Candidates ramp up campaigns

NEW YORK: US presidential rivals Donald Trump and Joe Biden will court early voters today as their campaigns step up ahead of their final debate this week.

Trump will head to Nevada, a battleground state where more than 100,000 voters have already cast ballots, according to state data.

Trump would campaign every day leading up to Friday’s debate in Florida, including stops in Arizona and North Carolina, campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.

Biden heads to North Carolina, where 1.2 million voters have cast their ballots, according to state data. Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris, will return to the campaign trail tomorrow with a visit to Florida to mark that state's first day of early, inperson voting.

Already 25.83 million people have cast a ballot in the November 3 presidential election, according to the US Elections Project, shattering records. Much early voting is due to safety concerns about the pandemic that has killed more than 218,000 Americans.

At a rally in Muskegeon, Michigan, yesterday Trump targeted Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, several times. He blasted state rules to stop the spread of coronavirus, called her ‘‘dishonest’’ and made light of a rightwing plot uncovered by the FBI to kidnap her. — Reuters

PHOTO: REUTERS All lined up . . . Voters wait to cast their ballots in a queue wrapping around Fenway Park on the first day of early voting in Boston, Massachusetts,yesterday.