Donald Trump and Joe Biden blitz battleground states in final day of US election campaign
WASHINGTON, D.C. -Donald Trump and Joe Biden will make one final push in key battleground states today just 24 hours out from US election day.
Biden will be concentrating most of his efforts on the state of Pennsylvania, starting in Beaver County in the state’s west and ending with the former Vice President holding a drive-in event in Pittsburgh tonight with Lady Gaga and his wife Dr Jill Biden.
The Democratic nominee will also be making a short stop in Ohio, one of the few times he has toured the state, suggesting the Biden camp believe the Midwest state is now in play after Trump won big there last election.
Trump, meanwhile, will be holding five different rallies for the second straight day as he tries to hold on to a cluster of rust belt states that propelled him to victory in 2016.
The President will be in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, twice, today as he tries to claw back polling deficits in each of the three key states.
He will also head down south to hold one rally in North Carolina, which polling shows is neck-and-neck.
Latest national US election polling puts Biden around 10 points ahead of Trump, however state polling in battleground areas paints a much closer picture.
Axios sensationally reported yesterday that the President is planning on claiming premature victory tomorrow night before tens of millions of mail-in and absentee votes are counted, which would plunge the nation into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
The plan is reportedly to then challenge ballot counts in swing states that will still be counting early votes over the course of next week.
More than 90m votes have already been cast nationally, including more than 65m mail-in ballots.
Biden responded to the report by saying Trump “will not steal this election”.
The President on Sunday night denied he was preparing to claim victory prematurely, before then questioning the legitimacy of mail-in voting – a now common trope in Trump’s campaign.
“I think it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it’s a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over,” he said.
“We don’t want to have Pennsylvania, where you have a political governor, a very partisan guy…we don’t want to be in a position where he’s allowed, every day, to watch ballots come in.
“‘See if we can only find 10,000 more ballots’.”
Trump’s rhetoric about the legitimacy of early voting and supposed electoral fraud has stoked fears that there will be widespread violence and civil unrest on election night.
Businesses in major US cities have been boarding up in preparation for potential riots and looting, including in the nation’s capital.