President Donald Trump implored supporters in Nevada Sunday to vote early in a state that narrowly lost in 2016, while Democrat Joe Biden urged North Carolinians to “go vote today,” as the Final presidential debate looms later this week.
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Some 27.9 million Americans have already cast their ballots by mail or in person before the Nov. 3 election, according to the University of Florida’s U.S. Elections Project. The record number is due in part to concerns about crowds at polling places on Election Day during the coronavirus pandemic.
(Read more: US President Donald Trump woos evangelical Christians at a Nevada rally)
At a rally in Carson City, Nevada, a state where voting began Saturday, Trump told attendees: “Early voting is underway, so get out there and vote.”
(Read more: Twitter blocks Trump adviser tweet minimizing face masks)
In North Carolina, a battlefield where 1.4 million, or 20%, of the state’s registered voters had already voted as of Sunday morning, Biden asked people to vote as soon as possible. The race is on par in the state, which Trump won by 3.66 percentage points in 2016.
“We have to maintain the incredible momentum; We can’t give up, ”Biden said at a“ drive-in rally ”in Durham, as attendees seated in their cars honked their horns in approval. “Don’t wait, go vote today.”
Biden also criticized Trump for saying over the weekend that the United States had “turned the corner” on the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the rate of new cases across the country had risen to the highest level in months.
“As my grandfather would say, ‘This guy has turned the curve if he thinks we’ve turned the corner,’” Biden said. “Things are getting worse and he keeps lying to us about the circumstances.”
Despite Trump’s recent recovery from his own attack with the virus, he mocked Biden in Nevada for his cautious approach to the pandemic. There was little social distancing at the busy outdoor rally at the Carson City airport.
“Listen to the scientists!” Trump said in a mocking voice. “If I fully listened to scientists, right now we would have a country that would be in a massive depression.”
The Biden campaign responded almost immediately. “New coronavirus cases are increasing and layoffs are increasing,” said spokesman Andrew Bates.
The two will debate for the last time Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee. Their second scheduled debate, scheduled for last Thursday, was canceled when Trump withdrew from the event after organizers said it would be virtual to decrease the risk of infection.
HARRIS RETURNING TO TRAIL
Biden’s choice for vice president, Sen. Kamala Harris, canceled in-person events for the weekend as a precautionary measure after an attendee 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.
Harris tested negative for the virus on Sunday, the campaign said.
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 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.
Trump will campaign every day leading up to Thursday’s debate, including stops in Arizona and North Carolina, campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.
While Trump lags behind in opinion polls nationwide and in many battle states, Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said over the weekend that the national numbers were misleading because the states that were supposed winning were 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.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Carson City, Nevada, and Michael Martina in Durham, North Carolina; written by Joseph Ax, Jarrett Renshaw, and James Oliphant; edited by Daniel Wallis and Peter Cooney)
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