spain's king felipe v1 is arriving in the flood—hit valencia region. the country's worst floods in decades have left neighbourhoods caked in mud and debris — with more than 200 people killed. now on bbc news, path to the presidency. hello and welcome to this week's episode of path to the presidency. we're recording late in the afternoon, us eastern time, on thursday, the 31st of october. slightly different this week — we're in studio together because we've been rehearsing for the big election... forever! yeah! so much to chat about, really, isn't there? i mean, where do we go from here now? the next few days, what have we got to look out for? i think it's like, whatare we...? we're now gearing up to the stage, right, where, what? we're recording this, it's five days out,

so i think we're all stuck... i mean, i felt when we were doing our rehearsals just now, it was interesting because it helps crystallise what you're looking at. and so what are we all looking at on the actual night? and what are we...? i'd love to give our kind of viewers titbits about what they should take away. well, i guess... i guess what i've been thinking about is, ok, if we get into that election night, what does a good night for kamala harris look like? i mean, what do you guys think? cos i've been thinking a lot about this... awin? awin! there's really only one...good outcome. all right, we're done with that conversation! so that'll be quick. we'll be done by 8.30. exactly! we can go home. so i think... at the risk of rephrasing it, i think it's, you know, how do we tell if it's looking like a good night, right? so the way, it's like following breadcrumbs in hansel and gretel. you are looking for signposts to a good night for one candidate or another. and if we kind of look at kamala harris first, i guess one signpost would be very big turnout in the areas where democrats

tend to do well. so, suburbs of big cities? suburbs of philadelphia, suburbs of detroit, suburbs of milwaukee, those big cities in the blue wall states. if we see bigger numbers there than we saw in 2020, for example — and i think it's always worth comparing... yeah. ..then you could say, "oh, this is looking like "what the harris campaign was hoping for on election night." so in a way, it's numbers as much as anything, isn't it? it's a numbers game. and, i mean, that's what we're hearing from the campaigns in these last few days. it's turnout, turnout, turnout, get the vote out, use whatever celebrities, whatever you have at your disposal to get people out. and i think early in the night, before we have any projections, when we see those exit polls bringing the information to us, and that's real voters that have been polled as they leave the polling centres, are they women? what age are they? what ethnic background are they? you know, what financial background are they? do they have a college degree?

what's their education level? what's their view on abortion? all of these things that we'll get from the exit poll, the campaigns are going to be looking so closely at that, if they see people motivated by abortion, reproductive rights over economy? are they seeing women coming out? gaggles of young people? that's the big point for me, is, what is the main issue those voters and those exit polls are actually pointing to? because in these last few weeks, kamala harris has really been ramping up that contrast between her and donald trump, right? that brings up the issue of democracy, but she's also been hammering home reproductive rights and abortion. and if you look at the economic numbers right now, they are not far off from where democrats and presidentjoe biden would want them to be. inflation has cooled even on grocery prices, which we talked about last week _ gas prices have come down, grocery prices have come down, but people still don't feel good about the economy. and if that's what voters are naming, again, as their number one issue, if that trumps, for voters, abortion, reproductive rights, even immigration and crime as some of the issues that donald trump's campaign have laid out as the priorities, to me, that would be

an indicator that it's starting to be a good night for donald trump. yeah, i mean, that's a smart way of looking at it, because, of course, in every demographic group, which was what i was talking about earlier — that you're going to get college—educated women who actually end up voting republican... yeah. ..or you're going to get non—college—educated white... i love the way we're slicing and dicing americans up like this! i know! you're going to get... crosstalk it's so cold, isn't it? it's so cold! ifeel like a surgeon. it's like, "i'm going to slice off your left arm "and replace it with," you know... "if you live here and you have a college education, "you'll do this thing." and of course, some people won't. they'll go the other way. but... and you can... but you can draw a lot from that because we look at past history to see that, yes, a majority of college—educated women do tend to vote democrat at the moment, so there's some legitimacy to that. but i think you're right about that point about the exit polls, and particularly on something like abortion, because abortion, we've seen... it's been so fascinating. you know, if we'd been having this conversation — my god, i remember having this

conversation, you know, back in 2008 or back in 2004, even — and somebody had said that abortion was their primary issue, you would know that they were going to vote republican. yeah. and look how much... how it flipped. how it's flipped. and democrats and the harris campaign have always said this is going to be a big motivator. and they have said, even in the last few days, we're seeing in the suburbs, the kind of almost mythical suburbs of philadelphia, which is like the new florida, we're seeing in the suburbs of philadelphia large numbers of women turn out, or higher numbers of women voting early, and they do put that down to the issue of abortion still. the thing with abortion as an issue as well is it can go in both directions. if someone�*s leaving the polling centre and says, "0h, abortion was my number one reason," does that mean because they want to keep donald trump out and secure abortion rights and reproductive rights, or they want to get donald trump in and have a harder, more stern position on abortion? i think the assumption would be in this election that if you've put down abortion as your number one issue,

it's more likely to be because you want to find some way to get those abortion rights back again. what are the other areas you guys are looking at? because for me, i'm also really curious to see turnout in university towns — places like madison, wisconsin — because we've talked about the fact that there are a number of young voters who are so frustrated with gaza policy, for example, orwith affordability, for that matter, don't feel like they can buy a home at any point in their nearfuture, that they have said that they are not going to vote. or some have even said, of course, that they would vote for donald trump on gaza policy to send a message to the biden—harris administration, to the vice president here. and i'm curious to see if, on the day, we see a big turnout among those youth voters, because that could be a real wild card in some of these battleground states where you have a huge youth population. we're talking about michigan, for that matter. ann arbor, michigan. yeah, yeah. i think those young voters are one of the kind of unknown quantities in this election. they're very, very hard for pollsters to capture them because they're not generally in the places... i mean, they don't

have landline phones. are they going to spend ten minutes if they get a call on their cellphone answering questions from a polling company? so they're quite hard to capture, and they're motivated by a whole pile of things. and we've seen a lot of them in those so—called blue wall states — michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania — saying they may vote forjill stein, jill stein, the green party candidate. yeah. you know, and so there's a risk, ithink, which we haven't talked about much, actually, is the impact she could potentially have... think about 2016. ..in michigan and wisconsin in particular. yeah. and, i mean, in 2016, she had more votes than the difference between hillary clinton and donald trump. so had she not been running, who knows what would have happened? so that... to get on that young voters point, i mean, it's a super smart point. what will we learn on election night if we see high turnout? and in michigan, young voters turned out more than in any other state, and 75% of michigan students who were registered to vote —

i've clearly been reading my briefing book — actually bothered to go out to the polls, which is a very high numberfor students. huge number. huge number of students. having university students of my own, i realise what a big lift that is for university students. but i don't know what... that's an interesting point. how much will we be able to read into it, then? let's say we do see big turnout in ann arbor, michigan... my guess is... ..or madison, wisconsin. and i could be completely wrong on this. my guess is, is that among those young... so young voters tend democrat, and if we see big turnout in those areas, my guess is that we are going to see a higher democrat vote... gaza notwithstanding. that is my guess. of course, i could be completely wrong, but... so then the other slice and dice of the demography, of course, is going to be if... the unknown factorfor the trump campaign and the kind of theory of the case for the trump campaign is that donald trump, in a way that is almost unique to any candidate, manages to get people out to vote for him that don't usually vote. and in this election, it's men between the ages of 20 and 30 or 20 and 40, and the trump campaign have told me that if they win this,

it will be because of a surge of young male voters. so i guess we should also be looking at that, right? we're looking at suburban women, but we should also... the quote—unquote "bro vote". the quote—unquote "bro vote", wherever that might be, whether it's in the suburbs, cos young men live in the suburbs. but, i mean, in a way, we need to look at that across the states, then. that's not going to be particularly geographic. yeah, that's going to be something that's... you know, i heard a reporter saying that it's a heavier lift for the trump campaign to get these people out to vote, because young men, as you said, do not vote in as high numbers as young women do. and certainly, if donald trump and his campaign are relying on those young men to turn out in big numbers, they've spent a lot of time and money and investment in going on some of these podcasts, onjoe rogan, all this outreach to young men. does that then translate to them actually going to the polls — or maybe they did vote early, i mean, that is a possibility as well — but on election day, actually going to the polls? well, that's the big gamble forthe trump campaign, because if you look at the polls, support

for donald trump is almost where it was at a year ago, when we were so far from the election. it hasn't really changed through the changing of the top of the ticket on the democratic side. he's sat in there between 46 and a8, 49% support this whole time, which is roughly what he got in 2020 as well. so the big question for the trump campaign is, what new voters do they have? what have they built on in that time? and that's why i think they've been targeting those young men, because they weren't eligible to vote the last time around, or maybe they weren't eligible to vote even one year ago. i think they've been putting a big push on georgia and will be looking, i think, around the suburbs of atlanta as well, for young men there. in arizona, we've seen them court the latino vote. i was there a few weeks ago. i met a whole pile of young men... that sounds a bit suspicious, but i met a whole pile of young men in an early—morning diner who had just come off shift somewhere, and they... so many of them said... if you'd said "in a nightclub", it would have been a lot more... i don't go to nightclubs any more, katty, unfortunately!

two small children — that's not a runner these days, unfortunately! but they were all really impressed by donald trump, and many of them came from democratic households. you know, that's kind of what they would have grown up with their parents and so on. it was their first time to vote for many of them, and theyjust really liked this kind of strongman image that he's put across. and, you know, some of the more controversial things that he says, they were able to just wash over that and kind of dismiss it as, "0h, off—the—cuff remarks, "and we all say things sometimes "that come out the wrong way," and whatever. so, i think arizona is going to be really one to watch as well. you know, we always talk about maricopa county and all of that, but i think right across that state, and there's a big student population there as well. talking about the young people, you know, i think there's something like 700,000 students in that state. the difference between the two, between biden and trump in 2020, was just over 11,000 votes. so, you know, there's potentially a huge number of people there that can tip the scales in either direction.

i think it's also going to be interesting to watch the climate on election day. i mean, i don't mean the geographic climate, i mean... the weather? laughter yeah. it's always interesting to watch the weather, but it's going to be interesting to watch, you know, whether people in polling stations feel safe, how well protected they are, whether we have any more incidents of, you know, the kinds of things, ballot burning, that sort of stuff, whether they... the trump campaign in the past has said that they are going to send poll watchers, is what they call them, people to go and stand outside polling stations, which has sometimes been seen as intimidation of certain demographic groups. are we going to see that kind of thing, or is that actually going to all pass off pretty smoothly? i know people are prepared for that because of 2022 and 2020, so they're much more focused on that. they are. but, look, just ahead of the election, we have seen donald trump pointing to what he said is cheating in pennsylvania and... yes... i mean, if you have that kind of distrust of the electoral system ahead of time, i mean, imagine what we might see in pennsylvania the day of. of course, pennsylvania,

we know took longer to count in 2020. and we're all going to be sitting on our seat's edge here in the studio waiting for a result from pennsylvania, which we're not going to get on election night, with all the mail—in ballots and the process that it takes to count votes there. but the fact that there's republicans and donald trump pointing to pennsylvania ahead of time doesn't bode well necessarily for what might happen after the election. i mean, we don't know if we're going to see a contested result, but it certainly could be. why do you think he's pointing to cheating now? ithink... what's your read on that? i think he's been doing this for a couple of months, if you look at the speeches that he's made. you know, he's talked... he hasn't been as specific as saying... well, there are these voters in bucks county who were turned away, apparently, according to the trump campaign, who were turned away from voting... in the last week, there have been specific issues and specific legal issues around some of the vote, cos some of the people in the harris campaign are saying to me, "this is him preparing to lose pennsylvania," and that if you put out now that there's cheating, you make the prospect of a suit, somehow it's more official if you put it out now already. but that's what i was going to say about what we've

heard from him for months about the potential for it being stolen as well. it's the same kind of theme, and we saw it in 2020, where you put these bits of rumours out, and then if it doesn't go the way you want to, you can say, "well, i told you it was going to be stolen," or, "people were cheating," or, "it wasn't a fair fight." we should say, though, the democratic party in pennsylvania has launched a lawsuitjust in the last 2a hours — all the others we've seen have come from the republican party — and that's about the county of erie and mail—in ballots not being requested, not having been delivered and a few other things that they're saying are irregularities there that they want checked. and erie, of course, is a bellwether city in a bellwether state, and as goes erie generally goes pennsylvania and generally goes the presidency, so... again, i was there several months ago speaking to one of the local, on—the—ground republican organisers, and they were working really hard at that time to up their mail—in ballot system because they said, particularly in 2022, they had missed out

to the democrats, they felt, because the democrats were better at organising people to get their ballots in early, post them in early, and they didn't want that to happen again. so although we've often heard from donald trump, "don't post your vote, go in person," his party and the ground operation for months have been doing just the opposite to that. and of course, we've heard him say in recent days, "do vote early, get out and vote now." yeah, but it is a little bit still of a mixed message cos you've then got elon musk saying just a week ago that mail—in votes are subject to fraud or ripe for being subject to fraud. so they haven't quite got the message as clear on this. it does look, from the numbers of early voting, that you've got almost as many republicans doing early votes as you have democrats this time around — to the extent that you can tell cos different states have different rules around whether people are registered... yeah. and these are people registered — doesn't mean they vote that way. it doesn't mean that they've voted that way. do we think that the three blue wall states... ? michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin — traditionally, they all vote the same way.

i think there's only been one instance — 1988 — in modern history where they didn't. and one of them, which i can't remember off the top of my head, went for michael dukakis and the other two didn't. i think it was... i think it was michigan. but i have absolutely no doubt that some eagle—eyed viewer will fact—check me on that one. anyway, they generally tend to vote together. do we think that they are going to vote...? if we see... it's going to be michigan again... i agree — it'll be michigan again, that would be the question, about whether... it's the gaza point there. imean... yes. although the trump campaign is saying they're going to win six of the seven battlegrounds except for wisconsin. so that would be a split between wisconsin going democrat and michigan and pennsylvania going to donald trump. i mean, they're projecting a lot of confidence in taking... i mean, taking six of the seven battlegrounds is projecting confidence in and of itself. but it's interesting that they're singling... but i think you could see a split this time around. i think it's possible. i think very likely. and i agree with you that

if we are going to see a split, i will be watching michigan because of the arab—american vote that we've spoken about a lot and something that we haven't spoken about as much, which is the issue of electric vehicles. and the trump campaign has put a lot of money into running ads in michigan saying that, "if kamala harris is elected, "then everyone in america will have to drive an electric car, "and at the moment, those electric cars come from china," and trying to suppress the autoworker vote for her or get the autoworker vote for him. and i think it's a kind of sleeper issue in michigan, but it is an interesting one. they're trying to rally on that, the democratic party in michigan, by saying, "0k, electric vehicles, "but electric vehicles still have to be built. "someone still has to build them, "so we still need the manufacturing plant." but they're a little bit on defence on it because... no, they absolutely are. ..they�*re responding to what donald trump had already put out there. they absolutely are. but i think it's really interesting, when you look at how much attention both campaigns are giving to michigan, that the democratic campaign are not going near dearborn and hamtramck.

they've been really trying to maximise the votes elsewhere. and of course, dearborn, hamtramck — those kind of edges of detroit — are where the big arab—american, muslim—american communities are. and it kind of feels like they've almost given up, that they feel they can't win those people back. well, that's what they're hearing, isn't it? but that they're not even making an effort. like, she hasn't gone there, but it feels like they're really trying to energise voters in the whole rest of the state to boost the turnout there... to compensate. to compensate, to overcompensate. you know who's not so happy about that are some of the members of congress there. of course, debbie dingell is one of them, who represents not only a big jewish community but a big arab—american community. and she's talked about the struggle that she's faced. and we talked a bit about elissa slotkin and her senate race there. and she's been very in tune with the arab—american community there, understanding that the criticism of the biden—harris administration on their israel—gaza policy is one that would make it very difficult for her to win that senate race, and she's distanced herself a bit from that policy in questioning

israel's operation in gaza, and now in lebanon as well, because we know there's a big lebanese—american population in michigan. and we're hearing just today, just before we came into studio, that tony blinken had a press conference there and really changing the narrative again on how unhappy they are with israel on, you know, this latest bill that passed through the israeli parliament banning the aid agency from operating inside israel... i think that will have absolutely zero impact on arab—american voters. i agree with you, but it's... you know, and not to say that the political arm of the democratic party is controlling us foreign policy. i'm sure that tony blinken is well aware of voters in michigan! but it's just interesting that the language has really sharpened up now withjust a couple of days to go, and they're saying things that we haven't heard them say over the last whole year that this humanitarian crisis has been so dire. so the other kind of sleeper thing that i'll be watching on election night is new york,

which is an odd thing to be watching on election night, but i think because of the house races that helped — with the house races in california — hand the house to the republicans in 2022, and... you're always looking kind of for tells, right, early on in the night? and because it's new york, and so polls close earlier and it's on the east coast, you start to get feedback earlier. and these are smaller races, so we may get results pretty quickly from those races. if those republicans in new york — in long island, the hudson valley, right up to syracuse — across the board do well, you might be able to say, "actually, that's..." i mean, they're local. they're much more local races. but again, if you were the trump campaign, you wouldn't be unhappy with that. but they're very different from donald trump, aren't they? like, mike lawler... and they didn't turn up at madison square garden and they're running from him. but even so, it would help the republicans. let's say... and the counter would be if they all lost on election night, maybe that's the more interesting thing.

if all of those five republicans who managed to do so well in 2020 in seats that had gone traditionally democrat, let's say they all lose. i think that would be something that the harris campaign would be happy about, right? i mean, you'd start to think, "oh, that's an interesting narrative to watch," at least on election night. and when we're talking about what to watch on election night, of course, we're talking largely about who's going to be the next president, but it's really important as well, isn't it — i mean, we've been discussing this over the last few weeks — to look at what's happening in the senate and the house? because whoever gets into the oval office needs the senate and the house if they're to have any chance of getting through any of these promises that they're making on the campaign trail. and i think, you know, you're talking about what's a good night for kamala harris — apart from a win? 0bviously, either of them. 0r what's a good night for donald trump? a win for him too. but either of them are going to want to see, "do i have my guys and gals behind me? "can i actually do any of this? can i get any of this through?" yeah.

i mean, there's an understanding of that in the democrat party after 2022. i mean, they had quote—unquote "slept" on those races in new york and california, and that's why you've seen huge amounts of money invested in these races now. i mean, they are very clear about the fact that they need to have a successful night in a democrat state of new york and a democrat state of california. so, you think it wouldn't tell us much about the national race? you know, my sense — and i come from rochester, new york, and upstate new york is my home, original home — these, you know, local politics and district politics are really quite different. think about the fact that mike lawler was campaigning on the fact that he stood on stage with president biden at an event, that he works across the aisle. it just feels like such a different flavour. but that being said, i mean, you never know. it could give us an indication of how people are feeling about the economy, for example, or how people are feeling... i think there's just the issue of, if there is enthusiasm for her and large numbers of democratic voters are turning out, they may well just be voting democrat right down the ticket, right? so they're voting for kamala harris, they're voting for the others, and the same would go, if they're voting democrat in those house races, they're probably voting for kamala harris,

too, in big numbers. that mayjust give us a sense of enthusiasm. i mean, one of the things that democrats have been worried about, democratic strategists that i've spoken to have been worried about — all through the race, up to including just today, i was on the phone with one, just before we came into the studio — is that there is a sort of lack of enthusiasm for her. there is enthusiasm around the issues. there's an enthusiasm around the issue of abortion. there's an enthusiasm for stopping donald trump. they really want him not to win. but that doesn't quite translate into a massive amount of active enthusiasm for her. and it is something that democrats are a little worried about. the campaign won't say it out loud, but strategists around the campaign do talk about it. and are those enthusiastic people people who are going to vote democratic anyway? yeah. like, how many extra people are they bringing on board? you know, and that's... to our point at the start of this, it's about turnout. it's about getting the numbers out, it's about... we'll be sitting here on election night going, "0h, only 15% of the votes are in" — because there are so many votes to count, and as we know,

the rules are different in each state as to who can start counting that huge pot of postal votes ahead of time — and, you know, when we're going to see these little things trickle in that give us these little tells. another thing that i'll be watching is just turnout. you know, donald trump drove up turnout in 2016. he drove up turnout in 2018, in the midterms. he drove up turnout in 2020. he drove up turnout in 2022. does donald trump, love him or hate him, on either side, still drive up turnout? he brings people out, yep. definitely. well, there will be plenty to watch and i hope everyone tunes in. we're going to be literally chained to these seats — not literally, but it'll feel a bit like that. we'll be there all night in the studio, bringing people all the action. so...something to look forward to! yeah! see you guys then! we will get through it! yeah, we will!

hello. 0ur largely dry, settled theme of autumn weather set to continue for the next few days but like recent days, lots of cloud trapped under that high pressure today. so, largely dry, mild with light winds but limited sunshine for most of us. some sunny spells developing particularly over scotland. this is the high pressure driving our weather at the moment, with high pressure stretching across central europe. the winds coming in from a south—southeasterly direction, bringing cloud. clearer skies across central and eastern scotland in particular. some glimpses of blue sky further south trying to break through. any of the morning hill mist clearing through the day as things brighten a little. 15 degrees, the top temperature. tonight staying largely dry with a lot of cloud around, some clearer skies for northeastern scotland, temperatures falling lowest here into single figures. elsewhere, lows of 8 degrees

to start monday morning. in the week ahead, the weather is not changing in a hurry. settled once again, more sunshine breaking through in the week. some morning mist and fog patches in the forecast and staying mild. high pressure drifting eastwards through the middle part of the week, allowing the winds to come in from a more southerly direction, you see the orange colours, the slightly warmer air mass coming in as low pressure sits out in the atlantic. monday, we start with mist and murk around, a lot of low cloud with some patchy, showery rain in the irish sea, eastern scotland cloudy with a few spots or drizzle. some sunshine developing close to southeast england, perhaps wales as well. a slightly brighter day and temperatures in the mid to high teens. tuesday morning, mist and fog likely across southern parts of the uk, a murky start to the day. slowly clearing on tuesday and similar to recent days,

variable cloud, a little bit more sunshine by this stage, perhaps rain working into the far west later in the day, showers are possible in northern ireland. the temperatures, 17 in the southwest of england, mid—teens for the rest of us. temperatures rising through the week ahead. mist and fog around especially on tuesday and wednesday, clearing away later in the week.

live from london. this is bbc news. let's straight to spain where a press conference is on on the latest rescue operations. translation: tomorrow the ministers will _ translation: tomorrow the ministers will be _ translation: tomorrow the ministers will be available - translation: tomorrow the ministers will be available to | ministers will be available to work with the relevant local councillors in valencia and from that point on, there will be new meetings with a technical management to make the most appropriate decision as possible. also, on tuesday, the cabinet meeting will declare the area a zone and

they will also be a ministerial committee to coordinate all of the work being done in kutch in collaboration with the regional government of valencia —— in collaboration with the regional government of valencia. we are providing aid as quickly as possible and the national insurance consortium has already done loss adjusting, over 400 loss adjusters has been spent in addition to insurers and mediation professionals and this is increasing by the minute. there are now over 35,000 request for compensation and we expect that at the end of this coming week, the first payments will be made. a website has been set up for all of those affected and the national insurance consortium as well as a free

helpline.