Harris, Trump Battle For Swing-State Votes As Musk Draws Lawsuit

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris appealed to Christian groups and union workers in battleground states, while Elon Musk faced backlash for his plans to give selected registered voters $1 million as part of an election sweepstakes to motivate turnout for the Republican nominee.

President Joe Biden criticized Musk's scheme after casting an early ballot in Delaware, highlighting how both campaigns are encouraging supporters to get to the polls.

Trump rallied evangelical voters in Georgia, while Harris highlighted her plans to boost manufacturing during a tour of Michigan as the two candidates furiously campaign with just eight days until Election Day.

Trump looked to build his advantage with independent and male voters over the weekend with a three-hour Joe Rogan podcast appearance on Friday and a rally Sunday night in New York. But both events offered fodder for Harris headed into the weekend's final stretch.

In New York, warm-up acts for Trump made racist and crude comments about Black Americans, Puerto Ricans and Palestinians, undermining the Republican nominee's attempts to make inroads with minority voters. On the Rogan podcast, Trump also disparaged the Biden administration's signature legislation offering subsidies for semiconductor manufacturers who opened plants back in the US, saying he would have accomplished the same goal through high tariffs.

Harris seized on both while in Michigan, criticizing the remarks about Puerto Rico and visiting a Hemlock Semiconductor LLC facility, just a week after the company received a $325 million preliminary investment under the Chips and Science Act.

Here's everything happening on the campaign trail on Monday:

Biden Casts His Vote

Biden cast an early-voting ballot in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Biden, the oldest US president in history at 81, ended his own reelection bid this summer and endorsed Harris.

The president arrived at a polling station with US Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is running for Senate to replace retiring Democrat Tom Carper. Biden greeted people waiting in line outside the station to cast their own ballots, including helping push one woman in a wheelchair.

Biden received a sticker after voting and took questions from the press, telling them he thought Democrats would win. And he used the opportunity to assail Trump over his Sunday rally and the comments from speakers.

"It's simply embarrassing. It's beneath any president," Biden added.

Biden also criticized the election sweepstakes being organized by Musk and his super political action committee, America PAC.

"I think it's totally inappropriate," the president said. 

America PAC is offering registered voters in swing states the chance to win $1 million if they sign an online petition pledging to support free speech and the right to bear arms. 

The vice president has enlisted Democratic heavyweights like former President Barack Obama and celebrities like Beyoncé Knowles-Carter to join her on the trail. Biden, however, has been mostly appearing solo since the two campaigned together on Labor Day in Pittsburgh.

Biden has a light campaign schedule during the final stretch with an event in Baltimore on Tuesday to highlight infrastructure investments and one on Friday in Pennsylvania to tout his administration's efforts to bolster organized labor.

The president defended his schedule, telling reporters he had to balance the requirements of his job with hitting the trail but said he would also visit his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for Harris.

Musk Sued Over Giveaways

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is suing Musk and the billionaire investor's super PAC over the offer to give registered voters in US swing states $1 million prizes.

Krasner is asking a state judge to stop Musk from running what the complaint calls an "unlawful lottery" that is lulling "Philadelphia citizens to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win."

The lawsuit marks the first official legal challenge Musk, the world's richest person, has faced over the program, which has drawn scrutiny from legal experts and the US Department of Justice. The DOJ sent Musk's PAC a letter warning the program might violate federal law barring paying individuals to vote or to register to vote.

Asked about the suit, a spokesman for America PAC pointed to a post on Musk's X social-media platform announcing a winner from Michigan and indicating the effort would continue to Election Day.

Evangelical Get-Out-the-Vote

Trump sat for a moderated discussion at the National Faith Summit in Powder Springs, Georgia, in another appeal to win over evangelical voters, a group that polls show are breaking overwhelmingly for the former president.

The Republican was, at times, awkward in his appeal to Christians, dodging a question about his own faith life, referring to a religious congregation as "an audience," musing about whether "pastor" or "minister" is the preferred term and admitting that as a child attending religious classes sometimes he "couldn't get out of there fast enough."

"I shouldn't scold anyone, but Christians aren't known for being very solid voters," Trump said.

Trump lamented that the US is "less based on religion now" - calling it the "glue" and "fabric" holding the country together - while castigating Democrats for minimizing faith and repeating baseless claims about the persecution of Catholics. 

Harris Touts Chip Investments

The vice president toured a semiconductor facility in Michigan, using the trip to push back on Trump's criticisms of the Chips Act, which subsidizes domestic chip manufacturing.

Harris said the law made the US more competitive with China and cast it as the type of jobs-growing investments Americans could expect under her administration.

"When we can find a way to have meaningful partnerships with the private sector, with industries, to do the kind of work that is happening here, everybody wins," Harris said. 

The Democratic nominee referred to Trump's comments on Rogan's podcast Friday that the Chips Act had wasted billions and claiming tariffs would have been a better tool to bring manufacturing back to the US.

"He recently did a radio talk show and talked about how you can get rid of the Chips Act. That's billions of dollars investing in just the kind of work that's happening here," Harris said.

She repeated her claims that Trump made it easy for China to obtain advanced chips while president.

"We got to win the competition for the 21st century. We're not gonna have China beat us in the competition for the 21st century," Harris said. 

Union Outreach

At her second stop in Michigan, Harris toured an International Union of Painters and Allied Trades training facility, where she met with workers - an effort to bolster outreach to blue-collar voters.

Harris said she had worked with unions throughout her political career to help improve job prospects and economic mobility, including "getting young men into training" and "out of the criminal justice system."

"Apprenticeship programs were my best partners," she said.

Reassuring working class voters anxious about the economy and jobs in Michigan and the other Blue Wall northern states that offer a critical path to winning the White House will be crucial to Harris' electoral hopes.

The IUPAT has endorsed Harris for president, along with other major unions, but Trump has managed to make inroads with organized labor's ranks, touting his agenda of tariffs and tax cuts which he says will spur domestic manufacturing.

Harris Hits Trump Over Puerto Rico 

The vice president seized on comments from a speaker at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, who denigrated the US territory of Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage."

Harris said that as a US senator she tried to assist the people of Puerto Rico, noting that the island did not have senators of its own in Washington. And she pointed to her own blueprint for promoting economic development on the island if elected, including potentially through public-private partnerships.

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny backed Harris on Sunday in response to Trump's rally, support which the vice president said she was "very proud" to have.

Emhoff Weighs in Too

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff said the rhetoric at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally was "appalling" during a speech to Jewish supporters in Pittsburgh on Monday, noting the event was held on the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at a synagogue in the city.

"It's appalling to hear these slurs, especially in the closing days of a presidential campaign, and even more painful to hear them on the anniversary of the massacre at Tree of Life," he said.

Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, has repeatedly denounced Trump for using what he has described as anti-Semitic rhetoric on the campaign trail. Trump has said he expects to improve his standing with Jewish voters because of his support for Israel.

Virginia Escalates Voter-Rolls Fight

Virginia asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to go ahead with its purge of voter rolls in the final days of the presidential election after lower courts blocked the state, pulling the justices into the legal fray.

A federal judge last week held that the program violated a 90-day "quiet period" under federal law, handing a win to the Justice Department and private advocacy groups that had sued over Virginia's effort. Over the weekend, the state asked a federal appeals court to intervene but a three-judge panel refused to immediately revive the program, agreeing with the district judge that it likely violated US law.

In an application filed on Monday, lawyers for Virginia argued that the injunction blocking the program will "irreparably injure Virginia's sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote."

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)