It’s been another eventful week for American politics. And with just over two weeks left before the presidential race, the candidates are preparing to make their final appeal to voters.
What did Kamala Harris and Donald Trump – Democratic and Republican presidential candidates respectively – do as the final countdown approaches?
Find out in our latest recap of the week’s political news.
The election at a glance
There are 17 days left until the November 5 presidential race.
- What’s the latest poll news?
National averages have remained largely stable since last week, with Harris maintaining a razor-thin lead – well within the margin of error.
Poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, for example, has Harris at 48.3% as of October 17. Trump, meanwhile, was close behind with 46.3%.
However, some polls in individual key states show Trump gradually gaining ground. A poll this week by CBS News and YouGov, for example, focused on Arizona, where analysts noted a three-point lead for Trump over Harris.
An NPR analysis also saw the tide turning in Trump’s favor in battleground states, although the outlet emphasized how close the race is. He also pointed out that polls rarely tell the whole story – and that surprises are undoubtedly on the horizon.

Harris campaign targets Trump’s age
Sunday will mark Harris’ 60th birthday.
But even as the Democratic candidate prepares to celebrate entering a new decade of her life, her campaign is taking aim at the advanced age of her Republican rival.
Trump is 78 years old and would be the oldest person to be elected president if he wins the November election.
Early in the race, it was common for Trump to criticize an even older politician for his age and abilities: the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
Biden, 81, was expected to headline the Democratic ticket. But after a shaky performance in the June presidential debate, concerns about his age came to a head and Biden withdrew from the race.
Trump – who had long called Biden “weak” and “sleepy” – now faces a significantly younger opponent in Harris. And Harris flipped the script, using Trump’s age against him.
“I heard reports that his team, at least, was saying he was suffering from exhaustion,” Harris said Friday. “If he is exhausted from the election campaign, is he fit to do the job?”
His comments follow a series of canceled Trump events — and his own enthusiasm. health reportreleased by the White House last week.

Trump renews his threats against his political rivals
Trump can boast that he has long threatened to imprison his political rivals. Even in 2016, during his first successful presidential campaign, he was known for leading crowds in chants of his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up!” Lock her up!
Last month, Trump vowed to prosecute those he sees as threats to this year’s election.
“WHEN I WIN, people who CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long prison sentences,” he wrote on social media.
But the Republican leader took his rhetoric up a notch last Sunday, during an appearance on Fox News with host Maria Bartiromo. In his interview, he compared Democratic politicians to their foreign adversaries.
“We have two enemies: we have the enemy without, and then we have the enemy within. And the enemy within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all those countries,” Trump said.
“The hardest thing to deal with is the crazy people we have inside,” he continued, citing U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff as an example. “I call it the enemy within.”
Schiff led Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020.
Later in the week, Trump doubled down on his comments during a Fox News Town Hall. “I’m not threatening anyone. They are the ones who threaten. They are doing false investigations.

Fox News interview gets irritating
Seeking to torpedo criticism that she is avoiding press scrutiny, Harris continued her media blitz this week with an eyebrow-raising choice: an interview with Fox News, a conservative-leaning channel.
The choice partly reflects a broader campaign strategy aimed at appealing to middle-of-the-road voters, as well as Republicans disillusioned with Trump.
But from its opening moments, Thursday’s interview with Fox News host Bret Baier was tense.
The journalist and the Democratic candidate had difficulty making themselves heard.
“Can I please finish answering, please?” Harris asked Baier at one point. “You have to let me finish.” Please. I’m responding to the point you raise and would like to finish.
Baier also asked Harris about immigration, a topic for which President Joe Biden’s administration has received bipartisan criticism.
“Bret, let’s get to the point,” Harris responded at one point. “The fact is we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed. »

Democrats boost star power
Harris and Trump spent much of October traveling through the seven key states that will likely decide the presidential race.
But while campaigning last week, Harris revealed a a star-studded lineup to help him make his final speech to voters.
On Saturday, rapper and singer Lizzo opened for Harris in Detroit, Michigan, as she tried to drum up support for early voting.
And later that same day, singer Usher took a break from his concert tour in Atlanta, Georgia, to deliver the keynote speech at a rally there.
“We are only 17 days away from a very important election, as we all know, and we have the opportunity to choose a new generation of leaders for our country,” Usher told the crowd, echoing a common refrain from the Harris campaign.

JD Vance Endorses 2020 Election Denial
Throughout the campaign, Republican running mate JD Vance danced around the theme of the 2020 election: He refused to contradict Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud, but he also avoided saying that Trump had definitely lost the race.
This has changed last week, as Vance led a rally in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
At Wednesday’s rally, Vance took questions and reacted sharply when asked to respond to the message he was sending by refusing to give a straight answer on the 2020 race.
“On the 2020 election, I’ve answered this question directly a million times: No. I think there were serious problems in 2020,” Vance said.
“So, did Donald Trump lose the election? No, not with the words I would use.
Election denialism has been an ongoing concern since the 2020 election, when Biden defeated Trump.
Trump had refused to accept the result, calling the election “rigged” and “stolen.” His words helped motivate a group of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in an apparent effort to stop the certification of the results.
In this year’s race, Trump hedged when asked if he would accept another defeat. “If everything is honest, I will accept the results with pleasure,” he said in May.