State of the race: Five insights 17 days before the US election | News about the 2024 US election

It's been another turbulent week in United States politics. And with just over two weeks left in the presidential campaign, candidates are preparing to make their final appeals to voters.

What have Kamala Harris and Donald Trump — the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, respectively — been doing as the final countdown approaches?

Find out in our latest roundup of the week's top political news.

The choice at a glance

There are still 17 days until the presidential election on November 5th.

• What's the latest in the polls?

National averages have remained largely stable since last week, with Harris maintaining a razor-thin lead — well within the margin of error.

For example, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Harris was at 48.3 percent as of October 17. Trump, on the other hand, was just behind with 46.3 percent.

However, some polls in individual swing states have shown that Trump is slowly gaining ground. A CBS News-YouGov poll this week, for example, focused on Arizona, where analysts found a three-point lead for Trump over Harris.

An NPR analysis also found that the tide was turning in Trump's favor in battleground states, although the news outlet emphasized how close the race was. It also highlighted that polls rarely tell the whole story – and there are undoubtedly surprises on the horizon.

Harris campaign takes aim at Trump's age

Sunday marks Harris' 60th birthday.

But as the Democratic nominee prepares to celebrate the start of a new decade, her campaign has taken aim at her Republican rival's advancing age.

Trump is 78 years old and would be the oldest person ever elected president if he is successful in the November race.

Early in the race, it was common for Trump to criticize an even older politician for his age and abilities: the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.

The 81-year-old Biden was expected to be the Democratic frontrunner. But after a shaky performance in the presidential debate in June, concerns about his age reached a fever pitch and Biden dropped out of the race.

Trump – who had long described Biden as “weak” and “sleepy” – now faces a much younger opponent in Harris. And Harris flipped the script and used Trump's age against him.

“I've heard reports that at least his team is saying he's suffering from fatigue,” Harris said Friday. “If he is exhausted during the campaign, will he be fit for the job?”

Her comments followed a series of canceled Trump events — and her own stellar health report released by the White House last week.

Trump renews his threats against political rivals

Trump has a long history of threatening to have his political rivals jailed. Even in 2016, during his first successful presidential run, he was known to lead crowds in chants about his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up!” Lock her up!”

Just last month, Trump vowed to prosecute those he sees as a threat to this year's election.

“If I win, the people who cheated will be punished to the fullest extent of the law, including long prison sentences,” he wrote on social media.

But the Republican leader escalated his rhetoric last Sunday during an appearance on Fox News with host Maria Bartiromo. In his interview, he compared Democratic politicians with foreign opponents.

“We have two enemies: we have the external enemy and then the internal enemy. And the enemy within is, in my opinion, more dangerous than China, Russia and all of these countries,” Trump said.

“More difficult to deal with are the lunatics we have within us,” he continued, citing U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff as an example. “I call him the enemy within.”

Schiff led Trump's first impeachment trial in 2020.

Later in the week, Trump doubled down on his comments in a Fox News town hall. “I don't threaten anyone. They are the ones who threaten. They are conducting false investigations.”

An interview on Fox News gets testy

Seeking to torpedo criticism by evading press scrutiny, Harris continued her media assault this week with an eyebrow-raising decision: an interview with conservative-leaning Fox News.

The election partly reflected a broader campaign strategy aimed at appealing to centrist voters and Republicans disillusioned with Trump.

But Thursday's interview with Fox News host Bret Baier was tense from the start.

The journalist and the Democratic candidate struggled to make each other heard.

“May I please finish answering?” Harris asked Baier once. “You have to let me finish. Please. I am in the process of responding to the point you raise and would like to conclude.”

Baier also criticized Harris on immigration, an issue for which President Joe Biden's administration has received bipartisan criticism.

“Bret, let’s just get to the point,” Harris replied at one point. “The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.”

Democrats are increasing the power of stars

Harris and Trump have spent much of October traversing the seven swing states that will likely decide the presidential race.

But during her campaign last week, Harris unveiled a star-studded lineup to help her make her final pitch to voters.

On Saturday, rapper and singer Lizzo opened for Harris in Detroit, Michigan, as she tried to drum up support for early voting.

And later that same day, singer Usher stopped his concert tour in Atlanta, Georgia to give the keynote address at a rally there.

“There are only 17 days until a very important election, as we all know, and we have the opportunity to elect a new generation of leadership for our country,” Usher told the crowd, repeating a common refrain from the Harris campaign .

JD Vance advocates denial of the 2020 election

Throughout the campaign, Republican candidate JD Vance has repeatedly dwelled on the theme of the 2020 election: He refused to contradict Trump's false claims of widespread voter fraud, but also avoided saying that Trump had definitely lost the race.

That changed last week when Vance led a rally in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

At Wednesday's rally, Vance answered questions and reacted strongly when pressed about the message he was sending by refusing to give a clear answer on the 2020 race.

“Going into the 2020 election, I answered that question directly a million times: No. I think there were serious problems in 2020,” Vance said.

“So did Donald Trump lose the election? No, not in the words I would use.”

Election denial has been an ongoing problem since the 2020 election, when Biden defeated Trump.

Trump refused to accept the result and called the election “rigged” and “stolen.” His words helped motivate a group of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol, apparently intent on preventing the certification of the results.

In this year's race, Trump held back when asked whether he would accept another loss. “If everything is honest, I happily accept the results,” he said in May.