US election live: speaker defends his racist Puerto Rico joke at Trump rally as backlash grows

Kerry Washington, John Legend and Stevie Wonder are among a number of prominent voices who will feature in campaign commercials for Kamala Harris this week targeting Black voters.

The Democratic national committee announced on Monday it was spending “a seven-figure sum” on the I Will Vote campaign targeting Black voters through ads in 55 Black publications and on 48 Black radio stations nationwide.

“The Black vote will play a major role in the outcome of this election, and there’s only one candidate who will prioritize the safety and dignity of the Black community while advancing our fundamental freedoms, rights, and economic opportunity,” Jaime Harrison, DNC chair, said in a statement announcing the buy-up.

Some recent polls have suggested Harris is losing support from Black voters, particularly Black men, while other experts say there is no need for Democrats to panic. My colleague Gloria Oladipo took a look at the issue earlier this month:

Here’s our story of the resignation of Washington Post columnist Michele Norris, the latest high profile writer to leave the newspaper in protest at its decision not to endorse a candidate in next week’s presidential election.

Norris says the Post’s non-call was a “terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976”.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that the newspaper’s editorial page editor David Shipley is set to meet disgruntled staff this afternoon to discuss the episode, a gathering Stelter predicts will be “tense”.

The public backlash against the Post included uncounted cancelations of subscriptions and criticism from many, including legendary reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate scandal.

A survey published Monday by CNN contained a revelation unlikely to surprise many: most voters think Donald Trump is unlikely to concede defeat if he loses to Kamala Harris next week.

The Republican nominee and former president, of course, still hasn’t admitted he lost the last contest, in 2020, to Joe Biden. That might help explain why only 30% of registered voters in the CNN/SSRS poll believe he would accept defeat to Harris, and call her to concede.

Other findings: 73% say Harris would accept an election loss; 54% believe Harris would concede if she lost and that Trump would not; 18% say that both candidates would do so; and only 11% believe Harris would not concede, but Trump would.

Good morning, it’s Richard Luscombe in the US, taking over from my colleague Daniel Lavelle. I’ll be guiding you through the next few hours of what promises to be a lively first day of the last full week of an exhausting, and bruising, presidential election campaign.

• Joe Biden is expected to cast his vote in Wilmington, Delaware, this morning, before heading for the White House. His first scheduled public remarks for the day are at a Diwali celebration this afternoon, but we’ll be watching out for any comments he makes as he casts his ballot.

• Kamala Harris will be in Saginaw, Michigan, this afternoon, meeting with union workers before a rally in Ann Arbor on Monday evening.

• Donald Trump will be in Georgia, with an event in Atlanta set for this evening.

• Wisconsin is where we’ll find the vice-presidential hopefuls, Democrat Tim Walz appearing in Manitowoc and Waukesha before joining Harris later in Ann Arbor. Republican JD Vance will be Wausau and Racine.

As we prepare for today’s feast of election fare, it’s worth catching up on our account of the story of the day (so far at least), Trump’s frenzy of racism, anger and vitriol last night at Madison Square Garden, written by my colleagues Adam Gabbatt and Ed Pilkington:

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz travels to key swing state to win support among the Navajo Nation.

Walz visited Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation’s capital, on Saturday afternoon, aiming to connect with Navajo voters just 10 days before the general election.

“It is a privilege to be standing here on Navajo land,” said Walz, the governor of Minnesota. “I am grateful you would see fit to bring me here. I am here today because there are 10 more days until the election and we are not taking any vote for granted. We are here to show respect to the Navajo Nation and earn your vote.”

Walz, whose state is home to 11 federally recognized Native American tribes, spoke on the importance of Indigenous communities.

“The highest law is to honor tribal sovereignty, promote tribal consultation, ensure tribal self-determination across this country,” Walz said. “If tribal nations are doing well and your kids are doing well, the rest of the country is going to be just fine.”

Liz Cheney ‘confident’ Kamala Harris will win election

A second columnist for the Washington Post resigns in wake of the newspaper’s failure to back a candidate for president.

Michele Norris announced on X that “of yesterday, I have decided to resign from my role as a columnist for The Washington Post — a newspaper that I love. In a moment like this, everyone needs to make their own decisions. This is the reason for mine.”

She added that the Post’s non-endorsement was a “terrible mistake” and “an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976”.

Tony Hinchcliffe doubles down on hateful jokes at Trump rally

AOC: racist Puerto Rico joke at Trump rally ‘super upsetting’

Tech titan Elon Musk spoke at the MSG rally and introduced Melania Trump.

Trump called Musk “a genius” and “special”.

Musk said: “Your money is being wasted, and the department of government efficiency is going to fix that.”

Trump’s claim that Musk is a genius is undermined slightly by his business record. Several of Musk’s enterprises, including Tesla and SpaceX, have relied on US subsidies and government contracts.

Musk’s stewardship of Tesla has been marked by over-promising and under-delivering on a range of products, including fully self-driving vehicles; the so-called Hyperloop, which was intended to revolutionise transport, ended up being scrapped to build a parking lot; two million Tesla cars had to be recalled due to safety concerns, and the Tesla Roadster, a car promised to consumers in 2017, was delayed again this year.

Since purchasing Twitter (now X) for $44bn, the value of the social media platform has been reduced by over half.

Musk has also faced criticism after reports that he has spoken privately with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Trump campaign distances itself from racist jokes at rally