Trump Blankets Pennsylvania, While Obama Joins Biden On Michigan Trail

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President Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Newtown, Pa., on Saturday — one of four stops in the crucial swing state.

Chris Szagola/AP

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Chris Szagola/AP

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At the same time, Trump told a rally crowd in Newtown, Pa., that Democrats are playing up the pandemic’s threat to affect the election. He promised the country will «never lock down again and falsely asserted that Biden would invoke perpetual lockdown.

«There’ll be no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgivings, no Christmas, no Easters, no Fourth of Julys, Trump said of a Biden presidency. «There will be nothing.

Trump’s blanketing of Pennsylvania signals the key role the Keystone State may play in determining who wins the presidency. Biden himself campaigns there both Sunday and Monday. The polls are tightest in Pennsylvania out of the three reliably blue Great Lakes states — along with Michigan and Wisconsin — that Trump flipped in 2016.

Trump spent his final Saturday of campaigning mostly outside of Pennsylvania’s major media markets, trying instead to turn out his base of more rural white voters and squeeze out as many low-propensity new voters as he can.

But he began the day speaking outside of a home used as Gen. George Washington’s headquarters in Bucks County, in the Philadelphia suburbs. It’s a county Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by fewer than 3,000 votes. Biden is expecting to do better there, as college-educated suburban women especially flee the Republican Party.

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Trump, who lags in the state’s polling average, predicted a «great red wave. But he also stoked fear about what might happen if a winner is not declared on election night.

«November 3rd is gonna come and go and you’re not going to know and you’re going to have bedlam in our country, Trump said. «You’re going to have this period of nine days, seven days.

Indeed Pennsylvania is one swing state in which results may take days.

Later, in Reading, Pa., Trump said he thinks the Supreme Court could help deliver a win for him. Trump has now named three of the court’s nine justices.

At a rally in Reading, PA Trump says: “If we win on Tuesday or — thank you very much, Supreme Court — shortly thereafter…” pic.twitter.com/erqh5uNMsk

— The Recount (@therecount) October 31, 2020

Biden, meanwhile, engaged in a turnout operation of his own on Saturday, joining up with Obama to hit two majority Black communities in Michigan, Flint and Detroit.

In 2016, Clinton won about 46,000 fewer votes in Detroit than Obama, the nation’s first Black president, did in 2012. Trump won Michigan by just 10,000 votes.

«The power to change the country is literally in your hands, Biden said in Flint. «There is nothing he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy.

Saturday was Biden’s first in-person joint campaign trail appearance with the former president. Obama introduced his one-time vice president, saying, «Joe Biden is my brother. I love him, and diagnosed Democrats’ stinging defeat in Michigan in 2016: «We got a little complacent the last election.

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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama greet each other at a drive-in rally in Flint, Mich.

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Andrew Harnik/AP

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama greet each other at a drive-in rally in Flint, Mich.

Andrew Harnik/AP

As he has all campaign, Obama stressed the importance of voting.

«The fact that you don’t get 100% of what you want right away, that’s not a good reason [not] to vote; you just gotta keep at it, Obama said.

Obama will head to Atlanta and South Florida on Monday. After holding three rallies herself in South Florida Saturday, Harris will fly to Georgia and North Carolina on Sunday. Biden heads to Pennsylvania on Sunday, and the Democratic ticket and their spouses are scheduled to barnstorm the state all day Monday.

Trump has five rallies scheduled on Sunday — in Michigan, Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida — and has a similarly packed schedule on Monday.

At least 90 million Americans have already voted in the election, but tens of millions have yet to vote and will head to the polls in person on Tuesday.