File photo: Trump and Biden. Photograph:( AFP )
On Friday the two candidates carried their battle to the American Midwest, barnstorming three heartland states each as they chased every last
vote in a region that propelled the Republican to victory in 2016
As the last weekend before the US Presidential Election 2020 started, US President Donald Trump and his Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden were barrelling through crucial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday.
In Michigan, Joe Biden will be joined on stage by former US President Barack Obama. They will hold drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit. Stevie Wonder, who is a Detroit native, is expected to be the musical guest there.
In the 2016 US Presidential Election, Donald Trump had won Michigan with a narrow margin of 0.2 points. However, he is trailing Joe Biden by nearly 7 points in polls, as per Real Clear Politics average of polls. Michigan has 16 electoral votes.
For the past week, Obama has put his popularity at the service of his former vice president, hosting several rallies at which he repeatedly slammed Trump's response to the pandemic, notably in the crucially important states of Florida and Pennsylvania.
Trump, however, has dismissed Obama's rallies as much smaller than his own. Trump will go to Pennsylvania on Saturday.
He won Pennsylvania, where Biden was born, by a razor-thin margin against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Every ballot will therefore count on
November 3 if he hopes to claim its 20 electoral votes once more.
Biden will follow suit there both Sunday and Monday in a clear sign that his campaign also sees the Keystone State as absolutely crucial to victory.
The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw and polarization so pronounced that gun sales have surged in some areas and law enforcement agencies have made contingency plans for possible violence.
Chasing every vote
On Friday the two candidates carried their battle to the American Midwest, barnstorming three heartland states each as they chased every last
vote in a region that propelled the Republican to victory in 2016.
The race has been overshadowed by the pandemic, with infections spiking across the country. Morethan 94,000 new infections were recorded
Friday -- a new high for the second day running -- and total cases passed nine million.
Nevertheless, Trump, who has long said the virus will "disappear," remained defiant at rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"We just want normal," he told supporters -- many of them unmasked -- at an outdoor rally near Detroit as he pushed states to relax public health
restrictions and resume daily life.
He again downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, saying, "If you get it, you're going to get better, and then you're going to be immune."
The virus has killed nearly 230,000 Americans.
US hospitals are bracing as infections soar in nearly every state, with winter flu season looming.
The outbreak has ravaged the economy,and while there have been signs of recovery, millions remain jobless.
Trump has touted the economic successes of his presidency, including positive GDP figures Thursday. But US stocks closed out their worst week
since March, highlighting concerns about a shaky recovery.
'Turn Texas blue?'
After a campaign largely muted by the pandemic, Biden is on the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like
Texas,a large, traditionally conservative bastion now rated a toss-up by multiple analysts.
On Friday, the state reported that a staggering nine million residents had already voted, surpassing its 2016 total.
Biden's running mate Kamala Harris visited Texas Friday in a bid to turn the state Democratic for the first timesinceJimmyCarter won therein
1976.
A Biden victory there would be a major blow to Trump, but the president dismissed the notion, saying: "Texas, we're doing very well."
Biden also stumped Friday in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, where he sharpened his attacks on the president on everything from Trump seeking to dismantle Obama-era health care protections and keeping his taxes secret to climate change and trade policy with China.
"We cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump," the Democrat said at a socially distanced drive-in rally in St. Paul, Minnesota.
"So honk your horn if you want America to lead again!" he said, embracing the awkward pandemic-campaign trend of rallying supporters in
their vehicles.
(With Reuters inputs)