US Election 2020: Trump and Biden duel in critical state of Florida

• Posted on October 30, 2020October 30, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

US President Donald Trump and his Democratic White House challenger Joe Biden have held duelling rallies in the critical election state of Florida.

Mr Biden told supporters: “You hold the power. If Florida goes blue [Democratic], it’s over.”

Celebrating soaring economic figures, Mr Trump, a Republican, said of his rival: “He’s going to lock you down.”

With just five days to go until election day, Mr Biden has a solid lead nationally in opinion polls.

But his advantage looks less assured in the battleground states, such as Florida, that will decide who ultimately wins the White House.

More than 81 million people have already voted, 52 million of them by mail, setting the US on course for its highest electoral turnout rate in more than a century.

Trump warns of ‘crippling’ Biden depression

At Thursday’s rally in Tampa, Mr Trump revelled in a new federal projection that the US economy had expanded at an unprecedented 33.1% annual rate in the most recent quarter, following a record 31% contraction in the previous three months during the coronavirus crash.

Florida is a must-win for Mr Trump and a key opinion poll average shows him just 1.4 points behind Mr Biden, which amounts to a statistical dead heat.

At a 100-minute outdoor rally, Mr Trump told thousands of people, many of them crowded together without masks: “Joe Biden’s plan is to deliver punishing [coronavirus] lockdowns. He’s going to lock you down.”

“Look, we were compared to Europe,” noted the president. “‘Germany is doing so well, France is doing so well, everyone’s doing so well.’ No, they’re not doing well.”

While emphasising Europeans were allies, he continued: “They’re spiking up big, they’re shutting down, they’re locking down.

“I disagree with that because we’re never going to lock down again. We locked down, we understood the disease and now we’re open for business.”

The president was introduced by First Lady Melania Trump, making a rare appearance on the campaign trail. Her biggest applause line came when she said: “We are a country of hope, not a country of fear or weakness, and we have a leader who shows us that every single day.”

Mr Trump had been due to hit another key state, North Carolina, on Thursday evening, but cancelled that event in Fayetteville because of foul weather from Tropical Storm Zeta in the area.

The storm reportedly disrupted early voting in another election battleground, Georgia, sparking power cuts in some precincts and toppling trees that blocked off mobile polling sites.

Mr Trump – who began this month in hospital with coronavirus – is visiting 10 states in the last week of the campaign and will host 11 rallies in the final two days, a campaign official said.

The president is hoping that media coverage of his rallies will compensate for his chronic deficit in ad spending as a result of his now-limited campaign coffers.

In Florida alone, according to data from ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG, Mr Biden and his allies are outspending Mr Trump by more than three to one.

But in a potential boost for Mr Trump, on Thursday he won a rare thumbs-up from an African American celebrity, rapper Lil Wayne, who appeared to endorse him.

-BBC