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Joe Biden has now concluded his speech at a drive-in rally in Broward county, Florida.

In his speech, the Democratic nominee argued Donald Trump and his administration are “the worst possible standard bearers for democracy” in Cuba and other countries with autocratic leaders.

“President Trump can’t advance democracy and human rights for the Cuban people, for the Venezuelan people, when he has embraced so many autocrats around the world,” Biden said.

Cuban Americans make up a key voting bloc in Florida, and a new NBC News/Marist poll of the state showed Trump leads among Cuban American voters in Florida, 71% to 23%.

Biden is headed to his second event of the day, a drive-in rally in Tampa, where Trump is speaking now.

Multiple attendees of Donald Trump’s Tampa rally passed out due to the intense heat, as a truck blasted water at the crowd.

The Tampa event comes two days after seven people who attended Trump’s rally in Omaha, Nebraska, were hospitalized due to exposure to near-freezing temperatures.

Thousands of Omaha rally attendees were stranded in the cold for hours as they waited for Trump campaign buses, which were stuck in traffic.

Joe Biden has taken the stage to address supporters at a drive-in rally in Broward county, Florida.

“This election is the most important one you’ve ever voted in,” Biden told the crowd. He emphasized the swing state’s key role in the election, saying, “The heart and soul of this country’s at stake right here in Florida.”

Biden also pushed back against Donald Trump’s claims that the Democrat would shut down the country if he wins the election.

“I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m not going to shut down the country,” Biden said. “But I am going to shut down the virus.”

That line was met with “applause” (in the form of car honks) from the crowd in Coconut Creek.

The striking difference between Trump’s rally – a large outdoor event with no social distancing – and Biden’s rally – a drive-in event where supporters were urged to stay near their cars – was quite striking.

Donald Trump also expressed boredom with economic statistics during his Tampa rally, even as his allies tout the country’s newly reported GDP growth.

Addressing the number of jobless claims in the country, Trump said, “This is boring, but it’s really good.”

The president also said he has received calls from some of his allies, including former presidential candidates, urging him to focus more on the economy and less on attacks against Hunter Biden.

After Trump mentioned Joe Biden’s son, the crowd broke out into chants of “Lock him up!”

Trump said of his Republican allies, “They’re calling me up, ‘Sir, you shouldn’t be speaking about Hunter. You shouldn’t be saying bad things about Biden because nobody cares.’ I disagree. Maybe that’s why I’m here, and they’re not.”

The president said advisers have urged him to talk more about the economic achievements of his administration. “I mean how many times can I say it? I’ll say it five or six times during the speech, 33.1,” Trump said, referring to the country’s annualized GDP growth.

During his Tampa rally, Donald Trump spent a significant amount of time attacking Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official who has endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential bid.

Taylor revealed yesterday that he was the author of a scathing 2018 New York Times op-ed criticizing Trump’s leadership.

Trump attacked Taylor as a “low-life” who engaged in “treasonous” activities.

“He should be prosecuted,” the president said. “Are you listening to me back in Washington? He should be prosecuted along with the New York Times.”

As a reminder, it is five days until election day, and Trump is about 9 points down in national polls, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Taking the mic at his Tampa rally, Donald Trump promised his supporters that he would not shut the country down as coronavirus cases surge in dozens of states.

“Joe Biden’s plan is to deliver punishing lockdowns, he’s going to lock you down,” Trump said.

Biden has said he does not believe it will be necessary to lock down the country in order to get coronavirus under control.

“I’m running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics,” Trump said of Biden, who is consistently leading in national polls by an average of about 9 points.

Donald Trump has taken the stage for his rally in Tampa, Florida, where Joe Biden will also be holding a drive-in rally later today.

The first lady joined the president for his Tampa rally, and she was the first to speak at the event.

“A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a better America,” Melania Trump said, denouncing the “hate, negativity and fear” of the media.

The first lady made her first in-person appearance on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania earlier this week. She canceled a previous trip to Pennsylvania due to her lingering coronavirus symptoms.

Joe Biden and his granddaughter, Natalie, have arrived in Florida for the Democrat’s two rallies today in Broward county and Tampa.

Donald Trump is also holding a rally in Tampa this afternoon, as polls show the two nominees running neck and neck in the swing state.

Joe Biden will also travel to the swing states of Iowa and Wisconsin tomorrow, in addition to Minnesota, making Friday his busiest day of campaign travel since becoming the Democratic nominee.

The Biden campaign just announced the Democrat will head to Minnesota tomorrow, four days before election day.

“On Friday, October 30, Joe Biden will travel to Minnesota to discuss bringing Americans together to address the crises facing the country and winning the battle for the soul of the nation,” the campaign said in a press release.

The campaign said Biden will speak at a drive-in rally in St. Paul tomorrow afternoon.

Hillary Clinton narrowly carried Minnesota in 2016, and Donald Trump has set his sights on flipping the state, but recent polls have shown Biden ahead there by an average of 8 points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Biden’s trip may also be aimed at bolstering the chances of victory for Senator Tina Smith, who remains locked in a close race with former Republican congressman Jason Lewis.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both campaigning in the key swing state of Florida today, with just five days to go until election day. A new NBC News/Marist poll found Biden has a 4-point advantage among likely voters in Florida, a lead that falls within the survey’s margin of error, representing a virtual tie.
• The new US economic report showed GDP rose at an annualized rate of 33.1% between July and September. The president and his allies celebrated the news, but the growth seems to be fueled by consumer spending among Americans fortunate enough to have had a stable income since March. The US economy is also still not as strong as it was before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
• House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “confident” Biden would win the election. “We are confident, we are calm, and we have prepared,” the Democratic speaker said at her weekly press conference. “I feel very confident that Joe Biden will be elected president on Tuesday.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Joe Biden will soon hold a drive-in rally in Broward county, Florida, as a new NBC News/Marist poll shows a virtual tie in the swing state.

Before the Democratic nominee’s arrival, the rally organizers reminded attendees to remain near their vehicles during the event.

The Biden campaign has been sharply restricting attendance at its events to mitigate concerns about the potential spread of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been consistently holding large outdoor rallies with no social distancing and infrequent mask usage.

Federal agents arrested two accused neo-Nazis in Michigan, just three weeks after the FBI charged 14 people in connection to a plot to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The Detroit News reports:

A team of FBI agents arrested a 25-year-old man in Bad Axe and a 35-year-old man in Taylor, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Both were arrested on state charges and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is expected later Thursday to announce the investigation.

Whitmer addressed the kidnapping plot in an Atlantic piece published earlier this week, in which she accused Trump of inciting violence against women leaders.

Whitmer wrote:

Every time the president ramps up this violent rhetoric, every time he fires up Twitter to launch another broadside against me, my family and I see a surge of vicious attacks sent our way. This is no coincidence, and the president knows it. He is sowing division and putting leaders, especially women leaders, at risk. And all because he thinks it will help his reelection.

In a new digital ad, Joe Biden pledged to create a task force to reunite migrant children and parents who were separated as a result of Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.

The ad’s narrator says, “On his first day as president, Joe Biden will issue an executive order creating a federal task force to reunite these children with their parents.”

The ad also quotes Biden’s impassioned words from the final presidential debate about the separated migrant children.

“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated, and now they cannot find over 500 of the sets of those parents, and those kids are alone,” Biden said at the debate. “Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It’s criminal.”

The federal government revealed in a court filing last week that it has not been able to reach the parents of 545 children who were separated from their families at the US-Mexican border.

Kamala Harris is going to the key swing state of Florida on Saturday, as Joe Biden and Barack Obama hold a rally together in Michigan.

Biden is holding two events in Florida today as well, and Obama spoke to voters at a drive-in rally in Orlando on Tuesday.

The Biden campaign’s focus on Florida underscores the pivotal role that the state will play in determining the winner of the presidential election.

According to the FiveThirtyEight average of recent polls, Biden has a 2.1-point advantage in Florida, a state that Trump won by 1 point in 2016.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has now concluded her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.

Before wrapping up, the Democratic speaker said she was open to a lame-duck deal on a coronavirus relief bill with Trump.

“We want to have as clean a slate as possible going into January,” Pelosi said, echoing her previous comments that she is “confident” Biden will win the presidential election.

Earlier today, senior White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow accused Pelosi of “stringing us along” on negotiations over a relief package.

“Why would we be talking to them if we didn’t want a bill?” Pelosi said in response.