Abelian covers, Gale correspondences, and the Hodge conjecture for powers

We prove the rational Hodge conjecture on every self-power of the Jacobian at each tensor Hodge-generic point of the full marked variation of a connected abelian cover of curves. This holds in every base genus and for every compatible branching pattern. For any CM abelian variety, the conclusion also holds for every self-power of its product with the Jacobian, on the same Hodge-generic locus. We also prove the conjecture on every self-power of a very general member of the full smooth labelled family of diagonal complete intersections cut out by at most two equations of a common degree, in every dimension and every degree at least two.