Biden’s ‘pathetic’, says Trump in late charge

Donald Trump dubbed Joe Biden a ‘pathetic candidate’ and held three rallies in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Joe Biden in Chester, Pennsylvania, on Monday. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump dubbed Joe Biden a “pathetic candidate” and held three rallies in the swing state of Pennsylvania as he tried to ­reverse the polls a week before election day.

The US President, 74, sought to emphasise his vigour in comparison with that of Mr Biden, 77, by holding three events in a state crucial to his re-election, but the mini tour suggested that his campaign knows it faces a tough battle to hold on after his narrow victory there in 2016.

Most election watchers believe that the road to the White House leads through Pennsylvania ­because of its size, with the joint fourth-largest vote in the electoral college, and a mix of urban, suburban and rural voters that makes it a microcosm of America. It is also a talisman because of the personal battle over ownership ­between the two candidates: Mr Biden was born there and Mr Trump went to business school in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania flipped to Mr Trump in 2016 by 44,292 votes out of more than six million cast, a difference of 0.72 per cent and the narrowest margin in a presidential election there in 176 years. Mr Biden is leading by 5.6 points in an average of polls, according to the Five Thirty Eight election website.

At his rallies on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) Mr Trump criticised his opponent for promising in the final TV debate last Thursday to “transition away from the oil ­industry”. The President said this was “an economic death sentence” because of Pennsylvania’s extensive energy sector, with 26,000 jobs in the oil and gas industries supporting tens of thousands more indirectly.

Mr Biden, who made a 25-minute drive for a brief unannounced appearance in eastern Pennsylvania, did a round of local TV news interviews to try to limit the fallout from his debate statement.

“Look, I’m from Scranton, Pennsylvania. My great-grandfather was a mining engineer. So I come from coal country. And I’m not talking about eliminating fracking, I just said no more fracking on federal lands,” Mr Biden told CBS Philadelphia.

“With regard to gas, oil, coal, all of it, the transition is taking place having nothing to do with anything I’m proposing. The fact is that the fastest-growing industries in the country are solar and wind. We can move in a direction where the transition takes place, so that people are not left behind, and we have got to invest in the new technologies.”

THE TIMES