US president Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden are making a last-minute pitch to voters on Monday, blitzing several swing-states ahead of Tuesday's election.
Mr Trump will hold rallies in four states – including in his Democratic opponent Joe Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania – amid signs that Biden's polling lead in the crucial battleground state is narrowing.
Mr Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris will also fan out across Pennsylvania, while the former vice president will visit Ohio, a last-minute addition to his schedule that suggests Democrats are confident of flipping a state that Mr Trump won decisively in 2016.
The back-to-back events scheduled on the eve of election day, follows an intense weekend of campaigning by both candidates. Despite a continuing rise in coronavirus infection rates, Mr Trump held outdoor rallies attended by thousands of people in five states on Sunday. His Democratic opponent took part in more socially-distant events, including two drive-in events in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
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But amid heightened tensions in the US about a prospect of a contested election, Mr Trump threatened legal action over the election, declaring last night that “as soon as the election is over – we’re going in with our lawyers.”
Speaking as he arrived in North Carolina for a rally last night, he described recent Supreme Court decisions to allow some states to accept votes that arrive after election day, but were sent before November 3rd, to be counted as "very dangerous" and "ridiculous." "I don't think it's fair that we have to wait a long period of time after the election."
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He denied reports in Axios that he would declare victory on election night if it appeared that he was “ahead”. Over the weekend, the president renewed his attack on the mail-in ballot system ahead of Tuesday’s election, predicting “bedlam” in Pennsylvania as he warned that an election result may not be known “for weeks.”
Speaking at one of four campaign events he held in the state over the weekend, Mr Trump again raised the prospect of electoral fraud, despite officials assuring voters that a delayed result is not only possible but should be expected given the high number of absentee votes being cast.
He repeated the accusations in Iowa yesterday. "We should know the result of the election on November 3rd. The evening of November 3rd. That's the way it's been and that's the way it should be."
His message was echoed by campaign advisor Jason Miller, who speculated in an interview on ABC News that Democrats might "steal" the election.
“If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night ... And then they’re going to try to steal it back after the election,” he said.
Mr Trump’s warnings have fuelled concerns that he could contest the results of tomorrow’s election, particularly if there is a close result in states like Pennsylvania.
More than 93 million Americans have already cast their votes, but the counting and processing of those absentee-ballots will not commence in some states until Wednesday, with the result that a decisive election result is unlikely to emerge on election night.
As the debate over vote-counting continued, Democrats in Texas scored a victory as the state's supreme court rejected a Republican-led effort to throw out almost 127,000 votes that were cast via "curbside voting" in recent days, a process that was introduced in the county due to coronavirus.
Surge in voter participation
Republicans argued that the votes – which were cast in the heavily-Democratic area of Harris County – were illegal, but the court rejected the argument in a ruling on Sunday. However, a federal court will offer its own ruling on the issue on Monday.
Texas has witnessed an unprecedented surge in voter participation. More than nine million people have already voted in the election – surpassing the total number of ballots cast in the state in 2016.
Given the sweeping demographic changes which have seen an influx of new residents to the state’s largest urban areas, Democrats hope that they may win Texas for the first time since 1976.
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Mr Trump retweeted a video of Trump supporters surrounding a Biden-Harris bus on a Texas interstate on Friday, describing his supporters as “patriots” who had done nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, former president Barack Obama will return to Florida today – his second visit to the sunshine state in a week – amid concerns about Democratic turnout in the state. A Washington Post-ABC poll yesterday showed the race in Florida is a virtual tie.
The latest polls show that Mr Biden is leading in a clutch of swing states that will determine the election due to America's unique electoral college system. The New York Times-Siena College poll published yesterday put Biden ahead in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida and particularly in Wisconsin, where he has opened-up a substantial lead of 11 points.
But there were also encouraging signs for the Trump campaign. A poll by the respected Des Moines Register on Saturday night shows Mr Trump leading by seven points in Iowa.
As recently as September, the two candidates were tied, suggesting that the president is making up ground in Iowa, and possibly the broader mid-west where he was victorious in 2016.
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