US president votes for ‘a guy named Trump’
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump cast his vote in person in his adopted home of Florida on Saturday before heading out to address three rallies in battleground states, seeking to build momentum before polling closes on November 3.
Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate who on Friday promised free Covid-19 vaccines for all Americans if he becomes US president, will address two rallies in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that could decide the course of the 2020 White House race. He will be joined by musician Bon Jon Jovi at one of the rallies.
“I voted for a guy named Trump,” the US president jokingly told reporters when asked who be voted for at a polling station in West Palm Beach. “We’re going to make three stops today, big ones, big rallies, three big ones… I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this, tremendous spirit.”
More than 54 million Ameri
cans have already cast their ballots either through early in-person voting or mail.
Trump’s first rally of the day was in Fayetteville in North Carolina, a battleground state that he had won in 2016, but where he is now trailing Biden by 1.5 percentage point in the RealClearpolitics average of polls.
His next stops were Colum
bus, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin - states that he had won in 2016. But he now trails Biden in Wisconsin by 4.6 points, and in Ohio, which he had won by 8.1% then, Trump now leads by just 0.6 points.
At his rallies, the US president has sought to build a momentum using talking points from the last presidential debate to play on what he believes are Biden’s vulnerabilities - shifting positions on fossil fuel and fracking, for instance, and social security funding.
“That could be one of the biggest mistakes made in presidential debate history,” Trump said about Biden’s remarks at the debate on transitioning from oil.
Biden had said that “the oil industry pollutes, significantly... It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time”.
Biden kept his focus on his key case against Trump - his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Last night, we saw the president of the United States lie to the American people - repeatedly - about the state of this pandemic,” Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, referring to the final debate.