President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden gave starkly contrasting messages on Saturday about the coronavirus pandemic, taking their campaigns for the White House on the road to swing states where Covid-19 cases are surging again.
Trump addressed a few thousand supporters at a tightly packed, in-person, outdoor rally in North Carolina, one of the battleground states in the Nov. 3 election.
He again said America was turning the corner in the fight against Covid-19 and mocked Biden’s more cautious campaigning style.
Biden, a former vice president, addressed supporters in vehicles at two drive-in rallies in Pennsylvania and warned of a grim winter ahead unless the Trump administration did a better job of halting the disease, which has killed 224,000 Americans.
Opinion polls show Biden leading Trump nationally, but the race is much closer in the battleground states that will decide the election.
In Lumberton, North Carolina, Trump told supporters he was offering a fast recovery from the economic damage wrought by virus lockdowns, which have devastated small businesses and put millions out of work.
“It’s a choice between a Trump super boom and a Biden lockdown,” the Republican president said.
“We are rounding the turn,” he said, repeating a claim he has been making for months that America is close to getting the better of the virus.
Late on Saturday a spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence disclosed that Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Pence and his wife tested negative earlier in the day and the vice president will not alter his schedule, the spokesman said.
By contrast, Biden warned that the cold months ahead could be even harsher due to a resurgence of the virus, which has killed more people in the United States than anywhere else and is on the rise in several battleground states.
“It’s going to be a dark winter ahead unless we change our ways,” he said of Trump’s attempts to contain the coronavirus.
Biden was addressing supporters in the town of Bristol who had gathered in pickup trucks or cars, many with their windows or sunroofs down, to avoid possible coronavirus infection. Biden’s campaign limited each vehicle to a maximum of four passengers.
At one point, Biden called out a group of Trump supporters who were shouting into microphones nearby. “We don’t do things like those chumps out there with the microphone are doing. The Trump guys. It’s about decency.”
At his event in Lumberton, Trump made fun of the Biden rally, which he said he had seen on television.
“There were so few cars. I’ve never seen an audience like that,” he said. “It was a tiny, tiny little crowd. You could hear the cars: honk honk.”
COVID-19 SURGING
The United States set a single-day record of more than 84,000 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, with the spike in infections hitting election swing states Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
North Carolina reported 2,584 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from a record high of 2,716 the day before.
Many states have expanded in-person early voting and mail-in ballots as a safer way to vote during the pandemic.