US election briefing: Democrats unleash powerful surrogates as Trump insults Detroit in Detroit | US elections 2024

On Thursday, powerful Democratic surrogates entered the election campaign. The Harris campaign announced this Bill Clinton would campaign for Harris in the southern battleground states starting this weekend Barack Obama began his swing state tour in Pennsylvania – the battleground with the highest number of votes.

During his appearance at the University of Pittsburgh, Obama tried to encourage young people to get their friends and relatives to vote. He said Trump sees power “as a means to an end” and is targeting his “concept of a plan” for health care.

“The good news is that Kamala Harris has a concrete plan,” Obama said.

“You have to release the Kraken,” veteran Democratic campaign strategist James Carville told The New York Times, adding that the Harris campaign should use Obama and other surrogates “more aggressively.”

Meanwhile, inflation eased to its lowest level in more than three years in September as price growth continued to fall from its highest level in a generation. With concerns about the rising cost of living taking center stage in the presidential campaign, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest monthly inflation reading before voters head to the polls.

What else happened on Thursday:

• Obama questioned black men's unwillingness to vote for Harris. At an event in Pennsylvania before his campaign speech at the University of Pittsburgh, he said: “We have not yet seen the same kind of energy and turnout in all areas of our neighborhoods and communities that we saw when I was a candidate.” Now I would also like to say, that this seems to be more pronounced among the brothers.” And: “They think up all sorts of reasons and excuses. I have a problem with that.” An NAACP poll in September found that more than a quarter of black men under 50 say they will vote for Donald Trump.

• Trump disparagingly compared Detroit, Michigan, to a developing country. He pointed to the city's recent economic decline since its heyday as the home of American automobile manufacturing and said, “Well, we're a developing country too, look at Detroit. “Detroit, more than most places in China, is a developing area.” Later in his speech, he said of Harris: “Our whole country is going to end up like Detroit if she's your president. “You're going to have a mess on your hands.”

• Harris hosted events in Nevada and Arizona. The Democratic candidate spoke at a town hall in Las Vegas hosted by Spanish-language broadcaster Univision. She was asked about Trump's claims that the government didn't do enough to support people after Hurricane Helene and whether people exposed to Hurricane Milton had access to help – a sign that Trump's message is with appeals to some potential voters. “I have to emphasize that this is not the time for people to be doing politics,” Harris replied.

• Later, at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Harris urged Arizonans to vote yes on Proposition 139, which protects abortion rights. When speaking about Project 2025, Harris said, “I can't believe they put that in writing,” prompting loud, sustained boos from the crowd. “They’re crazy.” The swing state has 11 electoral votes.

• A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Harris trailing Trump by two and three points, respectively, in Wisconsin and Michigan — States that Democrats have labeled a “blue wall,” along with Pennsylvania.

• America's top broadcast regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, condemned Trump after the former president called for CBS's license to air an edited response to an interview with Harris to be revoked in prime time. He also described the station as a “threat to democracy” and targeted other stations for also having their licenses revoked.

• The Kremlin confirmed that Trump sent Vladimir Putin Covid tests when they were in short supply in the early stages of the pandemic, as reported this week in a book by veteran US political journalist Bob Woodward.

• The legal battle between the Trump-aligned Georgia State Board of Elections and the Fulton County Board of Elections continues to grow. This is seen as a warm-up for the post-2020 election cavalcade of Redux lawsuits expected in November. Fulton County filed a lawsuit Monday to stop the board from including 2020 election deniers on a monitoring team for the November election. In response, state board members voted to subpoena a variety of records from the 2020 election in Fulton County.