With 4 days to go:
- It's the vice presidential candidates' turn to stop in Florida on Friday. Republican running mate Mike Pence will be in Miami and Democrat Tim Kaine will campaign in Melbourne.
- Donald Trump has been sticking to key themes, and a teleprompter, in hammering his opponent on the FBI investigation, diplomatic failures and Obamacare. States in his sights on Friday will be New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
- Hillary Clinton is questioning Trump's fitness for office and his temperament and highlighting what she says is his consistent disrespect for women. States in front of her on Friday: Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Friday follows a momentous day for both campaigns:
- In Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Melania Trump joined the campaign and said her priorities as first lady would be family and children's issues, particularly cyberbullying.
- For the Democrats, President Obama gave two more speeches that stirred partisans in Florida, a key battleground state.
- All the travel led to curious near-encounters at airports, including Trump and Obama in Miami and Trump and Clinton in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Where to next?
- South Florida learned that it can expect another visit from Clinton on Saturday, her campaign announced Friday, but it gave no details where.
- Trump will barnstorm through North Carolina, Nevada and Iowa on Saturday, maintaining a campaign pace and schedule that are significantly more aggressive.
Many of the battleground states in the electoral map below from 2012 are in play again this year. However, Trump and Clinton hope to win states that have been reliably blue or red, respectively. That’s why Clinton is in Michigan on Friday, hoping to keep that state blue, and Trump is back in Pennsylvania, a state that he would love to see go red.
- Key battleground states – Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, Ohio – are slated to get lots of campaign attention through the end of the work week.
Latest poll results:
- Speaking of purple states, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll finds a dead heat between Trump and Clinton in Georgia, a state that has been red pretty much since Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter. The poll puts Trump up on Clinton by a single point, 45 percent to 44 percent.
- The same poll gives Trump a 5-point lead in Arizona, 45 percent to 40 percent, and in Texas by 9 percent, 49 percent to 40 percent. But losing Georgia would make Trump's path to 270 that much harder.
- CNN's Poll of Polls has Clinton with a 4-point edge, 46 percent to 42 percent. But the focus in the final days of the election is on state polls and the various combinations that get each candidate to the needed 270 electoral votes.
Here's what you need to know as Nov. 8 approaches:
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