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LAS VEGAS / WILMINGTON: President Donald Trump will hold two campaign rallies on Wednesday (October 28) in the battlefield state of Arizona, where polls show him well behind Democratic rival Joe Biden, as the race through the White House moving toward its final six-day stretch. .
Biden, who has repeatedly criticized Trump for failing to contain the coronavirus pandemic, will receive a report from public health experts and deliver a speech near his home in Delaware about his plans to fight COVID-19 and protect Americans with conditions. pre-existing health care. said his campaign.
Biden still comfortably leads Trump in national opinion polls in a race dominated by the pandemic, which has caused more than 225,000 deaths in the United States, cost millions more their jobs, and spurred the rush to vote early by many Americans seeking to avoid them. health risks of exposure. The race is closer in various battlefield states where the choice could be decided.
READ: Early voting in the US surpasses 70 million, with a continuous historical pace
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More than 70 million people have cast early votes in person and by mail, according to data compiled by the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida. That’s a record pace and more than half of the 2016 total turnout.
The sheer volume of mail-in ballots – more than 46.8 million have already been cast – could take days or weeks to count, experts say, meaning a winner might not be declared on the night of November 3, when the polls close.
FILE PHOTO: US Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden adjusts his mask before boarding his campaign plane after a campaign stop in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, October 27, 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Brian Snyder)
Trump, who has repeatedly criticized voting by mail as prone to fraud even though experts say it is rare, questioned the integrity of the process Tuesday, saying it would be “inappropriate” to take more time to count mail ballots.
“It would be very, very appropriate and very good if a winner were declared on November 3, instead of counting the ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don’t think that’s because of our laws,” Trump told reporters .
Arizona has become one of the main battlegrounds in the race for the White House after Trump won it by 3.5 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. A Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted from 14 to 21 October found that Biden had a 3-point lead over Trump. within the credibility interval of the survey.
A Biden victory in Arizona, which has 11 electoral votes, would be the first for a Democratic presidential candidate in the state since Bill Clinton won it in 1996.
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After spending the night in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump will hold airport rallies in Bullhead City, Arizona, in the northwestern corner of the state near Nevada, and in Goodyear, outside of Phoenix, the state’s largest city.
On Tuesday, Trump raced through three states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska, and Biden made two campaign stops on the emerging Georgia battlefield.
Biden has made what he calls Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic his main theme in the final weeks of the campaign, including criticism that Trump downplayed the threat, failed to listen to his health experts and never developed a plan to contain it.
READ: Donald Trump Says COVID-19 Pandemic Will End Soon, Joe Biden Criticizes President’s Handling Of Crisis
READ: No knockouts in Biden, Trump’s final debate before the US elections
Polls show Americans trust Biden more than Trump to contain the virus, and a record number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States in recent days has given Biden repeated opportunities to remind voters of the mismanagement of the pandemic by the Trump administration.
Biden has also used the pandemic to remind voters of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Healthcare is another topic that polls have found that Americans trust Biden more than Trump.
