FLORIDA (US) – President Donald Trump will seek support among voters in four key battleground states on Monday while his rival and Democratic candidate Joe Biden will turn his focus on Pennsylvania and Ohio on the last day of campaigning.
Although Trump trails his rival in opinion polls, the contest is really tight in enough swing states that the president could still piece together the 270 votes which are necessary to prevail in the Electoral College that determines who reaches the White House.
Trump wants to avoid becoming the first incumbent to lose the election since Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992. He is addressing rallies in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan on Monday.
He will wind up his campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same venue where he concluded his 2016 campaign with a post-midnight rally on Election Day.
Biden, Kamala Harris and their spouses will be in Pennsylvania for most of Monday and they will split up to travel to all four corners of the state, which is seen as essential to the victory hopes of the former vice president.
Biden will bring together union members and those belonging to the African-American community in the Pittsburgh area before a drive-in rally in the evening, which will feature singer Lady Gaga.
He will make a detour to neighbouring Ohio and spend some time there. In 2016, Trump had won it. But opinion polls show that it will be a tight contest there.
The president claimed to have momentum during a frantic five-state swing on Sunday. He pledged to introduce economic revival and an imminent delivery of a vaccine. According to Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the country, the first dose of an effective shot will become available to some high-risk people in late December or early January.
Trump has repeatedly questioned the integrity of the election, saying a vote stretching beyond Election Day would be terrible and hinted that his lawyers could get involved.
“I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait for a long period of time after the election,” Trump told media persons. Some states such as Pennsylvania do not process mail-in ballots until Election Day, slowing the process.
The president has claimed on several occasions that mail-in votes are prone to fraud.
“We’re going in the night of – as soon as the election is over – we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump told reporters.
He also denied an Axios report in which he allegedly told confidants that he will declare victory on Tuesday night in case he appears to be ahead, even if the outcome of the Electoral College remains unclear.
“The president’s not going to steal this election,” Biden said, referring to the report.
In Texas, a federal judge will consider whether Houston officials should throw out about 127,000 votes already cast at drive-through voting sites in the area, which favours Democrats. Republican state legislator and others blame Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, who is a Democrat, of exceeding his constitutional authority by permitting drive-through voting.
On Monday, former President Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president for eight years, will conduct a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, before closing the campaign for Biden in Miami in the evening with a rally.