“We are now in the lead,” insisted Donald Trump during a rally in Washington Township, Michigan.
Hickory, United States:
Donald Trump has vowed to challenge the polls again as he sprints through five swing states on Sunday, while his opponent Joe Biden urged his supporters to “take back our democracy” by voting in two days.
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.
Americans galvanized by the stakes, the election has already mobilized a record number of early voters.
“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.
The former vice president spent the rest of the day in a neighboring state vital to the two: Pennsylvania.
At a drive-in rally in Philadelphia, Biden said, “In two days we can end a presidency that has divided this nation.”
“It is time to stand up, to take back our democracy,” he said.
“We can do it. We’re better than that. We’re so much better.”
‘Almost criminal’
He also continued to hammer Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic – which he called “almost criminal” in an earlier speech to supporters – after the country’s worst week for new cases, with more than 1,000 Americans who die 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.
At his third rally of the day in Hickory, North Carolina, Trump called on businesses and schools to reopen and touted the signs of an economic recovery – though economists say the underlying factors are no good omen.
His extraordinary conflict with Dr Anthony Fauci, the highly respected government expert on infectious diseases, also continued.
In an interview with the Washington Post published on Saturday, Fauci said bluntly that without “a sudden change” in the country’s public health practices, Americans face “a lot of suffering to come.”
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” .
Fears of tensions on election night and thereafter, the counting set to continue due to the large number of ballots in the mail, were further fueled by a report that Trump could declare victory prematurely.
The Axios news site reported that Trump had told confidants he would declare victory on Tuesday night if he appeared to be early.
Trump called it a “false report” but also repeated his argument that “I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait long after the election.”
He has repeatedly asserted, without proof, that postal ballots are open to fraud, and warned on Saturday of “chaos in our country” if no clear winner emerges quickly.
Asked about the report, Biden said, “The president is not going to steal this election.”
– Boarding –
In another sign of how the race has become unusual and tense, Biden also denounced the alleged harassment of one of his campaign buses by Trump supporters on a Texas highway – an incident the FBI has reported on. confirmed that he was investigating.
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.
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. The president would return to Michigan later and Biden would add a last minute stop in Cleveland, Ohio.
Former Biden boss Barack Obama, who excoriated Trump in his campaign appearances, will hold a rally ahead of the Miami election, the campaign said.
A record 93 million early votes have already been cast, according to the non-partisan US Elections Project.
In Trump’s 2016 victory, he was able to topple the crucial states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and, by a particularly narrow margin, Michigan.
But polls show Biden, despite his more cautious and reserved campaign style, is advancing there while pushing Trump on the back foot in traditionally conservative battlefields like Georgia and Texas.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
