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(CNN) US President Donald Trump enters the final presidential debate Thursday with the need for a major career-changing shakeup as he follows Joe Biden in both national polls and in key states that they will determine if you have a path to victory in the Electoral College.
Twelve days before Election Day, Trump has been campaigning across the country with protests laden with complaints, lashing out at his advisers and medical experts, blaming China for the spread of the coronavirus and refusing to take any blame for its mishandling. from the pandemic, which has created a huge drag on their survey numbers.
Prominent Republicans have begun to openly distance themselves from the president because they are concerned about what Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse called a potential “blue tsunami” where Democrats could keep the United States House while also taking control of the United States Senate. and the White House.
Biden currently has a bigger lead in national polls than Hillary Clinton at this point in 2016. In CNN’s poll poll, Biden is leading Trump by 10 points nationally and is also showing considerable strength in key states. battlefields of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and the United States. Wisconsin, where Trump narrowly won in 2016.
Desperate to change the current trajectory of the contest, Trump aides have been begging him to take a less combative approach Thursday than in the first debate when he created a virtually impossible-to-see event by repeatedly interrupting Biden and stringing his comments with personal attacks. to the first. vice president and his son, Hunter.
To avoid a repeat of that chaotic event, the Presidential Debate Commission took the unprecedented step of changing the rules: the candidate’s microphones will be cut off while his opponent answers the first question in each of the six segments. The topics of the discussion, which will be led by moderator Kristen Welker, are “Fighting Covid-19”, “American Families”, “Race in the United States”, “Climate Change”, “National Security” and “Leadership” . The 90-minute debate begins at 9 p.m. ET
The two candidates were separated by large plexiglass barriers at the Curb Event Center in Nashville. The barriers were originally recommended by medical advisers from the Cleveland Clinic, but the spacers are now unlikely to be used because circumstances have changed, according to the commission’s senior adviser, Peter Eyre. No further explanation was given and the tabs were removed from the discussion stage.
The second planned debate between the two men was canceled after Trump tested positive for coronavirus and refused to participate in a virtual debate.
Both men face difficult imperatives as they face an audience of tens of millions of people for the last time. Biden is trying to improve his margins with Hispanic voters, in part to shore up his numbers in the key states of Florida and Arizona at a time when he is performing worse with those voters than Clinton.
Trump is struggling with female voters, who have increasingly leaned toward Biden. And it must also tighten its grip on one of its key constituencies, white voters with no college education. Trump beat those voters by 30 points in 2016, but currently has only a 19-point margin within that demographic, according to an analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten. Biden, who was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, has proven to be a more formidable adversary than Clinton when it comes to those voters, one of the reasons he fares better in the Midwestern states than the 2016 Democratic nominee.
To bolster his position, Trump’s advisers hope he will focus on the economy, an area in which he has traditionally had a clear advantage over Biden. But Trump has shown little message discipline even in the final days of this race.
It continues to underperform older people, another key group to reach on Thursday, after failing to alter their behavior even after their own Covid-19 diagnosis. Trump is still underestimating the risks of the virus and holding large demonstrations wearing little masks and no social distancing, even as the United States enters another deadly wave of the virus. As cases rise in the United States as the winter months approach, an analysis by CNN showed that 42 states have seen Covid-19 hospitalizations increase by more than 5% over the past two weeks, an indicator. key to how fast the disease is spreading.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now project that there will be between 235,000 and 247,000 deaths from coronavirus in this country by November 14.
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