President Donald Trump is touring Florida, a critical state for his reelection prospects
TAMPA – President Donald Trump is taking a turn Friday through Florida, a critical state for his reelection prospects and surrounded by two storms, one now bringing daily records of COVID-19 deaths and the other turning toward the south in the form of a hurricane. Isaias
Trump delivered a campaign speech with Florida sheriffs who continued his continued effort to pin a surge in crime in some of the nation’s largest cities on his Democratic mayors as he has threatened to send federal police to protect him which he describes as besieged communities.
Speaking shortly after a federal appeals court rejected Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing due to possible jury bias, Trump attacked Democratic rival Joe Biden for his changing position on capital punishment. . The former vice president, who supported the death penalty for much of his long political career, called last year to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and to encourage states to do the same.
“They protect criminals and Biden opposes the death penalty, even for police murderers and child murderers,” Trump told hundreds of supporters who showed up to hear him speak at the sheriff’s event on the airport runway. Tampa International. “I see in Boston, where you have the animal that killed so many people during the Boston Marathon, that they just sent this death penalty conviction to the lower courts … It’s ridiculous.”
With the White House and Democrats disagreeing on a new round of financial relief to boost a coronavirus-battered economy, Trump is trying to use a “law and order” theme to electrify his base and win over undecided voters uneasy about over two months of protests focused on police brutality and racial injustice.
Before leaving Washington, Trump again falsely claimed that Democratic rival Biden supports the police outlay.
He met at the White House with members of the National Leadership Association for Police Organizations, an organization that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but supports Trump’s reelection bid.
“Your choice is me or someone who has no idea what they are doing,” Trump told them.
In Florida, Trump will also participate in a meeting to review the response to COVID-19 and the state’s preparedness for Hurricane Isaias, which focused on the Bahamas on Friday and is expected to move near South Florida on Saturday.
“It is a pretty big storm,” said Trump, who asked Floridians to be cautious. “I don’t know if it’s going to be a hurricane or not, but it’s a storm. It is significant.”
Florida has seen an increase in COVID-19 cases and reported 253 new coronavirus deaths on Thursday, the highest daily count to date and the third day in a row.
After those events, Trump will speak to his supporters at a fundraiser that is closed for journalists.
The state of Florida is considered essential to the president’s reelection prospects. The state won by a 1.2% margin in 2016, but most polls have shown it behind Biden.
Democratic supporters of Biden in Florida criticized Trump for coming to the state to raise funds during such a critical time for the state and the nation. Nowhere does the pandemic threaten Trump’s political future more than Florida, where Democrats have been criticizing the Republican President’s inability to control the health threat in a state teeming with older citizens.
“We have more cases than some countries. This is outrageous, and here it is, Donald Trump, visiting Florida to raise money and pretending that it doesn’t even exist, that we don’t have a problem, with an impending storm approaching to make matters worse, “said state Democratic Sen. Annette Taddeo of Miami, a supporter of Biden. “As if 2020 couldn’t be worse for Floridians.”
Democrats working to defeat Trump are, on the one hand, stunned by the president’s weak position in multiple public polls, but on the other hand they predict that the race will adjust significantly before Election Day.
While Trump may be fighting three months before Election Day, his campaign points to its organizational advantages and suggests that the outlook for the pandemic is improving. Trump has already set aside $ 36 million in fall advertising in Florida alone, which is by far his largest ad investment in any general election battleground state.
Nick Trainer, the campaign’s director of battlefield strategy, predicted that the coronavirus situation would become an asset to Trump’s reelection.
“President Trump’s leadership on the coronavirus has put us in a strong position to protect vulnerable Americans and rebuild our economy,” he said. “Where we are today is not where we will be in November.”
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Villages reported from New York. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Alexandria Jaffe in Washington and Aamer Madhani in Chicago contributed to this report.
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