HE might be 74 and probably still recovering from Covid-19 but there’s no denying the stamina, or desperation, of President Donald Trump.
His campaign team announced yesterday that the Republican Party candidate plans to hold 14 campaign rallies in three days beginning today and winding up on Monday evening before the election on Tuesday.
Yet the very fact that he is holding so many rallies could be counting against him as a new poll out yesterday showed that nearly 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump holding rallies during the pandemic.
The survey by USA Today/Suffolk University also showed that 64% approved of the decision by Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden not to hold such major rallies – his campaigns meetings have been of the “drive-in” variety.
Biden is ahead in the opinion polls nationally but many of the so-called swing states, which will determine the outcome of Tuesday’s election, are too close to call. Trump is making one final attempt over the weekend and on Monday to try and win the vote in those states that he realistically must capture if he is to stay in the White House.
Trump will hold rallies in no fewer than four Pennsylvania towns today. Tomorrow he will have rallies in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and on Monday he will be back again in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and twice in Michigan, as well as in Wisconsin.
Trump trails Biden by about 7.8 percentage points on average in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics, but the race is much tighter and in some cases effectively tied because of the possible margin of error in polls in the states that Trump is targeting with his final weekend of rallies.
The reason why Trump is returning to his favourite campaign trail of rally after rally is nothing to do with them earning him new votes – they are uniformly attended by his existing supporters – but because his opponent is vastly outspending him on television advertising which experts in the USA say may be turning matters Biden’s way.
According to Bloomberg News, Biden is blanketing the airwaves in battleground states with television ads.
Yet it is his bold decision not to hold large campaign events because of the coronavirus pandemic that has earned the plaudits of many medical experts and a large proportion of the population just as US infection and death rates soar – there was a new daily record of 90,000 new cases recorded on Thursday.
As Biden intended, the public is taking an evermore jaundiced view of Trump’s handling of Covid-19.
Bloomberg News adds that Trump has also faced strong “criticism from state and local officials and public health authorities for gathering thousands of his supporters to the rallies, largely without any public health precautions.”
It has been noticeable, however, that more and more of Trump’s supporters attend the rallies with masks on whereas very few did so before the President himself caught the virus.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel