US election 2020: Trump predicts ‘another beautiful victory’ in final rally
Donald Trump and Joe Biden have held their final rallies with Trump caning ‘fake polls’ and Biden telling his rival to ‘pack his bags’.
- Biden: time for Trump to pack bags
- Ivanka: Vaccine here by year end
- Trump slams celebs for Biden support
- Can history repeat itself?
- ‘We don’t have this in the bag’
- Trump comes within striking distance
Welcome to The Australian’s rolling coverage of the US election, with less than 24 hours to go before voting begins. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been holding their final rallies after a campaign sprint through battleground states. The rivals have offered opposing visions for the future Amid a record early turnout, Donald Trump is making an eleventh hour comeback in the polls, narrowing Joe Biden’s lead in the battleground states to be within strike distance.
Agencies 4.00pm: Trump predicts ‘another beautiful victory’
President Donald Trump on Tuesday predicted a “beautiful victory” in his final reelection campaign stop hours before polls open across the United States.
“We’re going to have another beautiful victory tomorrow,” he told a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same place where he held the climactic rally of his 2016 campaign, when he upset the polls to beat Hillary Clinton.
“We’re going to make history once again,” he said.
Agencies 1.00pm: Aid worker Trump freed supports Biden
An Egyptian-American aid worker imprisoned in Egypt for three years and freed under Donald Trump has called on voters to back Democrat Joe Biden.
Describing a 2017 Oval Office meeting, Aya Hijazi said in a tweet Monday, “Trump leaned in & said, ‘you know it’s I who released you, don’t you? I succeeded & Obama failed’ in the most vulnerable moment of my life, 48 hrs after releasing me from prison. It was never about me like it was never about us. It’s about his ego. We deserve better #VoteBiden.”
Trump leaned in & said, "you know it's I who released you, don't you? I succeeded & Obama failed" in the most vulnerable moment of my life, 48 hrs after releasing me from prison
— Aya Hijazi آية Øجازي (@_AyaHijazi_) November 2, 2020
It was never about me like it was never about us. It's about his ego. We deserve better #VoteBiden pic.twitter.com/SMhaAHKfWi
She added in the tweet: “I felt torn after the meeting worried about not being a loyal person as Trump demands loyalty as a means of maintaining control. But the government should not help citizens to make them loyal; it should do help b/c its the right thing to do #VoteBidenHarrisToSaveAmerica.”
I felt torn after the meeting worried about not being a loyal person as Trump demands loyalty as a means of maintaining control. But the government should not help citizens to make them loyal; it should do help b/c its the right thing to do #VoteBidenHarrisToSaveAmerica
— Aya Hijazi آية Øجازي (@_AyaHijazi_) November 2, 2020
Ms. Hijazi, who grew up near Washington, was released from prison after being cleared of child-abuse and human-trafficking charges in Cairo. She and her husband, who was also imprisoned, moved to Egypt to start a nonprofit to work with street children.
Their release was seen as a victory for the Trump administration after a failed effort by the Obama White House.
Dow Jones
Staff writers 12.50pm: Ivanka: Vaccine here by year end
Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka has spoken to a rally in Iowa, telling them a vaccine for the coronavirus was due by “end of the year.”
“We will defeat the plague and bring back your jobs, and 2021 will be the greatest year in American history,” she told supporters.
“I recognise my father’s communication style is not to everyone else’s taste,” she added. “I’m told his tweets can be unfiltered. But the results speak for themselves.”
Ms Trump invited Republican Senator Joni Ernst to the stage, with Ms Ernst saying Ms Trump and former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders - also on the stage - represented “girl power” in Washington.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll released on Sunday shows Ms Ernst leading her Democrat rival Theresa Greenfield 46 percent to 42 percent.
Agencies 12.20pm: Biden: Time for Trump to pack bags
Donald Trump and Joe Biden have held their last campaign rallies, offering dueling visions for the future and closing out the 2020 presidential campaign against a backdrop of concerns over the vote-counting process and the prospect of legal challenges ahead.
A day out from Election Day, Mr. Biden kept his focus on Ohio and Pennsylvania, while Mr. Trump hoped to boost his support with a dash across North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Nearly 100 million ballots have already been cast, through in-person early voting or mail-in ballots, and election officials in many states were steeling themselves for a drawn-out vote-counting process due to the massive increase in early votes.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted Sunday found that support for the two candidates in a group of 12 battleground states had remained unchanged in recent days, with Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump, 51 per cent to 46 per cent.
“One more day!” Mr. Biden declared at a drive-in rally in Cleveland, where he sought to help Ohio Democrats recapture a state that shifted decisively behind Mr. Trump and Republicans in 2016.
“Tomorrow we have an opportunity to put an end to a presidency that has divided this nation,” he said. “Tomorrow we can put an end to a president who has failed to protect this nation.”
Mr. Trump again pitched himself as a political outsider, telling a cheering crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina.: “Do you want to be represented by a career politician who hates you or by an outsider who will defend you like you have never been defended before?”
Later, in Avoca, Pennsylvania, he said to a pack of supporters that he wasn’t standing in front of the “crowds of a second-place finisher.” The final blast of campaign activity concluded an extraordinary political year, marked by the coronavirus outbreak, economic disarray and racial upheaval. Despite the tumult, Mr. Biden has maintained a lead in most national polls, as much of the public focus remained on Mr. Trump and his handling of the pandemic.
Congressional races were also in the final stretch Monday, with Democrats hoping to expand their House majority and Republicans fighting to keep control of the Senate.
Democrats and Republicans were bracing for potential legal clashes over the results.
Dow Jones
Anne Barrowclough 12.10pm: Biden: Time for Trump to pack his bags
Joe Biden has held his final rally in Pittsburgh, alongside singer Lady Gaga.
“It’s time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home!” Mr Biden told the car rally.
Mr Biden held three rallies on his last day of campaigning, telling supporters Donald Trump was a “loser” who looked down on military families and who had let down the working class.
“We’re done with the chaos. We’re done with the racism and we’re done with the tweets, the anger, the failure, the irresponsibility,” he said at his final rally.
Mr Biden also attacked Mr Trump for reportedly paying more taxes in China than he had in the United States and threatening to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Referring to Mr Trump’s claims that he had done more for black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, he shouted: “Honk if you think it’s a bunch of malarkey! He’s lying!”
READ MORE: Trump’s very last decision
Chris Kenny 11.55am: Grim scenes in Washington on election eve
Election eve in Washington is full of foreboding. Carpenters are still being worked off their feet, boarding up buildings. No entity is expecting to be immune.
Churches and banks, unions and charities, restaurants and hotels – all having the windows and doors built over with temporary timber – as if a hurricane were approaching. Our hotel has made a flimsy attempt to cover its limited glass frontage and a security guard has been freshly installed in the foyer; when I returned and overheard his briefing, I was equal parts relieved and alarmed.
On the streets there is a bit of a circus – preachers, protesters, journalists and photographers mingle and play up to each other. The anticipation has a soundtrack, and it is the buzz-saws and nail guns all over the CBD as the carpenters cash in.
Locals are making themselves scarce, a combination of coronavirus and election wariness keeping them off the streets. Tourists and political activists are more common, and some people combine the two. I spoke with three some women who can come from Seattle hoping to bear witness to the political death of Donald Trump.
It seems clear the heavy police presence, barricades and boarding are aimed at withstanding the anarchist and leftist protests that have teamed with the Black Lives Matter movement and created chaos in Portland, Seattle, New York and elsewhere. But Democrat supporters claim it is more about protecting against the white supremacists who they claim will flood the capital if Trump loses.
READ the full story here
Anne Barrowclough 11.30am: Three states surpass total 2016 votes
Three states have already seen more people vote before Election Day than they did in the 2016 presidential election.
Montana on Monday recorded more than 517,000 ballots, far more than the 298,000 early votes in 2016 and surpassing that state’s 2016 total of 516,900.
Last week, Texas and Hawaii saw their early vote totals surge past their total votes from 2016.
Early in-person voting is still underway in many states, and mail-in ballots continue to flow in, with more than 96,000 ballots already in. Washington, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina have all reached at least 95 percent of their 2016 total vote count already.
Anne Barrowclough 10.20am: Trump slams celebs for supportng Biden
Donald Trump has attacked Lady Gaga, Jon Bon Jovi and Beyonce for supporting Joe Biden, in a campaign rally in Mr Biden’s boyhood home of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“He’s got Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga, I could tell you plenty of stories. I could tell you stories about Lady Gaga, I know a lot of stories,” Mr Trump told supporters.
Lady Gaga is hosting a drive-in rally for Mr Biden in Pittsburgh, while Bon Jovi hosted a pro-Biden concert in eastern Pennsylvania last month. Beyoncé endorsed Biden on Monday.
Mr Trump told the election eve crowd: “Jon Bon Jovi, every time I see him he kisses my ass. ‘Oh, oh, Mr. President.’ But he’ll get to get something out of it, just like everyone is.”
The president, who is closing the gap with Mr Biden, added: “We draw much bigger crowds than these people.” He said crowd size was a more valuable gauge of support than professional polls.
“But you know what happens? He’ll sing a song or two, and then he will leave, and the crowd will leave and sleepy Joe is up there talking,” he added..
“That happened to Hillary, too, right? They got Beyonce and they got Jay-Z, right? Jay-Z, and he started using the f-word — do you remember? — in front of this crowd and it was unbelievable. He was using the f-word, f-word, f-word, and the crowd was going … And then they left and the crowd left. And Hillary was standing on the stage with an empty place. And she lost and people were surprised.”
READ MORE: Who dares write off Trump?
Agencies 10.10am: Trump dismisses ‘fake polls’
Donald Trump has held a rally in Joe Biden’s boyhood home dismissing as “fake” polls that show him headed for defeat.
Mr Trump and Joe Biden have converged n the pivotal battleground of Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump won in 2016.
How America voted since 1972 ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸ðŸ—³ï¸ #election2020 pic.twitter.com/w2rSuvFFoB
— The Australian (@australian) November 2, 2020
But Mr Biden has maintained a steady if narrowing lead there, and will make an 11th-hour Election Day trip to his childhood hometown of Scranton.
Mr Trump jetted into the city for a raucous event on Mr Biden’s home turf, after rallying supporters in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
“I watch these fake polls,” Mr Trump said. “We’re going to win anyway.”
As he pivoted back to his months-long attempts to paint Mr Biden as either “sleepy” or “corrupt,” the crowd chanted: “Lock him up!”
And Mr Trump sought to recapture the spirit of his shock win four years ago, telling the crowd: “You elected an outsider as president who is finally putting America first.” “Get out and vote, that’s all I ask.”
READ MORE: Biden 10 points aheadin final days
Cameron Stewart 9.45am: Could history repeat itself?
Could history repeat itself in America? Four years ago, on the eve of the US election, I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, watching Hillary Clinton’s final campaign rally.
It was not so much a rally as it was a coronation of the soon-to-be President Clinton, or so they thought. Bruce Springsteen sang, as did Bon Jovi. Barack and Michelle Obama gave speeches as did Bill and Chelsea Clinton. More than 50,000 supporters cheered them on and sang along with The Boss in front of the historic Independence Hall, birthplace of the nation.
Hillary Clinton was just 3.2 points up in the polls but most serious pundits didn’t seriously think she would lose, especially to someone like Donald Trump.
So where was Trump on that night? He had been gaining on Clinton in the polls for the previous week but he was still behind and was holding a blitz of rallies around the country just like he is now. On that same night as Clinton was being prematurely crowned, Trump was 200kms to the north, holding a rally in the gritty, working class town of Scranton in northern Pennsylvania
READ Cameron’s full article here
Staff writers 8.10am: Biden in boyhood home on election day
Joe Biden will head to his boyhood home of Scranton, Pennsylvania for a campaign stop on Election Day, and hold a campaign event in Philadelphia before returning to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, to watch the election result.
Mr Biden lived in Scranton until the age of 10 when his family relocated to Delaware.
The Biden campaign says Mr Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, would make stops Tuesday in Detroit before returning to Delaware. Both Pennsylvania and Michigan, which President Trump carried in 2016, are central to the Biden campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes.
The Biden campaign is also dispatching Dr Jill Biden, Mr. Biden’s wife, to Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, and then Wake County, North Carolina. Doug Emhoff, Ms Harris’s husband, will campaign Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio, the campaign said.
The Wall St Journal
READ MORE: Senate control hinges on handful of GOP votes
Angelica Snowden 7.30am: ‘We don’t have this in the bag’
Jose Aristimuno, former deputy press secretary for the Democratic Party says the party is not “victorious until we win” with one day left of the presidential election campaign.
Mr Aristumuno urged Americans “not to listen to the polls” and “come out and vote” amid a record turnout, with over 100 million votes already cast.
“I know the polls say that Biden has this on the bag,” Mr Aristumuno told the Today Show. “We do not have this on the bag,” he said.
“We do not have this won yet until we get it done by the end of tomorrow.”
Donald Trump will continue his final campaign blitz on Tuesday (AEDT), holding rallies in Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
READ MORE: US election – what you need to know
Cameron Stewart 7.15am: Trump comes within striking distance
Donald Trump is making an eleventh hour comeback in the polls against Joe Biden, narrowing Mr Biden’s lead in the battleground states to be within striking distance on election eve.
The president’s blitz of back-to-back rallies around the country in the final days is paying off as he reduces Mr Biden’s lead in battleground states to an average of just 2.7 points, his best result since the end of August.
But the former Vice President still holds the advantage as both candidates make their final pitch to voters with Mr Biden holding a shrinking but still solid lead of 6.5 per cent nationally.
Mr Trump told supporters at Fayetteville, North Carolina that the polls were fake and that he would end up winning again like in 2016.
“We are going to win, we are looking tremendous in Florida, we are really looking good all over, there are the real polls not these Fox polls,’’ Mr Trump said.
He said “hidden voters’’ would emerge in massive numbers on Election Day to vote him back into office.
READ the full story here
Troy Bramston 7.00am: Time to tip Trump into history’s bin
Donald Trump is the worst president in US history. Tonight (AEDT), Americans have an opportunity to terminate his chaotic, dysfunctional, divisive, dangerous and degraded administration. While Trump might yet achieve another remarkable election victory, the odds are against him. Americans, we can hope, are wise enough to recognise it is time to bring the curtain down on The Trump Show.
Trump has debased the office of president, divided rather than united the country, and diminished the standing of the US overseas. He has lied thousands of times, deliberately downplayed the threat of COVID-19, withheld aid to Ukraine unless Kiev investigated Joe Biden’s family, and used the presidency to enrich his businesses. He deserved to be impeached.
Nobody should excuse Trump’s unhinged rhetoric or deranged tweets as merely a sideshow. This behaviour should not be normalised. Words matter. Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women with his “grab ’em by the pussy” remark. He called dead American soldiers “losers” and “suckers”. He accused Barack Obama of being “corrupt” and said he should be “locked up”. All this is indefensible.
READ Troy’s full article here.
Greg Sheridan 6.45am: Axis of hate barracking for Biden
They are the anti-Trump axis, the coalition of the concerned and conniving, a historic entente across ideologies and world views.
What do The New York Times (and the whole US liberal establishment), the Communist Party of China and the mullahs’ regime that rules Iran have in common?
They are all desperately keen to see Donald Trump defeated this week.
All right thinking left/liberal, woke opinion, plus the Leninist peer rival of the US for global leadership and hegemony, plus the most aggressive regime in the Middle East which officially designates the US as “the great Satan”, all think their lives would be better without Trump to boss them around.
The US intelligence community has accused Beijing and Tehran of attempting to interfere in US politics through social media posts and hacking.
William Evanina, the head of the US National Counter-Intelligence and Security Centre, said “China prefers President Trump — whom Beijing sees as unpredictable — does not win re-election”.
READ Greg’s full article here
Russia, Iran ‘on mission to sow mayhem in Europe’: MI5
MI5 Director General warns Russia and Iran are leaning on criminals to undertake sabotage and attacks on dissidents, while ISIS terror threats are also on the rise
A weakened Iran still has a major deterrent: the nuclear option
With Hezbollah reeling and its missiles failing to do much damage, attention turns to the threat posed by Tehran’s nuclear program. How close is it to a bomb and what can Israel and the US do in response?