TAMPA, Fla. — With less than a week to go before Election Day, President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are both planning to hold rallies on the same day in Tampa.
Both campaigns are attempting to sway voters still holding on to mail-in ballots, planning to vote early or voting on Election Day.
What You Need To Know
- President Trump, rival Biden expected to campaign in Tampa on Thursday
- Rallies are part of presidential candidates's last-week push before Election Day
- Winning Florida remains critical for president's reelection chances
The campaigns are using different strategies in Tampa.
The Biden campaign is holding a 6 p.m. drive-in rally at location only being disclosed to supporters and media that will be attending. Biden has been using this formula for campaign events to limit the number of people attending to ensure proper social distancing.
Meanwhile, President Trump will hold a Make America Great Again Victory Rally, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in the north parking lot of Raymond James Stadium.
Trump's Rally Near Early-Voting Location
The President is expected to encourage supporters to vote early at the early voting site located at Raymond James Stadium.
The campaign event being so close to an early voting site could help tally up votes for the President. He narrowly won Florida in 2016.
In a statement, the Supervisor of Elections Office in Hillsborough County released a statement about the President's rally, saying in part, "As per Florida Statute, electioneering is not allowed within 150 feet of an Early Voting site, but the Supervisor of Elections Office cannot prohibit campaign activities outside this "no solicitation zone." The rally and campaigners will be outside of this zone."
The elections office does warn there may be traffic issues near the stadium today, and that it has 26 early voting locations to choose from if want to avoid any kind of traffic issues.
Florida Remains Key
The campaign stops are part of both candidates's last-week push for voters in all-important Florida before the general election November 3.
The tightening presidential race suggests that the nation's largest swing state likely will again be decided by a percentage point or two.
In recent days, Ivanka Trump stumped for her father in Republican-dominated Sarasota. Former President Barack Obama did the same Tuesday in Democrat-rich Orlando for his former vice president.
Florida, with 29 electoral votes, is a must-win state for Trump to have a realistic chance of being reelected. He carried the state by 113,000 votes over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a margin of 1.2 percentage points. Most recent polls have shown Biden with a slim lead within the margin of error.
State statistics show the race is tightening, as expected. Through Monday, Florida Democrats had cast almost 300,000 more ballots than Republicans, but that advantage, built through mail-in voting, is narrowing as more Republicans vote in person. Mail-in voting began a month ago, and walk-in early voting started last week.
Overall, 2.7 million Democrats have voted compared with 2.4 million Republicans. The gap peaked October 21, when the Democrats were almost 490,000 ballots ahead, but it has slowly declined each day since then. Two-thirds of Democratic votes have been cast by mail, compared with about half of Republican ballots.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
"to" - Google News
October 29, 2020 at 05:26PM
https://ift.tt/3e9rjDz
Dueling Rallies: Trump, Biden Both to Campaign in Tampa Thursday - Bay News 9
"to" - Google News
https://ift.tt/368wPko
https://ift.tt/2YvVgrG
No comments:
Post a Comment