Trump bids to beat poll slump with $5.6bn navy contract
DONALD TRUMP has been forced by plummeting polls to visit must-win states.
The US president found himself on a trip to a rural Wisconsin shipbuilder yesterday with a new navy contract in a bid to shore up support in a key presidential battleground.
Recent polls show him losing ground to former vice-president Joe Biden.
Mr Trump carried Wisconsin by the narrowest of margins in 2016, but it is now among the competitive states with large white working-class populations where Mr Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has built a lead as the nation grapples with the coronavirus outbreak, economic downturn and unrest over racial injustice.
A ‘New York Times’-Sienna College survey showed Mr Biden leading Mr Trump 49pc to 38pc among registered voters. He had a slightly narrower lead, 49pc to 41pc, in a Marquette University Law School Poll released on Wednesday.
Although billed as an official White House event, Mr Trump’s trip to the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette was clearly designed with November in mind, part of a pattern of Mr Trump focusing his travel on states key to his re-election bid.
He was expected to tout a contract worth up to $5.6bn (€5bn) for design and construction of navy warships – a deal that will bolster jobs in a rural part of a state where turnout by conservative voters could be key in the election.
Underscoring the importance of the state to the Trump campaign, Vice President Mike Pence also visited this week, staging an event aimed at evangelical voters, another key demographic for the Republican ticket.
Before Mr Trump’s visit, Mr Biden issued a statement claiming the president is attempting to “paper over the fact that Wisconsin has been bleeding blue-collar manufacturing jobs”. The statement also highlighted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law.
“No one in this country should have to lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling wondering what they will do if their husband or wife has a heart attack or their son or daughter gets cancer,” Mr Biden said. “But if Donald Trump gets his way, many sleepless nights await families in Wisconsin and across this nation.”
New polling in Wisconsin suggests the race has shifted in Mr Biden’s favour in recent months, coinciding with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd – both of which have tested Mr Trump’s leadership.
In Marquette polls, Mr Biden and Mr Trump were tied in February. The Democrat held a three-point margin in surveys conducted in March and May. His lead in the new poll is eight points.
In the 2016 presidential election, Mr Trump unexpectedly won Wisconsin with 47.2pc of the vote, compared to 46.5pc for Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, away from the hustings, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to tear through the US heartland, setting records for hospitalisations and forcing businesses to rethink their plans to reopen as new modelling predicts the virus will kill 180,000 Americans by October.
With the US seeing one of its highest-ever increases in cases on Wednesday, some states took drastic measures, imposing face mask orders and internal quarantines.
The country recorded more than 34,500 new infections for a second day, rattling markets as numbers neared the peak of 36,188 on April 24, when the virus was coursing through
New York. The resurgence, coming just as the regions first hit by the pandemic start to emerge, reflects the pathogen’s inexorable spread in states that were slow to enforce lockdowns or quick to lift them.
Florida and Texas each hit records, with health officials in Houston saying their infrastructure was “overwhelmed”.
In California, which also saw an all-time high for new infections, Disney delayed the reopening of its theme parks indefinitely.