Rallies held despite Covid surge
GOODYEAR/WILMINGTON: With less than a week before election day, President Donald Trump held a pair of inperson campaign rallies in Arizona yesterday despite a US surge in Covid19 cases and criticism he is prioritising his reelection above the health of his supporters.
The pandemic that has upended life across the US this year, killing more than 277,670 people and causing millions of job losses, is roaring back in the days leading up to Wednesday’s contest between Republican Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, but polls in battleground states that will likely decide the election are tighter than the national surveys.
At an outdoor rally in Goodyear, Arizona, Trump continued to argue against taking stricter measures against the resurgent virus.
‘‘Biden and the Democrat socialists will delay the vaccine, prolong the pandemic, shutter your schools and shut down our country,’’ Trump told the attendees, who were packed together, with just some wearing masks.
A Trump adviser said the rallies were ‘‘priceless’’ given Biden’s dominance on the advertising airwaves.
The adviser said Trump was typically holding rallies in portions of the country where masks were worn less and people were less concerned about the ill effects of Covid19.
‘‘If you overlay the rallies on a map, you would see they typically run along the same lines of the divide over Covid. So, really, there’s only upside,’’ the adviser said.
Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Centre for Politics, said the rallies could backfire.
‘‘More exposure doesn’t necessarily lead to more votes, and I wonder if some on the fence might be turned off by the total disregard for Covid protocols,’’ Kondik said.
After a briefing from public health officials yesterday, Biden slammed what he called the Trump Administration’s disregard for safety and failure to develop a plan to contain Covid19. Polls show Americans trust Biden more than Trump to contain the virus.
‘‘The longer he’s in charge the more reckless he gets,’’ Biden said, before casting his vote in Wilmington, Delaware. — Reuters