- Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Wednesday will both campaign in Arizona, a state where Joe Biden maintains a small lead.
- Biden, in Delaware, will address the coronavirus pandemic, a subject that has been central to his campaign and closing arguments amid a new spike in the US.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has described the chances of Republicans holding the chamber as a “50-50 proposition”.
- More than 71 million US citizens have cast ballots in early voting with six days until the election, that is 51.6 percent of all ballots counted in 2016, the US Elections Project shows.
Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the United States elections. This is Joseph Stepansky.
Trump, Biden bound for Florida on Thursday
Trump and Biden are both set to campaign in just hours apart in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, according to their campaigns.
Florida is considered a bellwether state in the election, and is all-but essential to any path for victory for Trump.
Biden will visit Broward, County during the day before going to Tampa for a 6:30 PM ET drive-in rally, while Trump will hold a rally in the city just two hours later, at 8:30 PM ET.
Biden casts ballot in 2020 election
Democratic candidate Biden has cast his ballot in the 2020 election.
Biden in his home town of Wimington, Delaware on Wednesday, shortly after giving a speech on the coronavirus and health care.
Biden highlights coronavirus, threat to Affordable Care Act in final days of campaign
Biden, during a speech on Wednesday, slammed Trump’s response to the coronavirus and his administration’s attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare legislation passed when Biden was vice president to Barack Obama.
Following a coronavirus briefing, Biden said: “We’ve lost more than 220,000 lives to this virus already. But this administration has just given up,” referencing statements from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who said on Sunday the US “is not going to control the pandemic”.
The former vice president further urged US citizens to wear masks, saying “It’s not political. It’s patriotic.”
Biden also condemned what he called Trump’s “single minded crusade to strip Americans of their healthcare” as his administration attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Biden added that Republicans’ fast-tracked the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett with the goal of overturn the legislation. A challenge to the law is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on November 10.
Biden says he will vote today
Biden has said he will vote today.
Following a speech on the coronvirus and health care from his home state of Delaware, Biden said he would go cast his ballot.
“I’m going to make a short statement here,” he said. “And then I’m going over to vote with my wife and then I’ll be happy to take your questions after I vote.”
Biden set to out spend Trump on advertising in final sprint to election day
The Biden campaign is set to spend $51 million on advertising in the final week of the election, while outside groups are set to spend $36 million on his behalf, according to the Hill news site, which cites data from the nonpartisan Advertising Analytics.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has allotted about half that amount to the final days of the race. The campaign will spend $11 million over the final week, as well as an additional $15 million it will spend with the Republican National Committee.
The largest outside group supporting Trump has nearly $20 million in airtime reserved in the final days, according to the news site.
Hundreds of Trump rally goers stuck in cold for hours in Nebraska: Report
Attendees of a Trump rally in Omaha, Nebraska were left standing in near-freezing temperatures waiting for buses organised by the Trump campaign on Tuesday night, according to the Washington Post.
At least seven people were taken to the hospital while waiting for the buses, which were meant to take them from the rally location to distant parking lots after the event, the newspaper reported, citing Omaha Scanner, a site that monitors official radio traffic. Police also had to ferry some attendees back to their cars to get them out of the cold.
The Trump campaign said it had provided enough buses for the crowds, but the two-lane road outside the airport where the rally was held became jammed, according to a political reporter at the Omaha World-Herald.
It took three and a half hours for all attendees to be returned to their cars, the reporter tweeted.
McConnell says chances of Republicans keeping Senate majority ’50-50′
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview that Republicans holding the Senate was a 50-50 toss up in the November 3 election.
There are 35 Senate seats up for re-election, and the Cook Political Report has labeled two Republican held seats as likely to go to Democrats. Meanwhile, seven Republican-held seats are labeled as toss ups. One Democratic incumbent is considered likely to lose.
While McConnell said the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which came just eight days before election day, will give some vulnerable Republicans a boost, he still said losing the chamber was a “50-50 proposition”.
Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority. As the vice president breaks Senate ties, the winner of the presidential election will determine how many seats either party needs to win to have a majority.
White House decries Philadelphia unrest as ‘riots’
The White House has said it is “ready to deploy any and all federal resources” after unrest in Philadelphia following the police killing of a Black man.
Tension has gripped the streets of Philadelphia since Monday’s deadly police shooting of Walter Wallace, 27, who was armed with a knife and described by relatives as suffering from a mental breakdown, in a confrontation with law enforcement. On Monday and Tuesday, peaceful protests turned violent later into the night, with instances of looting and police confrontations.
Trump seized on the unrest during a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, continuing to push a “law and order” message that he has made central to his campaign. Trump told supporters that Biden and Democrats “incite violence and hatred against our police officers.”
The White House statement also referenced “Liberal Democrats’ war against the police” and added the Trump administration “stands proudly with law enforcement, and stands ready, upon request, to deploy any and all Federal resources to end these riots.”
Trump and Harris head to Arizona
Trump will hold two campaign rallies in the battleground state of Arizona, where polls show him narrowly trailing Biden, whose vice presidential candidate, Harris, will also visit the state on Wednesday.
Biden, who has repeatedly criticised Trump for failing to contain the coronavirus pandemic, will receive a briefing from public health experts and deliver a speech near his home in Delaware on his plans to combat COVID-19 and protect Americans with pre-existing health conditions, his campaign said.
Arizona has emerged as a top battleground in the White House race after Trump won it by 3.5 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken from October 14-21 found Biden with a 3-point edge on Trump, within the survey’s credibility interval.
A Biden win in Arizona, which has 11 electoral votes, would be the first for a Democratic presidential candidate in the state since Bill Clinton carried it in 1996. Arizona is also the site of a key Senate race between Democrat Mark Kelly and incumbent Republican Martha McSally.
After staying overnight in Las Vegas, Nevada, Trump will hold airport rallies in Bullhead City, Arizona, in the state’s northwestern corner near Nevada, and in Goodyear, outside Phoenix, the state’s biggest city. Harris, meanwhile, will campaign in Tucson and Phoenix.
Early vote turnout boosts hopes for Biden in Texas
Less than a week before election day, Biden appears close to a prize that has eluded generations of Democratic presidential candidates: Texas.
Public opinion polls show Biden and Republican President Donald Trump effectively tied in the Lone Star State. They also suggest the former vice president is leading among those helping to set its staggering early vote totals.
As of Tuesday, nearly 8 million Texans had cast ballots, approaching 90 percent of the entire 2016 vote – a higher percentage than any state in the country, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.
Trump appears to have the edge with voters planning to cast ballots on November 3, according to polls, which also show him improving his standing among Hispanics in Texas, a huge constituency, mirroring modest gains he has made with that demographic nationally since 2016.
Texans do not register by party, which makes it difficult to say with certainty who is leading in early voting, but a Biden win in Texas, which has not voted for a Democratic nominee for president since 1976, would end any chance of Trump’s re-election.
