Trump heads to Michigan, Wisconsin in re-election campaign push
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[October 17, 2020]
By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald
Trump will take his re-election push to Michigan and Wisconsin on
Saturday before launching a tour of western states to shore up political
support as he trails Democratic rival Joe Biden in national polls.
Days after recovering from the coronavirus and just two and a half weeks
before the election on Nov. 3, Trump is holding rallies around the
country to try to secure the states he won four years ago.
The former New York businessman prevailed in Michigan and Wisconsin in
2016 but polls show him running behind Biden, the former vice president,
in those states this year.
Trump's advisers have long seen those two states, as well as
Pennsylvania, as key to his chances of securing another election
victory. Trump is also playing defense in traditional Republican
strongholds, including Arizona, where he plans to campaign on Monday,
and Georgia, where he campaigned on Friday night.
Biden, who has stepped up travel in recent weeks after keeping a reduced
schedule because of the pandemic, plans to remain in his home state of
Delaware on Saturday.
His running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, is also eschewing
travel for a few days after an aide came down with COVID-19.
U.S. presidential elections are determined by electoral votes, allotted
to U.S. states and territories based largely on their populations,
rather than a tally of the popular vote nationwide. Candidates must get
270 out of 538 electoral votes to win.
Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes, Michigan has 16 and Arizona has 11.
Nevada, where Trump will campaign on Sunday, has 6 electoral votes.
Capturing those votes will come down in part to convincing voters who is
best placed to respond to the continuing coronavirus crisis.
Biden has criticized Trump sharply for his response to the pandemic,
which has killed more than 217,000 people in the United States alone.
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Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump yell as he walks on stage
at his campaign event in Macon, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2020.
REUTERS/Dustin Chambers
Trump, who usually avoids wearing a mask and whose rallies include
thousands of people without social distancing, has said the country
is turning the corner on the disease despite an increase in
infections and projections of a greater death toll to come.
Biden said on Friday that Trump had been untruthful and negligent in
his response to the virus.
"We're so much better than this as a country," he said at a campaign
event in Detroit. "Despite the crisis we face, we have an enormous
opportunity to build back better."
Trump has praised his own response to the virus and argued that
Biden would shut down the U.S. economy needlessly to fight it. "We
saved millions of lives," Trump said at a rally in Georgia on
Friday. "It's amazing what we've been able to do."
Trump's string of campaign stops comes ahead of a critical week next
week. The two candidates will face each other in their second and
final debate on Thursday.
Biden told reporters on Friday night he was not engaged in intense
debate preparation. "No, I’m just listening to him (Trump)," Biden
said.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Michael Martina;
Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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