Biden, Trump to canvass Florida in nail-biter race
With another poll showing a nail-biter of a homestretch run in the presidential race in Florida, President Donald Trump and rival Joe Biden are expected to make another series of campaign stops in the state this week.
Biden will campaign in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County as well as Tampa on Thursday, the second visit to both locations in the past month.
Trump is also expected in the state this week, but no details were released. He was last in Florida last week for rallies in The Villages and Pensacola on Friday before casting his vote Saturday in West Palm Beach.
The added campaign stops come as another poll shows Florida and its potentially decisive haul of 29 electoral votes up for grabs. The poll of likely Florida voters released Tuesday by the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative shows Biden holding a 50% to 48% lead over Trump.
The survey shows a closer race than what the team’s pollsters found earlier this month, when Biden held a 51%-47% lead.
“It’s close, it’s been close and it continues to be close,” said Kevin Wagner, a professor of political science at FAU and a research fellow of the Initiative.
Floridians have braved long lines and rainstorms to be heard at the ballot box in unprecedented early voting and absentee numbers.
By Tuesday morning, 2.68 million Democrats, 2.38 million Republicans and 1.27 million voters not affiliated with a party have cast votes either by mail or in person at an early voting site.
Democratic voters still top Republican voters by just over 302,000 ballots. A week ago, Democrats led by 481,892 on the strength of higher mail-in ballot returns.
More than 6.4 million ballots have been cast in Florida before Election Day, a stunning increase from previous years. There are still millions of eligible voters in the state who have yet to cast their votes. More than 2 million Floridians who requested a ballot by mail have yet to return them.
Advocacy groups are asking voters to act quickly. A coalition of public health organizations said Tuesday it was spending $2.2 million in digital ad buys in Florida and seven other states to reach as many as 100 million people before Nov. 3.
The non-partisan coalition We Can Vote also runs the healthyvoting.org website, offering tips on how to successfully and safely cast ballots. This year’s election, despite the many challenges, offers voters “more ways to safely and securely” cast a vote than ever before, said We Can Vote senior adviser Jessica Barba Brown.
Brown said the coalition’s website offers advice on ways to vote in a socially distanced manner, as well as tips on best practices for voting by mail.
She said it’s critical that voters read all the instructions on the ballot, sign where signatures are needed and properly seal the envelope.
“There are some instructions they need to pay attention to,” Brown said. “We’re really encouraging folks to look carefully at all of the instructions on the ballot. Make sure it’s filled out correctly and your ballot will be counted.”