House speaker Mike Johnson raised eyebrows yesterday when in an interview on ABC News he described being asked what the result of the last presidential election was as a “gotcha game”.

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Johnson if he could say “unequivocally that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Trump lost”.

Johnson would only reply “this is the game that is always played by mainstream media with mainstream Republicans. It’s a gotcha game. We’re not going to talk about what happened in 2020. I’m not going to engage in it. We’re not talking about that. I’m not going to play the game.”

Biden, Harris and Trump to mark 7 October anniversary

Nate Cohn at the New York Times has also had a look at the latest polling figures, and has come to the conclusion that polling averages show “Kamala Harris and Donald Trump essentially tied across the seven battleground states considered likeliest to decide the presidency, with neither ahead by enough to count as even a modest favorite”.

Joe Biden has a light schedule for today. At 11.45am, along with the first lady, he is expected to participate in a candle lighting event at the White House to mark the one-year anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel. After his regular briefing he is then expected to be briefed on his administration’s response to Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has written a lengthy piece for the Guardian today arguing that Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake but a deliberate ploy.

A report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s report, released on Monday, suggests that both candidates in the election are making promises that will increase US debt, but that it is Donald Trump’s proposals that are more expensive.

Tami Luhby reports for CNN:

The national debt would soar by trillions of dollars more regardless of who wins the election, further compounding the country’s fiscal problems. Kamala Harris’ plan would boost the debt by $3.5tn over the next decade, while Trump’s platform would cause it to spike by $7.5tn. The watchdog group’s analysis is the latest in a series of reviews of the candidates’ plans, which generally find that Trump’s proposals would have a bigger impact on the national debt than those of Harris.

Kamala Harris has been warned that her bid to win the key battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania risks being undermined by her failure to connect with unionized blue-collar workers in the same way that Joe Biden historically has done.

Jonathan Kott, a Democratic strategist and former Senate aide told the Hill website that the current president is a tough act for Harris to follow in that regard.

“Joe Biden is the most pro-union president ever,” he said. “He was the only president to be on a union picket line, he’s so over-the-top pro-union.”

Another Democratic strategist, Ray Zaccaro, told the website: “Biden has had a special relationship with labor throughout his entire career. I don’t think there’s anything particularly lacking in Harris’s position on labor, but there probably are some stylistic and relationship differences for her to overcome.”

Zaccaro warned: “There is a movement within the labor world that is more aligned with Maga, protectionism, nationalist identity,” adding that some union voters increasingly support “some of the messaging that the Trump campaign is putting out”.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has told residents of the state they have a couple of days to prepare before Hurricane Milton hits. He said: “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point.”

“You have time to prepare – all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” DeSantis said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”

AP reports DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruption, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.

Speaking at his rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, last night, former president Donald Trump said he was looking for a “mandate” victory in November’s election. The current polling is tight, suggesting that the outcome is unlikely to deliver that for either candidate.

CNN’s senior data reporter Harry Enten most recent round-up on the state of polling in the key swing states that will decide the election suggests that Kamala Harris has the edge in the Great Lake battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, while Trump is looking stronger in the southern sunbelt states.

However, Enten notes that all of the leads of one or two points in these states are “well within the margin of error and too close to call”.

As it stands he suggests Harris would end up with “276 electoral votes, slightly more than the 270 she needs to win”, but he said if the polls have underestimated Trump’s support – as they did in 2020 – then he could romp home. Likewise, if the polls are underestimating Democratic party support – as they did in 2022 – then she could even reach as many as 319 electoral votes. In a nutshell, all bets are off.

Kamala Harris seeks to gain election edge over Donald Trump with media blitz

Welcome and opening summary …