Early voting begins in crucial Florida
Early voting for the Nov. 3 presidential election began in the crucial battleground state of Florida yesterday as a record 28 million Americans have already cast ballots with barely two weeks remaining in the campaign.
President Donald Trump, running out of time to change the dynamics of a race that polls show him losing, was scheduled to visit Arizona yesterday after holding a rally in Nevada on Sunday and urging his supporters to vote amid signs that Democrats are leading the surge in early voting.
His Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who campaigned in another key state of North Carolina on Sunday, will spend the day at his home base in Delaware, while his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, heads to Florida to encourage supporters to vote early.
Florida is widely seen as a must-win for Trump, whose path to victory becomes razor-thin if he loses the southern state. The state's prize of 29 electoral votes is tied with New York for third most, behind only California and Texas, in the race for the 270 Electoral College votes that determine the presidential winner under the US system.
The Oct 7-14 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Biden with 49% of the support and Trump 47%, within the survey's credibility interval of 4 percentage points.
Both campaigns have poured advertising money into Florida, although Biden, who has significantly outraised Trump since the summer while setting consecutive monthly records for a US candidate, has outspent his Republican rival.
Harris, who was given a clean bill of health after an aide tested positive for Covid-19, will participate in early-vote rallies in Orlando and Jacksonville, the campaign said.
Trump will stage rallies first in Prescott and later in Tucson, Arizona, another state for which both his campaign and Biden's are competing.
The 27.9 million Americans who have already voted either by mail or in person, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, is a far greater number at this point in the campaign than previous years. Voters have now cast about 20% of the overall total in 2016, when more than 136.6 million cast ballots.
Democrats account for 55% of the 10.9 million ballots cast in states that report party registration data, compared with 24% for Republicans.
At a rally in Carson City, Nevada on Sunday, where voting began the day before, Trump implored his supporters to "get out and vote" to help him flip a state that he lost narrowly to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Despite his recent recovery from his own bout with the virus, Trump also mocked Biden in Nevada for his cautious approach toward the pandemic.
"Listen to the scientists!" Trump said in a mocking voice. "If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression."
Trump also lashed out at "stupid" critics from within his own party and called for unity after growing Republican criticism and warnings of a "bloodbath" in the November 3 election.
He particularly attacked Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who recently told his constituents that Trump "kisses dictators' butts," mistreats women and uses the White House as a business.
Other Republicans have warned of electoral losses in the polls, including Senator Ted Cruz, who like Sasse said there was a risk of a "bloodbath." Even one of Trump's closest Senate allies, Lindsey Graham, recently said Democrats have a "good chance" at winning the White House.
"We have some stupid people," Trump said at the rally in Carson City. "We have this guy Sasse, you know, wants to make a statement... The Republicans have to stick together better."
Trump again raised a disputed allegation that messages on a laptop computer belonging to Biden's son Hunter implicated the former vice president in corrupt links to Ukraine, calling it a "proven fact."
Biden's campaign has repeatedly rejected the allegations, angrily dismissed by the candidate as a "smear campaign."
But Trump has not backed down.
In a rally Saturday in Muskegon, Michigan, he called Biden "a criminal" and even joined an enthusiastic crowd in chants of "Lock him up!"
Trump also further stoked a US culture war with outlandish claims, saying the Democrats wanted to "erase American history, purge American values and destroy the American way of life."
In North Carolina, a battleground where 1.4 million, or 20%, of the state's registered voters had already voted as of Sunday morning, Biden urged residents to cast ballots as soon as possible, and attacked Trump for saying the country had "turned the corner" on the pandemic.
"Things are getting worse, and he continues to lie to us about circumstances," Biden said.
"We choose hope over fear, we choose unity over division, science over fiction and yes, we choose truth over lies," he added.
The candidates' final nationally televised debate will be on Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Their first debate descended into a chaotic stream of interruptions by Trump, head-shaking and angry rejoinders; the second was replaced by dueling town-hall meetings after Trump refused to debate virtually on the heels of his bout with the coronavirus.
The final debate will be face-to-face.
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