Candidates court must-win states
Trump aims to shore up South as Biden starts Michigan swing to hit the Midwest
Facing financial strains, President Donald Trump went after his opponent’s family and defended his own struggle to contain the pandemic on Friday as he fought to energize his sagging reelection bid in the nation’s Sunbelt. With Election Day looming, Democrat Joe Biden pushed to keep voters focused on health care in the Midwest.
Trump was campaigning in Florida and Georgia, neighboring states he carried four years ago and must win again to extend his presidency.
The president’s decision to devote Friday evening’s prime-time slot to a rally Georgia in particular highlighted the serious nature of the challenge he is facing in the 2020 contest’s closing days: Far from his campaign’s original plan to expand into Democratic-leaning states, he is laboring to stave off a defeat of major proportions.
No Republican presidential candidate has lost Georgia since President George H.W. Bush in 1992. And earlier this week, Trump had to court voters in Iowa, a state he carried by almost 10 points four years ago.
In Florida on Friday, the president derided the Bidens as “an organized crime family,” renewing his daily claims about the candidate’s son, Hunter, and his business dealings in Ukraine and China.
Addressing a campaign rally in Ocala, Trump reminded thousands of supporters that “I live here, too.” He recently switched his legal residence from New York.
The president noted that early voting in Florida starts Monday. He says in 18 days “we’re going to win the state of Florida. We’re going to win the White House.” Trump won Florida in 2016.
Trump, who also stopped earli-
er in Fort Myers, predicted a “red wave” of Republican voting, “the likes of which they’ve never seen before.”
More to the point for Trump’s Florida audience, he spoke directly to seniors who appear to have increasingly soured on his handling of the pandemic.
“I am moving heaven and earth to safeguard our seniors from the China virus,” Trump said, using his usual offensive term to describe the coronavirus. He also offered an optimistic assessment of the pandemic, even as a surge of new infections spread across America.
“We are prevailing,” the president said, promising to deliver the first doses of a vaccine to seniors when it’s ready.
Despite the self-affirming talk, Trump’s actions on the ground in Florida underscored the conflicting messages his administration has sent throughout the pandemic. All of the president’s security personnel and support staff were wearing face masks when Air Force One touched down, but Trump and Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis were bare faced.
Many people in the crowds gathered at the president’s subsequent events were without masks as well.
It was just the opposite as Bid
en opened his Michigan swing at a suburban Detroit community center.
In keeping with his usual protocols, Biden and all of the participants wore masks throughout the event, except when they were speaking, and a small crowd of dozens of reporters and supporters watched from folding chairs separated by circles to ensure social distancing.
“He’s living in a dream world,” Biden said of Trump’s rosy predictions of the pandemic. The former vice president then turned to the Trump administration’s court fight to overturn the “Oba
macare” health coverage law — including its protection for people with pre-existing conditions — without producing a replacement plan.
“Mishandling the pandemic isn’t enough for Trump,” Biden charged. “On top of that he’s still trying to take away your health care.”
The president was seeking momentum on the campaign trail a day after he and Biden squared off in dueling televised town halls that showcased striking differences in temperament, views on racial justice and approaches to the pandemic, which has claimed
more than 218,000 lives in the
United States.
On Friday in Michigan, Biden denounced the White House’s handling of the virus, declaring that Trump’s administration was at fault for closing a pandemic response office established by the Obama administration in which he served.
“It’s getting worse, as predicted,” Biden said in Michigan of the rising coronavirus numbers. “The president knew and lied about knowing.”
While decidedly on the defensive on the ground in key states, Trump released a scathing new ad
on Friday attacking Biden’s record on race. Specifically, the ad seizes on Biden’s support for a criminal justice law that disproportionately punished people of color.
“He insulted us, jailed us, we must not elect him president,” the narrator declares.
It’s unclear whether the attack ad will break through the saturated airwaves.
Biden and his allies are outspending Trump and his allies on paid advertising more than 2-1 through Election Day, according to the advertising tracking firm Kantar/CMAG.