Caitlin Wilson
US live editor

Time is running out for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to convince American voters - especially in swing states - to give them their votes for president.

With early voting already begun in many states, the candidates are adding a renewed emphasis to their urges to voters to get out and submit their ballots.

But they're still making sure to touch on all of their greatest hit lines: Harris on Saturday extolled her commitment to abortion rights, while Trump repeated familiar complaints against the criminal investigations into him.

And they both made sure to criticise each other at their rallies in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia on Saturday.

Americans want to be "freed" from Kamala Harris, Trump said, while Harris accused Trump of only thinking about himself and not the American people.

With the candidates' major events finished for the evening, we're going to pause our live coverage here. But you can read up on more about the 2024 US election below, and we'll be back on Sunday to bring you more updates from the final weeks on the campaign trail.

• Democrats travel deep into Trump country in fight for prize state
• Vulnerable time for Europe as clock ticks down for Biden
• Fact-checking Kamala Harris's 'media blitz'
• Trump says China respects him because Xi knows he is 'crazy'

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Image source, Getty Images

I’ve just arrived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump will continue his whirlwind tour around the state tomorrow after speaking at a rally in Latrobe tonight.

Lancaster County - which is famously a hub of the Amish community - is traditionally a fairly quiet place, with green rolling fields that have earned it the nickname of the "Garden Spot of America".

But with the election approaching, it's hard not to see that political activity is ramping up. On the way in, the BBC team saw billboard after billboard put up by groups affiliated with both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Most billboards in this area, however, seem to be supporting Trump. The last one I saw included the words "Things were better before: Americans for Trump 2024."

On Sunday, Trump is first expected to go to a McDonald's near Philadelphia, where he has promised to "do everything" an employee does. Trump has repeatedly attacked Harris over her recalling that she once worked at a McDonalds, saying that his campaign "checked" the story and believes it is a "hoax".

Later in the day, he'll be here in Lancaster for a town hall to meet with supporters. Notably, Republicans in the area have been ramping up efforts to reach Amish voters - who are usually known to keep to their own insular communities - in what promises to be a tight race with Harris.

In the evening, he'll head to Pittsburgh - across the state - where he is expected to attend an NFL game between the Steelers and the New York Jets.

I'll be bringing you more updates from Pennsylvania tomorrow.

Image source, EPA

While Donald Trump has been speaking in Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris has also been addressing supporters in her second swing state of the day, in Atlanta.

Georgia is one of the seven all-important swing states we've been telling you about.

Before the vice-president got on stage to speak, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff addressed the crowd, reminiscing about his own election in 2020, when he and the state's other senator, Raphael Warnock, both won their seats in run-offs to give Joe Biden and the Democrats a narrow congressional majority.

"Once again, Georgia, the nation turns its eyes to us... in a pivotal moment," he said.

Early voting began in the state earlier this week, even as some areas are still dealing with storm damage from Hurricane Helene.

Harris focused on many of her signature talking points, including promising to protect the right to access abortion and vowing to lower costs on groceries and prescription drugs, because "prices are still too high".

She also hit out at her Republican opponent, saying Donald Trump "is only focused on himself".

The Democrat was introduced by R&B star Usher, who said he is voting for Harris because she "fights for everyone's rights and freedoms" - and led the crowd in singing a refrain of "We ready" in reference to casting their ballots for the vice-president.

Trump's rally in Latrobe on Saturday evening marks just one of the former president's multiple stops in the swing state.

Voting in swing states is hard to predict and can swing Republican or Democrat - that’s why you’re hearing so much about them as campaigning draws to a close.

We're taking a look at all seven battlegrounds in the lead up to the election next month.

Here's what you need to know about the so-called Keystone State.

Population

12.97m

Electoral college votes

19 of 538

2020 margin

Biden by 82,000 votes

What's the deal now?

Pennsylvania’s prized 19 electoral votes make it one of the most visited states by both candidates. It is also the place where a supporter of Trump was killed at a rally, in a hail of bullets targeting the former president.

• Read more: A quick guide to swing state Pennsylvania

Image source, Getty Images

Former football player for the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers, Antonio Brown, spoke before Trump at his rally tonight in Pennsylvania, which took place in the town where the team trains.

"I know the media's gonna call me and Trump crazy for having me speaking here. But I want to make this clear."

"We are not. They are," he said, pointing towards TV cameras in the back of the crowd.

Trump is expected to attend a Steelers game on Sunday as they go up against the New York Jets.

A spokesman for the Steelers said that Trump is attending at the invitation of "an individual suite holder" and that the team and stadium are co-ordinating with US Secret Service to provide protection to both Trump and the crowd.

"We encourage fans to arrive early tot he parking lots and to the gates so that they can enjoy our pregame experience and our celebrations throughout the game that will honor the 50th anniversary of our Super Bowl IX team," said spokesman Burt Lauten.

Near the end of his speech, Trump says he is going to work at a Pennsylvania McDonald's location on Sunday.

It's part of a knock he has also made against Harris previously, saying that her oft-recounted story about working at McDonald's as a university student is a "hoax" and that she lied about once having a job at the restaurant chain.

"I think very soon, maybe tomorrow or something, I'm going to McDonald's to work the French fry," he says, but doesn't offer any more details.

Harris has talked about working at the burger joint as part of her pitch to middle class voters. She pushed back against Trump's questioning of the story last month.

"Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people who work at McDonald's in our country who are trying to raise a family," she said. "I worked there as a student."

Trump's speech describes a dystopian future if Harris wins the presidency, and a modern-day utopia if he wins.

"We will unlock the magnificent destiny that is within our reach," Trump says.

"I am asking you to be excited about the future of our country," says Trump, adding that if he wins, the US will see its "most exciting period ever".

The promise goes to the heart of Trump's long-time pledge to "make America great again".

The Republican candidate goes on to call Harris "a threat to democracy" echoing the exact phrase that Harris and Joe Biden have frequently made to criticise Trump.

The former president addresses his Democratic opponent: "You're fired! Get the hell outta here, Kamala."

"You're fired" is Trump's famous catchphrase from his time on the reality TV show The Apprentice.

Image source, Getty Images

Trump says voters must decide whether they want him to be president, or instead choose "four more years of failure and disaster".

He adds that the world is "laughing" at both Harris and Joe Biden.

"It's going to be a disaster," he says, as the crowd chants his name.

Trump then criticises the US Justice Department ("the Department of Injustice, I call it," he says), as well as the Georgia prosecutor overseeing his election interference criminal case there.

He also repeats a line that Kamala Harris also deployed earlier, urging supporters to get out and vote and noting that early voting is already under way in some parts of the country.

He marvels at the crowd size, which the BBC's US news partner CBS says is around 3,000 people.

After Kamala Harris addressed supporters in Michigan earlier, Donald Trump is also rallying supporters in swing states on Saturday.

Speaking in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump opens by noting that it is the hometown of legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, who he describes as a friend of his. Trump spends the first several minutes of his rally telling Palmer's life story.

"I'm a pretty good golfer, but not like that," Trump jokes, though he notes that he once drove a ball "longer" than Palmer - who is also known in the US for the drink bearing his name: a mix of iced tea and lemonade.

Trump is speaking from behind bullet-proof glass, which he has been doing since being shot in the ear this summer.

But the barrier doesn't prevent him from interacting with the crowd as he turns the speech toward his campaign talking points, including immigration and inflation.

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" he asks them.

"No!" they reply.

"Americans are ready to be freed from Kamala Harris" he says.

"Everything they touch turns to..." Trump trails off, pausing as many in the crowd shout an expletive to finish the sentence.

Kayla Epstein
US reporter

Image source, Reuters

Today, Donald Trump is holding a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The rural town is located a little under an hour east of Pittsburgh, in Westmoreland County.

Despite its small population, Latrobe has produced some notable names and landmarks. Fred Rogers, of the children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood fame, was born there in 1928 and laid to rest in the town's cemetery. The Pittsburgh Steelers, a popular American football team, trains in Latrobe. And for decades, it was home to the Rolling Rock brewery.

And the area is politically significant, too. This is a region of Pennsylvania that was loyal to Democrats just of a couple decades ago, but since Trump's ascent, has shifted notably towards the Republicans. In many ways, it's emblematic of the shift in rural, working-and-middle-class support that has come to underpin the former president's political success.

Support for him there is palpable: one woman famously decorated her house in red, white, and blue stripes and placed a roughly 14-foot (4.2 metre) cutout of the former president on the front lawn. It is now known locally as the "Trump House" and holds events supporting the namesake candidate.

Pennsylvania is the grand prize of all the battleground states that will decide this election. It will be key for Trump to maintain a large margin of support in the rural counties if he wants to fend off Vice-President Kamala Harris, who will rely on expected big margins in cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. If she hopes to carry the state, Harris herself needs to lose less in areas like Latrobe and Westmoreland County, chipping away at Trump's likely advantage there.

Image source, Getty Images

Madeline Halpert
US reporter

Donald Trump has called a judge "the most evil person" as she released more than 1,800 pages of evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith's election conspiracy case against him.

The Republican White House candidate said US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan's rejection of his request to delay releasing the new evidence until after next month's vote amounted to "election interference".

Legal analysts have debated whether filings in the case breach a Justice Department internal rule that prosecutors avoid any investigative step that might affect an election within 60 days of voting.

But in her ruling, Judge Chutkan argued that if she had kept the files under wraps, that could itself have been construed as election interference.

The heavily redacted 1,889 pages of documents released on Friday mostly rehash information already available publicly.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump cannot be prosecuted for official acts carried out as president.

As a result, Mr Smith was forced to change the historic case brought against Trump and argue that he committed crimes while still in office, but as a private citizen.

He filed a new motion in September laying out the new case against the former president.

• Read more: Trump calls judge 'evil' for releasing case files before election

Image source, Getty Images

Harris has been wearing a shirt today by the fashion label vs Everybody, bearing the company's slogan Detroit vs Everybody. The shirt was given to her by the company's owners at a campaign stop at a cafe in Detroit on Tuesday.

The iconic brand boasting of Detroit's pride was established in 2012, and had its break out moment after Detroit native Eminem adopted its slogan as the title of a song he released in 2014.

The company's design is not the only popular art to emerge from Detroit.

Motor City's own musician Lizzo appeared with Harris at her Detroit event today, where she criticised Donald Trump for likening the city to a "developing nation" which will never return to its former glory.

"They say that if Kamala wins, this whole country will be like Detroit," Lizzo said, referring Trump's comments. "Proud like Detroit. Resilient like Detroit," she added.

Detroit has undoubtedly struggled in recent decades, though it is now showing signs of economic revitalisation.

Its population shrunk from about two million in the 1950s to just over 600,000 today. The rate of violent crime remains among the highest in the nation.

In 2013, Detroit became the largest city in America to file for bankruptcy after accruing some $19bn (£15bn) in debt.

But Harris said earlier Saturday that the city is full of "a lot of hardworking folks with a lot of grit and ambition" who "deserve to be respected".

But Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement that Harris needed Lizzo to campaign with her "to hide the fact that Michiganders were feeling good under President Trump – real wages were higher, prices were lower, and everyone was better off."

Image source, Getty Images

The US presidential election takes place on 5 November. But it's possible the candidate with the most votes won't be the winner.

This is because the president is not chosen directly by the voters, but by something called the electoral college.

What is the electoral college?

When Americans take part in November's presidential election, most of them will cast a vote for either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump.

But those votes don't directly determine who wins. Instead of a national race it's a state-by-state race.

Winning one of the 50 states means that candidate collects all the so-called electoral college votes. There are 538 electoral college votes in total.

A candidate needs to gain a majority of the votes - 270 or more - to win the presidency. Their running mate becomes the vice-president.

How does the electoral college work?

Each state has a number of electoral votes, roughly in line with the size of its population.

California has the most with 54, while a handful of sparsely populated states like Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota (and Washington DC) have the minimum of three.

Generally, states award all their electoral college votes to whoever wins the poll of ordinary voters in the state.

For example, if a candidate wins 50.1% of the vote in Texas, they are given all of the state's 40 electoral votes. A candidate who won a state by a landslide would still pick up the same number of electoral votes.

• Read more about the electoral college, including how a candidate could win the most votes across the country, but still lose the election

Ahead of election day next month, the BBC is taking a deep dive look at all seven swing states that will likely decide the winner of the US presidential election.

Voting in swing states is hard to predict and can swing Republican or Democrat - that’s why you’re hearing so much about them as campaigning draws to a close.

Kamala Harris spoke to supporters in Michigan earlier - here are some quick facts about the midwestern state.

Population

10.03m

Electoral college votes

15 of 538

2020 margin

Biden by 150,000 votes

What's the deal now?

Neither Harris nor Trump is taking Michigan for granted in 2024. The candidates are focusing on Michigan’s large auto industry as well as national issues such as the economy and immigration.

• Read more: A quick guide to swing state Michigan

We'll check out what you need to know about Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump is holding a rally on Saturday, a little later.

Harris's stump speech tightens as campaign urgency intensifiespublished at 20:13 British Summer Time 19 October

20:13 BST 19 October

Rowan Bridge
North America correspondent, Washington DC

Kamala Harris's campaign stop just now wasn't your standard campaign speech. Rather, it was a call for people to get out and vote - a sign of where we are in the presidential race.

Harris was on stage for less than ten minutes - far shorter than her stump speech normally lasts. Instead of her standard talking points, she focused on the that fact early voting starts today in Detroit: "We're going to go vote today, we're going to remind people to vote, we're going to register folks to vote. We're going to email, text, phone, call, knock on doors, remind people of what is at stake," she told the crowd.

And in case the message was lost on anyone, she spoke against a patchwork of posters reading, "DETROIT VOTES EARLY" in capital letters.

"I'm not going to spend any more time on the stage, because we got work to do," she said as she left.

With seventeen days left, and polls still tight, the urgency of the moment is being felt by both sides.

Image source, Getty Images

Harris has just walked off the stage at a get-out-the-vote event in Detroit, Michigan.

Early voting has begun in the city, though it won't start in much of the rest of the state until next weekend. Still, Harris was already hammering the message for voters to go out and cast their ballots, encouraging attendees to vote early, to talk to their neighbours about how they plan to vote and to volunteer to get people registered.

"On election day, we don't want to have any regrets about what we could have done", she told the crowd.

Before the vice-president appeared, music star Lizzo made her own plea to her hometown in support of the Democratic candidate.

"They say voting is not a love letter, it's a chess move. Well, I feel like voting early is not just a chess move, it's a power move," she said, adding that she has already cast her own ballot for Harris.

Michigan is one of seven key swing states in this election cycle where polling suggests Harris and Donald Trump are running neck-and-neck as the race comes down to the wire.

Image source, Getty Images

Sam Cabral
US reporter

Image source, Getty Images

It has been more than 10 years since Donald Trump last appeared on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming - but his latest campaign for president is bringing retired wrestlers off the sidelines.

The Republican candidate posted a video on Truth Social on Saturday of himself flanked by two former WWE performers, the Undertaker and Kane.

"Choose wisely" between Trump and Kamala Harris in the upcoming "Electionmania," the Undertaker says in the clip. "The nation depends on it."

This summer, Hulk Hogan ripped off his shirt for "Trumpamania" during the Republican National Convention; Dave Bautista mocked the former president as "a weak, tubby toddler"; and the Undertaker will reportedly sit down with him on his podcast.

Before he entered politics, Trump hosted WWE events at his hotels, rubbed shoulders with its biggest stars, tormented and brawled with then-CEO Vince McMahon, and even made it into the company's Hall of Fame.

WWE alumni supporting Trump's 2024 bid include Hogan and McMahon's wife Linda, both of whom spoke at this summer's Republican National Convention; Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, Glenn Jacobs (better known as Kane); and musician Kid Rock, another celebrity Hall of Famer.

In a Friday interview, Trump lamented to former WWE star Tyrus that "manhood is under attack". He was responding to the host's comment that the US has in recent years witnessed "a complete dismemberment of what it is to be a man".

While the WWE has evolved into more of a family-friendly global brand, Trump's macho style still goes down well in the no-holds-barred world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is a regular guest of honour.

Perhaps that is why anti-Trump late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel enlisted Marvel actor Bautista to take swings at Trump's tough guy persona.

Image source, Getty Images

We've just heard Kamala Harris answer some questions from reporters out on the campaign trail. The vice-president has faced intense criticism from Republicans and others this election cycle for her lack of press conferences and - until her recent media blitz - few interviews.

She spoke to gathered journalists - in what's known as a press gaggle - in Detroit for just a few minutes about the war in Gaza, Donald Trump and the final few weeks of the campaign.

When asked whether she worries that US support for Israel in its war against Hamas could hurt her election chances in swing state Michigan - which has a large Arab American community - Harris said it is important to acknowledge the "tragedy" of the "extraordinary" number of Palestinians who have died in Gaza in the last year, along with the Israelis who were "slaughtered" on 7 October, 2023.

She added that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this week "creates an opening that I believe that we must take full advantage of" to end the war.

Harris also said she is happy to see record early voting turnout in many states as the election grows nearer. She said she wants to spend the next two weeks highlighting that Trump is "increasingly unstable and unfit" to be president - a common attack line she takes against her Republican opponent.

Harris will rally before supporters in the state later on Saturday.

Trump and Harris on the home stretchpublished at 17:55 British Summer Time 19 October

17:55 BST 19 October

Rowan Bridge
North America correspondent, Washington DC

The presidential election may technically be on 5 November, but with early voting underway in a little more than half of US states, real ballots which will decide the result are being cast already.

That’s why you see an increased urgency in the calls from both candidates for their supporters to use their vote.

If US presidential elections can feel like a marathon (Donald Trump defeated his last opponent for the Republican nomination back in March, and Kamala Harris all but secured the Democratic ticket in July) then we're now into the final sprint for the finish.

Today both Harris and Trump are each holding two rallies in swing states which will decide the outcome, and with the race as tight as it is, that pace is unlikely to let up between now and the finish line of November 5th.

Kayla Epstein
US reporter

Donald Trump spoke to the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which has published parts of their conversation.

The former president told the newspaper that if he returns to the White House China would not dare provoke him because President Xi Jinping knows he is "crazy".

Trump said that if elected president next month, he would impose tariffs on China if it sought to blockade Taiwan.

"I would say: if you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you at 150% to 200%," he said.

On the campaign trail, the Republican candidate has argued that America's adversaries would not act against US interests under a new Trump presidency because they would fear a forceful, even unpredictable, response.

He told the Wall Street Journal's editorial board he would not have to use military force to prevent a blockade of Taiwan, because President Xi "respects me and he knows I'm [expletive] crazy".

Trump has branded his foreign policy as America First, though detractors say it is isolationist.

• Read more about the Trump campaign's positions on China, Ukraine Russia and other international actors here.