WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2020) The Democratic Party is ahead in early ballots cast in the crucial swing state of Florida, where more than 1.4 million in total have already voted, while the early turnout in Texas hit new record highs amid escalating enthusiasm ahead of the November 3 presidential election.
DEMOCRATS LEAD IN FLORIDA EARLY VOTING
Early voting numbers for mail-in ballots received in the battleground state of Florida for the November election show Democrats have come out in greater numbers than Republicans, the state's Elections Division revealed in data on Wednesday. Data shows Democrats have 402,633 more votes than Republicans as of late Wednesday morning. Republicans have 564,455 votes and Democrats have 967,088 votes so far, the data shows.
In 2016, then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by less than 247,000 in early ballots case. However, on Election Day, Trump won Florida by about 113,000 votes, just over 1 percent. Democratic candidate Joe Biden has a 2.7 point lead in the state, according to the Realclearpolitics (RCP) poll aggregator.
The US state of Texas has had a record turnout on the first day of early voting this week, the Office of the state's Secretary of State revealed in data, with a 31 percent increase compared to the 2018 midterm.
A total of 907,054 votes were counted for Tuesday and 691,770 votes were counted on the first day of early voting in the 2018 midterm election, the data shows.
In the 2016 presidential election, Texas had 576,416 votes counted on the first day of early voting. Trump is up by 5 percent among likely voters in the RCP average of six recent polls.
The deadline for voter registration in the US state of Virginia has been extended until Thursday evening after the state's registration system crashed a day earlier, Governor Ralph Northam said in a statement. Several US lawmakers from Virginia and state officials appealed to Northam to extend the voter registration deadline by 72 hours after the technical problems emerged.
The Virginia Department of Elections said the state's voter registration system went down on Tuesday - the last day for residents to register before the November 3 presidential and general elections - as a result of a cut cable.
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are set to hold competing town hall televised events on Thursday instead of a head-to-head pre-election debate showdown that was scrapped.
The Republican incumbent's questions and answers session with potential voters will be broadcast by NBC from Miami, Florida, while the Democratic nominee is scheduled to appear simultaneously on ABC from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the networks said on Wednesday.
Trump and Biden are expected to face off on October 22. The final debate will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, and both have agreed to participate.
TRUMP CONSIDERS FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH
President Donald Trump is considering a sweeping foreign policy speech in advance of the November 3 election in which he may announce a further US troop reduction in Afghanistan, though not a total pullout, which his advisers have resisted, media reports said.
Trump has been pushing his national security advisers to speed up the Afghan troop cuts and other initiatives, NBC news said on Wednesday. The report cited two senior administration officials who were not identified as its prime sources.
