Just In: Election 2024 live updates: Harris hits Trump, addresses abortion rights in NBC interview…. See More jus

Two weeks until Election Day.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck-and-neck in the race for the White House. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday shows Harris with a slim national lead over Trump in an incredibly close election race, while a top Harris advisor says each of the seven battleground states could be decided by a single percentage point.

An exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll released Monday puts Harris at 45%, Trump at 44%, a closer race than the poll found in August.

Keep up with the USA TODAY Network’s live coverage of the 2024 election.

Republicans lose bid to revive Georgia ballot hand-count rule ahead of Nov. 5 election
The Georgia Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from Republicans to get seven rules, including a requirement for thousands of poll workers to hand count ballots, reinstated in the final weeks before the election.

The decision likely means none of the rules will be in place on Nov. 5 – Election Day.

The ballot hand-count rule was one of seven new rules struck down by trial Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr., who said in an Oct. 16 decision that the Georgia State Election Board lacked authority to pass the rules. The hand-count rule in particular has garnered widespread criticism from election workers and officials, who have warned it could undermine public confidence in the election and set fatigued workers up to miss the state’s Nov. 12 county certification deadline.

Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon called the state high court’s decision “supremely disappointing” in a statement posted on X. “We will press our appeal next year and hope for sanity to prevail.”

Sexism not to blame for 2024 election gender gap, Harris says
Kamala Harris rejected the idea that sexism could be a negative factor for her campaign, in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday

“I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race,” the vice president added. “Instead that that leader needs to earn the vote based on substance.”

Former President Barack Obama during a stop at a Pittsburgh campaign office this month suggested misogyny was to blame for Harris’ slipping support among men, specifically Black men. In a USA TODAY/Suffolk University survey released Monday, Harris held a 17-point lead among women, while Trump had an inverse advantage with men by 16 percentage points.

Harris told NBC she believes Americans are “absolutely” ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president. But from the campaign trail, she has said little about potentially being this historic first.

“Well, I’m a clearly a woman,” Harris said Tuesday, laughing. “I don’t need to point that out to anyone.”

Harris ready for Trump to declare victory before all votes are counted
Kamala Harris said her campaign is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump will declare victory before all votes are counted and a winner is projected.

“We’ve got two weeks to go, and I’m very much grounded in the present in terms of the task at hand,” Harris said Tuesday in an interview with Hallie Jackson of NBC News. “We will deal with election night and the days after, as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that as well.”

Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and filed multiple unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn the results. He still claims falsely that the election was stolen.

“This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo a free and fair election, who still denies the will of the people, who incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers were attacked. Some were killed,” Harris said. “This is a serious matter. The American people are, at this point, two weeks out, being presented with a very, very serious decision about what will be the future of our country.”