US election briefing: Trump visits Coachella while Harris packs diapers in North Carolina

Donald Trump visited California on Saturday, a state he is almost certain to lose, in a bid to link Kamala Harris to her home state’s recent struggles with homelessness, water shortages and a lack of affordability.

“We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” the former president said in the city of Coachella, best known for its music festival of the same name, referring to the state as “Paradise Lost”.

Vice-president Kamala Harris meanwhile helped pack diapers, bandages and pain relief pills among other items into care packages for victims of Hurricane Helene as she visited the swing state of North Carolina, which narrowly backed Trump in 2020.

“You’re exactly right,” she said to Greg Hatem, owner of The Pit Authentic Barbecue restaurant where the aid event was taking place, as he commented that “it takes a village”. Harris also met with Black leaders at the restaurant. It was her second trip to North Carolina since Helene tore through the state last month.

Here’s what else happened on Saturday:

• Kamala Harris on Saturday released a report on her health and medical history, which found that “she possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency” if voters elect her in November. A senior aide to Harris, 59, said the vice-president’s advisers viewed the publication of the health report and medical history as an opportunity to call attention to questions about Donald Trump’s physical fitness and mental acuity.

• Tightening poll figures triggered nervousness and anxiety in Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, with Donald Trump making gains in the states where it matters most as the election race enters its climactic final phase. Amid a dramatic news cycle that has seen the US hit by two destructive hurricanes and rising fears of all-out war in the Middle East, the Guardian’s 10-day polling average tracker showed the vice-president and Democratic nominee with a two-point nationwide lead, 48% to 46%, over her Republican opponent as of 10 October – tellingly, down from a 4% advantage she registered two weeks ago.

• The far-right website the Gateway Pundit acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that there had not been any fraud during ballot counting in Atlanta in 2020 when Donald Trump lost the presidency. It was a significant concession from one of the most influential conservative sites that plays a key role in spreading election misinformation.

• Tens of thousands of Christians poured on to the National Mall on Saturday in a pre-election event aimed at rescuing America from secularism. The rally was a collaboration organized by multiple far-right Christian leaders affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement on the political far right that seeks to establish long-term Christian dominion over government and society as well as get Trump a second presidency in November.