Trump Tries New Biden Nickname in Pennsylvania: Campaign Update
There are three days until Election Day and 44 days until the Electoral College meets. Get all updates here.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump tried out some new material at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. He also jumped to a 7-point lead in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register. Democrat Joe Biden has widened his lead in Wisconsin, a new poll shows. Stanford University researchers said Trump’s months of campaign rallies resulted in thousands of Covid-19 cases. Trump hasn’t decided on his Election Night plans yet.
There are three days until Election Day and 44 days until the Electoral College meets.
Other Developments:
Trump Tries on a New Biden Nickname
Trump added a new nickname for Joe Biden to his repertoire -- “Joe Headwind” -- as the president continues to grapple for a punchy moniker that sticks to his opponent, three days before the election.
“You know what I call him? I call him Joe Headwind,” Trump said in Butler, Pennsylvania, referring to Biden’s potential economic policies as a constraint on the U.S. recovery. It was Trump’s third rally of four on Saturday in the Keystone State.
“We get him out of the way, you’ll see a stock market that goes through the roof,” Trump said, a day after U.S. stocks ended their biggest weekly rout since March. The crowd chuckled.
Trump says regularly, without evidence, that a Biden win would sink equities markets and even trigger a depression.
Trump most often calls the Democrat “Sleepy Joe,” even occasionally shortening it to “SJ,” but has tested out other versions, like “Slow Joe,” “Joe Hiden’” and “Basement Biden.”
Trump Pulls Away in Iowa, Register Says
A Des Moines Register poll showed Donald Trump with a 7-point lead over Joe Biden in Iowa, 48% to 41%, after the two were tied in the same series in September with 47% each.
The survey’s an outlier after several recent polls showed the Iowa race too close to call. Biden’s campaign has targeted the state aggressively with advertising. The survey of 814 likely voters was taken Oct. 26-29. It had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
“The president is holding demographic groups that he won in Iowa four years ago,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of the polling company Selzer & Co.
Since September Trump’s standing has improved among independent voters, while his support has slipped among women, according to the poll.
The Real Clear Politics average of recent Iowa polls, updated to include the Des Moines Register survey, shows Trump up by 0.5 points. -- Ros Krasny
Biden Expands Wisconsin Lead (6:05 p.m.)
Biden expanded his lead over Trump in Wisconsin over the last month, according to a new poll by Emerson College, their last one before Tuesday’s election.
The Wisconsin Emerson College poll, conducted Oct. 29-30, had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. It showed Biden leading Trump 53% to 45%. Biden’s lead over Trump increased by 1 point from the same poll last month.
In the past week both candidates have campaigned in Wisconsin, which along with Michigan and Pennsylvania is seen as key to winning the White House. Trump won all three states in 2016, the first time a Republican candidate had managed to do so since 1984, and Biden will need to take some of them back to win.
Independent voters in Wisconsin favored Biden over Trump by 54% to 39%. While Biden has a 16-point lead among suburban voters in Wisconsin and a 17-point lead with urban voters, Trump holds an edge among rural voters, 52% to 45%. The economy ranked as the most important issue for voters, and Trump’s approval rating was at 45%.
In Vigo County, Indiana, whose voters have chosen the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections since 1888, it’s a dead heat. Biden and Trump each have 48% support. Indiana is usually a heavily Republican state; Trump won the county handily in 2016. -- Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou
Researchers Say Covid Shadows Trump Rallies (4:53 p.m.)
Trump’s rallies likely led to thousands of coronavirus cases and hundreds of deaths, according to a Stanford University report released on Friday. The economists’ study, which hasn’t been peer reviewed, estimated that 18 Trump campaign rallies this summer were linked to more than 30,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 700 deaths.
“Our analysis strongly supports the warnings and recommendations of public health officials concerning the risk of Covid-19 transmission at large group gatherings, particularly when the degree of compliance with guidelines concerning the use of masks and social distancing is low,” the researchers wrote. “The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death.”
The study, led by the chairman of Stanford’s economics department, analyzed Covid cases in counties where rallies were held from June 20 to Sept. 22. The researchers relied on information from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Courtney Parella, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement the campaign takes precautions including passing out masks and checking attendees’ temperature at rallies. “Americans have the right to gather under the First Amendment to hear from the president,” she said.
Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement that Trump “not only has no plan to defeat the pandemic -- he’s even costing hundreds of lives and sparking thousands of cases with super spreader rallies that only serve his own ego.” -- Naomi Nix
Trump Weighing Up His Election-Night Plans (11:32 a.m.)
Trump is still deciding where to spend Election Night: attending a gathering at his downtown hotel in Washington, or staying home at the White House.
“I’ll be perhaps between the White House and the hotel,” the president told reporters Saturday morning as he prepared to board Air Force One en route to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for a noon rally, the first of four for the day.
Trump also predicted that he’ll do better than expected with Black and Hispanic voters. “We have a big red wave that has formed,” he said. -- Justin Sink
Coming Up:
Biden concentrates on battleground Pennsylvania on Sunday, while Trump visits five states: Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.