Trump ramps up campaign rallies two weeks to election

With exactly two weeks until the election , President Donald Trump was continuing his campaign rally marathon Tuesday with a trip to swing state Pennsylvania , the day after early voting began in another key state , Florida .

Trump and his wife Melania will head to Erie, Pennsylvania , where he will host another of his massive rallies . US media reported that the First Lady will be by her husband ’ s side at the rally, her first such appearance in more than a year .

Record numbers of Americans have already cast ballots in person or by mail — 30 million , according to one tracker — ahead of the November 3 election , as Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden race from one swing state to another to marshal support .

Nationwide , Biden leads Trump by 8 . 9 percentage points , according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls , and the Democrat has more modest leads in several battleground states .

With Biden dispatching his running mate Kamala Harris to Florida to rally voters there , Trump was on a western swing Monday in battleground Arizona, where he won in 2016 but now narrowly trails his rival in statewide polling.

In Tucson , Trump pledged to build the coronavirus - ravaged economy back to pre -pandemic levels , calling the election “ a choice between a Trump super - recovery… or a Biden depression . ”

Americans are “ pandemic - ed out , ” he boomed to masses of supporters , many without masks and not practising social distancing , gathered at the outdoor rally.

The election is rapidly boiling down to whether voters see Trump as best placed to revive the battered economy , or they believe the president has exacerbated the pandemic and want Biden to fulfil his pledge to unify a divided country.

The battle has played out in eight or nine swing states for months , but perhaps nowhere more intensely than Florida , the largest up - for - grabs prize of them all, delivering 29 of the state - by- state Electoral College votes that decide who wins the presidency .

Early voting began Monday in Florida , and voters in the southern part of the state converged on polling stations , wearing masks and standing in line at a social distance .

At a Miami Beach polling station , Jackeline Maurice, a writer in her 40 s , was excitedly snapping selfies with an “ I voted ” sticker on after casting her ballot for Biden .

“ I’ ve been waiting four years to vote, ” she said .

( AFP )