Trump, Biden hit battleground Pennsylvania amid pandemic
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe
Biden zeroed in on the critical battleground of Pennsylvania on Monday,
demonstrating starkly different approaches to rallying voters just
eight days before polls close during the worst public health crisis in a
century.
Trump drew thousands of largely mask-less supporters as
he began a final-week charge through nearly a dozen states ahead of the
election. Biden, taking a more cautious approach in effort to show that
he’s taking the pandemic seriously, greeted a few dozen supporters
outside a Chester, Pennsylvania, campaign field office.
“Bottom
line is Donald Trump is the worst possible person to lead us through
this pandemic,” Biden said as he sharpened his closing message into an
indictment of Trump’s handling of the virus. Trump, meanwhile, stoked
fears about Biden’s plans to address the outbreak.
“It’s a choice
between a Trump boom or a Biden lockdown,” Trump claimed at a rally in
Allentown, focusing on the economy and the possibility of lost jobs.
Trump
returned to the White House to celebrate the confirmation of Supreme
Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett Monday evening. Trump has sought to use
the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last
month to animate conservative evangelical and Catholic voters to his
candidacy, but the high court fight has been overshadowed by virus
concerns.
In Pennsylvania, Trump also touted the appointment of
another conservative justice as potentially giving him an edge in
election-related litigation surrounding a surge in absentee and mail
ballots due to the pandemic.
For each candidate, the differing campaign approaches carry risks.
For
Trump, the full-speed-ahead strategy could spread the virus in places
that are already setting new records and leave him appearing aloof to
the consequences. And if Biden comes up short in the election, his
lower-key travel schedule will surely come under scrutiny as a missed
opportunity.
Trump’s campaign schedule suggested he’s on the
defensive in Pennsylvania, viewed by his aides as critical to his path
to 270 electoral votes. Biden, meanwhile, is demonstrating more
confidence with signals that he’s hoping to expand his campaign map.
In
the closing days Biden plans to visit Georgia, a state that hasn’t
voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, and Iowa,
which Trump carried by more than 9 percentage points in 2016. He’s
dispatching his running mate, Kamala Harris, later this week to Texas,
which hasn’t backed a Democrat for the White House since Jimmy Carter in
1976.
With more than a third of the expected ballots in the
election already cast, it could become increasingly challenging for
Trump and Biden to reshape the contours of the race. But both men are
fighting for any endgame advantage. Biden is leading Trump in most
national polls and has an advantage, though narrower, in many key
battlegrounds.
While the final week of the campaign is colliding
with deepening concerns about the COVID crisis in far-flung parts of the
U.S., Trump is anxious for voters to focus on almost anything else.
He’s worried that he will lose if the election becomes a referendum on
his handling of the pandemic. Biden, meanwhile, is working to ensure the
race is just that, hitting Trump on the virus and presenting himself as
a safer, more stable alternative.
The stakes were clear this past
weekend as the White House became the locus for a second outbreak of
the virus in a month. Several close aides to Vice President Mike Pence
tested positive, including his chief of staff, Marc Short. Pence,
though, was insistent on maintaining his aggressive political calendar,
even though he was deemed a “close contact,” claiming the status of an
“essential employee.”
Pence arrived at a rally in Hibbing,
Minnesota, wearing a mask Monday but removed it as he reached the podium
to speak to a crowd of supporters who were largely not wearing face
coverings or social distancing. Hibbing police confirmed more than 650
people in attendance, exceeding Minnesota health guidelines to restrict
crowds to 250 people.
With Election Day just over a week away,
average deaths per day across the country are up 10% over the past two
weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns
Hopkins University. Confirmed infections per day are rising in 47
states, and deaths are up in 34.
The latest national outbreak has
provided a potent sign of the divergent approaches the Trump and Biden
campaigns have taken to the virus. On Sunday, White House chief of staff
Mark Meadows said that “we’re not going to control the pandemic” and
the focus should be on containment and treatment.
Biden, in a
statement, said Meadows’ comments continued with the Trump
administration waving “the white flag of defeat” in the face of the
virus.
Trump fired back Monday as he arrived in Pennsylvania,
saying Biden, with his concerns about the virus spread, has “waved a
white flag on life.”
He rejected Biden’s comments that the nation
is facing a “dark winter,” saying, “No it’s not going to be a dark
winter. It’s going to be a great winter. It’s going to be a great
spring.”
Biden’s team argues the coronavirus is likely to blot out
any other issues that might come up in the final days of the campaign —
including his recent debate-stage comment in which he affirmed he’d
transition away from oil, later walking that back as a transition away
from federal subsidies. That strategy appeared to pay off as the
outbreak in Pence’s staff refocused the national conversation once again
on the pandemic.
Trump and his team, meanwhile, have struggled
to settle on a closing message, with the undisciplined candidate
increasingly trusting his instincts over his advisers. He’s grasped for
dirt on his Democratic rival and used apocalyptic terms to describe a
Biden presidency, but Biden has thus far proven more resistant to such
attacks than Trump’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.
Anticipating a
razor-thin Electoral College margin, Trump has an aggressive schedule
including a visit Omaha, Nebraska, Tuesday after a Sunday visit to
Maine, aiming to lock up one electoral vote in each of the states that
award them by congressional district. Trump is scheduled hold a dizzying
11 rallies in the final 48 hours before polls close.
Biden is
sitting on more campaign cash than Trump and is putting it to use,
blanketing airwaves with a nearly 2-to-1 advantage over the final two
weeks. The incessant campaign ads feature both upbeat messages and
blistering criticism of Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Democrats
have been heartened by their lead in the record numbers of early votes
that have been cast across a number of battleground states — though they
caution that Republicans are more likely to turn out on Election Day
and certain to make up ground.
Four years ago, Clinton also enjoyed a lead in national and some state polls, and Democrats say their complacency doomed their candidate.
Miller reported from Washington and Jaffe reported from Chester, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Jonathan Lemire in Washington and Mohamed Ibrahim in Hibbing, Minnesota contributed to this report.