US election 2020: Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ without a clear result on election night

Donald Trump raises the spectre of voter fraud as Barack Obama mocks ‘traumatised’ president’s attack on doctors.

Donald Trump has warned of ‘bedlam’ in America if there is no clear result on election night, as he and his opponent Joe Biden blitzed key Midwest battleground states with just three days until the poll.

The move came amid a continued surge in early voting with an unprecedented 90 million votes already cast by mail or person - two thirds of the total votes cast in the 2016 election.

It also came as new coronavirus cases jumped to a record 100,000 cases a day, giving a boost to Mr Biden who has accused the president of fatally mishandling the pandemic which has claimed more than 230,000 lives.

Mr Trump held four rallies in the key swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday (AEDT), accusing the former vice president of threatening thousands of jobs in the state with his opposition to fossil fuels and fracking.

Mr Biden held two events in another swing state of Michigan alongside Barack Obama, in which he accused the president of bungling the pandemic and dividing America.

In Pennsylvania, Mr Trump warned that there was a danger that the election on Wednesday (AEDT) could result in ‘bedlam’ and ‘very bad things’ happening in the US if a clear winner wasn’t known on the night.

The president said there could be widespread voter fraud, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision to allow states to keep counting mail-in ballots in the days after the election.

“This is a terrible thing that they’ve done to our country. And that’s the US Supreme Court that I’m talking about. That’s a terrible, political, horrible decision that they made,” Mr Trump said. “November 3rd is going to come and go, and we’re not going to know. And you’re going to have bedlam in our country.’

Former president Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wave to the crowd at the end of a drive-in campaign rally at Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan, on Saturday.

Some states, including the swing states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, do not allow mail-in votes to be counted until Election Day, meaning the result may not be available on the night.

Washington and other major cities have boarded up shop fronts to protect themselves against possible civil unrest and violence if there is a contested result on election night or in the days that follow.

With just three days to go, Mr Biden leads Mr Trump by 7.8 points nationally, a figure that has held steady despite Mr Trump’s barnstorming schedule of rallies around the country.

But Mr Trump is much close to Mr Biden in the key battleground states. Mr Biden currently leads by just 3.7 points in Pennsylvania, 1.2 points in Florida, 0.8 points in Georgia and 1.2 points in North Carolina. Mr Trump is tied with Mr Biden in Ohio and leads by 0.6 points in Arizona.

However the Biden campaign is increasingly hopeful of winning Michigan and Wisconsin - two states that Mr Trump unexpectedly won in 2016. Mr Biden holds a 6.5 point lead in Michigan and a 6.4 point lead in Wisconsin.

In Flint Michigan, Mr Biden renewed his attack on Mr Trump’s handling of the coronavirus amid a record surge in the virus across the country.

“Imagine where we would be now if we had a president who wore a mask instead of mocked it,’ Mr Biden told a drive-in rally. “I can tell you this. We wouldn’t have 9 million confirmed cases of Covid in this nation. We wouldn’t have over 230,000 deaths. We wouldn’t be seeing these new record numbers of cases we’re seeing every day right now. We wouldn’t be facing another 200,000 deaths in the next few months.’

Mr Trump, in his Pennsylvania rallies, mocked Mr Biden for focusing so much on the pandemic.

“I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He’s got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID,” Mr Trump said in Newtown.

He also attacked Mr Biden over his stance on fracking and his opposition to fossil fuel industries, saying Mr Biden’s ‘anti-energy’ policies would cost many thousands of jobs in resource-rich Pennsylvania.

“If Pennsylvania didn’t frack, you wouldn’t have Pennsylvania, believe me,’ the president said.

By contrast, he said of his own policies; ‘We have fracking, we have energy, we have manufacturing which they gave up on.’

Mr Trump also said Mr Biden was the reason why so many manufacturing industries had left the state in recent years.

Supporters of President Trump drive in a ’Trump Parade’ in the battleground state on October 31 in Luther, Iowa. Picture: AFP

“For decades, they targeted your steel mills, shut down your plants and sent millions of your jobs overseas, all while lining their pockets with special interest cash,” Mr Trump said. “No one embodies this betrayal and treachery more than Joe Biden.”

In Michigan, Mr Obama mocked Mr Trump for his recent claim that doctors were inflating the coronavirus death count for monetary gain.

“Now he is accusing doctors of profiting off this pandemic. Think about that,” Mr Obama said. “He cannot fathom, he does not understand the notion that somebody would risk his life to save others without trying to make a buck.”

Mr Obama also questioned why Mr Trump was so obsessed with the size of crowds at his events.

“Does he have nothing better to worry about? Did no one come to his birthday party when he was a kid? Was he traumatised,” Mr Obama asked. “What is it with crowds?”

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia