Donald Trump rules out second debate with Kamala Harris; poll spells trouble for Democrats in the Senate – live

With Hurricane Milton’s remnants now over the Atlantic Ocean after slicing across central Florida, Joe Biden spoke with the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis about the storm’s impacts.

“The Governor said they are still assessing the damage across the state. He thanked the president for the extensive federal support to prepare for and respond to the storm. The president reiterated that he will provide any support the state needs to speed response and recovery,” the White House said.

After a short-lived campaign for the White House, DeSantis is now backing Donald Trump and routinely criticizes Biden, but the pair have put their differences aside repeatedly to collaborate on hurricane response over the past three years.

Floridians are surveying the damage wrought by Milton, which appears not to have caused as much destruction as expected. Follow our live blog for the latest:

The presidential race may be anyone’s to lose, but the GOP has long been viewed as the favorite to take the Senate back in November.

The Democrats have a 51-49 majority in the chamber, but are almost certain to lose one seat due to West Virginia senator Joe Manchin’s retirement. Their only hope of keeping control next year is to win the re-election of senators representing red states Montana and Ohio, or pick up seats in Texas and Florida, both Republican territory. Even if they manage to win 50 seats, a Donald Trump victory would make them the minority party, as JD Vance would cast the tie-breaking vote to put the GOP in control.

A just-released poll from the New York Times and Siena College shows Democratic candidates trailing in three of those states. In Montana, incumbent Jon Tester is behind his Republican challenger Tim Sheehy by seven points – a result that, if confirmed, would be enough to flip the chamber to the GOP on its own.

As for those pickup opportunities, the poll indicates they are not looking so good for Democrats. In Texas, incumbent Ted Cruz is up by four points over Democrat Colin Allred, while in Florida, Rick Scott has a whopping nine-point advantage over his challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

The one state not polled is Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown has been leading by a small margin in recent surveys.

As the 2024 election enters its final weeks, Voters of Tomorrow says it has made more than 5 million “direct contacts” with young people – a milestone for the gen Z-led voter outreach organisation.

“This election will be decided by a few thousand voters in key battleground states – and they could very well be young people,” said Santiago Mayer, the 22-year-old executive director of Voters of Tomorrow. “That’s why every contact we make is critical.”

With voting already under way in many states, the teens and twentysomethings behind the group say they’re just getting started. Mayer said the group, which endorsed Kamala Harris, was “on track to more than triple” their effort, which includes making phone calls, sending texts and organizing their friends, families and classmates.

Much of their recent work was focused on voter registration, but as deadlines close they are shifting to making sure young people have a plan for how to vote on election day. In an endorsement of their tactics, Voters of Tomorrow recently announced that it raised over $1m last quarter, a record sum for the years-old organization.

Voters of Tomorrow is partnering with other youth-focused groups, including March for Our Lives, People Power for Florida, and Swifties for Kamala, to co-host phone and text banks in critical battleground states and districts

Approximately 41 million members of gen Z are eligible to vote this year, including millions who were too young to vote in 2020. A national NYT/Siena College survey found likely voters under 30 prefer Harris to Trump 58%-37%. Joe Biden carried the youth vote by a similar margin in 2020.

“Too much is on the line for gen Z to stay home this election,” Mayer said.

It looks like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will not be debating again before the 5 November election. While the vice-president’s campaign insisted the invitation for a second debate remained on the table, Trump, in a Truth Social post written in his customary all-caps style, yesterday evening said: “THERE WILL BE NO REMATCH!” He made a point of mentioning Harris’s comment days ago that she would not do anything differently than Joe Biden, words the GOP has seized on to argue her election would represent a continuation of the unpopular president’s policies.

With that apparently settled, let’s talk about the state of the race. Less than four weeks to election day, there still is no clear frontrunner. Per our own tracker, Harris has an aggregate lead in five of the swing states expected to decide the race, and Trump in two, Arizona and Georgia. But their margins are slim, and every day brings new polling that often undercuts assumptions about the state of the race. Consider surveys released by Quinnipac University yesterday that found Harris leading in perhaps the most vital swing state, Pennsylvania, but trailing Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin. That data flies in the face of other polls that show her performing better in the latter two battlegrounds but trailing in Pennsylvania, or winning all three.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• Barack Obama is hitting the campaign trail for Harris, with an event planned in Pittsburgh at 7pm ET. Harris will be in Las Vegas, with an event planned at 7pm, while JD Vance is hosting a town hall in Greensboro, North Carolina.

• Inflation continued to ebb in September, according to just-released data from the labor department. The annual increase in consumer prices was 2.4%, its smallest since February 2021. The issue is nonetheless expected to remain politically potent.

• Hurricane Milton has churned across Florida as it heads into the Atlantic Ocean, leaving behind a swath of destruction. Follow our live blog for the latest.