Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at the Resch...

Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at the Resch Expo in Green Bay, Wis., Thursday, while Donald Trump spoke at the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith dinner in Manhattan Credit: AP

With the Nov. 5 election growing near, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are setting their sites on the key battleground state of Michigan date.

The vice president is scheduled to begin her day in Grand Rapids before holding events in Lansing and Oakland County, northwest of Detroit.

The former president has his own event in Oakland County in the afternoon before an evening rally in Detroit.

Trump laced into Harris and other Democrats in a pointed and at times bitter speech as he headlined the annual Al Smith charity dinner Thursday in New York. Harris appeared virtually for the event.

Trump plans to vote on Election Day, not early 

Donald Trump is planning to cast his vote on Election Day despite having previously said he would vote early.In a radio interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that aired last week, Trump had said that he intended to early vote — something Kilmeade had suggested might serve as an example for his supporters.

Trump and his campaign have been urging voters to cast their ballots early, even as the former president and GOP nominee continues to criticize the option and sow unfounded doubts about potential fraud.

“I’ll be voting early. I’ll be voting early,” Trump told the host.But he won't. Trump instead will be voting Tuesday morning near his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a person familiar with his schedule who spoke on condition of anonymity before a formal announcement.

Harris reaches for a big moment in her closing argument for 'turning the page' on Trump

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and her...

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz depart after speaking during a campaign rally at Burns Park in Ann Arbor, Mich., Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. Credit: AP/Paul Sancya

 Vice President Kamala Harris will make the “ closing argument ” for her presidential campaign Tuesday from the same site where Donald Trump fomented the Capitol insurrection, hoping it offers a stark visualization of the alternate futures that voters face if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office.

One week out from Election Day, Harris was to use her 7:30 p.m. ET address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to pledge to Americans that she will work to improve their lives while arguing that her Republican opponent is only in it for himself.

She hoped to sharpen that contrast by delivering her capstone speech from the place where Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, spewed falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election that inspired a crowd to march to the Capitol and try unsuccessfully to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory.

With time running out and the race tight, Harris and Trump have both sought big moments to try to shift momentum their way.

“It’s a place that certainly we believe helps crystalize the choice in this election,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said of the setting, calling it “a stark visualization of probably the most infamous example of Donald Trump and how he’s used his power for bad.”

Campaign aides stressed that Harris will not deliver a treatise on democracy — a staple of President Joe Biden’s own attempts to draw a contrast with Trump — or spend too much time focusing directly on the shocking imagery of that day. Harris aides said the vice president aims to make a broader case for why voters should reject Trump and consider what she offers.

“There’s a big difference between he and I,” Harris told reporters Monday in previewing her speech. “If he were elected, on day one he’s going to sit in the Oval Office working on his enemies list. On day one, if I am elected, which I fully expect to be, I will be working on behalf of the American people on my to-do list.”

Her campaign hoped to draw a massive crowd to Washington for the event. But, more critically, her campaign hopes the setting will help catch the attention of battleground state voters who remain on the fence about whom to vote for — or whether to vote at all.

The address comes days after Harris traveled to Texas, a reliably Republican state, to appear with megastar Beyoncé and emphasize the consequences for women after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That, too, was a speech meant to register with voters far away in the battleground states.

The vice president’s latest address has been in the works for weeks. But aides hoped her message would land with more impact after Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers hurled cruel and racist insults. Harris said the event “highlighted the point that I’ve been making throughout this campaign.”

“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country,” she said.

Harris was expected to use her speech to lay out a pragmatic and forward-looking plan for the country, including reminding voters about her economic proposals and pledging to work for access to reproductive care, including abortion.

“That stark contrast has real power when she’s delivering solutions and Trump is sowing division and hate,” O'Malley Dillon said.

Also central to her message: positioning herself as a “new generation” of leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden. She's going to be “talking about what her new generation of leadership really means and centering that around the American people and what they care about," O’Malley Dillon said.

As for Trump, Harris said Monday, “People are literally ready to turn the page. They’re tired of it.”

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Welcome to the Newsday Voters Guide, your source for information on the candidates, proposals and more. Plus, learn how to use the Newsday Ballot Builder. Find the guide at newsday.com/votersguide. Credit: NewsdayTV

Trump says his New York rally marked by crude and racist insults 'was like a lovefest'

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a...

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. Credit: AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Donald Trump on Tuesday called his rally at New York's Madison Square Garden, an event marked by crude and racist insults by several speakers, a “lovefest.”

That's a term the former president also has used to reference the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump noted that “there’s never been an event so beautiful” as his Sunday night rally in his hometown of New York City. That's despite criticism from Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign and many who watched — including Republicans — about racist comments made targeting Latinos, Black people, Jews and Palestinians, along with sexist insults directed at Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's set at the rally, in which he joked that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage,” stirred particular anger given the electoral importance of Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania and other key swing states. The Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe's joke about Puerto Rico but not other comments.

Trump didn’t address Hinchcliffe’s joke on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago. But he ripped critics who have pointed out that Madison Square Garden was host to a gathering of Nazis in 1939.

Several of the speakers on Sunday referenced that event, including former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, who said, “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”

“Nobody’s ever had love like that,” Trump said, of the hourslong Sunday event that featured speakers including some of his adult children, wife Melania and high-level surrogates and supporters including TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “It was really love for our country.”

Liz Cheney makes bipartisan appeal alongside Kamala Harris

Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney speaks as Democratic presidential nominee...

Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney speaks as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris listens during a town hall at The People's Light in Malvern, Pa., Monday. Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

Kamala Harris teamed up with Liz Cheney on Monday to make a bipartisan appeal to Republican voters uneasy about Donald Trump, describing the former president as a malignant force that needs to be removed from American politics.

The Democratic vice president said at an event in the Philadelphia suburbs that Trump “has been using the power of the presidency to demean and to divide us” and “people are exhausted with that.”

“People around the world are watching,” Kamala Harris said. “And sometimes I do fret a bit about whether we as Americans truly understand how important we are to the world.”

Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, said her background as a conservative means she prioritizes the Constitution over her political party, and she was concerned about allowing a “totally erratic, completely unstable” Trump to run foreign policy.

“Our adversaries know that they can play Donald Trump," she said. "And we cannot afford to take that risk.”

Trump has frequently tried to paint Harris, who is from deep blue California, as a radical liberal, but she struck a moderate tone during her appearance with Cheney.

Harris promised to “invite good ideas from wherever they come" and “cut red tape," and she said “there should be a healthy two party system" in the country.

“We need to be able to have these good intense debates about issues that are grounded in fact,” Harris said.

“Imagine!” Cheney responded.

Exonerated Central Park Five sue Trump

Activist Korey Wise, center, speaks onstage Aug. 22 as representatives...

Activist Korey Wise, center, speaks onstage Aug. 22 as representatives from “the Central Park Five,” activist Kevin Richardson, New York City Council member Yusef Salaam and Activist Raymond Santana, along with the Rev. Al Sharpton, look on during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago. MUST CREDIT: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post Credit: The Washington Post/Demetrius Freeman

Test A group of men who were exonerated for the rape and assault of a woman in Central Park in 1989 have sued Donald Trump for continuing to suggest that they are guilty, including at the presidential debate in Philadelphia last month.

The Central Park Five alleged in a federal court lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania that Trump falsely claimed at the debate that they pleaded guilty after being charged in the case as teenagers, and that they had killed someone. The defendants in fact were cleared of wrongdoing. And the victim of the infamous attack sustained life-threatening injuries but survived.

At the time of the crime, Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for a return of the death penalty in New York, a move widely seen as a reaction to the attack on the jogger, directed at those who had committed the assault.

After a re-investigation of the case and after another suspect’s DNA confirmed his involvement, the defendants, who were Black and Latino, were cleared of wrongdoing. By then, they had served years in prison.

As he seeks a second term in the White House, Trump has continued to make public statements implying guilt on the part of the Central Park Five, suggesting that they were responsible for some crimes that occurred in the park - including another brutal assault.

Trump’s comments at the debate reached an enormous television audience and were further amplified in widespread news coverage.

The wrongly accused men “suffered harm, including severe emotional distress and reputational damage, as a direct result of Defendant Trump’s false and defamatory statements at the [debate], as well as his continuing pattern of extreme and outrageous conduct,” their lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Trump lost two defamation lawsuits over the past two years that were brought against him by author E. Jean Carroll, who also successfully sued him for a long-ago sexual assault.

Carroll, who won verdicts totaling about $90 million, said Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. He adamantly denied it and repeatedly called her a liar and insulted her after her claim was made public.

Donald Trump says Nikki Haley 'helping us already' on campaign

Donald Trump says he’ll “do what I have to do” to drum up support from one of his former GOP primary rivals, Nikki Haley.

Donald Trump gave that response Friday during a live appearance on “Fox & Friends” when asked if he would seek the former South Carolina governor’s Haley support on the campaigning trail in the election’s closing days.

Trump said Haley “is helping us already” and “is out campaigning” but questioned why political watchers seemed so concerned that she and not other former rivals, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, stump for him.

Harris has been courting some of Haley’s former supporters in the closing days of the general election campaign.

Haley, who also served as Trump’s United Nations ambassador, was the last foe remaining against Trump in the Republican primary earlier this year, shuttering her campaign after the former president’s romp through the Super Tuesday contests. She didn’t immediately endorse him in the race but said in May she’d vote for him, leaving it up to the former president to work toward winning over support from her backers.

Haley called for GOP unity around Trump in a speech at this summer’s Republican National Convention.

Trump compares convicted Jan. 6 rioters to interned Japanese Americans in World War II

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a...

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a Univision town hall, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Doral, Fla. Credit: AP/Alex Brandon

Test Former President Donald Trump said on Friday that rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are being treated like Japanese Americans who were incarcerated on U.S. soil during World War II.

“Why are they still being held? Nobody’s ever been treated like this,” he said in an interview with conservative commentator Dan Bongino. “Maybe the Japanese during Second World War, frankly. They were held, too.”

Trump made the comments after claiming the defendants “won in the Supreme Court.” His reference concerns a ruling from this past June that limited a federal obstruction law that had been used to charge hundreds of Capitol riot defendants as well as the former president himself.

The justices, in a 6-3 opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents.

The overwhelming majority of the approximately 1,000 people who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to Capitol riot-related federal crimes were not charged with obstruction and will not be affected by the outcome.

Kamala Harris talks little about potential to break gender, racial barriers

Coal extraction equipment operates at the open air quarry outside...

Coal extraction equipment operates at the open air quarry outside Matasari, southern Romania, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. Credit: AP/Vadim Ghirda

WASHINGTON — Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris regularly describes herself on the campaign trail as a "middle-class kid," a former criminal prosecutor and a longtime public servant.

One subject she usually avoids is the historic nature of her run.

If Harris wins the presidential race against former Republican President Donald Trump, she would be the first female U.S. president, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to hold the position. Those prospects have excited many of her supporters, even as the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants seldom brings up the topic.

Kamala Harris outraises Donald Trump in NY, including Long Island

Coal extraction equipment operates at the open air quarry outside...

Coal extraction equipment operates at the open air quarry outside Matasari, southern Romania, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. Credit: AP/Vadim Ghirda

WASHINGTON — A surge in contributions from Long Island and New York donors to Kamala Harris’ campaign after she became the Democratic presidential candidate put her ahead of Republican Donald Trump in the fundraising race, campaign finance filings show.

In the 11 days after President Joseph Biden withdrew from the presidential race on July 21 through July 31, Harris raised nearly four times as much as Trump on Long Island, with $785,964, and 10 times as much in New York State, with $9.6 million, fundraising reports for July show.

That padded a lead in New York fundraising that Biden built in June before stepping aside, as Harris and Biden have raised $30.7 million to Trump’s $8.2 million in New York State through the end of July for their main campaign committees.

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