[ad_1]
As the election approaches, it is the incumbent who appears to face the greatest odds, with polls indicating a surge in Democrats and some Republican senators have openly expressed doubts about their party leader.
FILE: US President Donald Trump addresses supporters during a campaign rally at MBS International Airport in Freeland, Michigan on September 10, 2020. Image: AFP.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump forged ahead with a frenzied series of demonstrations across the United States on Saturday, as he seeks to avoid a potentially humiliating defeat at the polls in just 17 days.
Trump was storming the states of Michigan and Wisconsin before spending the night in Nevada, desperately seeking to make up lost ground against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who kept a quieter schedule.
The hectic pace set by the 74-year-old president, and the fact that he has had to devote time to states like Georgia and Florida that he won in 2016, reflects the growing concern of the Republican Party, even as its aides sought to project confidence. .
“President Trump’s strategy is to work for the vote of the American people,” his spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox News.
“That’s why he will be in two states today, he will have two rallies tomorrow, two more in Arizona on Monday, and he’s going all-in.”
Biden, after making multiple campaign stops Friday in Michigan, kept a low profile Saturday in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
But he issued a statement to Wisconsin voters hours before Trump got there, focusing on an issue he has dogged relentlessly: Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.
‘HAS BEEN THROUGH COVID’
“His failed response to the pandemic has crushed Wisconsin’s economy,” Biden said, noting that 150,000 state residents had lost their jobs since Trump took office in 2016.
Trump himself is recovering from COVID-19, as are a few dozen other White House members and campaign staff, including McEnany, but she tried to put a positive spin on the experience.
“He has been through COVID himself, he is going to speak directly to the American people at that stage of debate about his experience,” he said.
The final televised debate between the candidates, and one of Trump’s last chances to make his case to a wide audience, is scheduled for Thursday. More than 21 million Americans have already cast early votes.
Trump withdrew from what was to be the second debate after organizers announced a virtual format following his COVID-19 diagnosis. Instead, the candidates held rival town hall events, with Biden drawing more spectators.
McEnany said Trump would use the final debate to “talk about his great response to COVID.”
It has been a difficult case for Trump.
The virus has claimed more than 215,000 American lives, a regrettable number that is the worst in the world, and the president has frequently mocked or flouted the guidelines of health experts.
Biden, 77, emphasized that point in his statement.
“President Trump is consciously downplaying the severity of the virus,” he said. “At practically every lap, he’s panicked and tried to wish it would go away, rather than doing the hard work to control it.”
As the election approaches, it is the incumbent who appears to face the greatest odds, with polls indicating a surge in Democrats and some Republican senators have openly expressed doubts about their party leader.
REPUBLICAN ‘BLOOD BATH’?
Senator Ben Sasse warned fellow Nebraska in a recent phone call that Republicans faced a “bloodbath in the Senate” after Trump screwed up the response to the pandemic, alienated global allies and mistreated the women.
Trump characteristically beaten Saturday on Twitter against Sasse’s “pretty stupid and obnoxious ways.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas also warned of a “Republican bloodbath of Watergate proportions.”
And even Trump said in Georgia that “maybe I’ll have to leave the country” if Biden wins, a joke comment, but from a president notoriously allergic to any talk about losing.
Democrats, and many Americans, have been wary of the polls since the surprising defeat of presumptive front-runner Hillary Clinton in 2016, but the polls are charting a harder path for Trump now.
An average of national polls from the RealClearPolitics site shows Biden with a solid 9-point lead and a leader in key states on the battlefield, albeit by a narrower average of 4.5 points.
On Saturday, thousands of people were expected to take part in rallies in Washington and elsewhere to protest Trump and his recent nomination of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Download the EWN app on your iOS or Android device.
[ad_2]
