WASHINGTON _ Joe Biden, campaigning Monday in Republican territory in Ohio, denounced President Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic _ including his infection. Meanwhile, Trump prepared to bust out of isolation at the White House and resume campaigning as the two launched a three-week sprint to the Nov. 3 election.
"His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable," Biden said at a drive-in rally at an autoworkers' union hall in Toledo. "The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get.''
The former vice president spoke several hours before Trump was due to fly to Florida for an airport rally in Sanford, his first travel and his first live campaign event since he was hospitalized with COVID-19 on Oct. 2 for three days.
Trump's doctor Sunday cleared him for campaign travel, saying the president was past the stage where he was at risk of infecting others. The doctor did not say that Trump had tested negative for coronavirus infection, however.
Ohio and Florida are do-or-die states for the president: It is hard to see how Trump can win reelection without Ohio's 18 Electoral College votes and Florida's 29.
Biden, by contrast, has multiple paths to an Electoral College majority even if he loses both states.
Biden's campaigning in Ohio on Monday, and his plan to follow Trump into Florida on Tuesday, is a bit of muscle-flexing in battleground states by a well-funded campaign that is ahead in most polls _ including by narrow margins in Ohio and Florida.
Trump won Ohio by eight percentage points in 2016, Florida by less than two points.
Introducing Biden at the union hall, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said the close polls in Ohio are a sign that Trump has not delivered on his 2016 promises to rescue American manufacturing in Toledo and other cities.
"The fact that Ohio is a toss-up is terrible news for President Trump, and it's great news for Joe Biden," Kapszukiewicz said, noting that no Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio.
"The fact that Ohio is a coin toss today," he added, "is an indication of how much support Donald Trump has lost in the last four years."
Speaking to reporters before the Biden rally, Trump campaign officials shrugged off the event.
"We are quite happy to see Joe Biden wasting a valuable day on the campaign trail in a state that he won't win," Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said.
"We have this great confidence in Ohio not just because of the president's record and our ground game but also because of Joe Biden and who he's been in the last 50 years," he added.
Ohio is one of several states where the Trump campaign has recently canceled TV ad time it had reserved. Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said it was not a sign of weakness, but of confidence that Trump would win there.
"We feel very good about our positioning and the president's continued strength," said Miller.
Biden brought his economic message to the Toledo rally and emphasized his working-class roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Pro-Trump demonstrators down the street could be heard chanting, "Four more years."
Speaking as the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first day of confirmation hearings on Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Biden denounced Senate Republicans for rushing the confirmation process while failing to pass a coronavirus-relief measure, including aid to states and local governments.
"Why do Republicans have time to hold a hearing on the Supreme Court, instead of providing a significant economic need for localities? I'll tell you why," he said, echoing Democrats' argument that Barrett has criticized past rulings supporting the Affordable Care Act. "It's about finally getting his wish to wipe out the Affordable Care Act."
