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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump and his rival Joe Biden launched on Sunday (October 18) in the swing states that will decide the US election, as the campaign turns increasingly violent 16 days before the vote.
Trump, struggling to make up lost ground, is on a furious multi-state tour, jumping from Nevada to California on Sunday and then back to Nevada for a day of rallies and fundraising, before moving to Arizona on Monday.
It also plans demonstrations later in the week in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
A rare church attendee, he attended Sunday services at a cavernous, but not quite crowded, evangelical church in Las Vegas. Parishioners prayed for him, and when a collection plate was passed around, a pool photographer saw Trump toss a handful of $ 20 bills.
READ: Economy and COVID-19 Pandemic Shadow Climate for US Young Voters.
Biden, a practicing Catholic, attended mass with his wife Jill at their church near Wilmington, Delaware, before walking outside to visit the grave of their son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
Limiting his own campaign schedule due to pandemic concerns, Biden, 77, flew to North Carolina for a couple of events.
Joe Biden boards a plane in Delaware for a campaign day trip to Durham, North Carolina. (Photo: AFP / Roberto Schmidt)
In Durham, the ex-vice president in a mask ran to a stage in a parking lot where people in dozens of vehicles were waiting for him.
“We choose hope over fear, we choose unity over division, science over fiction and yes, we choose truth over lies,” he told them.
His caravan also made an unannounced stop to allow him and his granddaughter to order smoothies, and Biden, eager to highlight the stark differences between his campaign and Trump’s, kept his mask on at all times.
READ: Twitter Rapes Trump’s COVID-19 Advisor Over ‘Misleading’ Tweet About Masks As Cases Rise In US
Both men are working to awaken their political foundations and attract the seemingly small number of undecided voters in an election that could revolve around voter turnout.
A key opportunity comes this week with the final nationally televised debate of the candidates on Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee.
Their first debate descended into a chaotic stream of interruptions by Trump, head shakes and angry retorts; the second was replaced by mourning public gatherings after Trump virtually refused to debate after his fight with the coronavirus.
The final debate will be in person.
TRUMP TRAILS IN THE SURVEYS
If there was any doubt about the 74-year-old president’s own recovery from the virus, his tight campaign schedule seems to disprove it, and his message, if anything, has gotten more direct.
On Sunday, Trump again raised a controversial accusation that messages on a laptop belonging to Biden’s son Hunter implicated the former vice president in corrupt ties to Ukraine, calling it “proven fact.”
Donald Trump, speaking here at a rally in Janesville, Wisconsin, faces an uphill battle less than three weeks before the election. (Photo: AFP / Mandel Ngan)
This, he tweeted, made it “impossible” for Biden to “ever take over as president.”
Biden’s campaign has repeatedly rejected the accusations, which the candidate has angrily dismissed as a “smear campaign.”
But Trump has not backed down.
At 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 fueled an American culture war with outlandish claims, saying that Democrats wanted to “erase American history, purge American values, and destroy the American way of life.”
READ: Americans Voted Early in Record Numbers in Presidential Election
With the president lagging behind in polls, some analysts say he should focus on America’s economic outlook, which Trump sees as his strong suit.
Nearly 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, the worst total in the world, and the outbreak is now spreading in many states at rates never seen before in months.
Polls show a majority of voters disapprove of his erratic handling of the pandemic, and Biden has made it a central issue, promising more sober leadership.
Before Trump’s events in Nevada, Biden said that the president “must answer for his failed response to COVID-19.”
He continued: “Donald Trump did not take the necessary precautions to protect himself and others. How can we trust him to protect Nevada families?”
Map of the United States showing the percentage of ballots returned by mail or early votes in person by state prior to the November 3 presidential election. (Graphic: AFP / Jonathan Walter)
Trump has dismissed his weak poll data, while Biden’s supporters are also wary of overconfidence in an election that could tilt toward a close race in a single state like Florida.
IT HAS TO STOP
Democrats targeted Trump on Sunday not only for his attacks on Biden, but also on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the recent target of a kidnapping plot by a heavily armed right-wing militia group.
The president is “encouraging and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It’s wrong. It has to stop. It’s dangerous,” Whitmer told NBC’s Meet the Press.
READ: House Speaker Pelosi is ‘optimistic’ about COVID-19 relief deal ahead of US elections
Meanwhile, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has been negotiating with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin a stimulus relief bill to ease economic tensions imposed by the pandemic.
He said on ABC on Sunday that he remained optimistic about a deal, although many lawmakers say the two sides are still widely separated.
More than 25 million Americans have already cast their votes in an unprecedented early voting.
