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

"It is absolutely something that is intended," Harris says of racist rhetoric.

Last Updated: October 28, 2024, 5:11 PM EDT

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.

Oct 28, 4:40 pm

More than 45 million Americans have voted early

More than 45 million Americans have voted early as of 4 p.m. ET Monday, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Of the total number of early votes, 22,775,211 were cast in person and 22,472,909 were returned by mail.

Voters line up to cast their ballots at the Stamford Government Center on the first day of early voting in Stamford, Conn., Oct. 21, 2024.
John Moore/Getty Images

11:36 AM EDT

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.

10:47 AM EDT

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."

10:43 AM EDT

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

9:52 AM EDT

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.

Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks at a campaign rally for democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the Wings Event Center, in Kalamazoo, Mich., Oct. 26, 2024.
Paul Sancya/AP

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