75,000 RALLY AT SITE OF INSURRECTION

Vice President Kamala Harris lauded young voters at her final rally of the day in Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday, telling the group that she sees and appreciates their power.

The comment is a common refrain in Harris’ recent speeches, but it invigorated the noticeably younger audience near the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Harris specifically called out first-time voters and complimented the fact that young people are impatient with change.

“I see your power,” Harris told the audience, earning a roar from the young people. “I’ve lived the promise of America and today I see the promise of America in all of you,” Harris added.

Vice President Kamala Harris, as she has done all day on the campaign trail, struck a conciliatory tone in Wisconsin on Wednesday, telling voters she is looking for “common ground” with people who disagree with her.”

As president, I will seek to find common ground and common sense solutions to the problems you face,” she said. “I’m not looking to score political points, I am looking for progress.”

Harris has spent considerable time in the close of her campaign reaching out to one-time Trump voters and those who disagree with her on certain issues.

She has had former Trump supporters introduce her at events. And has touted that she wants to put a Republican in her would-be cabinet.“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said in Wisconsin.

Harris has confronted pro-Palestinian protesters at all three of her events on Wednesday, using each interruption to fire up her supporters.

At her rallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a group of people protested on behalf of Palestinians, criticizing Harris for the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas.

“We all want the war in Gaza to end and to get the hostages out and I will do everything in my power to make it heard and known,” Harris said in Wisconsin. “And everyone has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.”

Harris’ supporters erupted at her comment, a reference to what she told then-Vice President Mike Pence during their debate in 2020. The reaction largely drowned out the protesters.

Harris quickly noted her history with Madison, telling the audience that “when I was five years old my parents taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison” and she lived in the college town.

The venue, filled with young attendees, has reached its 10,000-person capacity, according to the sheriff’s department.

The folk rock band Mumford & Sons closed out a lineup of musical guests ahead of Harris’ final rally of the day in Madison, Wisconsin.

The band followed other acts including Gracie Abrams and The National’s Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner, all performing for a largely young audience.

It played a series of songs before finishing with its hit “I Will Wait.” Many in the crowd that filled Alliant Energy Center, near the campus of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus, wore campaign-issued, green and blue, plastic glow bracelets and danced or jumped in the aisles to the music driven by the upright bass.

A huge red sign above the stage read “Badgers for Harris Walz.”

Harris missed the performance, instead spending a few minutes chatting happily with members of the University of Wisconsin’s women’s volleyball team in a locker room off the main floor.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers says he thinks Democrats have the momentum, but he told about 10,000 people at a rally Wednesday for Vice President Kamala Harris that “this election’s going to be close, damn close.”

“The difference in this election will come down to the work we do over the next six days,” Evers told the crowd in Madison. Evers also mispronounced Harris’ first name twice before correcting himself.

“I know her and she will forgive me,” he quipped.

Evers came on stage to the Bachman-Turner Overdrive song “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”

Coincidentally, Bachman-Turner Overdrive played a concert in the same coliseum where Harris was speaking in 1975.

Trump thanks NFL legend Brett Favre for endorsing him during a rally in Green Bay, the Wisconsin city where he led the Packers to a Super Bowl victory and was the league’s Most Valuable Player three times.

“Thank you, Brett. What a great honor. What a great champion,” Trump said. He joked that he’s “a little upset because I think he got bigger applause than me, and I’m not happy.”

Favre has been in the news lately for a welfare scandal in his home state of Mississippi. Favre, 55, is not facing any criminal charges, but he is among more than three dozen people or groups being sued as the state tries to recover misspent money.

“He’s got a little problem for himself and I thought it was very brave of him to came out,” Trump said.

Trump was still wearing the orange vest when he took the stage in Green Bay.

He defended his supporters, greatly exaggerating their numbers: “250 million Americans are not garbage,” Trump said. He used the 250 million figure repeatedly in reference to his supporters, though it’s not clear where he got it. He got 74 million votes in 2020.

Trump distanced himself from a comedian whose joke disparaging Puerto Rico set off a firestorm, but he did not denounce the remark referring to the territory as a “floating island of garbage.”

“I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump told reporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”

Trump made the comment while seated in the passenger seat of a garbage truck, hoping to draw attention to Biden’s comment that seemed to compare Trump supporters to “garbage.”

“I love Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico loves me,” Trump said.”Nobody’s done more for Puerto Rico than me,” he added. “I took care of them when they had the two hurricanes. And nobody gets along better with Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people than me. They love me and I love them.”

Trump got off his plane in Green Bay, Wisconsin and got into a white garbage truck decked out with American flags and his campaign logo.

He took questions while seated in the passenger seat of the truck, wearing a neon orange safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie, evoking his recent McDonald’s photo opportunity. “How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, adding it’s “in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”

“It’s a shame” he said of Biden’s comment. “And Joe Biden should be ashamed of himself, if he knows what he’s even doing. And she should be ashamed because she shouldn’t let him do it.”

“She should never have let that happen,” he added.

“I hope you enjoyed this garbage truck. Thank you very much.

Vice President Kamala Harris went after former President Donald Trump’s character on Steve Harvey’s radio show Wednesday morning, drawing a distinction between the power of having your name on the side of a building with the power that comes with the presidency.

“When you look at his character, you understand, you know, it’s one thing for him to have his name on a building in Vegas,” Harris said during the friendly interview with the television personality.

“It’s a whole other thing to think about him having the power of the presidency to either lift people up or push people down and tear people down. And this is the choice that people have.”

The comment seems like Harris’ attempt to undercut the support Trump has because of the perception that he is a successful businessman. The comment appears to be Harris’ attempt to cut into Trump’s support based on the belief that he is a successful businessman. The Trump International Hotel Las Vegas does have Trump’s last name emblazoned atop it.

When asked what she thinks of Trump supporters, Holly Meyer, of Madison, Wisconsin, chuckled.

“I’m a lady,” the 65-year-old said with a laugh, while waiting for Harris at a rally in Madison. “I’m baffled by how they can support someone like him.”

Meyer said she knows some Trump supporters and “they probably say the same thing about me.”

“They don’t want to listen,” she said.

Meyer said for her sanity, she mostly tries not to engage. She said Trump used the term “garbage” first and Biden “was just throwing it back at him.”

Jeanne Cargill, 61, a retired worker for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources who lives in Madison, said it was a “slip” for
Biden to describe Trump backers as garbage.

“The other side throwing it back and making a big deal is so hypocritical considering what has been coming out of their side for ages,” she said while attending a Harris rally. “It seems to me there’s been a lot less bile and attacking individual people coming from the Harris side,” Cargill said.

Phil and Debi Franz drove from Naperville, Illinois, to attend the Harris rally in Wisconsin. They both said that conversations with Trump supporters don’t go well.

“Everything we say they have a ridiculous answer for,” Debi Franz, a 66-year-old retired nurse said, “It’s terrible to say because we don’t have a lot of conversations any more. It’s fruitless.”

“I just avoid it,” Phil Franz, a 68-year-old retired consultant said. Still, Debi Franz said it was wrong for Biden to call Trump supporters garbage.

“I don’t like that,” she said. “But he did apologize.”

“Something Donald Trump doesn’t do,” her husband added. Neither of them thought the remark would have a measurable impact on the election.

“People that are going to vote for Trump have already decided,” Phil Franz said. Ginseng farmer Nick Sandquist, from Wausau, Wisconsin, said he tries to have conversations with Trump supporters, including his brother and father, but “it doesn’t go very well.”

He said Trump was being a hypocrite for criticizing Biden over the garbage comment.

“It’s ironic for Donald Trump to use name calling for his advantage,” Sandquist, 47, said. “We’re not the type you have to worry about storming the Capitol.”

Ken Burns, Ron Chernow and Jon Meacham are among hundreds of historians who have signed an open letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Calling themselves “Historians for Harris,” the signees condemned Republican nominee Donald Trump as “openly hostile to democracy and to American constitutional customs,” and praised Harris for dedicating “her life to affirming the rule of law and democracy.”

“We believe, based on our study of the past, that the nation stands at an unprecedented historical as well as a political crossroads,” the letter reads in part. “We appeal to our fellow citizens, whether conservative, independent, or liberal, regardless of party affiliation, to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Organizers of the letter, published Wednesday, include Burns, Chernow, Meacham, Beverly Gage, Sean Wilentz and Sidney Blumenthal. Supporters also include such Pulitzer Prize winners as Eric Foner, David Blight, Rick Atkinson and Stacy Schiff.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making a return appearance to a coliseum in Wisconsin’s state capital for a Wednesday night rally.

The Harris campaign originally advertised the event as being a get-out-the-vote rally on the University of Wisconsin campus. But with rain in the forecast, and a basketball game happening at the arena on campus, Harris was back inside at the Alliant Energy Center that’s located several miles from campus.

Harris first appeared at the Alliant Energy Center in late September, filling the arena that holds around 10,000 people.

Last week, her running mate Tim Walz and former President Barack Obama spoke there, nearly filling it. Thousands of people were lined up more than six hours before Harris was to speak there Wednesday. Holly Meyer, who works for the state of Wisconsin, said she was nervous about the election.

“But I’m also optimistic,” she said while waiting for Harris. “People just seem to be energized by Vice President Harris.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, faced by a protester at her rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, said the person who yelled “Free Palestine” had a “right to be heard” but “right now, I am speaking.”

The comment, a call back to what Harris said when then-Vice President Mike Pence attempted to interrupt her during their debate in 2020, earned huge applause from the supportive crowd.“

Here is the thing, let me say something, we are six days out from an election, we are six days away from an election and ours is about a fight for democracy and your right to be heard,” Harris said after the protester shouted.

“That is what is on the line in this election. That is what is on the line in this election.” She added: “Look everybody has a right to be heard but right now I am speaking.”

Another protester interrupted Harris’ speech shortly after the first. “Look, I will repeat it, we are fighting for a democracy, we love our democracy. It could be complicated at times, but it is the best system in the world,” she concluded.

Harris has faced pro-Palestinian protestors at a series of events during the close of her campaign.

Harris urges voters to cast ballots early and talk to family and friends Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of early voting during a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, urging her supporters to not only cast their own ballot, but to encourage family and friends to do the same.

“Pennsylvania, if you still have a ballot you can take it to a ballot drop box or an election office in your county by 8 p.m. on Election Day,” she said. “Let’s spread the word.”

Pennsylvania is a key state to both Harris and former President Donald Trump. Polls show a tight race in the commonwealth and both campaigns have spent considerable time in Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign.

“I’m visiting this afternoon because we need your vote, Pennsylvania, we need your vote. Because we have just six days left in one of the most consequential elections in our lifetime,” Harris said.

Investigators say the man suspected of setting fires in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington state is an experienced metalworker and may be planning additional attacks.

Portland Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner said Wednesday that authorities believe the man who set the incendiary devices at ballot boxes in Portland and nearby Vancouver, Washington, had a “wealth of experience” in metal fabrication and welding.

The suspect is described as white and 30 to 40 years old, balding or with very short hair. Police previously said surveillance video showed the man driving a black or dark-colored 2001 to 2004 Volvo S-60. The vehicle did not have a front license plate, but it did have a rear plate with unknown letters or numbers.

Election officials in Washington state and Oregon say the U.S. Postal Service has not delivered ballots to some voters.

In Coos County, along Oregon’s western coast, an unknown number of ballots have not been delivered, and frustrated voters are inundating the clerk’s office with phone calls, County Clerk Julie Brecke said.

Coos County has about 50,000 active and registered voters.

“There’s no way to know the total number of ballots affected, because we only know there’s a problem if voters tell us,” Laura Kerns, a spokesperson for the Oregon Secretary of State’s office, said in an email Wednesday.

In Whitman County, Washington, Auditor Sandy Jamison said up to 300 ballots had not been delivered, mostly to post office box holders in the town of Garfield, about 55 miles southeast of Spokane.

Officials are urging residents in the two vote-by-mail states to reach out for replacement ballots ahead of next Tuesday’s election.

The Postal Service did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Two Michigan township clerks in the Upper Peninsula have been removed from their election duties after expressing plans to hand-count votes in the upcoming November election, according to a letter sent by the state’s Bureau of Elections director.

In the directive dated Oct. 28, Director Jonathan Brater said that Rock River Clerk Tom Schierkolk a nd Deputy Clerk David LaMere were barred from administering elections until further notice.

Schierkolk and LaMere did not respond to messages the Associated Press left at their office.

The letter was first reported by the New York Times.

Michigan uses electronic voting machines to tabulate ballots and a hand-count would be unlawful, Brater said.

Research shows that hand-counting is slower and more prone to errors than using machine tabulators. Rock River is about 27 miles from Marquette, Michigan, and home to just over 1,200 people, according to the 2020 Census.

The Democratic nominee for president told ABC in a Wednesday interview, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of the people based on who they vote for.”

Harris’ response, made after speaking at a rally in North Carolina, echoes her earlier comments about Biden setting off a firestorm when he responded Tuesday to a comedian at a recent Trump rally calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.” Biden said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

Biden and the White House rushed to explain that the president was talking about the rhetoric on stage, not Trump’s supporters themselves.

Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Nicky Jam has withdrawn his endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election a month after appearing at a rally for the candidate.

Tony Hinchcliffe, a comic who called Puerto Rico “garbage” before a packed Trump rally in New York appears to be the catalyst.

“The reason why I supported Donald Trump was because I thought he was the best for the economy in the United States, where many Latinos live, many of us Latinos live, myself included, many immigrants who are suffering because of the economy and him, being a businessman, I thought it was the best move,” Jam said in Spanish, in a video statement posted to his official Instagram page.

▶ Read more about Jam’s response to Hinchliffe’s remarks

Election officials in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday shut down rumors of fraud that emerged after a video was falsely identified online as showing busloads of noncitizens skipping the line to vote at a satellite election office.

The video, filmed on Oct. 26, shows a group of people walking up to the South Park Ice Rink office in the borough of Bethel Park and stopping to speak with a woman outside the building. The group was described on social media as “non-english speaking ‘citizens’” and “illegal ‘voters.’”

Officials said in a statement that because the deadline to register to vote in Pennsylvania was Oct. 21, anyone requesting a mail-in ballot after the deadline would only receive one if they were already registered. Only U.S. citizens can register to vote in Pennsylvania.

The statement explained that the group “came to apply for mail-in ballots and needed the assistance of translators.” The video shows a “brief conversation between voters, their translators, and a County employee.”

People attending Kamala Harris’ rally in Harrisburg said they wouldn’t call Trump supporters “trash” necessarily, and some say they deal every day with Trump supporters, including close relatives, friends and colleagues. But some do see them differently.

Brittany Hausmann, who lives in a very Republican area of Pennsylvania, said many of her close friends are Trump supporters and she tries not to judge them. She said she also tries to have open-minded conversations about politics with them.

Others weren’t quite as charitable.

“I would say that some of them are garbage and I would say that some of them are misguided,” said Samantha Leister. She doesn’t shy away from political conversations: she persuaded her mother-in-law to vote for Harris and is working on her father-in-law. Her parents are Trump supporters, too.

Travis Waters said Trump supporters aren’t garbage, but are “detached from reality.” He has no one close to him who is a Trump supporter.

But, he said, the difference between the candidates is about much more than politics — “this is about common decency.”

On Tuesday, Republican Nikki Haley said she was critical of “this masculine bromance stuff” that Trump and his allies are promoting.

A day later, during an appearance on SiriusXM, she condemned Biden for calling Trump supporters “garbage.”

Haley said, “At what point does everybody not get — people are smart, they just want to know what you’re going to do to make their life better. They don’t want to be called a name. This isn’t a schoolyard. Like, stop.”

“Yes, he will,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked if Biden will attend the inauguration regardless of whether Harris or Trump is elected.

Jean-Pierre said the president believes in and is committed to the peaceful transfer of power and will be on hand for it.

Trump broke with historical precedent in January 2021 after he lost his bid for reelection to Biden and did not attend Biden’s swearing-in at the Capitol.

“We used to have one-day voting,” Trump told a packed hall in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, almost two weeks into the pivotal Southern state’s early voting period, and less than a week from election day.

Standing in front of a blue banner emblazoned with “Vote Early,” the Republican presidential nominee argued that a single day of balloting reduced the risk of mishandling ballots.

Trump painted a scenario where election office workers might have to move boxes of early ballots, mockingly impersonating anonymous elections workers as saying, “There were 14 boxes. Now there are six. What happened to the rest of them?”

Trump’s campaign is promoting early voting, as the banner suggested, as the campaign has argued that Trump must compete within the current election structure to win.

The suggestion that more than one day of voting could corrupt the results was in keeping with Trump’s continued and unfounded suggestion that the 2020 election, which he lost to Democratic President Joe Biden, was marred by widespread fraud.

In just the past week, Pennsylvania has seen false and misleading videos surface online, including a video purporting to show an election worker in Bucks County destroying mail ballots cast for former President Donald Trump. County officials quickly debunked the video and federal officials have said Russian actors were behind it as part of an effort to undermine public confidence in the election.

“It’s critical that, at this juncture in the election cycle, voters get their information from trusted sources. Spreading videos and other information that lack context, sharing social posts filled with half-truths or even outright lies is harmful to our representative democracy.”

Officials in Northampton County say false claims around another video, in which a postal worker was filmed delivering ballots, were damaging lies that put routine election operations in a “false light.”

An interim postmaster filmed delivering ballots to a county courthouse in eastern Pennsylvania is being falsely accused of wrongdoing on social media, according to the county government.

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure told The Associated Press in a phone interview that online videos and screengrabs posted with accusations that the worker committed election fraud or was “acting suspect” are damaging lies that put routine election operations in a “false light.”

“This is a postal service servant doing his public duty,” McClure said. “Folks should find out all the facts before they go sharing things online.”

McClure said the courthouse is surrounded by security cameras and other safeguards to ensure the election runs smoothly.

The video, which spread rapidly on the social platform X with users actively trying to identify the worker, is the latest example of groundless misinformation that has erupted this week in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the presidential election.

“Joe Biden finally said what he really thinks of our supporters. He called them ‘garbage.’ And they mean it. Even though, without question, my supporters are far higher-quality than crooked Joe’s,” Trump told an audience in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

“My response is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans. You just can’t,” Trump said.

He went on to suggest that the administration was mistreating Americans by returning to his familiar theme of immigrants who have entered the country illegally.

“We know what they believe,” he said. “Because look at how they’ve treated you. They’ve treated you like garba ge.”

But the GOP nominee added that his rival’s proposals to boost the U.S. economy “are the plans of a simpleton. They’re not going to work.”

After a man in the audience criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump laughed.

“He screams, ‘she’s an idiot,’ but I didn’t say it,” Trump said, smiling.

A new addition to Trump’s rally line-up is a video showing clips of all the times Harris in her Tuesday night speech in Washington mentioned his name, more than a dozen times.

“She suffers from a very serious disease known as Trump derangement syndrome,” he said after the video played. “Many Democrats suffer from that disease, and it’s only because of one reason, because we’re winning.”

The former president said that he has seen “even more enthusiasm” during this White House run than in his presidential runs in the 2016 and 2020 cycles.

Calling Vice President Kamala Harris “a low IQ individual,” Trump said his Democratic rival is “running a campaign of hate, anger and retribution.”

He entered the arena in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, as the song “God Bless the USA” played.

His next stop is Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Emmer was one of the introductory speakers at Trump’s rally in Rocky Mount.

The Republican congressman said the Harris’ campaign has been struggling ever since Walz faced off against Ohio Rep. JD Vance in the vice presidential debate at the beginning of the month. Polls have not indicated a significant change since then.

But Emmer said of Walz, “He was supposed to be Kamala’s emotional support animal. But guess what? JD Vance ended that.”

When Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech in North Carolina on Wednesday was interrupted by a protester, the Democratic nominee used the moment to attack her opponent, former President Donald Trump.

The man, who yelled that Harris was “disrespecting the Palestinian community” and interrupted her speech, was drowned out by the crowd chanting Harris’ name. Harris has faced a series of pro-Palestinian protests in recent days.

“This is the thing, we know we’re actually fighting for a democracy,” Harris said. “Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with you are the enemy.”

Trump has increasingly become fixated on Americans he believes have wronged or betrayed him, referring to them as “the enemy from within.” Democrats have seized on the line, accusing Trump, should he win another term in office, of planning to use the power of a White House against Americans who disagree with him.

Harris, speaking at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, lamented that a third of women live in a state with “a Trump abortion ban, including North Carolina and every state in the South except for Virginia.”

Trump was central in remaking the Supreme Court, nominating three conservative justices who were key to overturning Roe v. Wade and federal abortion protections in 2022. Since that decision, abortion has invigorated the Democratic base and threatened Republicans. Trump has since said he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban.

“Understand, he’s not done,” Harris said. “He would ban abortion nationwide.”

Vice President Kamala Harris told an audience in North Carolina on Wednesday that this is a moment “for a new generation of leadership in America,” offering herself as both a transition from former President Donald Trump, and, more subtly, President Joe Biden.

Trump is 78 years old and this is his third run for the presidency. Biden, who stepped aside to allow Harris to be the Democratic nominee over the summer, is 81 years old.

“It is time for a new generation of leadership in America. I am ready to offer that leadership,” she said to an audience in Raleigh. “Let us lock arms with each other knowing that we have so much more in common than what separates us.”

“We know we have an opportunity in this election to turn the page on a decade of Donald Trump who has been trying to keep us divided and afraid of each other,” Harris added. “We know that is who he is, but North Carolina that is not who we are.”

Jennifer Bell, a North Carolina engineer who once voted for former President Donald Trump, introduced Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Raleigh on Wednesday, highlighting how flipping Trump voters and independents has become central to Harris’ closing message.

Bell is the latest in a growing list of former Trump supporters who have introduced Harris or spoken at one of her rallies in the closing days of the campaign.

“I would invite them to, today, join me in putting country before party,” Bell said to one-time Trump voters. “Let’s put our principles before partisanship and stand up to support a leader who has shown unwavering dedication to bring our country together.”

“As a fiscal conservative, I feel like I made an honest mistake when I voted for Trump in 2016,” Bell said to some boos from the audience.

After saying that she thought a businessman would help streamline the government, she added, “The flaw in the plan is he is a failed businessman.”

She later said Trump’s “extremism destroyed the Republican Party.”

A new record has been set for early in-person voting in Louisiana, with 849,784 people casting their ballots ahead of the conclusion of the early voting window on Monday, Secretary of State Nancy Landry announced. The state saw a 3% increase from 2020 during the same time frame, when the former record was set.

In total, between early voting and returned absentee ballots, nearly one-third of Louisiana’s registered voters have already cast their vote ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

“I’m pleased that so many Louisianans have already made their voices heard in this election,” Landry said.

Jennifer Phelan, 60, said ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, that she feels nervous because the election seems so close. To her, it shouldn’t be.

She still feels fairly confident in North Carolina flipping blue from the conversations she’s had since she started volunteering in March, as well as the enthusiasm she sees among fellow volunteers. Phelan remembers discussing the race when Biden was atop the Democratic ticket, and she said more people seemed hesitant about supporting him. That hasn’t been the case as much with Harris leading the ticket, she said.

She’s also had conversations with some conservatives who said they’d vote for Harris because they don’t like Trump — adding that those were “real Republicans” in her eyes.

“I don’t consider Trump to be a real Republican,” she said.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who first told Trump at a Tuesday rally in Pennsylvania that President Joe Biden had called the former president’s supporters “garbage,” is blaming Democrats for these comments.

“Biden only said out loud what every top democrat actually believes about anyone who votes for Trump,” Rubio said on X.

Biden was speaking on a campaign call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino about remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe during Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday where he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” Biden had said in the call.

Liz Kazal, a rallygoer at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Raleigh, said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about the election — a lesson she said she learned from 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

“You hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she said on Wednesday.

Kazal, 35, said she’s tried to do some form of volunteering every week — door-knocking with her 2-year-old daughter, phone banking and fundraising for Harris with friends and family. Over the next week, Kazal said she plans to go door-knocking more and hold a phone banking session at her home.

“We’re the closest we’ve been since Obama won in ’08,” Kazal said.

Kazal has family members who are Trump supporters, but it’s been hard to talk to them about politics. To Kazal, it seems like Trump “transcends politics for them.”

“I’m at a loss for how to talk to them,” Kazal said. “But yeah, I’ve been able to talk about other issues.”

In a lengthy post on the social platform X, the former Republican governor of California said he “hates” politics more than ever, is not happy with either political party and would prefer to “tune out.”

But, he said, he is endorsing Democrats Harris and Walz because “I will always be an American before I am a Republican.”

Schwarzenegger went on to harshly criticize Donald Trump for rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential vote.

“(R)ejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets,” he said. “To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America … a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.

He ended by saying the country needs to “close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.”

Kamala Harris has Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Donald Trump has Kid Rock, Waka Flocka Flame and Hulk Hogan.

As the 2024 campaign whirls into its final week, Democrats are noticeably leaning on their star power advantage, calling on a diverse range of celebrities to endorse Harris, invigorate audiences and, they hope, spur people to the ballot box.

Democrats have long enjoyed a celebrity advantage and used it to close out presidential campaigns when attention and energy are critical. That upper hand has grown during Trump’s rise, a period that saw scores of celebrities, even apolitical stars, break their silence and speak out against the Republican leader. The advantage often means raucous, fiery events in the closing days of a race, but history — namely Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign — highlights how the energy at those events can sometimes paper over broader issues with a candidate.

▶ Read more on the impact of celebrity involvement in campaigning

Harris said she spoke with Biden Tuesday night after her speech, but his comments in the campaign call didn’t come up.

She said: “I will represent all Americans, including those who don’t vote for me.”

The flap over the president’s comments allowed Harris to make her sharpest break yet with Biden during her three-month campaign for the White House. She’s come under fire for not differentiating herself enough from the unpopular Democratic incumbent.

The vice president was responding on Wednesday to comments made by President Joe Biden on Tuesday night.

Biden was on a campaign call Tuesday evening reacting to a comic who called Puerto Rico garbage during a Trump rally last weekend. The president said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

Biden’s remarks were quickly seized on by Republicans who said he was denigrating Trump supporters, a distraction for Harris when she is trying to reach out to GOP voters.

He quickly sent a social media post seeking to clarify his remarks.

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” Biden said of Trump. “That’s all I meant to say.”

Harris noted that Biden later clarified his comments.

In the shadow of the White House, seven days before the final votes of the 2024 election are cast, Kamala Harris vowed to put country over party and warned that Donald Trump is obsessed with revenge and his own personal interests.

Less than 48 hours earlier inside Madison Square GardenTrump called his Democratic opponent “a trainwreck who has destroyed everything in her path.” His allies on stage labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made a baseless claim that Harris, a former prosecutor and senator who is trying to become the first woman to be elected president, had begun her career as a prostitute.

Two nights and 200 miles apart, the dueling closing arguments outlined in stark terms the choice U.S. voters face on Nov. 5 when they will weigh two very different visions of leadership and America’s future.

▶ Read more about what Trump and Harris are presenting to voters

Donald Trump will campaign with former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre in Wisconsin on Wednesday night at the same time popular musicians will be rallying with Vice President Kamala Harris about two hours away in the swing state’s capital city.

Mumford & Sons, Gracie Abrams, Remi Wolf and members of the band The National were slated to appear at the Harris rally Wednesday night in Madison.

At the same time, about 140 miles northeast of there, Trump will hold a rally not far from Lambeau Field with Favre.

Harris and Trump will again be in Wisconsin for dueling events on Friday. Trump is holding a rally Friday night in Milwaukee at the Fiserv Center, which was the site of the Republican National Convention. Harris is planning multiple stops in the state but has not said where yet.

Wisconsin is one of seven battleground states that’s seen multiple visits from Trump, Harris, their running mates and other surrogates.

Walz said Wednesday on “CBS Mornings” that President Joe Biden “was very clear that he’s speaking about the rhetoric we heard, so it doesn’t undermine it.”

Harris argued the case for her candidacy in a speech Tuesday night in Washington in which she promised to be an inclusive president.

During a call Tuesday organized by a Hispanic advocacy group, Biden said the “only garbage” he sees floating out there are Trump supporters. He was responding to a comic at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday who said Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.”

Biden later clarified his remarks, saying in a post on the social platform X that he was referring to “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter” at the rally.

Walz was also asked about Biden’s comments when he appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and said the president had issued a clarification.

“Let’s be very clear, the vice president and I have made it absolutely clear that we want everyone as a part of this. Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is what needs to end,“ Walz said.

Trump says the comedian who described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” probably shouldn’t have been at his Madison Square Garden rally.

Asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity whether he wished Tony Hinchcliffe hadn’t been there, Trump said he did.

“Yeah, I mean I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not, but I don’t want anybody making nasty jokes or stupid jokes,” he said. “Probably he shouldn’t have been there, yeah.”

Trump, in the interview, also said repeatedly that “Puerto Ricans love me,” and that he has great relationships with Hispanics and people from Puerto Rico.

He says, “Every time I go outside, I see somebody from Puerto Rico, they give me a hug and a kiss.”

He added: “I have unbelievable good relationship with Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people. Who this comedian was, I have no idea.”