Highlights: Trump and Harris make final appeals to voters ahead of Election Day

After performing some of her hits at the Harris campaign rally in Pittsburgh, pop star Katy Perry touted her motherhood as one of the prime reasons she’s voting for the vice president. 

“Four years ago I became a mother. Best decision I ever made. Orlando and I, we welcomed our daughter Daisy. And she is the reason I am voting for Kamala Harris. I’ve known Kamala since before she was a senator. I’ve always known her to fight for the most vulnerable, to speak up for the voiceless. To protect our right as women to make decisions about our own bodies…I know she will protect my daughter’s future, and your children’s future, and our family’s future.”

The FBI and two other intelligence agencies are warning that Russia and other foreign adversaries are attempting to undermine confidence in the integrity of our elections.

In a joint statement, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that “influence actors linked to Russia in particular” are manufacturing videos and creating fake news articles to weaken Americans’ trust. 

The agencies said Russian influencers were responsible for an article falsely claiming the officials are planning to commit election fraud, as well as a video that made false claims about election fraud in Arizona. The description of the latter matches a recent video that social media users baselessly claimed showed people dropping off fraudulent ballots in the Phoenix area.

In addition, the agencies said Iranian influencers also are creating false content intended to “suppress voting or stoke violence.”

Actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer gave a rousing introduction for Vice President Harris in Pittsburgh. 

“Our stories are different but our purpose is shared,” he told the audience. “We are here to be a part of the change. Y’all know that. We are here to choose a better future. We are here to elect Kamala Harris as the next president! Because America is ready for a new generation of leadership.” He says Harris is “not a demagogue, but she is not demure.”

He adds, “So tonight, let’s dance. And tomorrow, let’s make history!”

DJ Cassidy, who created the party-like atmosphere at this year’s music-infused Democratic National Convention, is playing emcee yet again at Harris’ final pre-Election Day campaign rally. He brought his “Pass the Mic” routine, in which he cues up speakers from across the country, to politics yet again. And the first speaker is Gov. Tim Walz, who’s telecasting in from a rally in Milwaukee. 

Walz touted Harris’ record and reiterated the opportunity voters have to “turn the page” on Trump. True to form, Walz made his point about the state of the election with a football reference: “We’re in the last two minutes of this game. This thing’s tied. But we’ve got the damn ball. We got the best quarterback in Kamala Harris. And we got the best team with the people right here in this room.”

Podcaster Joe Rogan, who held a three-hour interview with Trump in late October, has formally endorsed him.

In a social media post accompanying a new interview with Trump super-supporter Elon Musk, Rogan said he agrees with Musk.

“He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way,” Rogan wrote. “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.”

With his ties to UFC fighting and overwhelmingly young and male audience, Rogan could be described as the patron saint of Trump’s attempts to curry favor with the “bro vote.”

But Rogan wasn’t necessarily a lock for Trump. His politics are idiosyncratic, and he previously said positive things about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Kamala Harris’ performance at the September presidential debate.

The garbage line is not going away. Speaking at a rally in Atlanta, Sen. JD Vance offered a lengthy rebuttal to the Biden quote about Trump supporters and “garbage.”

“The citizens of this country, they are not garbage for thinking that you’re doing a bad job,” he said. The citizens of this country are not garbage for wanting to be able to afford groceries and a nice place to live. But in two days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.”

The line is striking for a number of reasons. First, the parallelism of the quote makes it seem like it was planned and not just an impromptu aside. Second, the line comes after Trump and his allies have spent the better part of a week complaining that Biden implied his supporters were “garbage” in a much-disputed quote. 

Third, and most important, this line is directly aimed at Harris, not Puerto Rico or Trump supporters or whatever. It’s personal.

It comes amid a gender gap so large it may as well be a gender chasm and as Trump has called Harris a “sleaze bag,” “mentally impaired,” “lazy as hell” and “a stupid person;” reposted misogynistic sexual innuendo about her on his Truth Social account and laughed when a rallygoer suggested she was a prostitute.

Joy Reid speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

The one question on everyone’s mind, other than who’s going to win, is: When are we going to know the results? 

Polls will be closing in the seven key battleground states between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET tomorrow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to know the winner right away. While there is a possibility the NBC News Decision Desk could project a winner as early as Wednesday, it could also take as long as a week. It all depends on just how close the race is. 

Each state has different laws and logistics when it comes to counting and reporting votes, whether it be early, absentee or same-day ballots. In some states, we could see results quickly, like in North Carolina, where the counting process moves faster. Election officials there can remove all ballots from their envelopes and feed them into tabulators weeks before Election Day. 

Other states take a little longer, like Pennsylvania, where workers aren’t allowed to begin processing absentee ballots until Election Day. That process is laborious, since workers have to check that voters have provided all necessary information and then remove the ballots from envelopes, unfold them, ensure they haven’t been damaged, and feed them into voting tabulators. 

So if there are delays, it doesn’t mean it’s voter fraud; it means the system is working the way it is supposed to. We need to be prepared for the probability that this is going to take time and unexpected things might happen. That’s OK and it’s normal. 

But we also have to be prepared for the likelihood that Trump will just disregard all of this and claim victory before all votes are counted and say that any other outcome than him winning is fraud.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

At his Pittsburgh rally tonight, Trump just praised Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The former president has celebrated Stein and independent candidate Cornel West, both of whom have received campaign help from Trump-aligned Republicans. Their third-party campaigns could help him win by attracting voters who might otherwise cast ballots for Democrats.

“I love the Green Party,” Trump said. “Jill Stein ... I’ve never met her, but she may be one of my favorite politicians.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi posted a video on social media today to promote voting, but you might want to be careful about following her advice.

In the video, Pelosi can be seen putting her mail ballot into a blue U.S. Postal Service box:

That’s fine if you live in California, where your ballot will be counted as long as it’s postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days. But 32 states require that mail ballots be received on or before Election Day — including the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The Postal Service had recommended that any mail ballots be sent by Oct. 29 to ensure they arrive on time in states with tight deadlines.

Ari Melber speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Voters have been living through the impact of Trump’s first term for some time. People lived through the Covid failures, the ensuing economic collapse, his failed coup and these abortion bans around the nation.

Despite that, many accounts suggest Trump is not only statistically tied with Harris but that he could end this election with more support than he’s ever had before. His ceiling has been typically stuck around 46% in the past races. In both presidential elections he drew fewer votes than the Democrat running, but famously took the Electoral College with 46.1% in 2016.

Americans disapproved of Trump as president for his entire time in office. There were historic lows. The average is about 41%, and when he left office he was at a rock bottom: 34% record lows. These are not numbers suggesting the public approved of him or wanted him at the time, let alone again.

Yet the same nation that rejected him and saw him out the door at that 34% approval remembers that very same time more fondly. People now say that they give Trump’s first term 48% approval — far higher than the actual approval he had at the time.

Memory is flexible. It’s subjective. Any chance Trump has at winning the election rests on a pretty good number of people forgetting that they did not actually approve of his time in office during that time.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

On Sunday, Harris said at a rally in Michigan that she would “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.” But her national security adviser has said Harris opposes the best possible tool the U.S. has for pushing Israel to end its military operation in Gaza: an arms embargo.

While Harris might be able to convince some people based purely on vibes that she will diverge from Biden on Israel policy, her refusal to break from him on policy commitments is why she’s vulnerable to third-party defections or nonvoting from a nontrivial amount of progressives and Muslim Americans.

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, has written an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal to counter false claims about purported election malfeasance, as right-wing influencers and some lawmakers have followed Trump’s lead in spreading falsehoods about voting being insecure and unreliable. Raffensperger’s op-ed, which was published this afternoon, lays out why voters should trust the results:

Over on The ReidOut Blog, I have reported on the role that right-wing streamers are looking to play in sowing doubt about the election results. Read more here.

Vice presidential nominees Tim Walz and JD Vance spent the presidential race’s final weekend appealing to crucial swing voters in Arizona. Walz made campaign stops in Tucson and Flagstaff on Saturday, while Vance spent the afternoon at a rally outside a Scottsdale gun store. Both candidates focused their message on bringing out the state’s Hispanic vote, which has trended toward Republicans in recent polling.

Walz’s Flagstaff event marked the Democratic campaign’s closing statement to Arizona voters, who have shifted the state’s 11 electoral votes between Harris and Trump for much of the race. The latest New York Times/Siena poll found Democrats posting weaker support than usual among Hispanic voters nationally — with just 52% supporting Harris, compared with the 66% who backed Joe Biden four years ago.

Pop superstar Taylor Swift, in an Instagram post celebrating the end of the U.S. portion of her record-breaking Eras Tour, slid in a reminder to her fans to vote in the election.

“And here’s a friendly but extremely important reminder that tomorrow is the US Election and your last chance to vote,” Swift wrote.

The "Fortnight" singer rarely makes political statements. In this election cycle, she's spoken out only once before: She endorsed Harris in September and encouraged her fans to vote. That Instagram post drove over 300,000 people in 24 hours to Vote.org, a website that directs people to other sites where they can register to vote.

Harris is sounding confident at her Pennsylvania rally in Allentown. She started off by thanking her supporters and surrogates for running with her across the finish line, while also making a point to thank the Puerto Rican leaders in attendance.

“I stand here proud of my long-standing commitment to Puerto Rico and her people, and I will be a president for all Americans,” she said.

As Julio Ricardo Varela wrote for MSNBC today, there’s been fierce backlash among Pennsylvania’s Latino community toward the racist remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s recent rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“Make no mistake: We will win,” Harris said.

Michael Steele speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Over the many years that I have spent in this space — as a political player in the Republican Party, as a candidate for public office, as an elected official — I’ve seen the way various issues are received and consumed by the public.

And on the issue of abortion, I’ve seen a stark change since the Dobbs decision. Men have largely been walled off from the abortion discussion because our attitude in this country, which is still very much a very puritanical attitude when it comes to women, is “Well, you take care of it. That’s your problem. That’s not my problem.”

But this election has cracked that — in a very profound way. For the first time, women have said, “Listen to what I’m telling you. We’ve had enough of this one-sided conversation on an issue that affects all of us and so now you’ve got to be in this conversation too.”

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Claire McCaskill speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

If you look at the polling right now, there’s an important trend that sticks out to me: The late-breaking voters. According to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, voters who decided over the last few days say they’re backing Harris, 58% to Trump’s 42%. 

We call those late deciders “feel” voters. That’s because, typically, when people make up their minds at the last minute, their vote is based on how they feel about the candidate. 

What Trump’s done over the last week — his ugly, dark, inappropriate rhetoric — doesn’t show the kind of integrity and character I think those “feel” voters are looking for. What Harris has been doing this last week is just the opposite.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Multiple supporters at Trump’s rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, wore orange and yellow safety vests, a nod to his recent campaign stunt riding in a garbage truck.

The vests are just the latest in a string of political fashion statements inspired by Trump, including the red MAGA hat, the long red tie, and the bullet-wound ear bandage. 

The garbage truck ride was supposed to be Trump’s way of turning the tide against Democrats after a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage,” which prompted President Joe Biden to say “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” (A lengthy battle over apostrophe placement ensued, with Biden saying he had meant the joke was garbage. )

The vests are a step up from the first response, which was for Donald Trump Jr. and others to dress up like literal garbage.

Puerto Rican salsa singer Frankie Negrón just turned up this Harris-Walz rally in Allentown. He’s the first of two Puerto Rican stars to take the mic. Rapper Fat Joe is up next. Negrón performed a song he co-created with Lin-Manuel Miranda called “Respeta Mi Gente” — or “Respect My People” — which was made to mobilize Latino voters in 2018.

Ahead of Harris’ speech in Pennsylvania in the majority-Latino city of Allentown, a Puerto Rican pastor, the Rev. Luis Cortez Jr., took the stage after Matthew Tuerk, Allentown’s first Latino mayor.

Tuerk denounced the racist comments about Puerto Rico at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, and Cortez spoke about “bearing witness” to Trump’s misdeeds, a list that included Trump’s immigrant family separation policies, his administration’s mishandling of Hurricane Maria and his open pondering of deploying the military against U.S. citizens.

I just spoke with one of the biggest financial backers of Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the state's abortion ballot initiative.

In Orlando, which has a large Puerto Rican population, the group just had a huge influx of Latina women join (for the first time) as volunteers and have been mobilizing their personal networks, according to this backer.

This all just happened in the last week since Trump's Madison Square Garden rally. And that was after the group had to relocate to a larger headquarters due to the overall increase in volunteers over the last few months.

On the eve of the election, Trump is spouting off about extreme tariff proposals once again. At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, he warned that if Mexican leaders “don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America.”

First of all, it’s unclear how this would be permissible under the free trade provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that govern trade between the U.S. and Mexico and eliminate most border taxes on goods traded between the countries. And if Trump were able to implement such tariffs, it would be economically disastrous: The U.S. buys more goods from Mexico than China. That means that prices on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods would skyrocket for U.S. consumers — not exactly the kind of respite from high prices that Trump has promised.

We’re quickly approaching an end to the ceaseless speculation that a surge of Black support could be what sweeps Trump into the White House. If you’ve been reading me over on The ReidOut Blog this year, you know I’ve cited data to support my skepticism of this narrative, even as it seems to be everywhere. Lately, pollsters who focus on Black voters have thrown cold water on the notion as well.

To me, the obsession with Black people potentially voting for Trump has felt like a distraction from what seem like far more consequential, yet underreported, issues: the Black people whose votes have been watered down through Republican gerrymandering, or the many Black people who have seen their right to vote undermined by right-wing voter purges and felony disenfranchisement laws.

Harris is all but certain to win a large majority of Black voters, but I’ll be watching the margins to determine whether the “Black MAGA” narrative can finally be put to rest for good.

Abortion rights are on the ballot in 10 states this year: Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Florida, Nebraska, Maryland, Missouri, New York and South Dakota. 

Voters are choosing whether to expand or protect abortion access in their respective states in spite of legal wrangling by anti-abortion activists who have tried to strike down ballot measures in some states before voting even began. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in particular, has waged an intense campaign of misinformation and intimidation against Florida’s Amendment 4 ballot initiative.

Technically speaking, the national popular vote doesn’t matter. But we’ll be watching it closely this year anyway.

If Trump loses the popular vote, it will have been 20 years since a GOP presidential candidate won it. Put another way, Republicans have lost this vote in five out of the past six presidential races.

That should be concerning for the party. Though a candidate can lose the popular vote and still win, thanks to the Electoral College, it’s not healthy for the long-term viability of the party that a majority of the country consistently rejects their presidential nominees.

But Trump could also win the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. This could happen if he improved his margins in states such as California, Florida, New York and Texas, while Harris squeaked by in the Great Lakes states. This scenario has been a topic of discussion in recent days from the likes of CNN data reporter Harry Enten and The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein, two journalists hardly known for feverish speculation.