on September 29, 2020 US President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic
Presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden
exchange arguments during the first presidential debate at Case
Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
The presidential debate between Democratic Presidential candidate
and former US Vice President Joe Biden and US President Donald
Trump scheduled for October 15 has been cancelled by the Commission
on Presidential Debates, US media reported on October 9, 2020.Jim
WATSON / AFP
President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden will
rally voters just hours apart in the Florida city of Tampa on
Thursday, their campaign paths crossing for the first time as the
rivals’ fight for the White House enters its frenetic final
days.
Florida is a must-win prize, and polls show the candidates in a
dead heat in America’s third-largest state, which has sided with
the winner in every presidential election since 1964, with one
exception.
The candidates’ events are sure to be a study in contrasts, with
Trump’s largely mask-less and densely packed supporters gathering
in the afternoon, and Biden holding a socially distanced drive-in
meeting later in the evening.
A day prior, Trump was stumping in Arizona, while Biden voted in
his home state of Delaware and met with health experts, as he
fine-tuned his pandemic response plan, seeking to reassure voters
that he would use science to fight the contagion.
The virus has killed more than 227,000 people in the US and
forced millions out of work in the world’s largest economy as a
resurgent wave of cases was reaching record levels.
“I’m not running on a false promise of being able to end this
pandemic by flipping a switch,” said the 77-year-old former vice
president, who has a strong lead in opinion polls.
“But what I can promise you is this: We’ll start on Day 1 by
doing the right thing. We’ll let science guide our decisions.”
On Saturday, Biden is to get some star power when he is joined
on the stump in Michigan by Barack Obama, whom he served as vice
president.
It will be their first joint in-person appearance of the 2020
race, though Obama has been delivering strategically timed
broadsides at Trump throughout.
Trump, by contrast, is finishing his campaign in an extreme test
of endurance, with a final attempt to catch up both in swing states
and also states that he won in 2016 but now has to defend.
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After rallying supporters in three states Tuesday, Trump, 74,
overnighted in a fourth — Nevada — and then flew to Arizona for two
more rallies.
On an airport tarmac in Bullhead City, Arizona, Trump all but
ignored the Covid-19 crisis, and many supporters did not bother
with masks as they cheered his defiant insistence on a landslide
victory November 3.
“It’s going to be a great, great red wave,” he boomed, referring
to the Republican color.
“We love you! We love you!” the enthusiastic crowd chanted
back.
At another rally, in Goodyear, Arizona, Trump predicted he’d
repeat his 2016 upset, saying: “We’re going to have an even bigger
surprise in six days.”
– Under shadow of Covid – The pandemic has upended all aspects
of American life and overshadowed the election, with polls showing
it may well be the president’s undoing as cases hit record levels
in the US.
With many Americans fearing the risk of voting in crowded
polling stations, a remarkable 74.7 million people have already
cast their ballots.
Some 57.4 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s coronavirus
response, while 39.8 percent approve, according to a poll average
compiled by tracker FiveThirtyEight.com.
Biden has seized on that to build an impressive advantage in
polls heading into the final week and is looking to expand his
state-by-state path to victory.
On Tuesday, Biden visited Georgia, traditionally Republican
territory, and he has said he will travel to Florida, Wisconsin and
Michigan in the race’s closing days.
All are states that Trump won in 2016 but that are up for grabs
this year.
On Wednesday, Trump kept up his scorn for Biden’s focus on
health safety, saying that the Democrat would destroy the country
through more lockdowns.
“If you vote for Biden, it means no kids in school, no
graduation, no Christmas and no Fourth of July together. Other than
that, you’ll have a wonderful life.”
But Trump’s own chief infectious disease specialist, Anthony
Fauci, warned Wednesday that even if a Covid-19 vaccine is released
this year, it will take to “the end of 2021 and perhaps even into
the next year” to reach “some semblances of normality.”
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