse at the end of 2025.

Cut prices:

Read a full comparison of the candidate’s proposals.

A wide-ranging campaign by Republican officials and conservative groups is highlighting voting by noncitizens — a problem that voting experts say is virtually nonexistent.

The debate is raging from Ohio to Texas, and the US Supreme Court could rule as soon as Tuesday on a legal battle in Virginia over an eleventh-hour effort by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to remove nearly 1,600 suspected noncitizens from the rolls ahead of next week’s election.

Some context: Republican officials around the country claim they have uncovered thousands of noncitizens on their rolls and are filing new lawsuits alleging the Biden administration is withholding key information that allows them to verify that only US citizens are casting ballots.

But those claims have not always stood up to scrutiny, and eligible voters — including naturalized citizens — have often been found among those identified by Republicans as suspected noncitizens. Two thousand people had their registrations reactivated by Alabama officials from an initial August purge list of 3,200 suspected noncitizens after further investigation confirmed their citizenship, and that was before a court order reversing the purge program.

Voting rights activists who sued over Virginia’s purge program said that within a day of getting their hands on the list of removed voters, they were able to confirm that 18 of them were in fact citizens.

Courts in those cases, which were brought by the Biden administration and outside groups, blocked those programs because of a federal law that prohibits “systematic” purges too close to an election.

That hasn’t stopped former President Donald Trump and his allies from accusing a “weaponized” Justice Department of trying to let noncitizens vote.

Read the full story.

From left, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are trying to reach as many voters are possible as they make their final pitch to Americans, one week out from Election Day.

Here’s a look at what is on their schedules:

Harris will deliver her closing argument in a campaign event at the Ellipse, a park just outside the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night. The Ellipse is where then-President Trump rallied his supporters ahead of the January 6 Capitol riot.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz will deliver remarks at a rally in Savannah, Georgia, and then make a stop in Columbus.

Trump will join a discussion hosted by the group “Building America’s Future” in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, before traveling to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for a rally.

His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, will be at an event in another battleground state. He is expected to speak at two campaign events in Michigan — one in Saginaw and another in Holland.

Former first lady Michelle Obama will headline a rally aimed at boosting voter turnout in Atlanta, Georgia. The event is being coordinated through “When We All Vote,” a non-partisan organization Obama started in 2018 to work on voter engagement, and is geared towards mobilizing first-time voters, including college and high school students.

CNN’s Christian Sierra, Christina Asencio and Brian Rokus contributed reporting to this post.

Since former President Donald Trump has led the Republican Party, many Republicans strongly prefer to vote on Election Day, while Democrats nationwide have shown a preference to cast their ballots in advance.

CNN’s most recent national poll found that Vice President Kamala Harris had a large lead among voters who said they had already cast their ballots, despite a tied race among likely voters overall.

But the Trump campaign has made more of an effort this year to encourage Republicans to vote early and by mail, a major shift from messaging against preelection voting in 2020.

Republicans make up 35% of the early vote in the 27 states where research company Catalist has comparable data, up from 28% at the same point in 2020. Democrats, who made up 45% of the early vote at this point in 2020, account for 39% of preelection ballots cast now.

Read more about early voters.

With one week until Election Day, more than 43 million ballots have been cast across 47 states and the District of Columbia.

That’s according to data 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.

So far, preelection voting across the country is down significantly from this point four years ago, when a record number of voters turned out before Election Day amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The preelection total is more than a quarter of the roughly 158 million votes cast for president in 2020.

What we know about early voters: Across the states where Catalist has comparable data, early voters so far are older, slightly more likely to be White and more likely to be Republican than they were at this point four years ago. These trends also generally hold, where data is available, in the seven states that are likely to decide the election.

Early voting trends cannot predict the outcome of an election, but they can provide clues about who is voting.

Across 39 states where Catalist has data for both years, voters ages 65 and older make up 46% of all returned ballots, up 10 percentage points from this point in 2020. Voters ages 30-39 have cast 9% of early ballots, down from 12% in 2020.

About 74% of voters in those states are White, up slightly from 73% at this point four years ago, while Black, Latino and Asian voters make up slightly smaller shares of the early voting electorate.

Read the full story.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

With just days until Election Day, read up on the 2024 candidates on the Democratic and Republican tickets vying to win the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic candidate for president. The daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris grew up in Oakland and spent much of her political career in California’s Bay Area.

She was first elected as the San Francisco district attorney in 2004, before later serving as the attorney general of California. After that, Harris was elected to the Senate before being picked to be President Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 election.

She announced her own candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president after Biden withdrew from the ticket and endorsed her on July 21. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead the ticket of a major political party.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is Harris’ running mate. Before being elected to Congress to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2007, Walz was a high school geography teacher and an assistant football coach. He also served in the Army National Guard. Walz has been serving as Minnesota governor since 2019.

Former President Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president, aiming to become only the second commander in chief to win two nonconsecutive terms.

Trump, who was born in New York, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Before launching his successful 2016 presidential bid, Trump was a real estate developer, businessman and a reality television star as host of “The Apprentice.”

Ohio Sen. JD Vance is Trump’s running mate. Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance wrote a memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about his upbringing and white, working-class Americans. He also attended Yale Law School, worked as a venture capitalist and served in the US Marine Corps.

Vance was elected to the Senate in 2023, outlasting a stronger-than-expected challenge from Democrat Tim Ryan and keeping the seat under GOP control.

Read more about the Democratic, Republican and third-party candidates.

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have focused on a slate of issues during their campaigns ahead of the US presidential election.

In a September CNN poll, about four in 10 likely voters (41%) called the economy the most important issue for them as they choose a candidate for president, with protecting democracy second at 21%, immigration at 12% and abortion at 11%.

Here’s what you need to know about the issues:

Read about Harris’ and Trump’s campaign promises on key issues.

As advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris were mulling where to stage the final major address of her campaign, they had a few boxes to check.

The venue, they believed, must convey a degree of gravity about the choice before voters. But equally important, in their view, was its ability to evoke the promise of the office she seeks.

In the Ellipse — the patch of park where Donald Trump rallied his supporters on January 6, 2021, within view of the White House — they believe they found that equilibrium.

For Harris, striking a balance between dire warnings about a rival she calls a fascist and forward-looking optimism about the president she would be has become a defining challenge of the campaign’s closing stretch.

Despite the sober overtones of the setting, Harris’ advisers say the speech will be hopeful and optimistic, and not focused exclusively on the events that unfolded at the site nearly four years ago.

If there is a takeaway from that day she wants to drive home, it is that her own victory would turn the page on Trump’s divisiveness, according to advisers.

Read the full story.

The archbishop of Puerto Rico’s capital city has condemned a joke made by a speaker at a Donald Trump rally on Sunday, saying that he was “dismayed and appalled” by the comments.

Comedian and podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe opened the rally in New York City, saying: “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The comments have drawn fierce backlash, including from Trump allies, even as the former president’s campaign has tried to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s joke.

San Juan Archbishop Roberto O. Gonzalez Nieves responded with an online statement, saying: “Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage” and that it was “a beautiful country inhabited by beautiful and noble people.”

Puerto Rico is a US territory.

Hinchcliffe has responded to the criticism, writing on X: “These people have no sense of humor.” Trump’s running mate JD Vance also dismissed the backlash. “A comedian told a joke, and I don’t think that’s news worth making,” Vance said.

The archbishop countered such defenses: “I enjoy a good joke. However, humor has its limits.”

Jokes should not “insult or denigrate” people, and Hinchcliffe’s comment had provoked “hatred,” he added, calling on Trump to “disavow these comments” and personally apologize.

Police work to put out a fire at a ballot box in Vancouver, Washington, on Monday.

The presidential campaign is in its final sprint as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump visit battleground states.

Harris is leaning into her messaging on abortion rights and contrasting her character with Trump’s, while he hammers Democrats on immigration and the economy.

Millions of people have already cast their ballots in the deadlocked race. The latest CNN poll finds the candidates neck-and-neck.

Here’s a recap of what happened on Monday:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally in support of Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 28.

Former President Barack Obama at a rally in Philadelphia Monday criticized the racist and vulgar language used during a Donald Trump rally in New York the night before as he made his case for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“So the man [Trump] holds this big rally in Madison Square Garden, and the warm-up speakers were saying the most — were trotting out and peddling the most racist, sexist, bigoted stereotypes. One guy called Puerto Rico, quote, ‘an island of garbage,’” Obama said.

Trump’s rally Sunday night featured opening remarks from comedian and podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe, who assailed Puerto Rico, saying, “I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

“Now, these are fellow citizens he’s talking about here in Philadelphia, they are your neighbors, they are your friends, they are your coworkers, their kids go to school with your kids. These are Americans,” Obama said. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in battleground Pennsylvania, where Obama held Monday night’s rally.

“We have to reject the kind of politics of divisions and hatred that we saw represented,” Obama said. “America is ready to turn the page.”

Trump’s campaign distanced itself from the comedian’s comments Sunday night along with several Republican lawmakers, but not before they were seized upon by the Harris campaign and likes of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, who signaled his support for the vice president’s candidacy.