Biden insists he'll bring pandemic under control

Campaigning in Republican stronghold, he accuses Trump of surrendering to Covid-19

Mr Joe Biden addressing supporters during a socially distanced campaign event in Warm Springs, Georgia, on Tuesday. Polls show him running neck and neck with President Donald Trump in the state.
Mr Joe Biden addressing supporters during a socially distanced campaign event in Warm Springs, Georgia, on Oct 27, 2020. PHOTO: REUTERS

WARM SPRINGS (Georgia) • Mr Joe Biden flayed US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, accusing his rival of surrendering to a surging pandemic, as the Democrat took his campaign to the Republican stronghold of Georgia a week before the US election.

With the campaign down to its final days, Mr Biden tapped one of his top surrogates, popular former president Barack Obama, to deliver a closing argument for Democrats in Florida, a must-win swing state for Mr Trump if he is to defy the odds and earn re-election.

Mr Biden, buoyed by poll numbers that show him leading the incumbent, drilled in on Mr Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, reminding voters that Mr Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows had conceded that "we're not going to control the pandemic".

Mr Biden, speaking in Warm Springs, Georgia, branded the response "a capitulation" by a White House that "never really tried" to halt a pandemic that has now killed more than 226,000 Americans.

Instead of acting as a wartime president to battle Covid-19 as he promised, Mr Trump "shrugged, he swaggered and he surrendered", Mr Biden said.

"I'm here to tell you: We can and we will control this virus," he said.

"If you give me the honour of serving as your president, clear the decks for action. For we will act... on the first day of my presidency to get Covid under control."

Mr Biden, 77, held a socially distanced drive-in rally later in Atlanta, Georgia's largest city.

Mr Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by five points in Georgia in 2016, but polls show the 74-year-old running neck and neck with Mr Biden in the Peach State.

Georgia last voted for a Democrat for president nearly three decades ago - Mr Bill Clinton in 1992 - but the Biden campaign has high hopes of flipping the state and also winning its two US Senate seats up for grabs.

Mr Biden has been maintaining a more constrained campaign schedule instead of what he called Mr Trump's "super-spreader" events.

In Florida on Tuesday, where polls show Mr Trump has edged into the slightest of leads, Mr Obama offered a searing indictment of the incumbent President, accusing him of incompetence, repeated lies, embracing dictators and ignoring the pandemic.

But he also offered a blunt assessment of how apathy in 2016 may have sunk Mrs Clinton's hopes of defeating Mr Trump, telling Democrats at the Orlando drive-in rally to make a plan and vote early.

"We were complacent last time. Folks got a little lazy, folks took things for granted, and look what happened," Mr Obama said.

"Not this time. Not in this election. Let's bring it home."

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday found that Mr Biden had built a significant lead in Wisconsin while remaining narrowly ahead in Michigan.

Among likely voters in Wisconsin, 57 per cent backed Mr Biden, while 40 per cent supported Mr Trump. In Michigan, 51 per cent backed Mr Biden and 44 per cent supported Mr Trump.

Mr Biden's 17-point lead in Wisconsin is way more than in other polls, which show a slimmer 5.5-point lead according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls on Tuesday. The polls were conducted from Oct 20 to 25.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 29, 2020, with the headline Biden insists he'll bring pandemic under control. Subscribe