Surging pandemic colors race as election looms
Trump and Biden address crisis with different visions
LUMBERTON, N.C. — President Donald Trump assured supporters packed shoulder to shoulder Saturday that “we’re rounding the turn” and mocked challenger Joe Biden for raising alarms about the pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden bemoaned to a smaller gathering the need to campaign at a distance but said he understood the public health reasons behind it.
With coronavirus infections reaching their highest peak of the pandemic just as the election headed into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took starkly different approaches to the public health crisis inappealing for votes in battleground states.
“We don’t want to become superspreaders,” Biden told supporters at a “drive-in” rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, picking up a term that has been used to describe the Rose Garden event in late September in which Trump announced his Supreme Court nominee. More than two dozen people linked to the White House have contracted COVID-19 since that gathering.
In Lumberton, North Carolina, Trump sarcastically called Biden “an inspiring guy” for raising alarm about the pandemic. The president said that he watched Biden’s Bucks County rally as he flew to North Carolina and caustically observed that it appeared attendees, whowere in their cars, weren’t properly socially distancing.
“You know why we have cases?” Trump said. ”‘Cause we test so much. And in manyways, it’s good. And in many ways, it’s foolish. In many ways, OK? In many ways it’s very foolish.”
Trump continued to criticize Biden for saying during Thursday’s debate that the country was headed for a “dark winter” because of the pandemic — the scenario of a surge in infections that health experts warned about for months. Nearly 224,000 people in the United States have died and more than 83,000 infections were reported on Friday alone, a record.
“We’re rounding the turn; our numbers are incredible,” Trump said.
The president has repeatedly accused Biden and other Democrats of pushing measures that are worse than the coronavirus itself by advocating for social distancing and limits on gatherings that Trump says wreak havoc on the economy.
Biden, in an interview with Pod Save America aired Saturday, said his first priority is to “get control of the virus” because the economy can’t move forward without stemming the disease.
“As I said before, I will shut down the virus, not the economy,” Biden said in Bucks County. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time, and build back better than before.”
Trump, whospent Friday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort after campaigning in Florida, visited an early voting polling site set up at a public library to cast his own ballot Saturday morning. The president last year switched his official residence fromNewYork to his private Florida club, complaining that New York politicians had treated him badly.
Greeted at the polling site by a crowd of cheering supporters, Trump opted to vote in person rather than mail in his ballot. Hewore a mask inside, following local rules to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. He later said that he voted for “a guy named Trump.”
Biden hasn’t voted but is likely to do so in person on Election Day, Nov. 3, as Delaware doesn’t offer early voting. Trump, who has made unsubstantiated claims of massive fraud about mail-in voting, gave another plug to in-person voting.
“When you send in your ballot it could never be like that. It could never be secure like that,” Trump said.
The rise in coronavirus cases is an ominous sign the disease still has a firm grip on the nation that has more confirmed virus-related deaths and infections than any other in the world. Many states say hospitals are running out of space in areas where the pandemic seemed remote only months ago.
Biden’s focus on Pennsylvania again highlights the state’s central place in the
election. Bucks County is part of suburban Philadelphia that Democrat Hillary Clinton won by a slim margin in the2016WhiteHouse race. Biden hosted another rally later Saturday in Luzerne County, a blue-collar
area that twice voted for Barack Obama but went overwhelmingly for Trump four years ago.
Biden was joined by rock star JonBon Jovi, a native of neighboring New Jersey who as a child spent summers
in Erie, Pennsylvania. He performed three songs at the Luzerne event.
More than 54 million votes have already been cast, with an additional 100 million or so expected before a winner is declared.