Florida, the toughest battlefield

Just four days before the US presidential election, Florida has become the most contested battlefield. And not only because it is the third most populous state in the country (after California and Texas), but because this Thursday both candidates took their campaign rallies to the “Sunshine State”, specifically to the city of Tampa, where the electoral contest is expected to be tight.

According Very clear policy, polls give you a slight advantage to Democrat Joe Biden with 48.4%, while Trump would obtain 47.9% in this key state. Trump has more at stake in Florida than Biden. The President would not get a majority of 270 electoral votes if he does not win in this state, where he defeated Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percentage points in 2016. With its 29 electoral votes, this state is one of the biggest prizes in the elections.

This Thursday it coincided that both candidates were in a kind of “fight” in Florida. Trump held a rally starting at 1:30 p.m. in the city of Tampa. At the same time, Biden was in County Broward in the south of the state, but in the afternoon he moved to Tampa.

Trump’s rally was outdoors, something that has already been seen in his other activities with thousands of people crowded to see it and many without masks. Biden, by contrast, was campaigning with his supporters from their vehicles. It is a clear example of their styles and the opposing visions and strategies of each one in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of course, the presidential candidates compete for a small group of votes, since in that territory about 7 millions of people had already cast their votes, according to the state Division of Elections. The figure, which already is approaching 9.6 million votes cast in the 2016 presidential election, is almost half of the population of the state of 14.4 million registered voters.

The U.S. Elections Project reported that 40.5% of early votes in Florida had been cast by Democrats, 37.7% by Republicans, and 21.7% by people with no party affiliation or that they belong to small parties.

Faced with the crucial group of voters in that state, Latinos, recent polls suggest that Trump has made progress among this group. In South Florida, Trump has especially managed to consolidate his popularity among Cuban Americans.

That’s why Biden targeted Latinos in his first activity this Thursday in Florida: “Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy today than it was four years ago”, said.

By vowing to reverse Trump’s tougher policy toward Cuba, Biden also reiterated that he considers Nicolás Maduro a “bully.” “President Trump cannot promote democracy and human rights for the Cuban people or the Venezuelan people, when, in fact, he has praised so many autocrats around the world,” Biden said.

In addition to the battlefield that Florida represents, with its large number of voters and, therefore, its large number of electoral votes that it distributes, the candidates also put their efforts in other states, those where the contest is also projected close. These disputed states are Ohio, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, among others, that is, states without a historical reference of inclination for either of the two parties.

In Pennsylvania, surveys give you an advantage to Biden of 4.3%, in Georgia 0.4% and in North Carolina 0.6%. In Ohio, while, a tie is projected as in Arizona. In 2016, Trump managed to win all those states, a situation that at the moment seems difficult to replicate.

Faced with the debates about voting by mail and what could delay the count due to the high burden it implies for the Postal Service, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Pennsylvania and North Carolina receive votes until days after Tuesday’s election, which means a victory for Democrats who have been pushing for states to grant additional time due to the large number of votes mailed during the pandemic.

The cases from these two states are the latest examples of the complications that Covid-19 has presented to officials facing a number record of early voting and by mail of those who prefer to avoid voting in person.

Thus, the court refused to accept a challenge from Pennsylvania Republicans on the state’s vote-by-mail deadline, leaving the decision in effect that ballots can be received up to three days after the election, even if there are no legible postmarks or stamps. Also, the court allowed the counting of ballots received in North Carolina for up to nine days after the election, provided they are postmarked for Election Day.

According to CNN, election law experts have warned that courts are unlikely to play a critical role in the outcome of elections, and mail-in votes received after Election Day will be a small percentage of total votes. However, the outlet warns that if the elections are closed and if Pennsylvania, for example, is the decisive state and the votes received after November 3 could make a difference, the legal issues surrounding vote-by-mail that come after Election Day could suddenly catapult to the forefront of the presidential race.

With this, The idea is confirmed that the US may not have a winner by the same November 3 and, on the contrary, it will be necessary to wait a few days to know the electoral result.

Anyway there are already close to 80 million Americans who have voted by mail or by early vote, according to a tally by the U. of Florida Elections Project, predicting the highest turnout rate in more than a century.