Donald Trump, Kamala Harris Virtually Tied In Battleground States, Polls Say: Latest Updates

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are running out of time to convince voters they’re the best candidate to vote for in the 2024 presidential election.
Harris and Trump have been neck and neck in polls in recent weeks. The two and their running mates, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have ramped up their public appearances in the final days of the campaign, barnstorming battleground states and taking part in media blitzes.
Abortion rights, inflation, extremism, immigration and more — the stakes have never been higher. Catch up on critical 2024 election updates here.
Candidates up and down the ballot are making their final pitches. Control of the House and Senate is at stake, and state and local politicians around the nation are making eleventh-hour arguments for a win.
Read the latest updates on the election below.
Harris will spend the final day of the 2024 campaign in Pennsylvania, the swing state with the highest number of Electoral College votes. After joining a canvass kickoff in Scranton, the vice president will headline a rally in Allentown. Harris will then deliver remarks in Pittsburgh, where she will be joined by artists D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day. She will hold her final rally before Election Day in Philadelphia, where Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin and Oprah Winfrey are among the guests expected to appear.
Walz will host a meet and greet in St. Paul, Minnesota, before traveling to Wisconsin to hold campaign events in La Crosse, Stevens Point and Milwaukee. He will then head to Michigan, where he is scheduled to speak at a Detroit rally.
Trump is due to travel to three battleground states: North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The former president will start the day at a rally in Raleigh before holding two other events in Reading and Pittsburgh. Trump will close the day with a rally in Grand Rapids, the city where he close to deliver the closing message of his campaign in his past two presidential runs.
Vance will headline a rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, before traveling to Michigan for another event in Flint. Later, he will deliver remarks at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, before making his final appearance of the day in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
In the final “Last Week Tonight” episode before Election Day, John Oliver made a last-ditch plea to pro-Palestine voters still on the fence about who to cast their ballot for: Harris, because she will be easier to hold accountable for America’s supportive role in Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.
Oliver spoke of the internal conflict he as a Democrat feels about voting for Harris when she has publicly claimed her stance on Gaza policy would essentially be unchanged from Biden’s current position. That stance has made it very difficult for the campaign to earn the trust of pro-Palestinian voters – specifically in Michigan, a swing state with a large Muslim and Arab American population.
“How can I tell the Dearborn pharmacist who lost 80 members of his family in one day to vote for the vice president?” the host said before admitting he’s considered leaving his own ballot blank for president. “I think the Arab American community is likely not to vote for Harris. I’m fairly certain of that. I don’t know how I’m going to vote, I’m not going to lie to you.”
Oliver pointed to the positions of some leaders with the Uncommitted movement, who declined to endorse Harris after she would not meet with them to discuss potential policy changes. Some of those leaders stressed that they’re voting for Harris because she can be more easily pressured to change policy positions, while a Trump reelection would be miles more dangerous for Muslims, immigrants and the fate of Palestinians in occupied land.
“Elections alone aren’t sufficient for large-scale change, but they’re absolutely necessary for it to ever happen,” the host said. “Because it’s the day when you essentially get to choose who you’d prefer to be pushing for the next four years and where you’ll be pushing them from.”
Following a hearing in Philadelphia on Monday, a judge is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether to stop a daily $1 million voter giveaway program launched by Elon Musk and his pro-Trump America PAC in mid-October.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued the tech billionaire and PAC last week, arguing that the program violates state laws because it amounts to an “illegal lottery.” Krasner contends it violates consumer protection laws, too. Chris Gober, an attorney for America PAC defended the program to a judge on Monday, saying there was no “prize to be won” and instead people who enter and are selected are establishing “contractual obligations” to be “spokespeople” for America PAC and that the $1 million amounts to a “salary.” Gober insisted the PAC doesn’t choose recipients at random and instead picks them based on how suitable they would be as spokespeople.
Prosecutors say Musk has waffled on the description of the scheme and how he categorizes recipients since he first announced it. Musk, Summers said Monday, is deploying “political marketing masquerading as a lottery, albeit an illegal lottery.”
“There is no First Amendment Right to commit fraud,” Krasner said Monday while testifying about the case, adding that Musk was doing “everything under the sun to cover up” that the program was illegal.
According to CNBC, Krasner also called the giveaway a “grift” and “scam.”
The program ends tomorrow, meaning even a victory for the district attorney would have little practical impact.
It seems to have dawned on Trump that this is his last rally in North Carolina, a realization he processed in real time as he went off-script:
“Think of this: I won’t be doing this anymore with North Carolina. And I won’t be doing this anymore with — after today, this is, I’m just thinking this, I’m going through this, that this will be our final moment. But, the really, the more exciting moment is going to begin. See, these moments of hundreds and hundreds of the most incredible rallies in any country — no country’s ever seen anything like this — but these moments, these moments that we’ve had together, these really were just to create what we’ll hopefully create tomorrow, which is we’re going to make America great again. So we’ll have many meetings but we won’t have rally meetings. We’re going to have — maybe we’ll rally in that we’ll rally in our success…”
Trump then returned to his teleprompter, where his written speech hinted darkly at what’s to come should he be elected.
“We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history,” he said. “With your help we will restore America’s promise and we will take back the nation that we all love so much. We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God.”
“November 5th will be the most important date in the history of our country,” he added.
While people are on edge already over threats of violence on Election Day, and there’s been a failure by Donald Trump to tone down violent rhetoric, the nation’s capital is girding itself. On Monday, the D.C. Department of Buildings ordered that all construction near Howard University, the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, must be stopped by 7 p.m. Monday and that “specifically, anything within [a] permitted work site that can possibly be used as a projectile should be out of immediate reach of the public before 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024.”
The notice comes as the campus is scheduled to hold an election night watch party at Howard, a first for the university.
Elsewhere in Washington, D.C., fencing around the White House, as well as the vice president’s residence and the Naval Observatory, have been reinforced in anticipation of any unrest on Election Day or beyond.
The Secret Service has said there will also be additional security measures at the Palm Beach Convention Center where Trump is holding an election night watch party.
Pivoting to the economy from his usual screed about immigration, Trump amplified a right-wing conspiracy theory that claims, without any proof, that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is complicit in a grand scheme to release false data and make the economy look better than it actually is.
“Can you imagine that?” he asked. “These are numbers and they don’t want to talk about it.”
Trump then claimed that the U.S. has “the worst economy since the 1929 depression” and that “it’s going to get worse.” (In reality, the U.S. economy is doing quite well).
He then appeared to celebrate the (false) bad economic data he’d conjured, because it absolves him of having to capably manage the economy should he win the election.
“But you see — that’s what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be sworn in and then have these numbers come then. I said, ‘I hope it comes before I go into office, otherwise I’ll get blamed.’ I didn’t want to be a certain president that had to preside over … got into office, and, uh, it all crashed down. People jumping off buildings,” he said.
“This is the beginning, just remember this, this was a very, this was an important day. Last week, the end of last week, remember last week? Remember? That was a very important time.”
Of note: Elon Musk, a prominent Trump backer, predicted last week that Trump’s economic plans will inflict “temporary hardship” on American citizens.
Trump is closing out his election campaign by threatening former First Lady Michelle Obama.At a rally in North Carolina, the GOP candidate asked a crowd of supporters whether he was “allowed to hit her now” after alleging that Obama “hit me.”To be clear, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama has physically attacked Trump.The former first lady, one of Harris’ leading surrogates, on Sunday warned of the “hatred and ugliness” another Trump presidency could usher in.Trump appeared to threaten Obama at a previous rally, but his latest outburst is an escalation in his language and appears to deliberately lean into the ambiguity of the word “hit.”The Republican nominee, apparently recounting a conversation with his advisers, said, “Michelle … I was so nice to her out of respect. She hit me the other day. I was going to say: ‘Am I allowed to hit her now?’ They said: ‘Take it easy, sir.’ My geniuses, they said take it easy. ‘What do you mean? She’s so mad at me, I can’t hit back?’ ‘Sir, you’re winning. Just relax.’ Is that good or bad advice? I think it’s neutral.”You can watch a clip here.
Trump appears to have confirmed his dictatorial bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’d speak to Vladimir Putin a lot,” he bragged to a crowd in North Carolina. “I was the apple of his eye.”
He then launched into a rant about the war Russia is waging on Ukraine. It’s unclear if Trump was referring to Ukraine or himself as Putin’s most cherished object of affection; Trump’s made the same weird boast in the past.
The alarming non-sequitur came at the end of a ramble about American aerospace development, specifically the achievements of SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, a fervent Trump-supporter. According to a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month, Musk and Putin have been in close touch over the past two years.
Trump thinks he can tame the southern border with an “innovative” new tool: tariffs.
He told the audience he’s “going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything [Mexico] sends into the United States,” and congratulated the crowd on being “the first I’ve told that to.”
Trump predicted the economic tool, which in fact imposes higher costs on Americans, has “a 100% chance of working.”
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll make [the tariff] 50,” he continued. “And if that doesn’t work I’ll make it 75. I’ll make it 100. There’s a one hundred percent chance it will work.”
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy last week found that Trump’s numerous tariff proposals would increase taxes on 95% of Americans and would outweigh his tax cuts for all but the richest households.
Before launching into his stump speech at his last rally in North Carolina, Trump (without evidence) told the crowd he’s “leading every swing state” and “we’re way leading, all we have to do is close it up.”
“We’re leading every swing state which is unheard of for the Republican party,” he reiterated.
It’s unclear where Trump’s getting his data, but polling averages show the race is actually a toss-up in most swing states.
At the Trump campaign’s last official rally in North Carolina, Trump Jr. asked the crowd if they’re “ready to stop the insanity.”
He then warned them not to “fall for the psy-ops” in the final days leading up to the election, asserting without any evidence that polls showing his dad winning are designed to make people complacent and not vote, while polls that show Trump losing are “designed to make you over-confident so you stay home.”
“We can end it tomorrow,” he said, while alleging that dark, anti-Democratic forces want to drag out the election for a week “to find a magical truck full of ballots.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged his supporters to vote for Trump despite his name appearing on the ballot in several states, including in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin.
“No matter what state you live in you should be voting for Donald Trump,” he said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter. “That’s the only way that we can get me and everything I stand for into Washington, D.C., and fulfill the mission that motivated my campaign.”
Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who became a top campaign surrogate for Trump after ending his Independent presidential bid, on Sunday told Fox News the GOP nominee has “assured” him he will get a role in the White House if Trump wins.
“I’m confident that if I wanted to do [Health and Human Services] secretary, the president would fight like hell to make that happen,” Kennedy said.
The pollster who shocked the political world this weekend by suggesting Harris is now narrowly ahead of Trump in Iowa has explained why she thinks the Democratic candidate has seen a big upswing in the state.The poll — conducted by J. Ann Selzer, sponsored by the Des Moines Register, and published Saturday — puts Harris at 47% over Trump’s 44%.While the Harris lead in the Selzer poll is an outlier based on rival surveys that give the GOP nominee the advantage, Selzer is viewed as one of America’s premier pollsters, based largely on her accuracy in predicting the outcome of previous presidential races in the Hawkeye State.The Iowa poll was seized upon as an indicator of the direction other Midwestern states are heading, particularly the battlegrounds that will decide the election.During a media round in recent days, Selzer spoke to MSNBC‘s “The Weekend” on Sunday and explained why she believed Harris had leapfrogged Trump.“We don’t have as much data as we might like about why this is happening,” she said. “But our consensus from the reporters who work this beat is that the six-week abortion ban went into effect this past summer … and so I think as Iowans see the consequences of that. I think it has gotten people interested in voting.”She characterized the Dobbs decision as being the big motivating factor as there have been no presidential visits to the state, with Iowa “largely written off” as a win for the third time for Trump, so any voting shifts were “largely organic.”Watch the full interview below:
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) warned that extreme Republicans will put popular programs, including the Affordable Care Act, in jeopardy if they retain control of the House following the election.
“The extreme MAGA Republicans have clearly and unequivocally articulated what they will do to America moving forward. The extreme MAGA Republicans will take a blow torch to social security, they will take a blow torch to Medicare, they will take a blow torch to the Affordable Care Act,” Jeffries told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “House Democrats will take a blow torch to Project 2025.”
Jeffries also drew a contrast between his party and the GOP, noting that Democrats believe in free and fair elections.
“The majority of current House Republicans voted not to certify the election in 2020, and so it’s certainly a challenge, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don’t seem to be capable of unequivocally saying that they will certify the election and the verdict that is rendered by the American people. As House Democrats that’s what we will do.”
“We believe in democracy even when we disagree with the outcome,” he continued.
The New York Times Tech Guild walked off the job early Monday after stalled talks, potentially jeopardizing the news outlet’s busy Election Day news coverage.
The guild, which represents more than 600 software developers and others who run the site’s back-end systems according to the Times, called it quits after negotiations hit a wall late Sunday.
Some of the issues both sides clashed on were remote/hybrid work protections, and pay equity/fair pay, the union said.
“The Tech Guild is asking readers to honor the digital picket line and not play popular NYT Games such as Wordle and Connections as well as not use the NYT Cooking app,” the union said in a statement.
The union said its members would protest daily outside the company’s headquarters starting at 9 a.m. Monday.
NYT tech guild announces it walks off the job – their members help power a lot of the digital elements readers turn to daily… and especially on big moments like Election Night pic.twitter.com/9dDrvMNvwR
Research by Focaldata, a British company that uses a different polling technique, shows Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly beating Donald Trump in the presidential race, Politico reported.
The MRP — which stands for “multilevel regression and post-stratification” — poll of 31,000 voters shows Harris victories in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The research suggests that standard election pollsters may be giving the impression that Trump is stronger than he really is.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) criticized President Joe Biden for apparently referring to Trump’s supporters as “garbage” last week.
The Trump ally, though, did not share similar concerns about the former president previously calling the people around Harris “scum” and “garbage.”
Read more on the interview here.
The Harris campaign welcomed the findings of the last Des Moines Register poll of Iowa which showed the Democratic candidate leading Trump by three percentage points in a state he carried twice. However, her team warned against getting overly excited about it, noting that it is merely a reflection of the energy Harris’ candidacy is generating on the ground.
“We are seeing that we’re closing strong,” a Harris official told reporters, according to Politico. “I would not read into it any more than that.”
The New York Times this weekend used just one paragraph to sum up why GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is totally unfit to return to the White House.
Read more here:
NBC gave former President Donald Trump two minutes of free air time on Sunday night after his competitor, Vice President Kamala Harris, made a surprise appearance on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.
The network aired a minute-long video message from Trump during NASCAR and football events.
During a call with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday morning, Trump complained to the journalist about his reporting that the GOP candidate is not as disciplined as his team would like him to be in the final days of the campaign.
“You said my message was all over the place. It’s not,” Trump said.
Read more on their conversation here.