WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st October, 2020) A pollster who predicted President Donald Trump's victory in 2016 put out a new survey that shows this year's presidential race is much closer than many pundits are suggesting, just as other polls indicate that Democratic challenger Joe Biden's lead in key swing states continues to narrow with less than two weeks until votes are cast.
A new survey released on Tuesday from IBD/TIPP, one of only two pollsters that successfully predicted Trump's victory in 2016, shows Democratic challenger Joe Biden's lead over Trump has narrowed to just 2.3 points - 48.1 to 45.8 percent. Since October 12, Biden's support has slipped 3.8 points, while Trump's numbers gained 2.4 points. According to the poll from The New York Times and Siena College, however, Biden maintains a solid nine-point lead over Trump - 50 to 41 percent among likely voters.
Biden leads nationally by an average of 8.6 points in the ten most recent surveys published on Realclearpolitics.com (RCP) as of Tuesday evening. However, due to the electoral college format, candidates must win statewide tallies, not the national popular vote, in order to win the US presidential election. And in eight of the ten top battleground states Biden is ahead, but the margin of his lead in pivotal swing states continues to deteriorate. Biden's lead in Pennsylvania, a must win state for Trump, has dwindled to 3.7% in the RCP average, almost 3 points lower than where it was just over a week ago.
Trump will take part in the presidential debates on Thursday despite organizers' decision to allow for the muting of microphones to avoid crosstalk, campaign manager Bill Stepien said. According to his statement, the president "is committed to debating Joe Biden regardless of last minute rule changes." Stepien alleged that the debates commission was "biased" and trying to "provide advantage to their favored candidate."
In the first presidential debate, held on September 30, Trump interrupted either Biden or the moderator, Chris Wallace, 71 times. The Democratic candidate made a total of 22 interruptions.
First lady Melania Trump canceled plans to accompany her husband to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania due to a "lingering cough" despite having recovered from coronavirus. Fox News quoted her chief of staff Stephanie Grisham as assuring that Melania Trump "continues to feel better every day." Biden meanwhile is raising eyebrows by having had no public events since Sunday. He is not expected to return on the campaign trail before Thursday's debate.
Trump urged Attorney General William Barr to "act fast" and appoint a special investigator to probe possible crimes committed by the son of his Democratic opponent, Hunter Biden.
"This is major corruption. We've got to get the attorney general to act. He's got to act. And he's got to act fast. He's got to appoint somebody," Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
He was referring to a report in the New York Post which alleged that Hunter Biden helped broker a meeting between his father and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Biden's campaign team has denied the allegations. On Tuesday evening, FOX news reported, citing unnamed sources, that the FBI has possession of Hunter's laptop and agrees with the US intelligence chief that the emails are not connected to a Russian disinformation campaign to get Trump re-elected.
Trump said he wants to get another COVID-19 economic relief package before the US presidential election, but doubts that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will accept any deal.
"We want to do it because people need help and they should get help," Trump told Fox News. "But here's the problem. She [Pelosi] doesn't want to do anything until after the election because she thinks that helps her. I actually think it helps us because everyone knows that she's the one that's breaking up the deal now."
Congress approved the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) stimulus in March, dispensing roughly $3 trillion as paycheck protection for workers, loans and grants for businesses and other personal aid for qualifying citizens and residents. Democrats have since been locked in a stalemate with Republicans, who control the US Senate, on a successive package to the CARES Act, arguing over the size of the next relief, as thousands of Americans risked losing their jobs without further aid.
Hundreds of police officers in the city of New York will provide a rapid reaction force to address any violence at more than 1,000 voting sites during the November 3 election and at centers where early voting will begin on October 24, Chief Terence Monahan told reporters. "We will have members of the NYPD at the 1201 polling locations across the five boroughs on election day and at the 88 locations in the city that will host early voting that begins on Saturday," he said.
According to Monahan, police have detected no known threats of disruptions nor do they expect any during the next two weeks. He noted that city police have had plenty of practice managing daily protests in recent months, allowing peaceful demonstrations to proceed, while intervening to arrest people when violence erupts.
