The Latest: Harris says decency and character are on ballot

“Let’s vote, and vote with conviction and confidence and hope,” she said.

Some of the loudest honks from supporters at the drive-in rally came as Harris spoke of the need for better health care, women’s rights and a criminal justice system that embraces a person’s dignity.

To acclaimed chef Michael Solomonov, whose two young sons were wrapped in blankets near the stage, the election involves more than politics, more than fixing an economy shattered in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a moral question, and a moral decision,” said Solomonov, 42, the executive chef of Zahav in Philadelphia. ”(It’s) really just a question of right and wrong.”

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE:

President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden have one last chance to make their case to voters in critical battleground states on Monday. The Republican president’s final day has him sprinting through five rallies, from North Carolina to Wisconsin. Biden is devoting most of his time to Pennsylvania.

— Trump threatens to fire Fauci in rift with disease expert

— Trump promises court fight over Pennsylvania absentee votes

— 2020 Watch: Will loser of the election accept the result?

— Expect a lot more of the same if Trump wins a 2nd term

— Biden looks to restore, expand Obama administration policies

— AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s errant final pitches on virus, energy

— 6 questions going into the presidential election

— AP Explains: The election result may be delayed. That’s OK.

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON:

6:55 p.m.

In Philadelphia, Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney kicked off a stadium car rally set to feature vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris on a brisk Election Day eve.

Kenney told people listening from their cars outside Citizen Bank Park on Monday that the country needs “a strong, sound and sane president in the White House.”

Anastasia Austin, a Philadelphia educator, wore a sweatshirt to the Harris event boasting of her affiliation with Zeta Phi Beta, one of the Divine Nine sororities to which Harris also belongs.

Austin and her husband took their 3-year-old daughter with them when they voted early in Delaware County.

“As an African American woman raising a daughter … for my daughter to see somebody that looks like her in leadership, creating change,” Austin said, “it brings me to tears.”

Austin, like Harris, has Jamaican heritage, and said she looks forward to leaders who embrace people from different backgrounds, not ostracize them.

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6:35 p.m.

Former President Barack Obama is criticizing President Donald Trump for casting doubt on the results of Tuesday’s upcoming election, likening him to strongmen elsewhere in the world.

Addressing a Monday evening drive-in rally in Miami on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s behalf, Obama said his successor has suggested he may “declare victory before all the votes are counted tomorrow.”

“That’s something a two-bit dictator does,” Obama said. “If you believe in democracy, you want every vote counted.”

Obama said if a Democrat was acting like Trump, “I couldn’t support him.”

The former president said that, unlike Trump, “With Joe and Kamala you’re not going to have to think about them every single day.”

“You’re not going to have to argue about some crazy tweet that the president sent out this morning,” Obama said. “It won’t be so exhausting. You’ll be able to about your lives know that the president’s doing his job instead of suggesting we inject bleach.”

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6:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump is stressing issues important to Michigan at the first of two campaign rallies he’s holding in the state on the eve of Tuesday’s election.

Trump tells a large crowd of supporters at the airport in Traverse City that a vote for Democrat Joe Biden “is a vote to extinguish and eradicate” the state’s auto industry.

Biden was vice-president under President Barack Obama, who helped revive U.S. automakers.

Trump is also criticizing Biden’s position on trade, another issue important to Michigan. The president is promising that things will change “if you just give us another four years.”

Trump is closing Monday’s final day of campaigning at a rally — his fifth of the day — in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s where he ended his 2016 run.

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6:20 p.m.

Joe Biden is telling Black voters in Pittsburgh to turn out to help him win the all-important state of Pennsylvania.

Speaking Monday at an outdoor rally in Homewood, a predominantly African American community in Pittsburgh, Biden told the crowd that “the power to change this country is in your hands.” He spoke about the disproportionate effect COVID-19 has had on the community as well as his plan to promote Black economic mobility.

Biden said that “we’re done with the chaos, we’re done with the racism, we’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility.” Some supporters sitting in their cars for the outdoor event honked their horns, while others bundled up in blankets and watching Biden in front of the stage cheered.

Black and Latino voters are key to Biden’s hopes of a win in Pennsylvania and beyond, and he and running mate Kamala Harris have held numerous events focused on minority communities. Biden spoke Sunday at a “Souls to the Polls” event at a Baptist church in Philadelphia, where he made the same case, telling the largely Black crowd that their votes could put him over the top.

3:35 p.m.

President Donald Trump is assailing a decision that allows Pennsylvania’s elections officials to count mailed ballots that are received in the three days after Tuesday’s election.

Trump is blaming the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to block the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision. Pennsylvania’s top court ordered the extension until Nov. 6, even if the ballot doesn’t have a clear postmark, as long as there is not proof it was mailed after the polls closed.

Addressing a campaign rally Monday at the airport in Avoca in battleground Pennsylvania, Trump called the situation “very dangerous, and I mean dangerous, physically dangerous.”

He argued that “you can’t extend dates” and claimed — without evidence — that cheating goes on in the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia.

Trump has said that once the polls close Tuesday, “we’re going in with our lawyers” to try to stop Pennsylvania from counting the mailed ballots received after the election.

3:25 p.m.

Former President Barack Obama is telling reluctant voters he knows their frustrations but doesn’t believe they’re reason not to vote.

He said at a drive-in rally in Atlanta on Monday, the eve of Election Day, that “government doesn’t solve every problem” and that the “long legacy in this country of hardship and prejudice and people who are powerful and rich taking advantage of folks who aren’t” can be “discouraging.”

But he said Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, would improve the country, just as Obama believes he did in eight years in office.

“We’re never going to get all the way to the promised land, but we can help lay the path for future generations to get there,” Obama said. “That’s what public service should be about. That’s what citizenship should be about. That’s what voting is about — not making things perfect, but making things better, laying that path.”

Obama has been campaigning in several battleground states in the campaign’s closing weeks. He was joined beneath the 1996 Olympic flame in Atlanta by Georgia Democratic Senate candidates, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock.

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3:20 p.m.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is revving up a group of union members to help him turn out the vote in a suburban Pittsburgh county.

Biden spoke Monday afternoon at Beaver County Community College, where about 100 union workers gathered for a canvass kickoff. He emphasized the significance of Pennsylvania and told the crowd that Democrats will win the state and “show the world what we stand for.”

The supporters gathered outside to see him speak cheered as he promised to “be the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” Biden has had strong union support throughout his political career and has made a pitch to union and working-class workers a centerpiece of his campaign.

Beaver County is home to the kind of blue-collar voters who have abandoned the Democratic Party in recent years and helped deliver Republican Donald Trump a win in 2016.

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2:40 p.m.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will spend Election Day in key battleground states.

Biden plans to campaign in Scranton and Philadelphia on Tuesday. That follows a blitz by the Democratic ticket through Pennsylvania on Monday and indicates the importance of winning the state. Biden was born in Scranton and often speaks about the region in personal terms.

Harris will visit Detroit, a heavily Black city in battleground Michigan.

Her husband, Doug Emhoff, will be in Ohio. And Jill Biden will campaign in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, as well as Wake County, North Carolina.

President Donald Trump won all five states in 2016. His best path to reelection comes through Pennsylvania and Florida.

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2:15 p.m.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris isn’t uttering President Donald Trump’s name as she campaigns in Pennsylvania.

Instead, Joe Biden’s running mate is referring to him as “you know who” or “the other guy.”

She told a crowd in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday: “I’m kinda done talking about the guy in the White House. If y’all don’t mind, I’m just gonna talk about Joe.”

The event was billed as a get-out-the-vote rally focused on Latinos, who make up roughly 30% of the city’s population. Harris largely stuck to her standard campaign speech, highlighting the differences between Trump and Biden.

She says Biden understands hard work, determination and faith can get people through difficult times. She says, “He believes in the American people, and he believes in the strength of who we are as a nation.”

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12:50 p.m.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is talking up Joe Biden’s labour credentials during a stop in northeastern Pennsylvania.

If she and Biden win the White House, she said, “we will probably have the most pro-labour administration we’ve seen in a long time.”

Harris made her remarks in Luzerne County, her first of three stops in battleground Pennsylvania on Monday. The region was once a major hub of anthracite coal mining, and the county backed Republican Donald Trump in 2016 after previously supporting Democrat Barack Obama.

Harris is pitching Biden’s plan to expand skills training and suggesting there’s no false choice between tackling climate change and saving jobs. Harris says a Biden administration will work to make the country the world’s top maker of electric vehicles.

She was direct about Pennsylvania’s importance. She says, “Pennsylvania’s gonna determine the outcome of this election.”

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12:40 p.m.

Joe Biden is delivering a working-class economic pitch as he makes a late play for Ohio.

At a drive-in rally Monday at an airplane hangar in Cleveland, Biden said President Donald Trump “sees the world from Park Avenue,” but “Wall Street didn’t build America — the middle class built America!”

Biden told the crowd he’s got a “chip on his shoulder, noting some suggest the fact he doesn’t have an Ivy League degree “has got to mean I don’t belong because I went to a state university.” But he added that it’s “about time” someone with a state university degree becomes president, telling the audience, “Because you’re gonna be there!” The crowd cheered and rang cowbells, with some seated in their cars leaning heavily on their horns.

Biden also spoke about manufacturing jobs lost in Ohio and his plan to boost those jobs by incentivizing companies and the federal government to make more products in the U.S.

Ohio is a perennial swing state, and no Republican has won the presidency without it. While Trump won it by about 8 percentage points in 2016, Biden‘s aides believe he has a shot here because of his appeal to blue-collar workers and suburban voters in the state.

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12:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump is projecting confidence and declaring at a North Carolina rally that “we’re going to win anyway” despite investigations he says were launched as part of an attempted takedown.

Opening the first of five campaign rallies on the eve of Election Day, Trump openly wondered what the political landscape would have looked like “had it been legit.”

He was referring to the special counsel’s investigation into ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia and his impeachment by the Democratic-run House. Special counsel Robert Mueller found multiple links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, but ultimately did not establish that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the election.

Trump says it’s all “fake stuff.”

The president spoke in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His other stops Monday are in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

He’s closing the night in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same place he closed the 2016 run.

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12:10 p.m.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown says Joe Biden’s “not doing enough anywhere” in the campaign, but he’s “doing as much as you can” — and thinks the Democratic presidential candidate can win Ohio.

Brown spoke to reporters Monday before Biden’s drive-in rally in Cleveland. He noted that Biden has spent most of his campaign time in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because those are the core states he expects to deliver him an Electoral College win. But he said Biden can tamp down any efforts to delegitimize the election by winning Ohio.

Brown says he and the rest of the Democrats in the Ohio delegation had been lobbying the Biden campaign to send him for weeks. Polls show a close race in the state.

As the president lobs baseless claims that the election is rigged, Brown says, “Winning Ohio will undermine all of Trump’s shenanigans and antics after the election when he calls it rigged.” While other states could take days to count the large volume of mail ballots, “Ohio is quick” to call the election, he noted, and could give a sign of an overwhelming Biden lead on election night if he wins.

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9:05 a.m.

Joe Biden is defending Dr. Anthony Fauci after President Donald Trump suggested he’d dismiss the nation’s top infectious disease expert after Election Day.

The Democratic presidential nominee tweeted Monday: “We need a president who actually listens to experts like Dr. Fauci.”

Biden has sought to keep the presidential campaign focused on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 231,000 people in the U.S. Trump has used the race’s final hours to accuse Biden of wanting to force the country back into a lockdown to slow the spread of the virus.

During a rally that started late Sunday in Opa-locka, Florida, the Republican president expressed frustration that the surging virus cases remain prominent in the news, sparking chants of “Fire Fauci” from his supporters.

Trump replied, “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election.”

Biden is travelling to Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday, trying to keep open multiple pathways to an Electoral College victory. Trump plans a whirlwind five rallies, from the battlegrounds of North Carolina to Wisconsin.

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8:55 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s press secretary says Trump expects to spend election night at the White House watching results roll in.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Monday where the president planned to celebrate. She said Trump and some aides “will be together … at the White House” for election night.

Trump’s campaign had planned a traditional campaign party at his Washington, D.C., hotel. But Trump said last week that he was considering other options, including staying at the White House, because the District of Columbia’s coronavirus protocols would restrict the size of the gathering.

The Trump campaign last month pushed out fundraising emails in the Republican president’s name offering donors the chance to enter a drawing “to join Team Trump at the Election Night Party” in his “favourite hotel,” in Washington, suggesting he would use his hotel as the backdrop for reacting to election results.

The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

The Latest: Harris says decency and character are on ballot

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