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Swing states in the United States have become the main battleground arena just 15 days ahead of the Presidential Election on November 3rd with both candidates crisscrossing the country in a final push for any undecided voters.
With over 27 million early votes already cast in the election, driven in part by health and safety concerns amidst a raging coronavirus pandemic, and a final debate between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden this Thursday, time is running out to fundamentally change the course of this race that according to polls still favours the Democratic nominee.
Sherwin Bryce-Pease reports:
Trailing Biden both nationally and in key swing states, the president has spent his time since returning to the campaign trail in places like Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania – states he beat Hillary Clinton in four years ago but where the former Vice President today still maintains an edge.
Over the weekend, Trump in Nevada, said, “When you vote for me prosperity will surge. Your taxes will be cut even further. You know I gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country. The pandemic is rounding the turn, and we have the vaccines coming, and they go crazy, the fake news. But, I will tell you, it’s rounding the turn. With or without, it is rounding the turn. You will see that. Normal life, that’s all we want. We want normal life, right, just, we want to be where we were seven months ago, right?”
But it’s that kind of language that has hurt his standing with voters who view Biden more favourably in handling the pandemic, particularly seniors who are most at risk and who are deserting the president in droves.
“As my grandfather would say, ‘This guy’s gone around the bend if he thinks we’ve turned the corner. (HONKING) Turn the corner? Things are getting worse, and he continues to lie to us about the circumstances. He told Bob Woodward in a taped interview that the disease was deadly, much worse than the flu. And here’s what he did: According to The New York Times, 3, 4 days ago, his administration gave Wall Street investors a heads up, but he didn’t tell us, just his friends on Wall Street. That’s why they made so much money by quote selling short. Well, who got sold short? Y’all got sold short.”
Early voting records continue to be smashed with more than 27 million votes already cast compared to 6 million at the same point in 2016.
“It’s very very very important that everybody regardless of what get out and vote vote vote,” says one of the voters who lined up early in the states of Texas and Georgia.
“You know a lot of people suffered and died for our right to vote so I’m out here honoring that,” says another.
“Well, this election time is just, just way more complex, I guess you would say. With Biden and Trump. So I don’t know, it just it just feels more like more of a sense of urgency. And we want to make sure that the votes are actually in,” says another.
While 30 election observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe are already on the ground in the U.S. Urszula Gacek is leading the mission.
“We’re not applying any kind of special methodology for the United States. So, we observe the vote, but also the count. Now, we may anticipate that the counting will go on for a while. If a lot of ballots are mailed in, it might take a while for those to actually be tallied up. So, we will be following that. And of course, if anybody feels that there has been something that they’re not happy with, they will have recourse to the normal channels here in the United States”.
With a final Presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee Thursday – viewed as a last ditch effort to create some momentum in the final stretch, but with estimates suggesting that up to a third of the electorate will have cast their ballots by the end of this week – the window of opportunity for both candidates is fast closing, more so for the incumbent who continues to trail his opponent in the swing states he won last time around in addition to traditionally red-states like Arizona and Georgia where Biden has the edge. But with the 2016 Democratic hangover providing a constant sense of déjà vu, the Biden campaign over the weekend warning that this race is far closer than the polls suggest.
