Trump ramps up campaign rallies

MIAMI, Florida (AFP) — With exactly two weeks until the election, President Donald Trump was continuing his campaign rally marathon Tuesday with a trip to swing state Pennsylvania, the day after early voting began in another key state, Florida.

Trump and his wife Melania will head to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he will host another of his massive rallies. US media reported that the First Lady will be by her husband’s side at the rally, her first such appearance in more than a year.

Record numbers of Americans have already cast ballots in person or by mail — 30 million, according to one tracker — ahead of the 3 November election, as Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden race from one swing state to another to marshal support.

Nationwide, Biden leads Trump by 8.9 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, and the Democrat has more modest leads in several battleground states.

The First Lady will be by her husband’s side at the rally, her first such appearance in more than a year.

With Biden dispatching his running mate Kamala Harris to Florida to rally voters there, Trump was on a western swing Monday in battleground Arizona, where he won in 2016 but now narrowly trails his rival in statewide polling.

In Tucson, Trump pledged to build the coronavirus-ravaged economy back to pre-pandemic levels, calling the election “a choice between a Trump superrecovery... or a Biden depression.”