25 million U.S. voters cast early ballots

With less than two weeks to go until the November 5 election, nearly 25 million US voters have already cast ballots, either through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots.

That’s according to tracking data from the Election Lab at the University of Florida.

Several states, including the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Georgia, set records on their respective first day of early voting last week.

The strong early turnout comes as Vice President Harris and former President Trump remain neck and neck in the seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency.

Both candidates have been on a campaign blitz across swing states in recent days, with Harris in Pennsylvania, and Trump in Georgia.

After a stop in the small city of Zebulon, Trump was in Duluth for a rally with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In remarks there, Trump joked about recording his conversations.

"I want to tape every conversation. The problem is that I start thinking about what Richard Nixon did. I say, you know, let's do without the tape. We'll do without the tapping.”

Meanwhile, Harris seized on recently published comments by Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly.

The New York Times quoted Kelly as saying Trump met the ‘general definition of fascist’

and once told him that German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler did some good things, an account Trump’s campaign denies.

Harris said the comments showed that Trump was too dangerous to once again serve as president.

With just 12 days until the November 5 contest, both candidates are ramping up efforts to pull the few remaining undecided voters to their side, and help turn the tide in a closely divided race where even a small percentage of votes could be critical.