President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden were courting early voters Sunday in the competitive states of Nevada and North Carolina, as the final presidential debate looms later this week.
Some 27.7 million Americans have already cast their ballots by mail or in person before the Nov. 3 election, according to the University of Florida’s US Elections Project. The record number is due in part to concerns about crowds at polling places on Election Day amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump, a Republican, was spending his Sunday in Nevada, a state he hopes to wrest from Democrats after narrowly losing him in 2016.
The president, who rarely goes to church but remains popular with evangelical Christians for his opposition to abortion and for appointing conservative judges, began his day by attending a service at the Las Vegas International Church.
Trump, who recently suffered his own COVID-19 attack, did not wear a mask for the interior service.
One of the church’s pastors, Denise Goulet, told Trump from the stage that God had told her that she would win the 2020 election. Trump put a handful of $ 20 bills into an offering bucket and bowed his head during one sentence.
Biden flew to North Carolina, a battlefield where 1.4 million, or 20%, of the state’s registered voters had already voted as of Sunday morning.
The former vice president’s campaign said he would urge residents to make a plan to vote as soon as possible at an event in Durham, while detailing his proposals to decrease economic inequality for African Americans.
Her election for vice president, Senator Kamala Harris, canceled in-person events over the weekend as a precautionary measure after an aide tested positive for COVID-19. He will return to the election campaign on Monday with a visit to Florida to mark the first day of early voting in person from that state.
Trump will campaign every day before Thursday’s debate in Florida, including stops in Arizona and North Carolina, campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.
While Trump is lagging behind in national opinion polls and in many battle states, Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said over the weekend that the national numbers are misleading because states that must winning are close.
“We cannot become complacent because the most poignant truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race, and every indication we have shows this is going to go all the way,” he wrote in a memo to donors.
US presidential elections are determined by electoral votes, allocated to US states and territories based largely on their population, rather than a count of the popular vote across the country.
Trump campaigned Saturday in Michigan and Wisconsin, two battle states he narrowly won in the 2016 election.
In Muskegeon, Michigan, he attacked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, for imposing restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus and downplayed a right-wing plot uncovered by the FBI to kidnap her.
“Hopefully he’ll send her packing real soon,” Trump said, prompting the crowd to yell, “Lock her up!” repeatedly.
Whitmer said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” show on NBC that the president’s rhetoric was “incredibly disturbing” and “dangerous” for her and her family, as well as other politicians he targets.
Opinion polls have shown a high level of concern among voters over the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 219,000 people in the United States and hit the economy.
While the virus is more deadly for older people, the pandemic is also motivating young voters, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted between September 29 and October 13. Among likely voters 34 and younger, 25% named COVID-19 as their top concern when choosing a president, while jobs and the economy were cited at 20%.
.
