Presidential campaign enters final sprint with 30 days until Election Day

Our live coverage has ended. Follow the latest 2024 election news here or read through the posts below.

Voting signs are stocked and ready at an elections office in Lansing, Michigan, on October 3, ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are stacking up campaign trail and media appearances this week as they race to Election Day, now less than a month away.

Here is what their schedules look like in the coming days:

Harris will make her case to voters in a series of high-profile interviews this week, according to a senior campaign official, and will end the week with a campaign rally.

Trump, meanwhile, will participate in town halls and visit a key battleground state.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on October 6.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday warned it could be the “last election” if Democrats remain in the White House as he made his pitch to Wisconsin voters just 30 days before Election Day.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk made similar comments at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, saying if voters don’t cast their ballots, “this will be the last election.”

Some background: The former president has previously warned that the 2024 election could be the last — but for the opposite reason. Trump suggested in July that Christian conservatives wouldn’t have to vote again if he wins in November. “You won’t have to do it anymore,” he said at the time — a comment he alluded to on Sunday when urging evangelicals to vote.

This post and headline have been updated.

Actors Kerry Washington, Michael Ealy, Jessica Alba and Glenn Close on Sunday stopped by a block party aimed at mobilizing Black voters in battleground Arizona ahead of early voting starting in the state this week.

The Hollywood celebrities joined Rep. Ruben Gallego, who’s running for US Senate in the state, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, former UN Ambassador Susan Rice and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Ealy told the crowd, “You don’t want the Obama presidency to be in vain. We have an opportunity right here to elect not only the first woman, but the first woman that looks like us and that matters.”

Rallying the crowd, Washington said politicians “work for us” and to “put people in office who care about you and yours.”

Vice President Kamala Harris said she feels “sorry” for Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the Republican Arkansas governor last month made a dig at Harris over not having biological children.

“My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble. You would think after four years of straight failure, she would know a little humility. Unfortunately, she doesn’t,” Sanders said at a town hall with Donald Trump in Michigan.

Harris, speaking in an interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast released Sunday, said, “I feel sorry for her.”

Harris detailed her “very modern family” and her relationship with her two stepchildren, Cole and Ella Emhoff, adding that they refer to her as “Mamala.”

“I love those kids to death. Family comes in many forms, and I think that increasingly, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore,” the vice president said.

Vice President Kamala Harris visits a clinic that performs abortions in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on March 14.

Vice President Kamala Harris blasted former President Donald Trump over abortion rights and for casting himself as a “protector” of women during an interview released Sunday on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy.”

Harris added: “This is the same guy that said women should be punished for having abortions. This is the same guy who uses the same kind of language he does to describe women?”

Trump told a crowd of supporters in Pennsylvania last month that he is a “protector” of women and claimed American women won’t be “thinking about abortion” if he’s elected.

Harris used “Call Her Daddy,” which Spotify has billed “the most listened-to podcast by women,” to reach voters as her campaign puts reproductive rights at the center of its platform.

Harris also debunked statements from the former president accusing Democrats of wanting to allow the execution of babies after birth, calling it “outrageously inaccurate” and a “boldface lie.”

“That is not happening anywhere in the United States. It’s a boldface lie. … Can you imagine he’s suggesting that women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to have an abortion?” Harris said, calling the accusation by some Republicans “insulting.”

The vice president also brushed off attacks from her opponent, who in recent weeks has ramped up his rhetoric, employing personal insults about Harris’ mental state.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are seen on a screen at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on September 10, ahead of their presidential debate.

The campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump made strategic adjustments to the content of their TV advertisements between August and September, a CNN analysis of ad tracking data shows, amid a contentious fight to define the transformed race for the White House.

Emphasis of key issues, including abortion, immigration and crime, shifted, with the Harris campaign moving away from defensive ads that stressed the vice president’s law enforcement background, and the Trump campaign leaning into economic appeals — the top issue for voters in this election.

According to AdImpact data, crime ranked as the top issue in Harris’ ads in August, as her campaign sought to blunt blistering GOP criticism of her record as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney.

In August, the Harris campaign spent $7.8 million on broadcast TV ads about abortion, about 15% of its total spending that month. In September, that total rose to $25 million, and the share doubled to 32%, ranking second among the issues referenced in Harris advertising.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign shifted even more ad dollars to messaging about the economy. In August, inflation was the top issue in Trump campaign ads, referenced in about 57% of its broadcast TV advertising; in September, that share jumped to 80%. Housing also rose as a share of campaign messaging, drawing 77% of its broadcast TV spending in September, up from 20% the previous month.

Read more here.

Vice President Kamala Harris visits the US-Mexico border in Douglas, Arizona, on September 27.

Kamala Harris’ visit to the border and speech outlining her economic vision captured the attention of a sizable share of Americans as September came to a close, according to new findings from The Breakthrough, a polling project that tracks how the public is following election news. But some emerging trends in the data hint at warning signs for the vice president’s campaign.

The share of Americans hearing anything at all about Harris has dropped each week since her presidential debate with former President Donald Trump in early September, and during that same time, the tone Americans use in describing what they’ve heard about her has grown more negative, reaching the lowest point of her campaign in the latest results.

Looking at what people say they have heard, read or seen about Harris, “lie” has emerged as a persistent top word that some Americans associate with her. In the latest data, it was the fourth-most mentioned word after “border,” “polls” and “campaign.”

The survey, conducted September 27-30 by SSRS and Verasight for research teams from CNN, Georgetown University and the University of Michigan, measures what Americans say they have recently heard, read or seen about Harris and Trump.

Although responses about Harris are generally still less negative in tone than those about Trump, there has been a notable decline in overall sentiment in the Harris responses, while the former president’s numbers have rebounded slightly following a post-debate drop.

Read more about the poll results here.

People are seen outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, on June 29.

The Supreme Court returns to its bench Monday with an agenda that includes cases on guns, pornography and transgender medical care, as the justices brace for a slew of last-minute election fights and a new presidential administration that could drag the court deeper into politics.

Of the 40 appeals the high court has agreed to decide so far, only a handful are the kind of screaming political controversies that dominated its caseload in recent years. While the lineup may allow the justices to keep their heads down for now, there are signs the relative calm may be short-lived.

A contested election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could thrust the 6-3 conservative majority into a political maelstrom at a moment when polls show trust in the court near record lows. A new president could reshuffle the cases already granted. And Trump is all but guaranteed to resurface at the Supreme Court in coming weeks to clarify the sweeping criminal immunity the court bestowed on him in July.

All of that will be on the minds of the nine justices when they take their seats Monday for their first oral arguments of a new term that will run until next summer.

“As matters stand now, this feels like the court is keeping its powder dry in case the election explodes,” Carter Phillips, a veteran Supreme Court litigator, told CNN early last week. “Not a lot of cases and very few high-profile ones.”

Read more about the Supreme Court’s coming workload here.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona on Sunday attacked Donald Trump and his family for using misinformation “to lie to the American people” after the former president and his daughter-in-law have pushed false statements about the use of disaster funds.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump repeated her father-in-law’s baseless claims on CNN onSunday, suggesting that Vice President Kamala Harris redirected disaster money to house illegal immigrants.

“But I think the folks know that the Trump family, at every opportunity, uses information — misinformation to lie to the American people.”

Trump over the last week has delivered a barrage of lies and distortions about the federal response to Hurricane Helene, which has killed more than 200 people across six states and is one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the US mainland in the last 50 years.

Kelly also said billionaire Elon Musk was being “hypocritical” for his continued public support of Trump, after he took the stage at Trump’s return to Butler, Pennsylvania, for a campaign rally Saturday.

“Well, it’s also hypocritical. He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the last – the 2020 election – January 6, you know, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote. And it just doesn’t pass the logic test,” Kelly said.

In his first appearance on the campaign trail with Trump, the tech billionaire urged people to vote and said “this will be the last election” if they don’t in an attempt to paint the Democrats as a threat to democracy.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Douglas, Arizona, on September 27.

A tax proposal embraced by Vice President Kamala Harris that’s meant to target the wealthy is getting attention in an unlikely place for wonky policy debate: social media.

But many posts ignore the fact that the plan would only impact those whose net worth is more than $100 million, or less than 1% of taxpayers, and falsely suggest that all homeowners should fear a new massive tax bill. One TikTok user, for example, claimed that people will “lose their homes” and that “the IRS will bankrupt them.”

At issue is a proposal often referred to as a billionaire minimum tax. It would treat the increase in the value of assets – like real estate, stocks and private businesses – as taxable income each year, even if they are not sold. This is known as an unrealized capital gain.

One way to think of it is as a tax on a gain, or profit, that exists only on paper.

On the campaign trail, Harris has said she supports a billionaire minimum tax. She hasn’t outlined the specifics, but the Biden-Harris administration’s most recent budget proposal lays out details.

A billionaire minimum tax is one of several proposals pushed by Democrats in recent years to tax the rich. Both President Joe Biden and Harris have consistently said that they want to make the “wealthiest Americans pay their fair share” and that the additional tax revenue raised could be used to pay for social spending programs, like helping families pay for child care or down-payment help for first-time homebuyers.

Currently, some middle- and high-income people are subject to a tax on realized capital gains, which results when an asset – like a stock or home – is sold for more than what the owner originally paid for it. Essentially, it’s a tax on the profit. Harris has specifically called for raising the top tax rate on millionaires with long-term realized capital gains from 20% to 28%.

Read more about these proposed tax changes here.

Smoke rises over Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, after Israeli airstrikes on October 6, as seen from Sin el Fil, Lebanon.

Vice President Kamala Harris stressed that the US has had an influence on Israeli decision-making, even as the Middle East inches toward a wider conflict, but would not say whether she believes the US has a “close ally” in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

When pressed on the appearance that Israeli leadership did not always seem to be listening to the US, Harris — without providing specifics — said that the administration has had an influence.

The big picture: Top aides to Harris are heading into the final month of the 2024 presidential race still wrestling with how much distance she can credibly claim from President Joe Biden as she looks for more ways to weave in breaks with him on the campaign trail.

But Harris keeps getting pulled back to Biden’s side for official business at the White House — and Biden keeps injecting himself into the conversation.

No issue for Harris is thornier than the escalating violence in the Middle East ahead of the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks: With hundreds of thousands of votes on the line in battleground Michigan alone, a range of leaders are pushing her to explicitly distance herself from Biden, people familiar with the discussions tell CNN.

But her aides know there can’t be any daylight when she’s also sitting at his right hand in the Situation Room.

Former Maryland governor and current Senate candidate Larry Hogan on Sunday called election fraud claims “nonsense” and said he would “absolutely” certify November’s election results if he is elected.

The election fraud claims came from people who have “a lack of courage” and were “pressured into taking positions I would never take,” Hogan said.

He also criticized partisan politics, saying he does not believe in supporting a candidate only on their party affiliation. “Whether it’s Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, I’m going to take a look at every single nominee on the merits,” Hogan said.

Former first lady Melania Trump arrives at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18.

Former first lady Melania Trump has reiterated her support for abortion rights, saying that she doesn’t want “government in my personal business,” and that her husband, former President Donald Trump, was aware that she would include her stance on the issue in her forthcoming memoir and has let me “believe what I believe.”

In her memoir, Melania Trump confirmed her support for abortion rights and said in a video posted last week that she believes there is “no room for compromise” when it comes to a woman’s “individual freedom.”

The former first lady told Fox News that her book explains “what does really ‘my body, my choice’ means, because timing really matters and also the restrictions.”

With the book’s release so close to Election Day, Melania Trump said her memoir, “Melania,” was written months earlier. “So that was my belief, and it is my belief. And I wanted to put it in the book, because I want to be authentic,” she said.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump on Sunday repeated her father-in-law’s false claims that Vice President Kamala Harris redirected FEMA money to house illegal migrants.

At his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that the federal government is giving only $750 to people who lost their homes in Hurricane Helene. As CNN previously reported, the $750 is just the immediate, upfront aid according to FEMA, with survivors being eligible to apply for additional forms of assistance.

“Kamala Harris did come out and say it’s $750 per family right now,” Lara Trump said in defense of her father-in-law Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“You have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City,” Lara Trump told CNN’s Dana Bash, floating yet another of the former president’s baseless claims that the administration is redirecting disaster money for housing of undocumented immigrants.

There is zero basis for suggesting that FEMA disaster assistance money was redirected — by anyone, let alone Harris personally — for the housing of migrants.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally in Las Vegas on August 10.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz defended multiple misstatements and false claims he has made throughout his political career by saying he will “own up” when he says something incorrectly while downplaying the significance of his false statements.

Walz said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that he believes voters “know where I’m at,” citing his long career in politics prior to joining the Democratic ticket, while suggesting that voters may be “more concerned” with other issues, specifically democracy and honoring the results of an election.

Walz was asked about a list of false statements he’d made throughout his career, including misrepresenting his military rank, incorrectly claiming he carried assault weapons “in war,” wrongly stating he was in China during 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, wrongly suggesting he and his wife conceived through in vitro fertilization, and making a comment during Tuesday’s debate in which he said he’d “become friends with school shooters.”

The comment marks Walz’s first public discussion of his family’s pregnancy journey since his wife Gwen Walz released a statement in August clarifying that they used intrauterine insemination to conceive, rather than IVF, after Walz had linked access to IVF care to the birth of his children in campaign speeches.

Presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon shake hands after their televised debate in Washington, DC, on October 7, 1960.

Editor’s Note: This essay is adapted from Chris Wallace’s book, “Countdown 1960.”

The 1960 presidential election changed everything. It was the first to feature televised debates between the two major-party candidates. It was the first in which both candidates were born in the 20th century. And as is true in the current presidential campaign, the 1960 candidates were both fascinating characters.

John F. Kennedy – the scion of a rich, powerful family – ran the first truly modern campaign. Traveling the country in the “Caroline” – the private plane his father bought him– Kennedy used sophisticated polling and television to address voters’ concerns. His campaign took full advantage of Kennedy’s good looks and keen intellect.

Richard M. Nixon lacked Kennedy’s glamor. But the sitting vice president had a big advantage in real-world experience – even confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev face-to-face in the famous Moscow “kitchen debate.” And he had served eight years under the hugely popular President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a period of peace and prosperity.

But while the 1960 campaign is a great political story, full of drama and improbable plot twists, that was not the driving force that led me to write my new book “Countdown 1960: The behind-the-scenes story of the 312 days that changed America’s politics forever.” No, the reason I wrote “Countdown” is because of its relevance to the 2020 election – and to the continuing debate right now about our electoral process.

To put it simply: There is good reason to believe the presidential election of 1960 was stolen. And yet, in 1960, the candidate who “lost” refused to contest the results and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. What happened back in 1960 turns current talk of voter fraud, rigged elections and the refusal to accept the final results on its head.

Read more here.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) endorses Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 5, in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In his first appearance with Donald Trump on the campaign trail, billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday called on people to register to vote as he cast Democrats as a threat to democracy.

The claim made by Musk sounded much like the warnings frequently said by allies of Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden about Trump. But it is the former president, not Democrats, who spoke to a crowd prior to the insurrection at the US Capitol on the January 6, 2021, and then was inactive for more than three hours as the events unfolded there.

The billionaire owner of X and high-profile Trump backer used his appearance onstage Saturday to argue that the 2024 presidential race is no ordinary campaign and that Trump’s opponents “wants to take away your freedom of speech. They want to take away your right to bear arms. They want to take away your right to vote effectively.”

Musk, who endorsed Trump over the summer and helped form a super PAC that already has spent tens of millions on the presidential race, painted a bleak picture of the stakes of the election, arguing that free speech in America as well as the preservation of the Constitution will happen only if Trump beats Harris.

Read more here.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show, on October 5, in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Former President Donald Trump has delivered a barrage of lies and distortions about the federal response to Hurricane Helene.

While various misinformation about the response has spread widely without Trump’s involvement, the Republican presidential nominee has been one of the country’s leading deceivers on the subject. Over a span of six days, in public comments and social media posts, Trump has used his powerful megaphone to endorse or invent false or unsubstantiated claims.

The chief targets of his hurricane-related dishonesty have been Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the November presidential election, and President Joe Biden.

Monday: Trump falsely claims Biden hasn’t answered calls from Georgia’s governor

During a visit to Georgia on Monday, Trump said of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp: “He’s been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him.”

It was immediately clear that Trump’s claim was false. Kemp, a Republican, told reportersearlier Monday that he had spoken with Biden the day prior — and that it was Kemp who had initially missed a call from Biden, not the other way around.

Kemp told reporters that he had successfully called Biden right back. Kemp added: “He just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, ‘We got what we need. We’ll work through the federal process.’ He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which — I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta; we’ve got a great relationship with them.”

Read more here.

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden.

Top aides to Kamala Harris are heading into the final month of the 2024 presidential race still wrestling with how much distance she can credibly claim from Joe Biden as she looks for more ways to weave in breaks with him on the campaign trail.

But she keeps getting pulled back to his side for official business at the White House — and he keeps injecting himself into the conversation.

Harris aides are looking at rolling out new plans and promises for what Harris would do as president, in part to directly demonstrate notable differences, like in her recent more blunt speeches about abortion rights and tackling the southern border.

Running as an extension of the president is not a strong position, Harris aides know, while asserting what she stands for is.

Neither aides in the Harris campaign nor the Biden White House would commit to another joint campaign event between now and the election.

Read more here.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

It’s the final month of the 2024 presidential election, an affair that has felt bonkers for months.

Americans witnessed the sitting Democratic president drop out of the race, the Republican nominee narrowly escape an assassination attempt and the rise of the first woman of color on a national ticket.

Where are the candidates spending money?

Money isn’t everything in politics, but it’s certainly not nothing. Where the campaigns — and the super PACs that support them — spend funds is, if nothing else, a good indicator of where they see opportunity.

CNN’s David Wright who tracks spending, has noted how the Harris campaign focused her spending in the first week of October on the critical “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump has been looking to the Sun Belt, but also spent the most on ads in Pennsylvania, proving it’s a linchpin to both sides’ strategies.

How are the two sides getting out the vote?

The policy proposals have been rolled out, and the candidates have tried to define each other. Now it’s time to get voters to the polls or the mailbox.

Voting early and by mail is already underway in much of the country, although early voting is not expected to reach the same level as it did in the Covid-19 pandemic election of 2020. Trump remains a mail-voting skeptic, but Republicans are embracing the practice in key states this year in an effort to keep pace with Democrats.

Who is on the campaign trail?

Harris has supporters to the left and supporters to the right, from popular high-profile Democrats like former President Barack Obama to disaffected anti-Trump Republicans like former Rep. Liz Cheney.

Trump will get bold-face support from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, but overall has fewer surrogates to turn to.

Read more here on what to watch.