Donald Trump has vowed to challenge the polls again as he sprints through five swing states on Sunday.
Waterford, United States:
Donald Trump has vowed to challenge the polls again as he sprinted through five swing states on Sunday in a campaign blitz against Joe Biden, just two days before the US presidential election which has already mobilized a record number of voters early.
The last-minute rush came as polls showed Biden retained his lead in the overall standings – but with a slight squeeze in key states including Pennsylvania, where he leads by four points, and Florida, now a draw. comes out, according to an average of polls from RealClearPolitics.
“We are in charge now,” Trump insisted before a noisy rally of supporters in Washington Township, Michigan. “Look, we’re leading in Florida. We’re leading in Georgia… They say it’s a very close race in Texas. I don’t think so. They did it four years ago and I won in a landslide.”
Flurries fell on Trump and the crowd as he shuddered and repeatedly joked about the strong winds and freezing conditions.
He warned, in a state long dependent on manufacturing, that Biden had “spent 47 years outsourcing your jobs, opening up your borders, and sacrificing American blood and treasure in endless foreign wars.”
Biden and his wife Jill started the day attending mass at their Catholic church near their home in Wilmington, Delaware. A small group of protesters shouted at him as he arrived and left.
The former vice president spent the rest of the day in a neighboring state that is vital to the hopes of the two men: Pennsylvania, where Biden has two events scheduled in Philadelphia.
In a speech to supporters, he criticized the president for his rhetoric and divisive policies.
“In two days we can end a president who failed to protect the nation, fanned the flames of hatred, poured gasoline on every opportunity he had across the country,” Biden said.
He also continued to hammer Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic – which Biden called “almost criminal” – after the nation’s worst week, with more than 1,000 Americans dying every day.
Yet the president has continued to ignore the seriousness of Covid-19 – going so far as to accuse doctors of inflating the death toll from the viruses for profit.
Trump also continued his extraordinarily open conflict with Dr Anthony Fauci.
In an interview with the Washington Post, the respected epidemiologist bluntly said that without “a sudden change” in the country’s public health practices, Americans face “a lot of hardship ahead.”
But he praised the Biden campaign which – unlike Trump’s mass rallies – follows health guidelines in its public events.
Fauci’s remarks drew a sharp rebuke from White House spokesman Judd Deere, who called it “unacceptable” that Fauci “chooses three days before an election to play politics” .
Meanwhile, both sides have publicly shown confidence amid their final strides towards the finish line.
“We’re going to find out on election day that a record number of people have likely turned out to vote in this election because they want change,” Biden campaign adviser Anita Dunn told ABC.
“They want a leader who will unite the country, not divide it.”
Trump’s campaign adviser Jason Miller predicted on ABC that Trump would sweep the southern states and only need one of the four major Midwestern states – Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan – to “get reelected President”.
Trump started an exhausting Sunday schedule with successive rallies in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia before an unusual 11:00 p.m. rally in Florida.
On Monday, Trump and Biden will campaign again in Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016 by less than a percentage point. Trump would return to Michigan later and Biden would add a last minute stop in Cleveland, Ohio.
With a flurry of mail-in ballots to be counted and likely court challenges, Pennsylvania is expected to be the subject of prolonged uncertainty for days after the election.
Democrats have dominated early voting, but polls show many Republicans plan to vote in person on Tuesday.
Highlighting the high stakes, a record 93 million early votes have already been cast, according to the non-partisan US Elections Project.
Trump, who has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are open to fraud, warned on Saturday of “chaos in our country” if no clear winner emerges quickly.
Biden, meanwhile, told donors it was “time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home.”
The election is taking place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so strong that gun sales have increased in some areas. Businesses in some cities, including Washington, are protectingly boarding windows and police bracing for the possibility of violence.
– ‘Life or death’ –
On Saturday, Biden was joined on the Michigan election trail by his former boss, Barack Obama.
In Trump’s 2016 victory, he took advantage of the low turnout of black Michigan voters. As Biden campaigns with the country’s first black president, he clearly hopes to change that.
Biden, despite his more cautious and reserved campaign style, recently pushed Trump over the back foot in traditionally conservative battlefields like Georgia and Texas.
