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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden will hold prime-time town hall duels in lieu of a second presidential debate on Thursday (October 15), as Americans continue to flood polling places in states that allow voting. anticipated in person.
With less than three weeks to go on Election Day Nov. 3, the Republican president is trying to change the dynamics of a race in which Biden has a double-digit lead in some national polls.
North Carolina, a highly competitive state, began more than two weeks of early voting in person on Thursday, following strong turnout in Georgia and Texas earlier in the week.
A local media video showed large numbers of people waiting for the polls to open in Greensboro and Winston-Salem, and gathering in the pre-dawn hours to vote in two arenas in the state’s largest city, Charlotte.
Gerry Cohen, a member of the board of elections in the county that includes most of the city of Raleigh, saw more than 400 people lined up at a community center before the polls opened.
“I’ve never seen so many lined up here,” he said on Twitter.
Nearly 18 million Americans have cast their vote in person or by mail so far, representing 12.9 percent of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election, according to the University of California’s United States Elections Project. Florida.
Voters are looking to avoid in-person lines on Election Day to stay safe as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to rise, but also to make sure their ballots count. Many are concerned that Trump will contest widely used vote-by-mail ballots, after claiming without proof that they were fraudulent.
Trump’s campaign boasts a last-minute vote surge. But Reuters / Ipsos polls conducted Friday through Tuesday show that there are far fewer undecided likely voters this year, about 8 percent, and they are as likely to elect Biden as Trump.
READ: Trump can no longer spread COVID-19, says top US health official Fauci
Four years ago, at this stage of the campaign, more than twice as many people wavered similarly between Trump and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The Reuters / Ipsos poll shows Biden has a 10 percentage point advantage nationally, with a tighter margin in battlefield states that will help decide the election.
US $ 1.5 BILLION
Democratic fundraising organization ActBlue said Thursday it raised $ 1.5 billion online from July to September, the most it had raised in a quarter. By comparison, top Republican fundraising platform WinRed said Monday it raised $ 623.5 million in the same period.
“We have raised more money than I ever thought we could,” Biden told donors at an event.
Both candidates have been visiting battle states this week, with Trump holding rallies in Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa and Biden traveling to Ohio and Florida.
At a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Thursday, Trump promised an economic recovery if re-elected. “We are going to have a red wave,” he said.
The U.S. economy sank in the second quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic, and at least 25 million were still receiving unemployment benefits as of late September, Labor Department figures showed Thursday.
Trump withdrew from the debate scheduled for Thursday when the commission in charge of organizing the event said it would take place practically after he contracted the coronavirus. A final debate is still scheduled for October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The town halls, in which each candidate will answer questions from voters, will take place at 8 p.m., with Trump on NBC from Miami and Biden on ABC from Philadelphia.
READ: Trump addressed problems and did not change course
A group of 100 Hollywood actors and producers wrote a protest letter to NBC, saying that airing Trump’s town hall was “allowing the president’s bad behavior while undermining the Presidential Debating Committee and hurting the American public.”
Biden’s campaign said Thursday that two people involved in the campaign had tested positive for COVID-19, including one on the staff of Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate.
Biden had been on a plane with one of the two who tested positive, but was not in close contact and did not need to self-quarantine, his campaign said in a statement. Although Harris was not in close contact with people either, the campaign said it would cancel Harris’s trip until after Sunday.
“This shows how seriously we take COVID, how we have done everything in our power since March as a campaign to ensure the safety of our staff, volunteers and voters,” Biden’s campaign manager told reporters, Jen O’Malley Dillon, on a call. .
