A record 90 million Americans voted at the start of the US presidential election.
A record 90 million Americans voted at the start of the US presidential election, according to data on Saturday, as President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden campaigned across the country in an attempt to influence few remaining undecided voters.
The high number of anticipated voters, around 65% of the total turnout in 2016, reflects intense interest in the contest, with three campaign days remaining.
Concerns over exposure to the coronavirus at busy polling places on election day Tuesday also increased the number of people voting by mail or at first in-person voting sites.
Trump, a Republican, is spending the last days of his re-election campaign criticizing officials and medical professionals who are trying to tackle the coronavirus pandemic even as it reappears in the United States.
Opinion polls show Trump is following former Vice President Biden nationally, but with tighter competition in the more competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their main concern.
Trump has repeatedly asserted without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and recently argued that only results available on election night should count. In a wave of legal motions, his campaign sought to restrict absentee voting.
“I don’t care about Donald Trump’s efforts. There is nothing – let me say it again – there is nothing he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy, ”Biden said at a rally in Flint, Michigan, where he was joined by former President Barack Obama for their first 2020 campaign event together.
Officials in several states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, say it could take days to count all those mail-in ballots, meaning there could be days of uncertainty if the outcome depends on these. States.
At a small in-person rally in Newtown, Pa., Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration’s record in the fight against COVID-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country.
“I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he’s talking about is COVID, COVID. He has nothing more to say. COVID, COVID,” Trump told the crowd, some of whom were not wearing masks .
He said the United States was “just weeks away” from mass distribution of a safe COVID-19 vaccine, which is pushing hospitals to reach capacity and killing up to 1,000 people each. day in the United States. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an impending vaccine.
In his closing remarks, Biden accused Trump of being a bully, criticized his lack of strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; its efforts to repeal the Obamacare health care law; and his contempt for the science of climate change.
He has come up with his own made in America economic platform, which contrasts with Trump’s “America First” approach, saying he will force the rich to pay their fair share and ensure that the benefits are distributed more fairly.
STANFORD REPORT
Stanford University economists on Saturday released an estimate that Trump’s rallies held from June to September resulted in more than 30,000 additional COVID-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not on actual investigations into coronavirus cases. The article, which did not name disease experts among its authors, was not peer reviewed.
Public health officials have repeatedly warned that events in the Trump campaign could accelerate the spread of the virus, particularly those taking place in places where infection rates are already on the rise. It has been difficult to determine the true impact of these gatherings on infection rates due to the lack of solid contact tracing in many US states.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, called the report “suggestive.”
“I would just say that it is suggestive but difficult to completely isolate the specific impact of an event without solid contact trace data from the cases,” Adalja said.
Biden’s campaign, which severely limited crowd size at events or restricted supporters to their cars, quickly grabbed Stanford’s results.
“Trump doesn’t even care about the lives of even his most staunch supporters,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
On Saturday, Trump focused on the Pennsylvania campaign, with a total of four rallies scheduled.
“If we win Pennsylvania, it’s over,” Trump said during his second rally of the day in Reading.
The state has yet to see the dramatic increases in coronavirus cases that threaten hospital capacity in Wisconsin and other battlefield states. Still, nearly 8,700 people in the state have died from the disease.
