First blood to Biden after Kenosha duel leaves Trump trailing with voters
JOE BIDEN appeared to have won the first on-the ground duel of the coronavirus-hit US election after he and Donald Trump both descended on the battleground state of Wisconsin and riot-hit city of Kenosha.
For the first time both candidates travelled to the same place this week, visiting the flashpoint where riots erupted after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man, seven times in the back.
A tracking poll completed this week showed Mr Biden leading by 10 points in Wisconsin, up from just three points in the same poll before Mr Blake was shot on Aug 23.
It was a rare venture on to the campaign trail by the Democrat nominee, who has largely remained in his home state of Delaware conducting virtual events. His first campaign visit to the Midwest came with only two months to go until the election, and lit the touchpaper for what will be a bruising fight in Wisconsin.
Mr Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016. It had voted Democrat since 1984.
For months some Republicans have privately anticipated relinquishing it this time, but Mr Trump has refused to give it up. On his campaign stop, two days before Mr Biden, he accused the rioters of “domestic terror” and Democrats of being weak.
“Trump stood right where you’re standing and I believe he felt it. He felt our pain,” Scott Carpenter, 51, told The Sunday Telegraph, amid the charred remains of desks and filing cabinets in what used to be B&L Office Furniture, his shop. “Trump sees his country is bleeding and he wants to help. He’s a real person. He’s a businessman. I could see he knows what it’s like to build your business from the ground up like our family did,” said Mr Carpenter.
“Biden? I never heard from him. I’d like to. I don’t know if he even reached out to any business owners while he was here.”
But less than a mile across town Elizabeth Webb, 42, a black single mother, whose 20-year-old son witnessed the Jacob Blake shooting, said: “I think Trump was a joke. He should have stayed his ass – excuse me – at home.
“Why come here to witness what your hatred has done?”
One small business owner was more at a loss than ever which to vote for.
He backed Mr Trump four years ago but felt the Republican had “failed” in office. “Biden’s an old guy who’s just going to sit there,” he said. “I’m scratching my head again. They both suck.”