Trump, Biden barrel through key states on final weekend before vote
With Tuesday's US presidential election only days away, Donald Trump, Joe Biden and their top surrogates were barreling through crucial states in the professional Midwest and the coastal southeast on Saturday, in a frantic sprint to mobilize voters as they pressed their closing arguments.
Underscoring the high stakes -- and the disruptive impact of the coronavirus pandemic -- an archive 90 million early votes have already been cast, as the bruising contest heads toward the biggest turnout in at least a hundred years.
Trump and Biden were focusing on the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, where in fact the president continued a frenetic pace with four campaign stops, and Michigan, where Biden and his former boss Barack Obama -- appearing together for the very first time in this campaign -- were to seem twice.
Vice President Mike Pence, meantime, was campaigning in NEW YORK -- where Trump and Biden are running neck-and-neck - while Biden running mate Kamala Harris is at Florida to market turnout in another hard-fought swing state.
Pennsylvania, where Trump squeaked out a narrow victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, has emerged among the top prizes this season.
In his motorcade on the way to rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Trump passed hundreds of supporters supporting a forest of pro-Trump signs. The crowd then booed reporters in trailing vehicles.
In remarks at a meeting there, Trump lashed out at Biden while describing his own avowedly disruptive method of politics to be in the service of voters.
"EASILY don't always play by the guidelines of Washington and the Washington establishment, it's because I got elected to fight for you, and I fought harder for you than any president in the annals in our country," he said.
But the race has been overshadowed by the surging pandemic. More than 94,000 new infections were recorded Friday -- another new high -- and total cases passed nine million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In stark contrast to Trump -- whose son Donald Trump Jr. told Fox on Thursday that Covid-19 deaths had fallen to "almost nothing" -- Biden has scrupulously followed the guidance of public health experts.
He and Obama were appearing Saturday before socially distanced drive-in rallies in the cities of Flint and Detroit with one of this city's most well-known sons, superstar singer Stevie Wonder, as a musical guest.
Trump, 74, won the industrial state by a mere 0.2 points in 2016 -- but this season Biden leads by practically seven points, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls.
The state's 16 electoral votes could give a sizable leap to the 270 had a need to win the White House.
In 2016, Trump took advantage of low turnout rates among Michigan Blacks to eke out victory there. As Biden campaigns with the nation's first Black president, he hopes to mobilize African American voters.
For days gone by week Obama has hosted several rallies of which he repeatedly slammed Trump's respond to the pandemic, including in Pennsylvania.
Trump won Pennsylvania, where Biden was created, with a razor-thin margin in 2016.
Biden can look there both Sunday and Monday in an obvious sign of the state's importance.
The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw that gun sales have surged in a few areas. Businesses in some cities are protectively boarding their windows, while police agencies are bracing for possible violence.
On Friday both applicants carried their battle to the American Midwest. They barnstormed three heartland states each -- in another of the regions hardest hit by the coronavirus -- as they chased every last vote.
Trump, that has long said the virus will "disappear," remained defiant at rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
He again downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, saying, "If you get it, you'll get better, and then you are going to be immune."
But the Biden campaign issued a statement Sunday citing a Stanford University
study saying Trump's mass rallies -- with little respect for mask-wearing or distancing -- may have led to a large number of additional cases or more to 700 deaths.
The virus has killed practically 230,000 Americans and ravaged the economy. Despite signs of recovery, millions remain jobless.
Trump has continued to tout the monetary successes of his presidency, including recent signs of improvement, but fears of a shaky recovery linger.
After a campaign largely muted by the pandemic, Biden has taken the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like Texas, a big, traditionally conservative bastion now seen as a toss-up.
On Friday, their state reported a staggering nine million residents had already voted, surpassing its 2016 total.
Harris visited Texas Friday in a bid to carefully turn their state Democratic for the very first time since 1976.
Biden also stumped Friday in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, where he sharpened his attacks on the president on everything from Trump wanting to dismantle Obama-era healthcare protections to climate change and trade policy with China.
"We can not afford four more many years of Donald Trump," the Democrat said in St. Paul, Minnesota.
"So honk your horn if you need America to lead again!" he said, embracing the awkward pandemic-era campaign trend of rallying supporters in their vehicles. -- AFP
