Harris and Trump visit N.C., Biden "garbage" comment on Trump rally sparks outrage

With just a week to go, it's a tied race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in Pennsylvania — the biggest electoral vote prize of the battleground states in the 2024 election. 

Trump is helped by voters' negative perceptions of today's economy and by the fact that more voters think they would be better off financially with him in the White House than Harris. When they look back, far more Pennsylvania voters say things were going well in the U.S. during Trump's presidency than say that today. 

Harris leads Trump among voters who say the state of democracy and abortion are major factors, and she has an edge on some personal qualities. More think she has the cognitive health to serve as president than think Trump does, and voters are more apt to see Harris' positions as reasonable and to see Trump's as extreme.  

And while Harris has not convinced most Pennsylvania voters that she would strengthen U.S. democracy (Trump hasn't either), slightly more think Trump will weaken it.

There's been little movement in the race here since September. 

Read more here. 

A group of election canvassers say a driver allegedly tried to run them over with his car earlier this month in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, and are now demanding justice.

Political campaigns sometimes use the VFW Bruce Post parking lot to hand out materials for both Democratic and Republican candidates. That's exactly what the St. Clair Shores Democratic Club was doing on Saturday, Oct. 12.

"Overall, it was just a really great day and we had a few people here and there that stopped and thought we were the Trump tent," said Melissa Crook, volunteer for the St. Clair Shores Democratic Club. 

Crooks says a man took things to another level when he learned their tent was set up in support of Vice President Kamala Harris.

"As soon as he found out we were the Harris-Walz tent, he went from zero to 100 very quickly," she said.

Read more from CBS Detroit. 

Former President Trump and other Republicans were quick to jump on comments from President Biden as Trump's campaign sought to pivot away from the controversy over racist remarks at his mega-rally on Sunday. Caitlin Huey-Burns is in Pennsylvania, where Trump spoke last night. 

Harris delivered her closing argument against Trump at the same site he encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" on Jan. 6, 2021, before they marched to the U.S. Capitol and tried unsuccessfully to halt the certification of President Biden's victory. 

Harris, speaking to a massive crowd at the Ellipse near the White House, is trying to draw a contrast between her vision for the country and Trump's as she seeks to win over undecided voters a week before Election Day. The campaign said 75,000 people were in attendance, with crowds overflowing on the National Mall all the way to the Jefferson Memorial. 

"We know who Donald Trump is," Harris said. "He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election, an election that he knew he lost."

"America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote," she said. 

She vowed to work with Republicans and independents alike to help improve Americans' lives.

Telling the crowd that in less than 90 days, "Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office," and "on Day One, if elected, Donald Trump will walk in with an enemies list." 

"I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities for what I will get done," she told the cheering crowd.

Harris called her Republican rival "unstable," "obsessed with revenge," "consumed with grievance" and "out for unchecked power." 

Trump on Tuesday night addressed the crude and racist jokes that comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made toward the beginning of his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday. Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage," and made racist jokes about birth control and Black people eating watermelon. Tuesday was the first time Trump has addressed them directly, although he has previously said "nobody has done more for Puerto Rico" than he has. 

"I have no idea who he is. Somebody said there was a comedian that joked about Puerto Rico or something, and I have no idea who he was, never saw him, never heard of him, and don't want to hear of him, but I have no idea," Trump said in a Fox News interview about Hinchcliffe and his comments. "It's nobody's fault, but somebody said some bad things."

He went on: "I can't imagine it's a big deal. I've done more for Puerto Rico than any president, I think, that's ever — that's ever been president." 

He also said he had "no idea" who booked Hinchcliffe.

Speaking on a Zoom call with supporters Tuesday, President Biden appeared to call former President Donald Trump's supporters "garbage." Republicans seized on the comments, while the White House offered a different explanation of what Mr. Biden said.

The president was responding to a joke made at a Trump rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, in which Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."

In the video clip obtained by CBS News, Mr. Biden was speaking by video to the left-leaning group Voto Latino. "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters," he seemed to say. "His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable."

But the White House denied that the president had said this about Trump supporters and released a transcript with a statement noting that "supporters" was in fact "supporter's," and that Mr. Biden was referring to Hinchcliffe and his joke.

"Garbage, I think, is worse," Trump said Tuesday, adding that it was "terrible to say a thing like that."

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