JOHNSTOWN (Pennsylvania) • US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden fanned out to critical battleground states as election campaigning entered a final, intense phase amid record numbers of early votes cast.
At a Pennsylvania rally on Tuesday, Mr Trump blasted Mr Biden on his environmental and energy policies as a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed him losing ground there. Mr Biden, meanwhile, chased the all-important senior vote in Florida as he faulted Mr Trump for his handling of the pandemic.
The Johnstown rally was Mr Trump's second event in two nights as he raced to make up for time lost recovering from Covid-19. He plans to hold rallies the rest of the week as he seeks to close what polls say is a significant gap with Mr Biden nationwide but a tighter one in some battleground states.
Mr Trump is battling the clock. Some 12 million ballots have been cast, over 1.6 million of them in Florida, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, shattering previous records.
The President accused Mr Biden of wanting to ban fracking, the process of extracting gas through hydraulic fracturing, which he said would damage the state's economy.
"One of the most important issues for Pennsylvania is the survival of your fracking industry," Mr Trump told the crowd. "Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged to abolish fracking. He's a liar."
Mr Biden has said he wants to ban new oil and gas production on federal lands, but not ban fracking outright - though his statements on the issue have been confusing.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday showed a seven-point lead for Mr Biden in Pennsylvania, up from five points a week earlier. Mr Trump narrowly won the state in 2016.
Speaking to about 50 people at a community centre in Broward County in South Florida, Mr Biden said Mr Trump had recklessly dismissed the threat that Covid-19 had posed to their at-risk population.
"To Donald Trump, you're expendable. You're forgettable," Mr Biden said. "You're virtually nobody. That's how he sees seniors. That's how he sees you."
At his Johnstown event, Mr Trump pledged to protect seniors.
Mr Biden has said Mr Trump wants to eliminate the payroll tax, which helps fund the Social Security benefit programme for retirees.
"While I am president, no one will touch your Medicare or your Social Security," Mr Trump said.
A Biden win in Florida would seriously jeopardise Mr Trump's re-election chances, and most recent opinion polls show the Democrat ahead with key demographic groups in the state, particularly seniors. Mr Trump won Florida in 2016 by 1.2 percentage points.
Mr Trump plans rallies in Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida later this week as he barnstorms through crucial states just three weeks ahead of the November election. His schedule, however, sends him to areas friendly to him, suggesting that his campaign is concerned with mobilising his conservative base rather than reaching undecided voters, many of them living in the nation's suburbs.
The President returned to the campaign trail on Monday night in Florida for the first time since disclosing he had the coronavirus.
The rally came hours after the White House said Mr Trump had tested negative for the coronavirus on consecutive days and was not infectious to others.
They were Mr Trump's first negative Covid-19 tests announced by the White House since he announced on Oct 2 that he had contracted the virus. In a memo, White House physician, Dr Sean Conley, did not say when the tests were conducted.
Mr Biden has been critical of Mr Trump's management of the pandemic. Mr Trump has worked for months to shift public attention away from the coronavirus, which has infected more than eight million people in the United States, killed more than 220,000 and put millions out of work.
But Mr Trump's illness has put the focus of the campaign's closing stretch squarely on his response to the deadly disease.
In Florida, Mr Biden said he was disappointed that Mr Trump's bout with the virus had not left him more chastened about his approach to the pandemic.
"The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get," Mr Biden said. "Thank God we only have three weeks left to go."
REUTERS
