Obama calls Trump 'wannabe king' at Harris event

Harris running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made a quick visit to a canvassing event at the Pitt County Democratic headquarters in Greenville, North Carolina, on Thursday afternoon and delivered a stump speech focused on energizing volunteers.

He also repeated his criticism of Trump wishing he’d had generals like those of Adolph Hitler.

"She’s got a to-do list, he’s got an enemies list," Walz said, contrasting Harris and Trump.

Walz said that just when he thought Trump "couldn’t get any lower," the accounts of John Kelly, the former Trump chief of staff and Marine four-star general surfaced.

"The idea that the people closest to him, four-star generals, telling us that that guy's fantasizing behind closed doors, that he wished he had Adolf Hitler’s generals. That is so damn disqualifying," he said.

Walz shifted to Trump ally billionaire Elon Musk and repeated an insult that he hurled during a campaign stop in Madison this week calling him a dips***. Walz joked that was a Minnesota term.

"I think that's a North Carolina term, too, right?" he asked. "I said that wasn't a pejorative. That's just it, standing up there as the richest man in the world. Instead of putting your money in to help people and end homelessness or end hunger or do all that you're looking for."

-ABC News' Isabella Murray

NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett announced a get-out-the-vote tour "that merges basketball and voter registration."

The Hoop it Up 2 Vote campaign will tip off in Milwaukee on Saturday, then goes to Detroit on Sunday and Philadelphia on Nov. 2. It includes a 3-on-3 tournament, 3-point contest and other games.

Attendees will also have access to complimentary rides to polling locations and voter registration booths, organizers said.

"Everybody needs to get out to vote on November 5. This isn’t the time to sit on the sideline talking about your vote doesn’t count," Garnett said in a statement.

As lawmakers in North Carolina consider legislation to expand early voting in counties hard-hit by Hurricane Helene, the state’s top election official pushed back Thursday against making last-minute changes to early voting sites.

"Poll workers don't grow on trees, and they certainly don't when you're in a disaster situation where people may have been displaced," North Carolina State Board of Elections Chair Karen Brinson Bell said during a press call.

Brinson Bell said that legislation requiring countries to expand their early voting sites could "present challenges" to strained election officials in western North Carolina.

Over 2 million voters have cast their ballot in North Carolina since early in-person voting began in the state last week. Despite the damage from Helene, 76 early voting sites are in operation across the 25 counties covered by the federal disaster declaration.

"What has happened thus far is that in most of these counties, we are seeing turnout that's on par or greater with 2020. We feel like the early voting sites that they've identified that are right for their counties are working," Brinson Bell said.

-ABC News Peter Charalambous

In the final campaign stretch, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang reports she is hearing the phrase "nervous optimism" from multiple Harris campaign officials and donors.

Harris' team knows this race is still locked in a dead heat, but the optimism comes from the Democrats' "strong ground game." The hope is that their better organization and canvassing on the ground will tip the scales in their favor, but they're keenly aware that Republicans could outperform in the polls as Trump did in 2016.

The Harris campaign is doubling down on peeling away disaffected Republicans. As one donor put it: "We're now the party of AOC and Dick Cheney -- that's crazy."

While Harris started her campaign with a message about joy and the future -- with her catchphrase "we're not going back -- Harris is ending her campaign with a message that sounds a lot like President Joe Biden's when he was still in the race: that Trump is a fundamental threat to democracy.

Her campaign is betting this will make the difference with those swing voters, but the risk is overemphasizing the anti-Trump message versus a positive message about a future Harris presidency.

But campaign sources highlight the fact that Harris has all the big superstar surrogates who can help make the pitch in other ways, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Magic Johnson, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem and more while Trump has Elon Musk.

One campaign source, when asked what made them most nervous (such as the gender gap, turnout from Black men or something else), said: "Everything is on the margins, so everything makes me nervous."

-ABC News' Selina Wang