Election 2024: Trump, Harris both campaign in Texas; Beyoncé appears at rally in Houston

In a star-studded evening before an electrified crowd of tens of thousands of supporters, Harris tonight implored women and men to cast their ballots on Nov. 5 in defense of their freedoms and as a rejection to former President Donald Trump’s policies.  

“Texas, what we’re experiencing here is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of it,” Harris said. 

Read the full story here.

Trump continued attacking Harris, targeting her intelligence and referring to her as "horrible," "useless" and "a disgrace to your nation."

He frequently criticizes her in personal terms and tonight also slammed her for going "out partying" — a reference to her large rally in Texas tonight featuring Beyoncé — while "Israel is attacking." (Trump explained his own rally during the Israeli strike on Iran as not "partying" but "working to make America great again.")

Despite polling indicating that he and Harris are running neck and neck, Trump claimed that she was losing the election and asked the crowd how Harris could be “celebrating" with Beyoncé "when you’re down by like a lot." Multiple polls from October show Trump and Harris locked in a razor-tight race.

In just two weeks, Harris could make history as America’s first female president. You don’t hear her talk about it much. 

“The experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone’s gender, [voters] want to know that their president has a plan to lower costs, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world,” the vice president told NBC News in an interview Tuesday. 

But while Harris isn’t talking about it, everyone else is. 

Read the full story here.

Trump's attorneys filed a brief today arguing the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case in Florida was unconstitutional.

"There is not, and never has been, a basis for Jack Smith’s unlawful crusade against President Trump," his attorneys wrote in the filing.

Trump has also challenged the special counsel’s role in the D.C. election interference case, with his attorneys yesterday informing the judge in that case of their intent to challenge the constitutionality of Smith's appointment.

Trump made a comment during his speech about the Traverse City crowd being larger than he expected, urging journalists to show the size of the crowd.

However, a substantial number of his supporters had already left by the time he started speaking, about three hours after the event was supposed to start. And a steady stream of spectators continued leaving the chilly venue as Trump spoke.

"I figured when I got here there’d be like 20 people, and I was ready to do it — Look at this place. It goes back— they never show the crowds, you know? They never show it. You ever see Kamala’s crowd? They put like 10 people, they bus them in. They take a bus and they pay people. That’s true. They pay people. They don’t get people," Trump said without evidence.

Trump also paused his remarks for two apparent medical incidents in the crowd. During the second incident, he requested that his staff play "Ave Maria," a staple on his rally playlist.

Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake launched two new political advertisements today, one of which prominently features Trump.

Titled "Trump and Lake: Vote America First Twice," the new spot is featuring on broadcast and digital, according to the Lake campaign. It starts off with Trump bashing Lake's opponent.

"Ruben Gallego is horrible," says Trump in the ad, using soundbites taken from his rally in Glendale, Arizona, in August.

"If we win this state, we win the presidency, and we have to take Kari Lake with us," says Trump in the advertisement.

Hannah DeMott, a Jenison, Michigan, resident, voted by mail for Harris but says neither she nor Trump is doing enough to protect the rights of people with disabilities or Indigenous communities.

“Seeing Donald Trump talking about certain communities, he has such a lack of awareness and understanding,” DeMott said.

In particular, she referenced a 2015 incident where Trump appeared to mock a reporter with a congential joint condition at a campaign event in South Carolina. 

Russian actors “manufactured and amplified” a recent viral video that falsely showed a person tearing up ballots in Pennsylvania, the FBI and two other federal agencies said today.

The FBI and officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the U.S. intelligence community made the assessment based on available information and past activities from other Russian influence actors, including videos and disinformation efforts.

“This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans,” the agencies said in a statement. “In the lead up to election day and in the weeks and months after, the [intelligence community] expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans.”

Read the full story here.

Trump walked onstage to the song "Rest in Peace" by Jim Johnston, the wrestler the Undertaker's theme song in WWE. The dramatic instrumental song is different than his usual walk-on song, "God Bless the USA," by Lee Greenwood.

Trump stood onstage for several minutes as the Undertaker's theme played. Then, the Greenwood song came on and Trump listened to that as well before starting to speak.

Trump had been delayed in Texas and his speech began about three hours after it was set to start.

Trump's campaign announced featured speakers for his upcoming Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The list includes Elon Musk, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, both of Trump's adult sons and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

Johnson will appear at the rally after making numerous stops in support of Republican House candidates across the country this year, seeking to hold onto, if not grow, his party's slim majority in the House.

The Louisiana Republican is a close ally of Trump's and the two spoke just this morning, Johnson told reporters after voting early in Louisiana. Johnson said he was talking to Trump about polling that shows him doing well, saying, "We’re both very excited. I’ll be with him on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden for the last big rally of the campaign, and that’s going to be a big one."

Trump's plane touched down in Traverse City, Michigan shortly after 10 p.m. Supporters cheered and pulled out their phones to capture a glimpse of his plane.

Trump was scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m., and the crowd has significantly thinned out since then.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk defended the legality of his super PAC’s $1 million daily giveaway to registered voters in swing states, days after the Justice Department sent a letter warning that the lottery-style contest might be unlawful.

Musk, during an online town hall event today on his social media app X, asserted that the purpose of the contest was not to induce people to register to vote. That’s a distinction that legal experts have said is important, because it’s illegal under federal law to pay people to register to vote. 

“To be clear, this is not a petition to vote for or register for anyone. It’s really a petition in support of the Constitution of the United States, and in particular, freedom of speech and the right to bear arms,” he said.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s late departure from Austin is impacting the crowd here in Traverse City, Michigan — and supporters are expressing sadness over the delay.

Amy Adie, who said she drove seven hours from Indianapolis to be here, where she also has family, said, "We’re not going to stick around. It’s just gonna be too late. We have a lot going on tomorrow, and my husband and my dad are both older than I am, and are having trouble standing this long.”

She added that if they had seats they would have stayed.

“I’m feeling really disappointed and super sad," Adi said. "I’ve seen one other president. I saw Gerald Ford in 1987 he came to my high school in northern Indiana. And I’ve been talking about it for two days that I was gonna get to see another president and future president” 

Head Pastor Lynette Sparks of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, has noticed in her congregation “a huge level of unease right under the surface” as Election Day approaches. But one issue stands out among the rest, she told NBC News.

“For our congregation, at a national level, there’s a real concern about the encroachment of Christian nationalism,” she said. “That’s not something that our congregation and our tradition subscribes to by any means.”

Sparks said she takes issue with how Christian nationalism “is melding church and state with a particular view.” She also invoked the Theological Declaration of Barmen, a proclamation born out of Christians in Nazi Germany resisting the Nazi state’s attempts to control religious life.

Trump supporters started to leave the former president's rally in Traverse City, Michigan, tonight after learning that he’s running more than 2 hours behind schedule for the event.

Trump's campaign said he was departing Austin, Texas, at around 7:40 p.m. ET. The flight from Austin to Traverse City is about two-and-a-half hours.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio said today that he is voting for Harris, citing her positions on climate change and referencing the widespread damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“Donald Trump continues to deny the facts. He continues to deny the science,” DiCaprio said in a video posted to his Instagram account.

The Academy Award-winning actor has been an outspoken advocate for climate action and has supported Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden, in the past.

The U.S. Army today released a heavily redacted copy of a police report stemming from an August incident in which a staffer from Trump’s campaign allegedly pushed an Arlington National Cemetery worker.

The report, which describes the incident as a “simple assault,” notes that on Aug. 26 the campaign staffer used “both” hands while trying to move past the cemetery worker, who NBC News previously reported had attempted to stop the staffer from taking photos. The names of both people were redacted.

Read the full story here.

A federal appeals court ruled today that a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked before election day — but received up to five days after Election Day — is preempted by federal law.

The ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals does not have any immediate impact on the current election because the three-judge panel of Trump appointees declined to issue an injunction blocking the counting of votes and sent the case back to the lower court for further action.

Read the full story here.

Voters attending Trump’s rally in Traverse City, Michigan, today said they were unswayed by John Kelly’s reported recent comments that Trump meets the definition of a fascist.

Some of the voters expressed skepticism about the timing of the reports.

“I can make my own decisions about Trump and a lot of stuff that’s coming out now is just kind of unbelievable,” James Chase, a 66-year-old Republican attending his first political rally, told NBC News. “So, you know, you got to take it with a grain of salt.”

Josh Shapiro sits atop what may be one of the most important states this election, and he said he’s doing everything he can to make sure Harris wins in Pennsylvania. 

“Every election I’ve ever personally been involved in, the feeling I want to have that night, that Monday night when I go to bed, is that I left it all on the field,” Shapiro told NBC News when asked if he will feel on the night before Election Day that he’s done everything he can to get Harris elected.

Read the full story here.

A group backing Florida’s Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution if passed, says it has raised over $100 million.

Floridians Protecting Freedom’s “Yes on 4” campaign reported raising more than $14 million last week alone from 7,760 unique donors, bringing its fundraising total to $104 million from over 47,000 donors. NBC News has not independently verified those figures.

The reported numbers would make the fundraising haul the largest by a pro-abortion rights ballot initiative since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., today held a press call calling on Republican challenger Dave McCormick to demand the hedge fund he formerly led release former employees who reported sexual harassment from nondisclosure or confidentiality agreements.

Casey’s campaign sent a letter to McCormick yesterday in response to a 2023 book that said that under McCormick’s leadership, the hedge fund Bridgewater encouraged female employees who had experienced sexual harassment to keep quiet.

“You have held up your record as President and CEO of Bridgewater as a key proof point explaining why the voters of Pennsylvania should choose you as their new Senator. They deserve the full story,” Casey campaign manager Tiernan Donohue wrote in the letter to McCormick.

A broad Chinese hacking campaign against U.S. telecommunication networks targeted the phones of Trump and Vance, two sources familiar with the matter say. Another source told NBC News that people affiliated with the Harris campaign were also targeted.

None of the three sources clarified whether campaign devices were successfully compromised or whether China stole their communications. It is unclear who in the Harris campaign was targeted or if others in the Trump campaign were targeted in addition to Trump and Vance.

In a joint statement, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the federal government “is investigating the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”

Read the full story here.

As is typical during the senator’s events, Vance called out local elected officials by name and noted their effort in helping the campaign — with one awkward mistake. 

“I want to give a shout out to — you guys have a great lieutenant governor. Sorry, we’ve got — sorry, Mark isn’t here,” Vance said in Raeford, North Carolina, catching himself as he complimented Mark Robinson, the state’s deputy executive and Republican candidate for the governorship, who is embroiled in controversy after a CNN report unearthed troves of off-color online comments. 

Robinson, who has denied the allegations in the CNN report and vowed to stay in the race, has not appeared with Vance at one of his several events in the state since the report broke. 

“We’ve got Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. He’s not lieutenant governor. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg,” Vance said, correcting himself and continuing down the list of dignitaries.

The newly elected chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., suggested that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state Legislature should consider awarding the state’s electors to Trump before all votes are counted, according to a video of his remarks posted on social media today.

Citing North Carolina counties hit by Hurricane Helene where residents may have difficulty voting, Harris said during a Q&A at a Maryland county Republican Party dinner last night that it “makes a lot of sense” for the state Legislature to convene a joint session to allocate the state’s electors on Election Day, Nov. 5.

Read the full story here.

“Orange bowling,” as it is sometimes referred to, is a tradition on the campaign trail. Members of the press corp will roll oranges up the aisle of a campaign plane to ask candidates lighthearted questions.

Today’s question for Walz was written on a mini pumpkin: “Gov. Walz, if you could compete in an olympic sport...summer or winter...which would it be?”

His answer: “Curling.”

According to a source familiar with the matter, Walz said, “It’s something I still think I could actually do.”

Apparently, he went back and forth between curling and bobsledding as his family watches bobsledding every winter. The governor ultimately decided to go with curling, calling it “the unofficial sport of Minnesota winters.”

With just days until Election Day, Harris is leaning into a closing argument centered on attacking Trump as a danger, an approach campaign officials believe will help her both win over remaining undecided voters and motivate her base, according to four Harris aides familiar with the strategy.

The approach won’t be one-note, her advisers said, but will also seek to highlight her vision and explain what she would do in office.

The plan to hammer Trump more harshly and aggressively in the final days has already begun to play out. On Wednesday, Harris said she believed Trump was a “fascist” during a town hall. She appeared in a series of moderated discussions with Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman who served on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack and has been a vocal critic of Trump. And on Thursday, Harris delivered an unscheduled speech focused on former Trump chief of staff John Kelly confirming Trump praised Adolf Hitler’s generals.

Harris’ campaign also announced she will give a speech Tuesday on the Ellipse park outside the White House — the site where Trump spoke shortly before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that critics and prosecutors have pointed to as the catalyst for the attack.

Read the full story here.

The Harris campaign has started running new digital ads featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders, in which Sanders promotes Harris’ plans to expand Medicare, lower home health care costs and build more affordable housing.

“The people on top are doing just fine. Let’s protect working families,” Sanders says in the ads.

This is Sanders’ first digital persuasion ad for the Harris campaign. The Vermont independent did record digital fundraising ads for the Harris campaign and also appeared in a digital ad over the summer when President Joe Biden was atop the ticket, going after Trump for telling rich people that he would give them tax cuts.

These new digital ads are running both statewide and in targeted communities in swing states on Snapchat.

Former independent presidential candidate and new Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a request today at the Supreme Court seeking his removal from the ballot in Michigan, an important swing state.

This followed a similar filing earlier this week concerning Wisconsin, another election battleground.

The court has yet to act on either case. It has asked state officials to respond to Kennedy's requests by Monday afternoon.

With voting underway in both states it would appear unlikely that Kennedy's last-ditch gambits, clearly aimed at boosting Trump, will pay off.

Republicans today sought to block a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling from earlier in the week that said some mail-in ballots in the state flagged as potentially defective should be provisionally counted.

Although the case arose from this year's primary election, the filing asserts that the case is binding on the general election too. Republican lawyers said in the court filing that they intend to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.

The divided state court said mail-in ballots that machines detect as lacking secondary “secrecy envelopes” as required under state law can nevertheless be counted provisionally, a finding that Republicans had argued against. Such ballots automatically lead to voters’ being notified that there are problems with the ballots that can be remedied by voting in person.

During a speech in Texas, Trump blasted a Virginia judge who on Friday blocked a GOP-led effort to remove alleged noncitizens from voter rolls in the state.

"The outrageous decision goes against the very bedrock of our democracy," Trump said, echoing a post he made earlier Friday on TruthSocial.

"And thankfully, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who’s doing a terrific job, is working hard to fix this problem. Thousands of illegal votes and the judge said, ‘You didn’t do it in a timely fashion,'" Trump added.

Harris blasted Trump while speaking to reporters briefly in Texas over his comments yesterday calling the U.S. "like a garbage can for the world."

"It’s just another example of how he really belittles our country. This is someone who is a former president of the United States who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is ... trash," she said.

Harris said the president should "be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are. America deserves better.”

NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections said Friday that despite Hurricane Helene leaving destruction across western North Carolina, registered voters from the area have had "tremendous turnout," in early voting.

"What most of the affected counties are seeing is tremendous turnout," Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the NCSBE.

She added that in McDowell County, just east of Asheville, the board has seen "more turnout each day than in 2020, when we were setting records across the state in terms of turnout."

Walz said at a campaign reception in Philadelphia today that Trump chose Vance to be on the GOP 2024 ticket because the senator wouldn't have done what former Vice President Mike Pence did.

"This is about Donald Trump ignoring the rule of law. He’s talking about suspending the Constitution. He’s talking about being a dictator on day one," Walz said.

An election official was assaulted at a polling place in San Antonio, Texas, on Thursday night, Bexar County officials said Friday.

The Bexar County Elections Department polling clerk was assaulted at an early voting location, Jacquelyn Callanen, the department’s administrator, said in a statement. Law enforcement and first responders were called and the clerk was treated on site and went home.

Callanen said that law enforcement was now investigating the incident and that security remains in place at the voting site where the assault occurred. She added that the victim cast his ballot before the incident took place.

“Bexar County Elections has always made it a priority to provide security for our voters, when needed,” Callanen said. “We ask that our voters remain calm and realize that more than 200,000 early voters have cast their ballot this past week, and the majority of experiences have been positive.”

At least one pro-Palestinian protester interrupted Biden during his formal apology for the United States’ Native American boarding school system during remarks in Arizona.

"Let her go. There’s a lot of innocent people being killed," Biden said in response. "It has to stop."

Jo Ann Davidson, the first woman to serve as speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, has died, The Columbus Dispatch and others, including Gov. Mike DeWine, report. She was 97.

A trailblazer in Buckeye State politics, Davidson was a confidante and mentor to countless Republican officeholders, candidates and operatives. Until earlier this year, she served as Ohio’s female representative on the Republican National Committee.

As the Dispatch obituary notes, Davidson was a fiscal conservative, but socially moderate. In her later years, she was a close adviser to John Kasich, the congressman-turned-governor who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, losing to Trump. Davidson’s involvement with Kasich signaled the beginning of a rift between old-guard Ohio Republicans in the state and the ascendant far-right flank that responded to Trump’s populist politics of grievance.

On TruthSocial, Trump blasted a Virginia judge who halted a plan by Republicans to remove alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls so close to Election Day.

"This is a totally unacceptable travesty," Trump wrote, lauding Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin for appealing the decision to a higher court.

"Keep fighting, Glenn — AND REPUBLICANS IN VIRGINIA, KEEP VOTING EARLY!" the former president added.

Trump also said he would call into a Youngkin rally in the state tomorrow and would plan to stop there again in-person ahead of Election Day.

The editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer, a flagship paper in battleground Pennsylvania, endorsed Harris for president on Friday.

"The choice is clear and obvious. Vice President Kamala Harris wants to help all Americans. Donald Trump wants to help himself," the editorial board wrote.

The Inquirer's endorsement comes the same day that The Washington Post declined to endorse a presidential candidate, a departure from that paper's tradition. Last week, the Los Angeles Times also decided not to endorse this year.

The North Carolina Board of Elections responded to outcries that signs posted across the state near polling sites were being used to intimidate voters.

Yellow signs written in Spanish read: "Warning: if you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you cannot vote in elections. It is illegal! It is a crime. (18 U.S. code §611.) You could be deported. Don't do it! Paid for by North Carolina Election Integrity Team.”

Several advocacy groups signed and sent a letter to the NCSBE requesting that the signs be removed, arguing that they "serve no purpose but to intimidate legally qualified voters from engaging in our political process.”

While the board did call for the removal of signs with the Spanish word “extranjero,” which translates to “foreigner,” they said signs that used the proper translation of "noncitizen" could remain standing.

The Washington Post's editorial board will not make a presidential endorsement in this election or in "any future presidential election," the newspaper's publisher and chief executive announced today.

"We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way," Will Lewis said in a statement published on The Post's website.

In a notable — and rare —  joint statement from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the two congressional leaders blasted Harris for calling Trump a "fascist" and comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler at a town hall last night.

“In the weeks since that second sobering reminder,” the two men wrote, referring to the assassination attempts of the former president, “the Democratic nominee for President of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus.”

Johnson and McConnell — the latter of whom just heavily criticized Trump in his new biography — slammed Harris for her rhetoric.

A federal judge has granted the Justice Department’s request for an injunction blocking Virginia from systematically removing alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls this close to an election.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ordered the Commonwealth this morning to stop its program immediately and within five days restore the voter registration of the more than 1,600 people who were removed in recent months. 

“Defendant’s program has curtailed the right of eligible voters to cast their ballots in the same manner as other eligible voters,” Giles said in announcing her ruling.

When a Republican official in Georgia filed a lawsuit this year declaring that election boards did not have a duty to certify results, the lawyer she turned to was part of the legal team who worked on former President Donald Trump’s behalf there in 2020.

Atlanta-based attorney Alex Kaufman, whose name appears on the lawsuit, was a silent listener on the infamous January 2021 call in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his loss there. He was also part of the legal team that tried to submit an alternative slate of electors in the state.

Read the full story here.

Among the many permutations for how the elections could end, one prospect has sparked chatter in both parties: Donald Trump could win the presidency while Democrats seize control of the House.

Such a split would be rare — not since 1989 has a president entered office without his party controlling the House — and give Democrats substantial power over Trump’s legislative agenda.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the GOP House majority whip, repeatedly dodged questions about Trump's reported praise for Adolf Hitler and a new ABC News/Ipsos poll showing 49% of respondents consider the GOP nominee a fascist.

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan pressed Emmer on both topics throughout the increasingly contentious live interview, but the congressman — a Trump campaign surrogate — refused to answer her directly. Instead, Emmer pivoted to talking about Trump's closing argument to voters.

Bolduan at one point asked: "Are you, personally, OK if Donald Trump says that he wants his generals to be like Hitler's generals?"

Emmer, after a brief pause, said in part: "Americans do not want to talk about that."

A new focus group of voters who plan to cast ballots this fall — but didn’t participate in the 2020 presidential election — illustrates how both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are leaning on a core message to try to expand the electorate in a close race.

Read the full story here and watch below:

Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams told MSNBC's Chris Hayes last night that the vice president won't be able to appear on Joe Rogan's podcast, which is interviewing Trump today.

Hayes asked Sams if Harris was invited to go on the podcast and whether she would appear on the show.

“Well yeah, I think that the vice president’s happy to go anywhere and any place to talk to a broad segment of the country,” Sams said.

As Speaker Mike Johnson marks one year on the job today, he’s fighting hard to preserve House Republicans’ razor-thin majority — and his speakership.

Multiple House Republicans said they believe Johnson, R-La., who rose from relative obscurity to the top of the conference last year, can beat back his critics and win the speaker’s gavel for two more years. But only if the GOP manages to win control of the House again in November’s elections.

Read the full story here.

Two prominent businessmen are joining the ranks of Business Leaders for Harris, the group announced today.

The new business leaders are Forbright Bank chairman John Delaney and The Home Depot co-founder Arthur M. Blank. Delaney is also a former Democratic member of Congress.

The project also announced today that it was launching its first paid ad campaign. The ad, a six-figure buy, is running on digital platforms in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the group said. It features a testimonial from a small business owner in Michigan who said she voted for Trump twice but will now cast her ballot for Harris.

Business Leaders for Harris is headed by the Republican Accountability PAC, not the Harris campaign. 

Harris is scheduled to deliver a marquee address on reproductive freedom tonight in Houston, where she will be joined by women and men who have faced the consequences of state-level abortion bans since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Before the speech, Harris' campaign plans to roll out a new ad titled "He Did It," focused on Trump taking responsibility for the end of federal abortion protections. The former president appointed three of the conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in 2022.

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney will campaign in Michigan on Monday with Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democrats' Senate nominee in Michigan.

Cheney and Slotkin will be in Grand Rapids, once a conservative stronghold, days after the prominent Republican endorsed Slotkin against her Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers.

Trump said in an interview on WABC radio yesterday that special counsel Jack Smith should be deported from the United States.

The former president, while discussing the border and illegal immigration, said that the U.S. has to "get the killers and murderers and mentally deranged, you have to get them out."

Thirteen former Trump White House officials signed an open letter backing former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, who told The New York Times that Trump fits the definition of a fascist.

“We applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term. Like General Kelly, we did not take the decision to come forward lightly,” the letter said. “We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.”

Politico was first to report on the letter.

Read the full story here

Harris will make multiple campaign stops throughout parts of Philadelphia on Sunday with hope of turning out voters, a senior campaign official said. She will visit historically Black and Latino neighborhoods, the official said.

Harris will start by speaking at a church service in the western part of the city, where she will also visit a barbershop to speak with Black men. Harris also plans to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant in the northern part of the city and a youth basketball facility in Philly's northwestern region.

Sunday is Harris' 14th visit to Pennsylvania since she launched her presidential campaign, the official said.

Harris will head to Texas to deliver a speech centered on reproductive rights, a senior campaign official said.

Texas is not considered to be a swing state, but the campaign said it selected the state for the speech because it represents the impact of abortion restrictions, which the campaign is trying to tie to Trump. Polling indicates that abortion is a top issue for voters.

A group of people affected by restrictions on abortion will join Harris at the rally, the official said.

With under two weeks to Election Day, and as millions of Americans have already voted, the Democratic National Committee is kicking its ground game operation into high gear for the final sprint.

If you got a knock on your front door last weekend, there’s a good chance it was from one of the canvassers the DNC says were using its proprietary canvassing software to seek out possible Democratic voters.

And those text messages you’re getting from Democratic campaigns aren’t just feeling like they’re getting more frequent; they actually are. The DNC says it has invested millions of dollars into improving its cellphone lists to reach out to more than 80% of voters — a 50% increase from 2016.