11/2/2020 In sprint to the finish, Donald Trump and Joe Biden set up showdown in Pennsylvania - World News , Firstpost
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In sprint to the nish, Donald
Trump and Joe Biden set up
showdown in Pennsylvania
Trump’s lagging position in the race was evident in his gruelling travel schedule that had
him shoring up votes in ve states he won four years ago — Michigan, Iowa, North
Carolina, Georgia and Florida
The New York Times November 02, 2020 07:45:02 IST
A child holds up a campaign sign during a drive-in campaign event for Joe Biden in Philadelphia. By Erin Schaff ©
2020 The New York Times
Philadelphia: As the national early vote climbs past a staggering 93 million and
challenges to the electoral process intensify across states, President Donald Trump and
Joe Biden are barrelling into Pennsylvania and turning it into the top battleground in
Tuesday’s election, with Democrats ooding in with door-knockers and Republicans
trying to parlay Trump’s rallies into big turnout once again.
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11/2/2020 In sprint to the finish, Donald Trump and Joe Biden set up showdown in Pennsylvania - World News , Firstpost
Both campaigns see Pennsylvania as increasingly crucial to victory: Trump now appears
more competitive here than in Michigan and Wisconsin, two other key northern states
he hopes to win, and Biden’s clearest electoral path to the White House runs through the
state. Pennsylvania has more Electoral College votes, 20, than any other traditional
battleground except Florida, and Trump won the state by less than one percentage point
in 2016.
Trump devoted Saturday to four rallies across the state, and he and Biden planned
campaign events for the nal 48 hours of the race as well, with a wave of prominent
Democrats and celebrities slated to arrive. On Monday the president was set to make an
appeal to white, working-class voters in Scranton, where Biden was born, while the
Democratic nominee was aiming to solidify a broad coalition of white suburbanites and
voters of colour on a two-day swing through Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and elsewhere in
western Pennsylvania.
Biden is ahead with a modest margin in recent polls, and is trying to cut into the
president’s turnout in rural counties. But Trump’s rallies have energized many
Republican voters, and his team is already preparing legal challenges over the vote if it
ends up being close.
In Pennsylvania in particular, the possibility of extended court battles and confusion
hangs over the race, with the state Republican Party hoping the Supreme Court will
reconsider its decision last week to allow the state to continue receiving absentee
ballots for three days after Election Day.
Read also: Pennsylvania fact-sheet
“Every day is a new reminder of how high the stakes are, how far the other side will go to
try to suppress the turnout,” Biden said as he campaigned here Sunday. “Especially here
in Philadelphia. Trump is terri ed of what will happen in Pennsylvania.”
Court battles have already rearranged the voting process across an array of states and
continued to do so on Sunday. The Texas Supreme Court denied an e ort by Republicans
to throw out more than 120,000 votes that had been cast at drive-through locations in
Harris County, an increasingly Democratic area anchored in Houston. Republicans are
now hoping for a favourable ruling at the federal level, where a judge has called an
election-eve hearing for Monday.
Some Trump supporters also turned disruptive on Sunday: Vehicles bearing Trump ags
halted tra c on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey; local o cials said the
motorcade backed up tra c for several miles. In Georgia, a rally for Democrats that had
been scheduled was cancelled, with organisers citing worries over what they feared was
a “large militia presence” drawn by Trump’s own event nearby.
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11/2/2020 In sprint to the finish, Donald Trump and Joe Biden set up showdown in Pennsylvania - World News , Firstpost
Throughout his nal sprint of rallies, Trump has moved to baselessly sow doubt about
the integrity of the electoral process. At an appearance in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday,
Trump claimed, inaccurately, that the result of the election was always determined on
Election Day. “We should know the result of the election on 3 November,” he said. “The
evening of 3 November. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it should be. What’s
going on in this country?”
Biden countered with his own warning later Sunday, saying, “The president is not going
to steal this election.”
Trump’s lagging position in the race was evident in his gruelling travel schedule that had
him shoring up votes in ve states he won four years ago — Michigan, Iowa, North
Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
His nal rally of the day was scheduled for 11 pm, and risked violating a midnight curfew
in Miami-Dade County.
Biden, by contrast, set his sights squarely on Pennsylvania on Sunday, an approach he
will repeat again Monday, along with a foray into Ohio, a state Trump won handily in
2016 but that polls show could be more competitive now.
The Biden campaign was intensifying its push in Pennsylvania, encouraging supporters
from out of state to join canvassing e orts that for months it had sworn o because of
the health risks. The campaign said that volunteers had knocked on more than 350,000
doors on Saturday, and made 2 million calls and sent 1.5 million text messages to voters
in the state.
Compared with other swing states, such as Florida, far fewer early ballots have already
been cast in Pennsylvania and, according to the US Elections Project, as of Sunday there
were more than 350,000 absentee ballots that had been requested by Democratic voters
that had yet to be returned. The Biden campaign is focused on the fact that a large share
of the electorate here is still expected to vote on Election Day, an adviser said.
The nal sprint of the race came against a di erent
backdrop than in previous elections, with fewer
voters left to motivate.
The record number of early votes underscored the intense interest in one of the most
consequential elections in modern history, despite the logistical challenges of voting
amid a pandemic.
Biden spent Sunday afternoon with Black voters at a drive-in “Souls to the Polls” event
at a Philadelphia church. His outreach came as Democrats have worried about his ability
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11/2/2020 In sprint to the finish, Donald Trump and Joe Biden set up showdown in Pennsylvania - World News , Firstpost
to su ciently energize and turn out Black and Latino Democratic voters in some states.
He addressed another drive-in rally in the city Sunday evening, reminding voters of
their in uence over the outcome.
Trump, for his part, made his own pitch to Black voters while campaigning in Hickory,
North Carolina. “To every Black American, I am asking you to vote on Tuesday,” he said,
projecting con dence about his own standing with Black voters.
Biden’s Philadelphia events kicked o a last push through the state over the nal two
days. On Monday, Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris and their spouses are expected to campaign
in ve media markets, hoping to cement support across a sprawling coalition and to
keep Trump’s margins down in parts of western Pennsylvania that propelled him to
victory in 2016.
“My message is simple,” Biden said Sunday. “Pennsylvania is critical in this election.”
Democrats are well aware of how devoted Trump’s core base remains. In Macomb
County in Michigan, where the president held his rst rally Sunday, Irwin Patterson was
selling Trump merchandise at a makeshift roadside store.
“In Michigan here, just our little part of Michigan, the support that we see here is just
insane,” he said, as windblown snow pelted his customers. “I mean, for the last month
and a half, it’s just been o the hook.”
Still, Trump had work to do all over the country shoring up his support in states he won
four years ago. In Michigan, Trump complained repeatedly about the freezing
temperature and biting wind he said was pointed “directly” at his face while making
false claims about resuscitating the auto industry there. He also embraced the actions of
some of his supporters in Texas who had surrounded a Biden campaign bus with their
vehicles on Saturday, in an apparent attempt to slow it down and run it o the road.
Trump claimed the vehicles were “protecting his bus, yesterday, because they are nice.”
Of the three big Northern swing states Trump won by a hair four years ago, the once
reliably blue state of Pennsylvania is the one his advisers believe is most likely within his
reach. That’s in large part because of the support of rural voters and Biden’s call for
eventually phasing out fossil fuels, an unpopular stance for many voters in a state with a
large natural gas industry.
Trump entered the nal hours of the race in a worse position here than he was four
years ago, when Pennsylvania was seen as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rewall. This time,
Biden has a lead of six points there, according to a new New York Times/Siena College
poll released Sunday, and is working to create multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes.
That lead, however, isn’t enough to make Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans feel
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11/2/2020
, , In sprint to the finish, Donald Trump and Joe Biden set up showdown in Pennsylvania - World News , Firstpost
g p p
fully con dent about the state of the race in Pennsylvania. Some of the president’s
opponents in recent days have been worried about turnout in the state's rural counties,
as well as calls about requested ballots that never arrived.
The Trump campaign ads running in Pennsylvania have been overwhelmingly centred
on economic messages, mainly jobs and taxes. The campaign’s most aired ad in
Pennsylvania over the past week has been a negative ad claiming Biden will raise taxes
(he has said he will raise taxes for those making over $400,000).
But the Biden campaign has not ceded the subject to the president, with 14 di erent ads
on air that touch on jobs and the economy. Its most aired ad in Pennsylvania over the
past week featured a Biden speech outlining his plans for pandemic recovery, including
jobs. Another ad directly rebuts the Trump campaign’s attacks on his tax plan.
Pennsylvania’s economy is emerging from the
pandemic recession but still has a long road ahead
to its pre-crisis state. Like the nation, it has seen a
two-track recovery that has left small businesses
and low-earning workers behind.
Pennsylvania saw its unemployment rate fall to 8.1 percent in September, according to
the Labour Department, nearly identical to the national rate of 7.9 percent. That is a
signi cant improvement from the 16.1 percent unemployment it posted in April. But the
state still had 380,000 fewer jobs in September than it did in September of 2019, and
there are 18 percent fewer small businesses open here compared to a year ago, according
to data compiled by the economists at Opportunity Insights.
Pennsylvania has long loomed large in the psyche of the Biden campaign. Biden, a
Scranton native, gave his rst speech of his presidential campaign in Pittsburgh, and he
chose Philadelphia for his campaign headquarters, before the pandemic hit.
“That blue wall has to be reestablished,” Biden said in another recent Pennsylvania
campaign appearance. He said that winning the state meant a “great deal to me,
personally as well as politically.”
Katie Glueck and Annie Karni c.2020 The New York Times Company
Updated Date: November 02, 2020 07:45:02 IST
TAGS: Democratic Party Donald Trump Election Day Joe Biden Newstracker
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