President Donald Trump is intensifying an already-breakneck travel schedule in the final full week of the presidential campaign, while Democrat Joe Biden is also picking up his travel schedule.
Trump is expected to hit nearly a dozen states in his last-ditch effort to recover ground from Biden, including a Tuesday trip to Nebraska. He will hold 11 rallies in the final 48 hours alone.
On Monday, Trump released a campaign video ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Biden is aiming to hit the six battleground states the campaign sees as key to his chances, some with socially distanced in-person events and others with virtual events. On Tuesday, the former vice president is traveling to Georgia, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in more than a quarter-century but where polls show a tight race.
Over the weekend, the White House became the focus for a second outbreak of the virus in a month. Several close aides to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for the virus, 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” of his adviser, claiming the privileges of being an “essential employee.”
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said “we’re not going to control the pandemic,” and the focus should be on containment and treatment. Trump aims to pack thousands of people, most without face coverings, across some of the upper Midwestern states bearing the brunt of the surge.
“We want normal life to resume,” Trump said Sunday. “We just want normal life.”
Meadows, pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.” He told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the government was focused on getting effective therapeutics and vaccines to market.
Biden, in a statement, said Meadows' comments continued with the Trump administration waving “the white flag of defeat” in the face of the virus.
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 Biden’s recent debate-stage comment in which he affirmed he’d transition away from oil, later walked back as a transition away from federal subsidies.
“You can certainly expect that (Biden) will focus on COVID as it continues to, unfortunately, rise all across the country,” Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in an interview. “It is disrupting people’s lives, and people are looking for a leader to put in place plans to get it under control.”
With more than one-third of the expected ballots in the election already cast, it may become increasingly challenging for Trump and Biden to reshape the contours of the race. Biden is leading Trump in most national polls and has a narrowing advantage in many key battlegrounds.
Biden is also sitting on more campaign cash than Trump and is putting it to use, blanketing airwaves with a nearly 2-to-1 advantage during the final days. The incessant campaign ads from Biden feature a mix of his aspirational message with stinging critiques of Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Biden’s campaign will focus in the final week on turning out what they’ve dubbed the “Biden coalition” — Black and Latino voters, as well as suburban, college-educated whites, women and older voters disaffected by Trump.
Biden’s campaign has emphasized the need for Democrats to stay engaged even as the polls seem to favor their candidate. In a recent memo, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said that “in a number of critical states we are functionally tied” and warned supporters that “every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire.”
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