PHILDADELPHIA — Joe Biden on Sunday urged Philadelphians to surge to the polls and fight "voter suppression," even as President Donald Trump signaled that he will likely try to discredit a legitimate vote count expected to extend past Election Day.
"Every day is a new reminder of how high the stakes are, how far the other side will go to try to suppress the turnout, especially here in Philadelphia," Biden said before about 50 cars filled with supporters at Sharon Baptist Church in the city's Wynnefield Heights section. "There's too much on the line to sit it out."
Biden was visiting Philadelphia for two of the final stops of his campaign, aiming to rouse voters in the Democratic core of Pennsylvania, a state that could decide the entire election.
In a city where Black voters drive much of the Democratic support, Biden cited vast racial disparities in the effects of the coronavirus and in law enforcement, rattling off the names of Black people killed by police — including Walter Wallace Jr., the Black man shot and killed by officers in West Philadelphia last week as he wielded a knife and struggled with mental illness.
"The blinders have been taken off. The American people, they've seen, they've seen how bad things are," Biden said, while also saying burning, looting and violence "must never be tolerated."
"We only have two more days, two more days to put an end to this presidency that has from the very beginning sought to divide us, to tear us apart," he added.
Biden's events come a day after Trump raced across Pennsylvania for four rallies, each candidate trying to squeeze out the final votes in a state that was decided by less than 1 percentage point in 2016.
He spoke as Trump and his top allies signaled they intend to question the counting of mail ballots, and a day after the president urged his supporters to watch Philadelphia, a deep blue bastion in a state that both parties see as the most likely to deliver the decisive Electoral College votes.
"President Trump is terrified of what will happen in Pennsylvania. He knows that if the people of Pennsylvania get to have their say, if you have your say, he doesn't stand a chance, Biden said.
Touting his Pennsylvania ties, Biden also claimed to be wearing an Eagles jacket, though it looked like he was wearing a University of Delaware jacket from his current home state.
Biden's first event on a cold, gloomy Sunday came at a Black megachurch, with religious leaders watching from their cars under the steady rain. (Biden's campaign has cited the coronavirus in opting for for socially distanced drive-in rallies over Trump's mega-rallies, which public health officials have sharply criticized.)
As the cars in attendance honked, Black Philadelphia religious leaders and elected officials described Trump as "an absolute disaster for Black America," as Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler put it.
"He's openly encouraged white supremacists with his rhetoric and tweets," Tyler said. "You cannot be for us and them at the same time."
Rev. Robert Collier, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, called for "a margin of victory ... so large that it cannot be disputed."
Of the key swing states, Pennsylvania has the most voters left in play. As of early Sunday, Pennsylvania's early voting so far had reached about 38% of the turnout in 2016. That's a far lower share than other battlegrounds such as Michigan (53%), Wisconsin (63%) and Florida (91%). In Texas, voters have already cast more ballots in 2020 than in all of 2016. It leaves Pennsylvania likely to see a rush of votes at polling places Tuesday, with turnout expected to reach huge numbers across the country.
"There's too much on the line to sit it out," an energized Biden told the crowd during a roughly 15-minute speech.
Trump had laid the groundwork to dispute the election results in his visit to Pennsylvania Saturday, leveling baseless claims of unspecified voter fraud and playing on the country's tensions by predicting "bedlam" as votes are counted after Election Day.
Biden and Trump both have more events scheduled in Pennsylvania Monday as the campaign reaches its final hours — including another drive-in rally in Philadelphia featuring Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden's running mate, her husband, Doug Emhoff, and musician John Legend.
Two new polls out Sunday suggested Biden is in strong position to win Pennsylvania, and the presidency, if he can get his voters out and all votes are counted. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found Biden leading 51% to 44% in Pennsylvania, while a New York Times/Siena College survey found a similar 49% to 43% edge for the former vice president.
Those two polls are consistent with weeks of major surveys finding Biden steadily ahead by about 5 to 8 percentage points in the state. Biden led 49% to 44% in a Muhlenberg College poll released Saturday, within that survey's margin of error.
The consistency of the numbers, including support for the president stuck in the low to mid-40s, suggests a difficult path for Trump in a state that he knows is critical. Any victory in Pennsylvania would likely depend on a wide range of polls drastically undercounting his support, or problems with voting — such as mail ballots returned as "naked ballots" with missing inner secrecy envelopes, or litigation to dismiss a large share of ballots after the election.
It is widely expected that counting votes will take longer than usual, perhaps several days, because of the large number of voters using mail ballots to avoid crowds during the coronavirus pandemic. Mail ballots take longer to process — that's normal, not a sign of fraud.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, whose department oversees elections, said Sunday that she expects 10 times as many mail ballots to be cast in Pennsylvania as in 2016, but that the "overwhelming majority" of ballots should be counted "within a matter of days." This is the first year any Pennsylvania voter can cast a ballot by mail.
"I want to be clear that elections have never been called election night," she said on NBC's Meet the Press. "Our military and overseas ballots, you know, the men and women who are serving our country, they have until a full week after Election Day to cast their ballots. So, I just want to set that straight, that this is a process, and we want to make sure that every single vote of every valid voter is securely and accurately counted."
Trump and his top advisers, however, continued spreading disinformation about the vote Sunday and tried to undermine a legitimate count likely to take days — effectively attacking the election itself.
"We should know the result of the election on Nov. 3. The evening of Nov. 3.," Trump said at a rally Sunday in Iowa. "That's the way it's been and that's the way it should be. What's going on in this country? What's going on?"
In fact, while news organizations often project winners based on seeing the bulk of results on election night, the counting of votes always continues well past Election Day. And it's widely expected that this year the winner is unlikely to be known right away because so many mail ballots are being cast amid the pandemic, and those ballots take longer to count.
Still, Trump and his campaign have signaled they will try to discredit the final count.
A top campaign aide, Jason Miller, said Sunday on ABC's This Week that Trump will be "ahead" on election night, but that Democrats will try to "steal the election" after — casting aspersions on the normal process of counting mail ballots.
Biden on Sunday also announced a series of Pennsylvania events slated for the final hours of campaigning Monday. He will be in Beaver County, just west of Pittsburgh, while his wife Jill Biden campaigns in Erie, rural Lawrence County, and suburban Allegheny County. Then, together, the Bidens and musician Lady Gaga will hold a drive-in event with Black voters in Pittsburgh.
Harris will campaign in Luzerne County in Northeastern Pennsylvania, then hold an event with Latino voters in the Lehigh Valley, while Emhoff holds two events in Lancaster County, one in Montgomery County, and one in Bucks County. Harris and Emhoff will conclude the day with a Philadelphia event.
Biden spent Saturday in Flint, Mich., and Detroit, visiting two cities whose Black voters are critical to winning the state. In Philadelphia, he'll target a similar audience in the biggest city in any of the so-called "Blue Wall" states that flipped to Trump and helped decide the 2016 race: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Biden's visit to the heavily Democratic city comes after a month in which he largely visited more competitive regions of the state, trying to appeal to swing voters and working-class whites who powered Trump's victory.
Trump, meanwhile, has focused almost exclusively on his base, hoping to rouse support beyond even his 2016 numbers to overcome Democrats' advantages in big cities and their suburbs.
