WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unleashed bitter grievances — including complaints about polls that suggest he may lose Tuesday's election — while Joe Biden vowed "an end to a presidency that's divided this nation," as the two rivals made their final impassioned pleas to voters in a whirl of last-minute rallies.
The stark contrast between Trump's anger at outside forces and Biden's claim that Trump is the problem underscored the highly personal nature of the choice for the shrinking number of voters still to cast their ballots after weeks of early voting.
During an hourlong speech in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then in a second rally in northeast Pennsylvania, Trump departed often from a script that focused on a promise to recreate the "economic powerhouse" that was wrecked by the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump attacked familiar targets, including his impeachment by the House and subsequent acquittal in the Senate, his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and her emails, Silicon Valley companies that he claims have stifled bad news about Biden, the special counsel investigation into his 2016 campaign's involvement with Russia, China and the coronavirus that emerged there, celebrities including Lebron James and Lady Gaga, adverse rulings by the Supreme Court, and even the polling arm of Fox News, which shows him trailing Biden nationally and in multiple swing states.
But as he has since taking office, he returned again and again to his frustration with the media, blaming journalists for his myriad problems and pointing to the television cameras and reporters corralled in a so-called press pen in front of him.
"We've been under a phony fake hoax investigation for three years, nothing but really bad and corrupt publicity from these people," he said, standing in front of Air Force One.
"I wonder what it would have been if all of the nonsense wasn't brought up," he said, sounding rueful.
Trump's scattershot lack of focus was typical for him, but highly unusual for a candidate facing daunting odds on the eve of a presidential election.
The president is not only trailing Biden in many national polls; he is also facing deficits in each of the battleground states where he campaigned Monday: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. He won all four in 2016.
Biden campaigned in Ohio, a state Trump won by 8 percentage points four years ago, a sign that Democratic strategists see an opening to expand his electoral margin. Biden is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania, which both campaigns see as critical, later in the day.
As usual, Biden focused on Trump's handling of the pandemic, which is surging with a third wave of infections and hospitalizations. More than 231,000 people have died of COVID-19 across the country this year, and Biden blames Trump for failing to control the contagion.
"I'm never going to raise the white flag of surrender. We're going to beat this virus. We're going to get it under control, I promise you," Biden bellowed in an airport hangar in Cleveland.
Biden pointed out his four grandchildren in the crowd — "they're my good luck charms" — before lacing into for suggesting that doctors were inflating COVID-19 deaths so they could make more money, calling Trump a "disgrace."
As for Trump's musing at a rally Sunday night that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, after the election, Biden sarcastically called the plan "wonderful."
"I've got a better idea: Elect me and we're gonna hire Dr. Fauci. And we're gonna fire Donald Trump!" Biden said.
Biden accused Trump of several Ohio-specific slights, including telling residents of Lordstown in 2016 not to sell their homes, only to see the local General Motors plant shut down, and urging his supporters not to buy tires made by Goodyear, which is headquartered in Akron.
"Ohio, in 2008 and 2012 you placed your trust in me and Barack (Obama)," Biden said. "In 2020, I'm asking you to trust me again."
The parochial pitch from Biden is intended to counter Trump's frequent claims that he has championed industrial states while Democrats have left them to falter, a message that helped Trump defeat Clinton in 2016 and one he hopes will work against Biden.
Trump even used it against Lady Gaga, the superstar musician who was to campaign with Biden and his wife later Monday in Pittsburgh, tweeting that she is "a proud member of 'Artists Against Fracking,'" the controversial oil extraction method.
"I can tell you stories about Lady Gaga. I know a lot of stories," he said cryptically in Avoca, Pennsylvania.
Trump also slammed another Biden supporter, rock star Jon Bon Jovi, saying "every time I see him, he kisses my ass." The president prompted chants of "Lebron James sucks" after accusing him and other NBA players of disrespecting the flag.
Trump complained during his Fayetteville rally that Biden, who says he does not want to ban fracking, is getting a free ride from the media for saying during last month's debate that he wants to "transition" away from oil.
"The fake news doesn't do anything," Trump said, claiming that Biden's energy plan "will send every state into crushing poverty, from North Carolina to Michigan."
"If I've done one thing, it's to expose the dishonesty of the media," he said.
As he has for weeks, Trump questioned Biden's stamina and mental abilities, and singled out Sen. Kamala Harris of Los Angeles, Biden's running mate, for ridicule.
"Kamala, Kamala, you want her as your first woman president? I don't think so," he said, mispronouncing her first name.
Harris took the opposite tack, refusing to utter Trump's name at a rally with union members in northeast Pennsylvania.
The closest she came was to refer to "you know who," accusing the president of trying to make it more difficult and confusing for Americans to vote. Under Trump, she asserted, "our democracy as taken a beating."
"If you think of it as a house — yeah, some of the shingles have fallen off. But the house is still standing," she said, to cheers from the audience.
