Tight Trump vs Biden race heats up

By The SATimes New Service

Washington: The presidential race always heats up after Labor Day. This time under the shadow of the unvanquished Covid, the in-person campaigning and rallies have been slow to pick up. But one sign that the race is heating up: even Democratic nominee Joe Biden is finally travelling outside his home state of Delaware after the polls showed that his margin over President Trump is narrowing, particularly in the battleground states and indications are that states like Florida and North Carolina and Ohio are going to be very close.

Even as President Trump and Biden increased their campaign travel with election day just under two months away, the issues they want to fight on are also becoming clear. Trump needs the suburban vote and is focusing on law and order issue and painting his opponents as Leftists who are on the side of the “looters and rioters and anarchists”.

Democrats want it to be a referendum on Trump, in particular his handling of the pandemic which has taken the lives of 190,000 Americans already. They are hitting Trump after it came to light that he told Watergate fame journalist Bob Woodward on the record in February that he was deliberately downplaying Covid severity to keep calm in the country.

The conventions did not give bump  to either candidate. But Democrats will rue not giving enough importance to the Latinos at the convention, their share of Latino vote in battleground states like Florida has fallen.

As for the Indian American vote, Trump is expected to get a bigger share this time than in 2016, largely due to his bonhomie with popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers expect the $500 billion Covid-19 stimulus Republicans proposed this week to fail in a Senate vote Thursday, with Democratic leadership blasting the package as “pathetic” and even some GOP senators not on board.

The latest plan does not include a provision that generated perhaps the most bipartisan support for months: direct stimulus payments to Americans like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of late March or the subsequent $3 trillion Democratic or $1 trillion Republican proposals in May and July.

Image courtesy of (Photo courtesy Texas Tribune)

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