With just 55 days ahead of what’s been billed the most important US presidential election in a lifetime, polls continue to hold steady with Joe Biden maintaining a strong lead over President Donald Trump , both nationally and in several swing states.
A Reuters Ipsos poll out Wednesday found that 52% of voters planned to back the Democratic former Vice President with a steady 40% supporting the incumbent, confirming the lack of a post-convention bump for both nominees.
And with the stakes high for both sides, the political rhetoric will only sharpen in the less than eight weeks to Election Day.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows voters primarily motivated by the coronavirus pandemic which has now killed more than 190 000 people and infected over 6.5 million. In addition, the President has been on the defensive this week after a damning article alleging he privately disparaged military veterans referring to America’s World War 1 dead as “losers” and “suckers”.
“It’s a disgrace, who would say a thing like that? Only an animal would say a thing like that. There is nobody that has more respect for not only our military, but for people that gave their lives in the military.”
But he shared similar sentiments running for office in 2015 where he referred to late Republican Senator John McCain, who spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as no war hero – an opening his opponent Joe Biden didn’t pass up.
“Quite frankly, if what is written in the Atlantic is true, is disgusting. It affirms what most of us believe to be true, that Donald Trump is not fit to do the job of president, be the commander in chief,” said Biden.
As the two campaigns continue to contrast their events amidst a pandemic with the Trump campaign opting for in-person rallies that defy health rules like this one in North Carolina on Tuesday – no social distancing and very few masks and where he took aim at Democratic VP nominee Senator Kamala Harris.
“Remember Kamala, she started at 15. She was supposed to win. Problem was, she went from 15 to 14 to 12 to 10 to seven to four. It’s like a freefall. You know what? People don’t like her. Nobody likes her. She could never be the first woman president. She could never be. That would be an insult to our country. Biden is now formed an unholy alliance with the most extreme and dangerous elements of the radical left. You know that, with crazy Bernie and everyone. And by the way, you know who’s further left than crazy Bernie? Kamala. Kamala. Kamala,” Trump said.
While his opponent continues to hold smaller socially-distanced events like a meeting with labour leaders in Pennsylvania this week – or virtual ones, in accordance with public health guidelines – where Biden continues to hammer the President on his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.
“No matter what he says, or what he claims, you are not safer in Donald Trump’s America. You’re not safe in Donald Trump’s America, where people are dying at a rate last seen when Americans were fighting in World War Two. Donald Trump’s malpractice during this pandemic has made being a working American a life or death work. And while there is a disproportionate impact on black, Latino and Asian Americans and Native Americans, working-class communities, white working-class communities are being hit hard as well.”
And – as is the case in all Presidential elections, swing-states remain key; those regions that sometimes vote Democratic and sometimes Republican but as of September 9th, the polling shows Biden with an edge in the key swing states that are crucial to the incumbent’s claim to a second term – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida – even Arizona where a Democratic Presidential candidate has not won since Bill Clinton in 1996; incidentally, the same state that John McCain represented in the Senate for more than 30 years.
