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The United States was nervous on Saturday when Donald Trump and Joe Biden launched a final campaign blitz amid a growing pandemic, record early voting and growing uncertainty about when the outcome of the presidential election will be known.
Trailing in the polls, Trump began a frenzied schedule of 14 demonstrations in three days, even as the coronavirus hit the country. The United States recorded more than 99,000 cases on Friday, its highest total in a single day. Many of the worst outbreaks occur in the battlefield states to which the president travels.
Biden campaigned with Barack Obama at drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit, predominantly black cities where strong participation will be essential in the fight for Michigan. Stevie Wonder was going to perform in Detroit.
In Flint, Obama condemned Trump as a president “who goes out of his way to insult people just because they don’t support them.”
“With Joe and Kamala at the helm,” he said, “you won’t have to think about them every day. You won’t have to argue with your family about it every day. It won’t be that tiring. They can get on with their lives. “
Obama also went after Trump’s idea of masculinity, saying that being a man once meant “taking care of other people” rather than “showing off and showing off, acting big, intimidating people.
Following the former president on stage, Biden briefly slipped into highly criticized attack lines against Trump, with whom he had previously said he would like to fight. “When you were in high school, wouldn’t you have liked to take a picture?” he asked, before seemingly remembering to continue on the main road.
“That’s a different story… but still. [Trump is] macho Man “.
Both men repeated Biden’s promise to control the coronavirus pandemic. But with a record number of infections and a record number of voters voting early, the dominant narratives of 2020 were still hurtling toward a potentially destabilizing climax. There was intense anxiety over whether Tuesday will deliver a clear verdict or a long and harrowing vote recount, for days or even weeks.
More than eight in 10 Americans (86%) are somewhat or very concerned that there will be violent protests after the election, the Public Religion Research Institute found. Businesses in New York, Washington, and other cities boarded in case of trouble.
Trump has been claiming for months, without proof, that he can only lose if the vote is rigged. He has threatened to challenge the result and has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. On Saturday, in rural Pennsylvania, the president told supporters that they should examine the ballot boxes in Philadelphia, a Democratic city, on Election Day.
Democrats have called for a massive turnout to leave the result beyond question.
The election comes after a year that has seen impeachment, an economic crisis and a reckoning over racial injustice. But Covid-19 remains the defining topic and the final arguments of the candidates couldn’t be more different.
Biden has been taking home the message that Trump mishandled a pandemic that has infected 9 million and killed 229,000. “He’s not doing anything,” the former vice president said this week. “We are learning to die with it. Donald Trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to the virus. “
In Florida on Thursday, the president, who spent three nights in the hospital after becoming infected, said: “But do you know the bottom line? You will improve. You will improve. If I can improve, anyone can improve. And I got better fast. “
On Friday, he unsubstantiated: “Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. Do you know it well? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is say, ‘I’m sorry, but everyone dies from Covid.’
The president was scheduled to hold four rallies in Pennsylvania on Saturday, then five on Sunday and five on Monday in Iowa, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Observing the mostly unmasked supporters huddled together, critics have called such demonstrations “over-broadcast events.”
Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who advised Al Gore and John Kerry, said: “Trump is flying frantically across the country on Air Force One giving these rally speeches, which I think motivate his base but also alienate many. other voters because they look at the photos where people have a double chin cheek and there is no mask. “
Noting an outbreak among Vice President Mike Pence’s staff, Shrum added: “You just had Covid invade the White House for the second time, so I think it increases the feeling that it can’t handle Covid.”
Polls show Biden with a consistent lead nationally and with smaller margins in the states that will decide the electoral college. Democrats could also win a majority in the Senate, ending years of stalemate.
But few are complacent. The final Fox News poll in 2016 showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump between 48% and 44%; The latest Fox News poll this year has Biden up 52% -44%. Analysts say that if the polls are off by the same margin, Biden will continue to win.
Bob Woodward, author of two best-selling books on Trump, said: “It looks like Biden is going to win, but I wouldn’t bet more than a dollar. I think it’s very possible that Trump will win. “
The survey, he warned, “is a measure of, when they call, a thousand or two thousand people who are crazy enough to pick up the phone and answer the question. So they have surveyed 2,000 people who don’t have the sense to hang up the phone, which is what most people do. So what are you measuring? What do the surveys tell us?
Woodward added: “I am convinced that President Trump’s supporters to the core will crawl through snow, rain and fire to vote and support him. I don’t think Biden has that kind of intellectual and emotional support, or at least at the level that Trump has. “
Trump advisers and loyalists insist he can pull off another Houdini act. Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, said: “I think 70% Trump is elected and 30% Biden wins.”
When asked why he said the opposite of what the polls show, Gingrich replied: “Because I think they are all wrong. These were the same polls that were totally wrong in ’16. Why would you believe them? They haven’t learned anything. “
For some, long lines of voters offer hope that the United States will pull back from the brink of disaster. Drexel Heard, a black LGBTQ activist and Democratic official in Los Angeles, said: “As soon as we get results or as soon as we find out that Joe Biden has been elected, I think the temperature could drop in the country, people could breathe a sigh of relief just for a moment because they will feel comfortable knowing that the next four years will not be chaos, that their families will not have to decide between their medical care and their home.
“That is something very important to us because we have never been so chaotic in American history outside of wartime.”
