Campaigning for Joe Biden at a car rally in Miami on Saturday, Barack Obama railed against President Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying "the rest of us have to live with the consequences of what he's done."
Driving the news: With less than two weeks before the election, the Biden campaign is drawing on the former president's popularity with Democrats to drive turnout and motivate voters.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Saturday that she'll vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Monday, despite her opposition to the process that's recently transpired.
The big picture: Murkowski's decision leaves Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as the only Republican expected to vote against Barrett.
The Texas Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily stayed an order by the lower court that blocked Gov. Greg Abbott's limits on drop-off locations for mail-in ballots.
Why it matters: The move means voters will continue to be restricted to a single drop-off location per county for now. The state's Supreme Court gave both sides until Monday at 5 p.m. CDT to file responses as it considers whether to take up the issue. By then, there will be just over one week until the election.
New York began its early voting period on Saturday, prompting long lines with people waiting to cast their ballots.
The big picture: America has seen an uptick in mail-in and early voting this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Social distancing and poll-worker shortages could make voting on Election Day a lengthy and potentially chaotic process, but early voting measures have still seen backlogs.
This is one of the bigger signs of trouble for President Trump that we've seen in a poll: Of the final debate's seven topics, Joe Biden won or tied on all seven when viewers in a massive Axios-SurveyMonkey sample were asked who they trusted more to handle the issue.
Why it matters: In a time of unprecedented colliding crises for the nation, the polling considered Biden to be vastly more competent.
President Trump cast his ballot in Florida on Saturday ahead of a jam-packed weekend of campaigning just 10 days ahead of the general election.
The big picture: Trump registered as a Florida voter in 2018, citing his Mar-a-Lago residence. His in-person vote comes amid a massive uptick in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Trump argues mail-in voting is typically unsafe and ripe for fraud.
Two people onboard a U.S. Navy training aircraft died after crashing in a residential neighborhood outside of Mobile, Alabama on Friday, AP reports.
The big picture: The Navy has not yet released the names of those killed and there are no other reported injuries. Local officials say a home and some cars caught fire due to the crash. Firefighters made “a quick stop on the fire,” Foley Fire Chief Joey Darby told local news outlets.
The Baldwin County Sheriff's office says the Department of Defense and the Navy are equipped to investigate the crash.
After spending an additional $45.2 million on political ads this week, former Vice President Joe Biden has become the highest-spending political candidate on TV ads ever, according to data from Advertising Analytics.
By the numbers: In total, the Biden campaign has spent $582.7 million on TV ads between 2019 and 2020, officially surpassing Michael Bloomberg's record spend of roughly $582 million. Biden's spend includes his primary and general election advertising.
The White House each year welcomes waves of trick-or-treaters, but festivities for the end of this October will adapt to the spookiest thing of all: COVID-19.
The big picture: The White House plans to open its grounds to military personnel, local children and families of frontline health care workers. An announcement notes that all persons over 2-years-old will be "required to wear a face covering and practice social distancing during their visit to the White House complex."
President Trump's final debate performance exceeded Americans' expectations, but it wasn't enough to shift the dynamics that left him trailing Joe Biden across most measures, according to a new Axios-SurveyMonkey poll.
What they're saying: "Liar" was the word used most by debate watchers to describe Trump's performance, followed by "lies," "strong," "presidential" and "childish." "Presidential" was the word used most to describe Biden's performance, followed by "liar," "weak," "expected" and "honest."
The mainstream media turned away. But online, President Trump's charges about Hunter Biden were by far the dominant storyline about the final presidential debate, according to exclusive NewsWhip data provided to Axios.
Coverage of business dealings by Joe Biden's son — and pre-debate allegations by one of his former business associates, Tony Bobulinski — garnered more than twice as much online activity (likes, comments, shares) as the runner-up.
Sen. Kamala Harris appealed to Black voters in Georgia on Friday, urging them to "honor the ancestors" by casting ballots, and again calling President Trump a "racist."
Why it matters: The U.S. saw a significant decline in African-American voter turnout between 2012 and 2016, reaching its lowest point since 2000. Higher turnout among Black Americans this year could tip the balance in favor of Democrats in key battleground states, including Georgia.
