Campaign signs for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the respective GOP and Democratic presidential nominees, appear Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, on Mount Desert Island in Maine. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

Vice President Kamala Harris faced questions about whether sexism is a factor in the presidential race during a Tuesday interview on NBC News, and said she makes no assumptions about whether voters will make their choices based on race or gender.

Polls depict Harris, the Democratic nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, locked in an extremely close race that has largely been marked by a gender gap in voter preferences. Harris is winning over the votes of women, while Trump is stronger among men, polling is showing.

More than 24.5 million early votes were documented as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s early voting tracker. Among the states with party registration data, Democrats were ahead with about 5.3 million people registered with that party and voting compared to about 4.3 million for Republicans and 2.7 million with no party or another party.

Questioned by NBC News’ Hallie Jackson over whether Harris sees sexism at play in the race, the veep pointed out there are both men and women at her campaign events, “whether it be small events or events with 10,000 people.”

“So, the experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone’s gender, they want to know that their president has a plan to lower costs, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world,” Harris said.

When Jackson asked Harris if she does not see sexism as a factor in the race at all, Harris said: “I don’t think of it that way.”

“My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote, and I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race,” she said.

Harris, if elected, would become the first woman president, the first Black woman president and the first president of South Asian descent.

Asked whether the country is ready now for a woman and a woman of color to be president, Harris said, “Absolutely.”

“As you know, I started as a prosecutor. I never asked a victim of crime, a witness to crime, ‘Are you a Republican or Democrat?’ The only thing I ever asked them is, ‘Are you okay?’” Harris said.

“And that’s what the American people want to know — regardless of their race, regardless of their gender, their age — they want to know that they have a president who sees them and understands their needs and focuses on their needs, understanding we all deserve to have a president who is focused on solutions and not just fanning the flames of division and hate,” she added.

Asked why she’s been reluctant to talk about the historic nature of her candidacy on the campaign trail, Harris said she’s “clearly a woman” and doesn’t “need to point that out to anyone.”

“The point that most people really care about is, can you do the job and do you have a plan to actually focus on them? That is why I spend the majority of my time listening and then addressing the concerns, the challenges, the dreams, the ambitions and the aspirations of the American people.”

Harris said the country deserves a president who’s “focused on them, as opposed to a Donald Trump who’s constantly focused on himself.”

Biden: ‘We gotta lock him up…politically lock him up’

Meanwhile, speaking at a Democratic campaign office in Concord, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, President Joe Biden sparked controversy when he said “we gotta lock him up” in reference to Trump.

Biden, who drew applause and cheers from the crowd, quickly backtracked, adding: “politically lock him up.”

“Lock him out, that’s what we have to do,” Biden said.

Trump — who was convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state case earlier this year — has repeatedly made claims of “political persecution.”

In response, Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement Wednesday that “Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala’s plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent President Trump because they can’t beat him fair and square.”

Leavitt said the Biden-Harris administration is “the real threat to democracy” while also calling on Harris to “condemn Joe Biden’s disgraceful remark.”

Kelly remarks on Hitler, fascists stir controversy

In an interview with the New York Times, John F. Kelly — the former president’s longest-serving chief of staff and a former four-star Marine general — said Trump “commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’”

Asked whether Trump is a “fascist,” Kelly said Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” per the Times.

The Atlantic also published a bombshell story on Tuesday, part of which reports that Trump said: “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”

In response to the recent reporting, Harris said Wednesday in brief remarks outside the vice president’s residence, before departing for Pennsylvania, that “it is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

“This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side-by-side in the Oval Office, and in the Situation Room,” she added.

In a Wednesday statement, the Trump campaign pointed to reporting on the friendship between The Atlantic’s owner and Harris, saying “it’s no surprise that The Atlantic would publish a false smear in the lead up to the election to try to help Kamala Harris’ failing campaign.”

Walz and his family cast their votes 

Harris’ running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, cast his ballot Wednesday along with his wife, Gwen, and son, Gus, at the Ramsey County elections office in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to a pool report.

Walz told a woman at the counter that it was 18-year-old Gus’ first time voting and that he’s “pretty excited about it,” per the report.

Vance on schools and immigration

At a campaign event Tuesday in Peoria, Arizona, Trump’s running mate, Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, claimed Harris “has used programs that are meant to help people who are escaping tyranny, and she’s used it to grant amnesty to millions upon millions of people who have no legal right to be in the country, and that has to stop.”

“I mean, in Arizona schools right now, we have got thousands upon thousands of children who can’t even speak the native, the local language in Arizona, sometimes they don’t even speak Spanish, of course, because we’ve got illegal immigrants coming from all over,” he added.

“What does that do to the education of American children when their teachers aren’t teaching them, but they’re focused on kids who don’t have the legal right to be here? And again, nothing against the children, but we can’t have a border policy that ruins the quality of American education.”

However, the Arizona Republic reported that children who have limited proficiency in English in Arizona are taught in separate classrooms from children who speak English, and bilingual education was eliminated in the state in 2000.

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