Harris shares medical report in mental resilience bid; Trump health scrutinized: Live

With just over three weeks until election day, a new pair of polls from the key battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania tell very different stories for both the Harris and Trump campaigns.

Trump has 51 per cent of support among likely voters in Arizona to Harris’s 46 per cent, while 2,000 miles away in Pennsylvania, the vice president appears to be consolidating a lead of 50 per cent to Trump’s 47 per cent, having led in that state for the third consecutive poll.

However, the Times notes that neither candidate can rest on their laurels over the coming weeks:

Victory is far from secured for either candidate in either state. Other surveys from high-quality pollsters have shown tighter races in both states. According to New York Times polling averages, Mr Trump is ahead by just two percentage points in Arizona, and Ms Harris is ahead by just one point in Pennsylvania.

Both states also feature hotly contested Senate contests with the Democratic candidate in each holding a clear advantage, according to the new polling.

In Pennsylvania, Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat, is holding a slim lead against David McCormick, a Republican businessman, 48 percent to 44 percent. Mr McCormick’s four-point deficit is down from nine points last month, and 8 percent of voters said they remained undecided.

In the Senate contest in Arizona, Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate, maintained his lead over Kari Lake, a former television anchor and outspoken Trump ally, 48 percent to 41 percent. But a fairly large share of voters, 10 percent, said they remained undecided.

Vice President Kamala Harris could not come up with three virtues about former president Donald Trump when she was asked to do so on Thursday evening at a Univision town hall event.

The Democratic presidential nominee laughed upon hearing the question, posed by an audience member, and immediately shared a negative trait about Trump that she does not like.

As Kamala Harris’s office released her medical report this morning, her campaign highlighted recent media reports raising questions about Donald Trump’s health and mental acuity and his failure to provide information about his health status and medical history.

Trump, 78, eagerly questioned President Joe Biden‘s health when the 81-year-old president was seeking reelection. Since Biden was replaced on the ticket with Harris, Trump’s own health has drawn more attention.

Regular readers of this blog will be all too familiar with the former president’s rambling, non-sensical diversions when he delivers campaign speeches or sits for interviews which some observers say indicates that not all is well.

Last November, Trump marked Biden’s birthday by releasing a letter from his physician that reported the former president was in “excellent” physical and mental health.

The letter posted on Trump’s social media platform contained no details to support its claims — measures like weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, or the results of any test.

Donald Trump has a women problem. We know that because it is the reason he now has a criminal record over the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. We know that because of the jury in New York finding Trump liable for sexual abusing the writer E Jean Carroll and awarding her tens of millions of dollars in damages.

And just look at the polls. This could be the most gendered election ever, with a women’s vote splitting decidedly in favour of Kamala Harris, while Trump goes for the “bro vote” – the locker-room-bantering, towel-snapping, beer-chugging frat boys. Oh, and young, macho, Black and Latino men, too.

After the overturning of Roe v Wade – the seminal ruling that gave women a right to choose on abortion – Harris has been piling up the votes among women. And remember, women go out to vote in larger numbers than men, and in the US there are many more women than men.

But what I want to do is dwell on one woman in particular: his wife, Melania Trump. And the question: does he have a problem with her, too?

The release of Kamala Harris’s medical report showing that she is in “excellent health” and “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” required to serve as president is significant because her campaign hopes to use the moment to draw a contrast with Republican Donald Trump, who has released only limited information about his health over the years.

They want to raise questions about his fitness to serve, according to a campaign aide who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Trump has released very little health information, including after his ear was grazed by a bullet during an assassination attempt in July.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denied that the climate crisis is making hurricanes more powerful, contrary to the opinion of scientists.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday in the wake of Hurricanes Milton and Helene, DeSantis said there was a “precedent” for the immense destruction.

“There is precedent for all this in history,” DeSantis said. “It is hurricane season. You are going to have tropical weather.”

The governor said that Milton had hit Florida with a barometric pressure of 950 millibars. The lower the barometric pressure, the stronger the storm.

DeSantis’ remarks come in stark contrast to warnings made by scientists, who say that human-caused climate change has intensified Milton‘s rainfall by 20 to 30 percent and strengthened its winds by about 10 percent.

Kamala Harris has released a health summary from her White House physician, which states that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”

In the summary released on Saturday morning, the vice president’s physician Joshua Simmons writes that she is in “excellent health.”

Harris is releasing her medical information in a challenge to Donald Trump, whose health and age are coming under increased scrutiny.

Decades before Trump erected his Tower, an insidiously well-connected New York power-player was cutting a ruthless path through US society, politics and courtroom battles. A new film charts Roy Cohn’s outsized influences on America and the 45th president, writes Sheila Flynn