Bernd Debusmann Jr & Brandon Drenon
BBC News, Washington DC

As we mentioned earlier, both Harris and Trump are focusing their efforts today on winning over crucial Latino votes.

It comes as some Democrats warn that Harris needs to energise black and Latino to turn out in November.

That's partly due to polling which suggests Trump is finding success in winning over these voters, building on gains he made in 2016 and 2020.

That could prove crucial in a race that looks set to be decided by razor-thin margins.

Here are three things that could be behind Trump’s apparent gains here:

• Economy - polling indicates black and Latino voters are dissatisfied with the American economy, particularly inflation and the cost of living
• Immigration - these groups have expressed concern about the handling of the US-Mexico border by the Biden administration
• Social issues - some experts think black male voters have turned away from a Democratic "embrace" of certain social agendas

Read more about this story

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

Former US president Barack Obama will be joining Vice-President Kamala Harris on her election campaign in Georgia on Thursday, as well campaigning for her in Detroit later today.

He's been travelling across the US in support of her bid to be the next president, and with just two weeks to go until election day, visits to key battleground states are ramping up.

Over the weekend, he spoke to a rally in Nevada, urging participants to vote, and to vote for Harris.

"I get why people are looking to shake things up. It’s understandable" he said in Las Vegas on Saturday, adding, "What I cannot understand is why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you, because there’s absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself".

Harris will then appear with Barack and Michelle Obama - who will be hitting the trail for Harris for the first time - in Michigan over the weekend.

Image source, Getty Images

Early in-person voting begins in the swing state of Wisconsin today.

Also known as an in-person absentee ballot, the idea is to allow more options for people to vote, and 47 states and Washington DC are offering it as an option in this election, with the timings and rules varying state-to-state.

The start of in-person voting in Wisconsin, where mail-in voting has already begun, is of particular significance because it is one of the seven battleground states that many believe will likely swing the outcome one way or the other.

Early and mail-in voting has been a hot-button issue since 2020, with polling from the Pew Research Center, external suggesting a sharp divide in support between the two main parties, with Democrats much more in favour than Republicans.

Both Harris and Trump are ramping up efforts to recruit Latino voters ahead of election day.

Today, Harris plans to announce a new "Opportunity Agenda for Latino men", which aims to help the demographic with homeownership and other investments.

She plans to discuss the initiative on Spanish-language network Telemundo this afternoon. The plan reportedly involves more opportunities for training programs and getting rid of college degree requirements for certain federal jobs.

Elsewhere today, Trump will participate in a roundtable at the Latino Summit in Doral, Florida.

Harris's push to win over the voting bloc comes as recent polling suggests she is underperforming with Latino voters compared to past Democratic candidates.

A New York Times Siena College poll, external from last month indicated 56% of Hispanic voters supported Democrats, compared to 62% of the group in 2020 and 68% in 2016.

For those of you who aren't seasoned US election watchers, we've put together a few essential guides to some of the most important elements of this race.

Want to get to grips with the basics? Read our simple guide to the November's vote as a first port of call.

We've also got a deep-dive into how a presidential election works, focusing on answering your questions about the Electoral College system.

Once you're up to speed with the Electoral College, there's this guide to what may happen in the seven swing states looking set to decide the outcome of the election.

If you'd like to get a sense of what Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand for, as well as what they plan to do if elected president, here's some analysis of their main policy pledges.

And finally, for a more data-driven look at who's likely to win, keep checking our regularly updated election poll tracker.

Sam Cabral
Reporting from Washington

Image source, Getty Images

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has defended Donald Trump's description of their political opponents as "the enemy from within", saying his running mate "speaks from the heart".

Asked on Fox News why such comments were necessary, Vance replied: "Donald Trump in unfiltered. That's one reason why the campaign has gone well. He's not doing a basement campaign strategy. He's not running on slogans."

Vance then shifted to talking about rioting seen in some US cities in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, asking "why wasn't law enforcement empowered to put down these riots, to reimpose law and order on American soil? That's what I think President Trump is talking about."

Anchor Bill Hemmer, however, pushed back that Trump has specifically mentioned Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Adam Schiff.

That prompted Vance to claim the duo were part of "weaponising the Department of Justice against our country", adding that Pelosi was "getting rich off of insider stock trades even as her own country has gotten poorer".

"I think it's totally reasonable for the president to say, yes, we've got the strongest country in the world, but we've got some broken leaders in Washington," he said.

Trump has repeated the 'enemy from within' remark on several recent occasions, describing Democrats as far more dangerous than foreign adversaries like Russia and Iran.

Pelosi, one of his most frequent targets, had her home invaded in 2022 by a far-right conspiracy theorist who fractured her 82-year-old husband's skull with a hammer and had planned to take her hostage. Trump and his allies have regularly joked about the violent incident.

Nada Tawfik & Bernd Debusmann Jr
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Once known more as a tech guru than as a political operative, Elon Musk, 53, has, in full view of the American public, invested his time, operational know-how and ample pocketbook into trying to get Donald Trump elected.

It makes him a rarity among the nation's business elite, who traditionally prefer to influence politics from behind the scenes.

Many traditional CEOs have been better known for holding expensive, exclusive fundraising dinners or hosting potential donors at lavish homes in the Hamptons.

Musk's Trump-supporting political action committee – America PAC – has already spent more than $119m (£91.6m) this election cycle, according to Open Secrets, a non-profit tracker.

This approach from the world's richest man has prompted observers to ask questions about what's driving Musk.

We've taken a closer look at Musk's support for Trump, the impact it could have, and his possible motivations here.

Image source, Getty Images

Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are continuing to make big pushes in battleground states, with just two weeks to go until election day.

Here's the agenda for today:

• Donald Trump will participate in a roundtable at the Latino Summit in Doral, Florida (11:00 EDT, 16:00 BST)
• He will then take part in a virtual town hall event titled Make America Healthy Again, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (14:00 EDT, 19:00 BST)
• Former US president Barack Obama will be campaigning with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in Madison, Wisconsin (14:30 EDT, 19:30 BST)
• The Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is due to appear at a campaign event in Peoria, Arizona (15:00 EDT, 20:00 BST)

• NBC News anchor Hallie Jackson will conduct an exclusive one-on-one interview with Vice President Kamala Harris (18:30 EDT, 23:30 BST)
• JD Vance will hold a rally in Tucson, Arizona (18:30 EDT, 23:30 BST)
• Trump is due to hold a rally at the Greensboro Complex Special Events Center, North Carolina (19:00 EDT, 00:00 BST)

Image source, Reuters

Kamala Harris spent Monday targeting wavering Republican voters, touring crucial swing states with Liz Cheney, a former Republican lawmaker who has been strongly critical of Donald Trump.

Cheney told Republicans "you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody", claiming millions would do so. Harris told Republicans disillusioned with the former president they are "not alone".

And figures showed the Harris campaign spent more than three times the amount Trump's did last month.

Image source, Reuters

Trump continued his messaging towards religious voters, saying he believes the "hand of God" has been leading him to where he is today.

On the day of the assassination attempt that left him with a bloodied ear, Trump said he felt he was knocked to the ground "by what seemed like a supernatural hand" and that "I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose and that's to make our country greater than ever before".

Elsewhere, the Central Park Five – wrongly convicted for attacking a jogger decades ago – filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump.

Thomas Copeland
Live reporter

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been battling it out in recent days for the support of undecided voters.

"Polling tells us that there’s a small and vanishing number of them," says Dr Thomas Gift, a US politics expert at University College London. But remember, in the states where this election will be won and lost, the margins are just that small. In 2020, Joe Biden won Arizona, a state of 7.4 million people, by 10,000 votes - that's just 0.1%.

Undecided voters tend to be suburban, socially liberal and economically conservative, says Gift, and they usually don't show up for every election. And you might not expect it, but many of them are young, adds Professor Peter Trubowitz from the London School of Economics.

"They could easily sit on their hands and not vote," he warns.

The Harris campaign is trying to woo Polish-American voters over the issue of Ukraine, for example, and Trump has a focus on working class voters in specifically selected Pennsylvania counties using a strategy Trubowitz describes as "micro-targeting".

"10,000 voters here, 10,000 voters there. They're going to exercise a lot of influence," Trubowitz tells the BBC. But both campaigns have to be careful that they don't forget their established supporters.

Whilst its hard to believe that anyone is still undecided with a fortnight until election day, laughs Trubowitz, both camps know there are votes are still up for grabs.

"And where the undecideds break, they all tend to break in the same direction," Trubowitz adds.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America correspondent travelling with the Harris campaign

Image source, Reuters

Kamala Harris spent the whole of Monday making a direct pitch to independent and Republican voters in the three states that form the Democratic Party’s so-called “blue wall”.

Two weeks from the election, Harris toured Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin alongside former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, an outspoken anti-Trump Republican.

While it’s not surprising that Harris visited the most hotly contested battlegrounds of the campaign in its home stretch, she departed from her customary rally-style events.

Instead she chose a “town hall” format alongside Cheney, a series of discussions hosted by figures picked with an eye toward the other side of the political divide.

You can read more about this here.

Ruth Comerford
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Elon Musk's presence is proving pivotal to the Trump campaign - and to the controversial tactics being deployed to sway uncommitted voters.

Musk-financed group Future Coalition PAC has been funding a digital advertising campaign targeting Arab and Jewish voters. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported Musk is a funder of the non-profit organisation Building America’s Future - which is listed as the only donor to Future Coalition PAC. It reportedly gave $3 million to the group.

The ads, which appear on Facebook and YouTube, claim that Kamala Harris is both pro and anti-Israel.

According to Google's Ads Transparency Center, external, the group has spent $841,000 on 43 adverts with conflicting messages, alternately describing Harris as "anti-Semitic" and "pandering to Palestine" to describing her and her husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, as America's "pro-Israel power couple".

The adverts have been strategically shown in different states, according to their demographic. The most money was spent on adverts in the swing state of Michigan which has the highest population of Arab Americans in the country.

With just two weeks to go until election day, polls in the seven swing states continue to be very tight - and both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been focussing their efforts in winning over voters there these past few days.

Harris spent Monday visiting Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, while Trump jetted off to North Carolina, where he will hold a rally in Greensboro today.

National polling averages show there are just one or two percentage points separating the pair in battleground states - with Harris leading in three of the seven states by less than one percentage point, and Trump currently ahead by less than one percentage point in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and by two points in Georgia and Arizona.

In Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, the lead has changed hands a few times since the start of August but Trump has had a small lead for a few weeks now. It’s a similar story in Nevada, where Harris is slightly ahead at the moment.

In the three other states - Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - Harris has been leading since the start of August, sometimes by two or three points, but in recent days the polls have tightened significantly and Trump now has a small lead in Pennsylvania.

Sam Cabral
US reporter

Image source, Getty Images

It has been more than a decade since Donald Trump last appeared on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming as a special guest - but former stars are resurfacing and giving their backing to his 2024 campaign for president.

At this summer's Republican National Convention, Terry Bollea - AKA Hulk Hogan, the all-American hero - ripped off his shirt to reveal a bright-red Trump 2024 tank top and, in a riff on his own catchphrase, exclaimed: "Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!"

Last week, in a sit-down interview with wrestler-turned-media-personality Tyrus, the former president warned listeners that manhood was under attack and religion was being mocked in the US.

And on Monday, Trump - who recently cancelled a slew of interviews with traditional outlets - traded compliments on an hour-long podcast hosted by Mark Calaway, better known as beloved WWE icon The Undertaker.

It is perhaps an unusual place to campaign in the closing days of a tight US presidential race. But for Trump, the only WWE Hall of Famer ever to make it to the White House, the visual reverberates across social media.

So why is Trump reuniting with WWE stars, how could this impact his 2024 campaign to be president? Here's the full story.

Image source, EPA

Donald Trump says he has seen no evidence of election fraud in 2024, but added he was suspicious of "the other side".

The Republican nominee was asked at a press conference in North Carolina yesterday if he had seen any proof of cheating in the election so far.

"Well I haven't," Trump responded. "Unfortunately, I know the other side, and they are not good. But I have not seen."

The former president falsely claimed that 2020 election was "rigged" and has been accused by prosecutors of election interference.

Trump then threw the question to Michael Whatley, chair of the Republican National Committee, who said his party is tracking the voting process across the country and is "very happy with the initial results".

At a rally a few hours later, however, Trump promised attendees that Whatley would "stop the cheating".

"Are they cheating, Michael?" Trump asked. "They're trying but they're not gonna get away with it, right?"

Trump has so far refused to say if he will accept the results of the November election.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump has continued to rail against CBS, the BBC's US media partner, and called for it to release an unedited transcript of its interview with Kamala Harris on the 60 Minutes programme.

He has repeatedly accused the programme of manipulating the interview, citing a clip which was aired ahead of the full interview being broadcast but did not appear in the final version as evidence.

In a letter , externalposted on social media, Trump's legal counsel Platzik Edward Andrew accused CBS of "intentionally" misleading the public by "broadcasting a skilfully edited interview".

In a statement , externalreleased on Monday, a CBS spokesperson said they used a more "succinct" clip of Harris's answer in the final cut to save time. CBS said any suggestion of "deceitful" editing was "false".

CBS's response also said it had repeatedly invited Trump onto the programme but he has declined to appear.

Image source, EPA

Election day might still be two weeks away but millions across the US have already cast their votes.

According to a tracker, external maintained by the University of Florida, nearly 17 million people have taken part in early voting schemes, which are widely available in the vast majority of US states.

Democrats and older people are more likely to vote early, either in person or via mail-in ballots.

The number of people who vote early has steadily increased across the US and ballooned in 2020 due to Covid-19.

In the aftermath of Joe Biden's victory, Trump launched a campaign against postal voting and claimed without evidence that it led to widespread electoral fraud.

We'll hear a lot more from the candidates in the coming days as they try to win over undecided voters - but it's worth bearing in mind that millions have already decided and put their cross in the box.

We've been reporting how Harris has been trying to win over wavering Republican voters who are put off by Donald Trump as we head into the last fortnight of this hard-fought campaign.

Tens of thousands of people backed Nikki Haley during the Republican primaries, a race in which she was heavily critical of the eventual nominee, in states which are key targets for both camps in this presidential election.

Democratic strategists will be keenly aware the number of former Haley backers in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan is larger than the winning margin was in those places in 2020.

Craig Synder, a Pennsylvania-based Republican strategist who is heading the Haley for Harris effort in that state, says that while the Democrats are making a concerted outreach to disaffected Republicans, hearing from Democrats isn’t enough.

“These voters want to hear from other Republicans,” he told our North American correspondent Anthony Zurcher. “They want to hear that they’re not alone.”

Image source, EPA

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart late on Monday, and joked about being "the poorest person ever to run for vice-president" and jogging in New York's Central Park.

The show's audience skews to the left, but that didn't stop Walz using it to try to reach the Democrats' key target voters: disillusioned Republicans and undecideds.

He said: "I know it's hard to imagine but there's folks still deciding what they're going to do... They're watching this craziness that you're seeing and realising this is serious stuff."

He specifically appealed to Republicans who have "never crossed over the barrier" and voted Democrat before - something we've heard a lot about from Kamala Harris in the last few days.

She spent Monday campaigning with Liz Cheney, a former Republican lawmaker who has become one of Trump's fiercest critics. Her father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney, who served under George W Bush, has also endorsed Harris.

"I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to those folks who want to do the right thing," Walz said.

With two weeks to go until polling day on 5 November, the campaign is about enter its most frantic and consequential period. Here are your essential updates:

• Kamala Harris spent Monday touring crucial swing states with Liz Cheney, a former Republican lawmaker who has been strongly critical of Donald Trump
• Harris tried to appeal to Republican voters who are disillusioned with Trump, telling them they are "not alone" in an attempt to convince them to switch party
• Elsewhere, Trump addressed an audience of evangelical Christians in North Carolina, another state which could go either way in this election
• He said a "supernatural hand" saved him from being assassinated in July
• The former president is being sued for defamation over comments he made during last month's televised debate
• Steve Bannon, a key Trump ally who worked for him in the White House, will be released from prison next week
• The Harris campaign spent more than three times the amount Trump's did last month, according to new figures - and polls still show the race is incredibly close