2024 election updates: Harris says Trump ‘fanning the fuel’ of division after rally

(WASHINGTON) — As we head into the final full week of campaigning before Election Day, the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll shows Kamala Harris with a slight 51-47% lead over Donald Trump among likely voters nationally — but the polls in the battleground states remain essentially deadlocked within the margin of error.

Fallout continues over racist comments made at Trump’s big rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden and Harris is preparing for her “closing argument” Tuesday night on the Ellipse near the Capitol and White House in Washington.

Biden stands in line at polling place to cast his ballot

President Joe Biden is at a polling place in New Castle, Delaware, to vote early in the 2024 election.

According to reporters traveling with the president, there was a line of more than 100 people when he arrived. Biden walked toward the back of the line and was seen greeting and speaking with voters.

Harris slams Trump’s MSG rally and Puerto Rico comments

Harris criticized Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, saying the former president is “fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country.”

“It is absolutely something that is intended to and is fanning the fuel of trying to divide our country. And as I’ve said many times, I’ll say tomorrow night in my speech, there’s a big difference between he and I,” Harris told reporters as she departed Joint Base Andrews for a day of campaigning in Michigan.

Asked to respond to the comments about Puerto Rico at the rally, which the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from, Harris pointed to her support for Puerto Rico as a senator and her “opportunity economy” proposal.

“I’m very proud to have the support of folks like Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez and others who were supporting me before that nonsense last night at Madison Square Garden, and are supporting me because they understand that they want a president of the United States that’s about uplifting the people and not berating, not calling America a garbage can, which is what Donald Trump, those are the words he has used.”

Virginia asks Supreme Court to allow voter purge

Virginia has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift an injunction against enforcement of an executive order that would result in the removal of 1,600 alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls just one week before Election Day.

The lower court said Virginia’s action violates the National Voting Rights Act’s “quiet period” clause, which bars states from systemically removing voters 90 days before an election.

The state argues that the court violated the “Purcell” principle of interfering with a state electoral process too close to an election.

The injunction will “irreparably injure Virginia’s sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offence that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters,” the state writes.

The court has asked for a response from the Justice Department and voter groups by 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Burned ballot boxes reported in Oregon and Washington

Police are investigating arson at a ballot box in Portland, Oregon, where officers responded to reports of a fire overnight.

Security personnel extinguished the ballot box fire, located outside the Multnomah County elections office, and a Portland explosives unit removed the incendiary device from the box.

ABC affiliate KATU reported Monday another ballot box incident in Washington state, where police were responding to smoke coming out of a ballot box in Vancouver. The Clark County auditor told KATU that hundreds of ballots were inside the box at the time.

Read more here.

Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez show support for Harris after racist comments at Trump rally

Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican artist and one of the world’s biggest music stars, posted support for Harris on his Instagram after racist comments about Puerto Rico were made by a speaker at Trump’s rally on Sunday.

He posted a video of Harris discussing what’s at stake for Puerto Rican voters as she rolled out a “new Puerto Rico Opportunity Economy Task Force.”

“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader. He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back to back devastating hurricanes, and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” Harris said in the video, referring to Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Bad Bunny reposted the message to his 45 million followers.

Jennifer Lopez posted the same video from Harris to her own account, which boasts 250 million followers.

Ricky Martin encouraged his followers to vote for Harris as he responded to a clip of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Martin wrote, “esto es lo que piensan de nosotros” or “this is what they think of us.”

Harris pitches her first 100 days but not specific on how she’d handle a divided Congress

In an interview with CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell, Harris said her first 100 days in office should she win the election would be focused on lowering costs for American families, including her proposals on housing, small businesses and the Child Tax Credit.

“A priority in equal form is going to be what we need to do to deal with reproductive health care and reinstate the freedoms and the rights that all people should have and women should have over their own body, and then dealing with immigration, in particular, border security and bringing back up that bipartisan bill that Donald Trump killed so we can get more resources down to the border,” she added.

But when asked how she’d navigate a potentially divided Congress, Harris only said she believed Congress would “work across the table” on issues plaguing most Americans.

“These are not partisan issues. Democrats, Republicans, independents deal with these issues equally, and actually don’t think of think of them through the lens of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” she said. “So that means working across the aisle.”

-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim

More than 41 million Americans have voted early

As of 5:45 a.m. ET on Monday, more than 41 million Americans have voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Of the 41,989,199 total early votes, 21,111,171 were cast in person and 21,338,290 were balloted returned by mail.

On Monday, voters in Washington, D.C., can start casting their ballots early, in person. Almost all of the states that offer in-person early voting have begun offering it by now.

-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim

Michelle Obama uses op-ed to reiterate message imploring men to support women’s reproductive health

The former first lady repeated her passionate message on women’s health being at stake this election in an op-ed published by the New York Times on Monday,

The op-ed featured excerpted remarks from her rally in Michigan on Saturday in which she blasted Trump’s record on the issue in comparison to Harris’, and made an appeal to men to support the women in their lives. The rally marked her first campaign appearance since her speech at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

“I am asking you, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously,” she said. “Please do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through, who don’t fully grasp the broad-reaching health implications that their misguided policies will have on our health outcomes.”

Despite her stated aversion to partisan politics, the former first lady is ramping up her involvement in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign. She will headline a rally on Tuesday in battleground Georgia.

Harris counters dark and racist comments at Trump’s MSG rally

Harris is countering the dark and racist comments made by speakers at Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden, while the former president’s campaign tries to distance itself from the comedian who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Harris will stump in two critical counties in the battleground state of Michigan to kick off the final full week of campaigning. First, she will visit Corning’s manufacturing facility in Saginaw before getting a tour at a union training facility in Macomb County.

The vice president will cap the day with a rally with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, in Ann Arbor. The rally will feature a concert by musician Maggie Rogers.

Trump will be in Georgia to deliver remarks at National Faith Advisory Board in Powder Springs before a 6 p.m. ET rally in Atlanta.

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