Two days from the US election: What you need to know

Donald Trump and Joe Biden continue their battleground state blitz in the final stretch of the 2020 campaign.

Fans hold up cardboard cutouts of Joe Biden and Donald Trump before a football game at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, on October 31, 2020 [Rick Bowmer, Pool via AP]

Donald Trump will hold 10 rallies in seven states and Joe Biden blankets Pennsylvania for last-minute support during the final two days of the US presidential campaign.

Tomorrow, Pennsylvania will be ground zero for the campaigns as both candidates will be joined by their running mates and various surrogates in blanketing the state with events on the final full day of the campaign.

Already, more than 92 million Americans have voted by mail or early in person, representing two-thirds of the overall 2016 turnout. In comparison, early and in-person voting made up 41 percent of the vote in 2016.

Poll position

An avalanche of battleground state polling released in the past 24 hours shows Biden maintaining a lead over Trump in most of the Midwestern “Rust Belt” states, leads that are larger than Hillary Clinton’s were at this point in 2016, and tight races in the competitive “Sun Belt” states of Florida and Arizona.

Three polls of likely voters in Pennsylvania have Biden up seven points (Washington Post-ABC), six points (New York Times-Siena) and five points (Muhlenberg College).

In Wisconsin, Biden leads Trump 11 points (New York Times-Siena) and eight points (CNN). Biden is also leading Trump by 11 in Michigan, according to the CNN survey.

Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by a combined 77,000 votes in 2016, and would not have won without those three states in his column.

It is much closer in the Sun Belt where, in Florida, Trump leads Biden by two points in the Washington Post-ABC poll and trails Biden by three in the New York Times-Siena poll. Trump won Florida in 2016 by 1.2 percentage points. Both of those poll results are within the margin of error.

Biden holds a slight lead over Trump in Arizona: six points in the New York Times-Siena poll and four points in the CNN poll. The New York Times polls have margins of error between 2.4 and 3.2 percentage points. The CNN polls have margins of error between 3.8 and 4.1 percent and the Washington Post polls have a +/-4 point margin of error.

One other interesting poll result comes out of Iowa, which Trump won by nine points in 2016 and many observers feel could have a tight finish this year. Trump leads by seven points in the gold standard Des Moines Register poll released on Saturday night, surprising those political analysts who are expecting Iowa to be a toss-up. That poll result is outside the survey’s 3.4 point margin of error.

In case you missed it

US Senate races: In addition to their fight to hold onto the White House, Republicans are also battling to keep their majority in the US Senate. Al Jazeera’s Joseph Stepansky explains why Senate control is so important.

Election night scenarios: Complicated counts and Trump’s attacks on voting integrity have officials preparing for the worst on election night.

Climate change: Al Jazeera environment editor Nick Clark breaks down what is at stake for the environment in Tuesday’s presidential election.

Where the candidates are headed

Trump holds five rallies today in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Tomorrow he will head back to Michigan and North Carolina, while also visiting Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Biden will spend the next two days in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow, his running mate Kamala Harris, Biden’s wife Jill, and Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, will arrive in Pennsylvania, fanning across the state in the final run-up to election day.

Vice President Mike Pence will also spend the day on Monday in Pennsylvania.

Source: Al Jazeera