U.S. President Donald Trump arrives aboard Air Force One at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 27, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
October 28, 2020
By Jeff Mason and Ernest Scheyder
LAS VEGAS/WILMINGTON (Reuters) – With less than a week of voting left, President Donald Trump pushed ahead on Wednesday with mass rallies despite a U.S. surge in COVID-19 cases and mounting criticism that he is prioritizing his re-election above the health of his supporters.
The pandemic that has upended life across the United States this year, killing more than 227,000 people, is roaring back in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 contest when Republican Trump faces Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, which also show a public increasingly dismayed by Trump’s handling of the largest public health crisis in U.S. living memory. Polls in battleground states that might decide the election are tighter.
The former vice president will receive a briefing from public health experts and deliver a speech near his home in Delaware on his plans to combat COVID-19 and protect Americans with pre-existing health conditions.
As infection rates rise, Trump again accused the news media of pushing the story to hurt him.
“Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th, when the Election will be (hopefully!) over,” the president wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Trump’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence, will campaign on Wednesday in Wisconsin, where a record number of coronavirus cases has prompted the Democratic governor to urge people to stay at home.
Wisconsin broke one-day state records in cases and deaths on Tuesday. State officials have asked residents to quarantine voluntarily when possible, wear masks and cancel social gatherings with more than five people.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat it – we are facing an urgent crisis and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members, your friends, your neighbors, and the people you care about,” Governor Tony Evers said. “Stay home, Wisconsin.”
The Trump campaign is taking all necessary precautions at the event in Mosinee, campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley told CNN.
Asked whether holding a big rally raised safety concerns given that aides to Pence have tested positive and Wisconsin hospitals are near capacity, Gidley said: “No, it doesn’t … The vice president has the best doctors in the world around him. They’ve obviously contact traced and come to the conclusion it’s fine for him to be out on the campaign trail.”
Reuters/Ipsos polling from Oct. 20-26 shows Biden with a solid lead over Trump, 53%-44%, in Wisconsin, which as a battleground state could help decide the election.
After racing across Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska on Tuesday and staying overnight in Las Vegas, Trump was due to hold airport rallies in Bullhead City, Arizona, and Goodyear, outside Phoenix, Arizona’s biggest city.
ELEVEN RALLIES IN 48 HOURS
A Trump campaign official said Trump plans to visit 10 states in the last week of the campaign and will host 11 rallies in the final 48 hours.
A pro-Biden group, Priorities USA Action, said its recent polling in six battleground states found that when people were told Trump was holding large rallies without mask-wearing requirements, most disapproved.
“He is actually hurting himself by traveling around the country holding these rallies,” said Guy Cecil, who leads the group, a top Democratic super PAC.
After Trump’s rally in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday night, hundreds of supporters were stuck in the cold for up to three hours waiting for campaign shuttle buses to take them back to their cars, local media reported.
“Supporters of the President were brought in, but buses weren’t able to get back to transport people out. It’s freezing and snowy in Omaha tonight,” Megan Hunt, Democratic state senator in Omaha, wrote on Twitter.
The Trump campaign said the problems were due to the unexpectedly large crowds who showed up. “We always strive to provide the best guest experience at our events and we care about their safety,” said Samantha Zager, deputy national press secretary.
EARLY VOTING SURGES
More than 73 million people have cast early in-person and mail ballots, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida. That is a record-setting pace and more than 53% of the total 2016 turnout.
The huge volume of mail ballots – more than 48 million have already been cast – could take days or weeks to tally, experts say, meaning a winner might not be declared the night of Nov. 3, when polls close.
Only eight of the 50 states expect to have as many as 98% of ballots counted and publicly reported by midday on the day after the election, according to a New York Times survey of election officials.
The surge in early voting has unexpectedly put Texas into play, a state that has not voted for a Democratic nominee for president since 1976.
As of Wednesday, more than 8 million Texans had cast ballots, more than 90% of the entire 2016 vote – a higher percentage than any state in the country, according to the U.S. Elections Project. Polls show Biden is leading with those early voters.
Biden has made what he calls Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic his principle theme in the closing weeks of the campaign, including criticisms that Trump played down the threat, failed to listen to his health experts and never developed a plan to contain it. Polls show Americans trust Biden more than Trump to contain the virus.
Health experts believe the number of cases is surging because of private social gatherings, colder temperatures driving people inside, and Americans’ fatigue with COVID-19 restrictions in place for up to seven months.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Las Vegas, Eric Scheyder in Wilmington, Delaware, Doina Chiacu and Jason Lange in Washington, Brad Brooks in Houston, Joseph Ax in Princeton, Costas Pitas in London; Writing by John Whitesides and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
