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United States President Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally at The Villages Polo Club in The Villages, Florida on October 23, 2020 (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP).
THE VILLAGES, Villages, United States – Donald Trump launched an intense last-minute re-election push in Florida, insisting that Covid-19 is disappearing, while front-runner Joe Biden underscored his message that the president had abdicated responsibility for a pandemic that is actually emerging. .
With 50 million people already casting their early votes, Biden has a firm lead in national polls, as well as in most battling states like Florida, which typically decide the winner of the US presidential election.
The drama of the last televised Trump-Biden debate on Thursday was not thought to move the needle significantly.
But Trump achieved a surprising surprise when he defeated the favorite Hillary Clinton in 2016 and will now make a grueling series of campaign stops on the battlefields to try to repeat that feat.
Aiming for the vote of the politically powerful seniors in Florida, Trump began with a rally in the famous retirement community The Villages, where he told a large crowd that all Biden is talking about is “Covid, Covid, Covid” for try to “scare people”.
“We are going to quickly end this pandemic, this horrible plague,” he said, underscoring his constant message that the virus is declining rapidly, when in fact the number of cases is increasing again, with more than 220,000 Americans dead.
Referring to Biden’s warning of a “dark winter” ahead, Trump responded: “We are not entering a dark winter. We are entering the last corner and approaching the traffic light at the end of the tunnel. “
He then turned to his own scare tactics, claiming that Biden would let in hordes of illegal immigrants who he said were made up of “criminals and rapists and even murderers.”
“Joe Biden cares more about illegal aliens than older people,” he said.
The next stop was Pensacola, Florida, and on Saturday the president was due to cast his own vote at his legal residence in West Palm Beach.
The rest of the weekend will see the 74-year-old Trump keep up the frantic pace with rallies in North Carolina and Ohio on Saturday, then in New Hampshire on Sunday, before a series of more rallies next week.
Trump said that by November 3 he will be doing “five or six a day.”
– Lack of leadership –
Biden, as throughout the 2020 campaign interrupted by the coronavirus, remained in a lower tone. But even the 77-year-old Democrat is increasing activity down the stretch.
In his home state of Delaware, he delivered a speech on economic recovery from the pandemic, criticizing Trump’s record and promising, as Trump has, that he would provide a safe coronavirus vaccine to all who want it.
“We saw him refuse to take responsibility for a crisis that should have been dealt with by real presidential leadership,” Biden said. “We saw it lessen the pain that so many Americans feel.”
“We have been in crisis for more than eight months and the president still does not have a plan,” said Biden. “He has given up. He gave up you, your family, the United States. He just wants us to numb and resign ourselves to the horrors. “
On Saturday, Biden will travel to Pennsylvania, which, like Florida, is at the top tier of the battle states that decide national elections.
Barack Obama, who Biden served as vice president, will lend his Democratic star power to the campaign on Saturday with a rally in Miami.
– Turning too late? –
The Trump campaign has been disrupted by the coronavirus crisis, which most voters say it has not been able to handle well.
In addition to the national disaster, Trump’s re-election has been hampered at all times by his own erratic and often short-tempered behavior.
In the last televised debate Thursday in Nashville, the president turned to the most cheerful and level-headed leader aides had long hoped Americans would see.
Perhaps most surprising was the relative politeness of the debate compared to last month’s disastrous first showdown when Trump continually yelled at Biden.
This time, Trump called his Democratic opponent “Joe” and even praised NBC News moderator Kristen Welker, who had a mute button to keep order.
“I thought I did really well,” Trump said Friday. “They are two different styles. I can do different styles. “
But whether this change from the usually painful diet of insults, grievances, and conspiracy theories will suffice at this stage, or whether it will last even into the weekend, is an open question.
Despite the brighter picture, Trump’s team had entered the debate Thursday in hopes of hurting Biden with a murky and dubious allegation that he profited from foreign business conducted by his son while he was at the White House.
However, the attack largely failed as Biden not only stopped the allegations, but noted that serious doubts were mounting about Trump himself, including his holding of a bank account in China and the failure to release his statements of US taxes.
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