Virus Surge Shadows Trump and Biden Campaign
Events After Final Debate
Candidates made their cases as hundreds of thousands
of people jammed long lines to vote in New York, Florida and elsewhere.
Shane
Goldmacher Thomas Kaplan Annie Karni
By Shane
Goldmacher, Thomas Kaplan and Annie Karni
Published
Oct. 24, 2020
Updated
Oct. 25, 2020, 1:00 a.m. ET
A day after
the nation hit a new high for coronavirus cases, President Trump returned to
the campaign trail for a series of rallies and again sought to minimize the
surging pandemic, mocking his rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., for following the
social distancing recommendations of public health officials.
In the face
of spiking numbers, Mr. Trump on Saturday continued to lean into the idea that the
news media and his critics were obsessing about the virus, even as polls show
widespread public concern. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found
that a slim majority of voters — including half of independents — believed the
worst of the pandemic was yet to come.
“That’s all
I hear about now. That’s all I hear, turn on television,” Mr. Trump said at a
campaign event in Lumberton, N.C. “Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid,”
he added, a refrain he recited in the state as well on Wednesday.
Hours
later, Vice President Mike Pence’s office confirmed his chief of staff had
tested positive for the virus. Three other aides and an outside adviser to
Pence have also tested positive in recent days, according to people briefed on
the situation.
With 10
days left until the election and hundreds of thousands of voters expected to
cast their ballots as long lines marked the first weekend of early in-person
voting in Florida, New York, Wisconsin and other states, Mr. Trump and Mr.
Biden presented sharply divergent cases, both in words and actions, for how
they would handle the virus crisis still gripping the country.
Making two
stops in the key battleground of Pennsylvania on Saturday, Mr. Biden cited the
milestone in cases and criticized Mr. Trump for asserting that the country was
“rounding the corner” as cases spike.
“You’re
asking us to learn how to die with it, and it’s wrong,” Mr. Biden said at a
drive-in rally in the Philadelphia suburbs, recalling his exchange with Mr.
Trump on the subject at the debate on Thursday. He added that there was “going
to be a dark winter ahead unless we change our ways.”
The beeping
of car horns punctuated his remarks, a familiar soundtrack at his socially
distanced drive-in events in the weeks before Election Day. “I wish I could go
car to car and meet you all,” Mr. Biden said at a community college in Bucks
County, where he spoke from a stage decorated with pumpkins and hay bales. “I
don’t like the idea of all this distance, but it’s necessary. I appreciate you
being safe. What we don’t want to do is become superspreaders.”
In North
Carolina, it seemed that Mr. Trump had watched his rival’s event, mocking Mr.
Biden for his careful crowd limits. “People in cars,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t
get it.”
“You heard
a couple of horns,” he added. “Honk, honk. It’s the weirdest thing.”
From there,
Mr. Trump was off to Circleville, Ohio, outside Columbus, and then Waukesha,
Wis., as he sought to rally backers in suburban areas where polls show his
support has slipped. On Sunday, he will fly to New Hampshire, the lone state on
his weekend itinerary that he did not carry in 2016 and part of a hopscotching
schedule reminiscent of his intense final push four years ago.
But the
virus’s surge has ensured that even Mr. Trump’s well-attended rallies can be a
political liability, a reminder to voters fearful of the pandemic of his
regular disregard for expert and public health advice. Mr. Trump used his own
contracting of the disease, his weekend of hospitalization and subsequent
recovery as a pitch to minimize the severity of a pandemic that has cost more
than 224,000 lives in the United States out of more than eight million cases.
“By the
way, I had it, here I am,” he said.
Mr. Trump
began his day in Florida, where he joined the more than 56 million Americans
who have already voted. He cast his ballot in person at the Palm Beach County
Main Library, declaring, “I voted for a guy named Trump.”
Afterward,
he also continued to baselessly question the integrity of the election and in
particular mail-in ballots. “It’s the only way we can lose,” Mr. Trump said,
citing the size of crowds at his rallies. Most polls show Mr. Trump behind by a
sizable margin nationally and in many of the critical battleground states.
Mr. Biden’s
full day in Pennsylvania was a sign of the state’s crucial importance in his
Electoral College calculations. After his rally in Bucks County — which Hillary
Clinton won by less than a percentage point in 2016 — he flew to Luzerne County
in the blue-collar northeastern part of the state, where he held a drive-in
rally that included a performance by the singer Jon Bon Jovi. Luzerne County is
near Mr. Biden’s hometown, Scranton, and it is a historically Democratic county
that Mr. Trump flipped by a wide margin in 2016.
Still, the
day had its prickly moments. In a local television interview, Mr. Biden
interjected when a reporter began to ask a question about “controversy” and his
son Hunter Biden. “There is no controversy about my son,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s
all a lie. It’s a flat lie, because the president has nothing else to run on.”
Along with
Mr. Biden’s appearances this weekend, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was in
western Pennsylvania on Saturday, holding a get-out-the vote event in Pittsburgh
and a drive-in rally with the state’s lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. And
in another sign of Pennsylvania’s potential as the 2020 tipping point, the
Biden campaign dispatched former President Barack Obama there this past week
for his first in-person campaign trip of the general election. Mr. Obama
campaigned in Florida on Saturday.
“It may
come down to Pennsylvania,” Mr. Biden said in Bucks County. “And I believe in
you. I believe in my state.”
For Mr.
Trump, it may come down to the coronavirus. At a rally in Circleville, Ohio, on
Saturday, along with his continuing focus on Mr. Biden’s stance on fracking and
his attacks on Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump continued his efforts to redefine the
virus, and his own experience with it.
He played
down the threat the pandemic posed, pointing to his own family’s experience as
an example of why a virus that has killed more than 224,000 people in the
United States is not so bad. “It worked out,” he said of his own
hospitalization for the virus. “By the way, 99.9 percent is good and then
you’re immune.”
Shane
Goldmacher is a national political reporter and was previously the chief
political correspondent for the Metro Desk. Before joining The Times, he worked
at Politico, where he covered national Republican politics and the 2016
presidential campaign. @ShaneGoldmacher
Thomas
Kaplan is a political reporter based in Washington. He previously covered
Congress, the 2016 presidential campaign and New York state government.
@thomaskaplan
Annie Karni
is a White House correspondent. She previously covered the White House and
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign for Politico, and covered local
news and politics in New York City for the New York Post and the New York Daily
News. @AnnieKarni
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