With a day to US Elections, Joe Biden is ahead of Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Sun Belt states of Florida and Arizona, according to a poll of likely voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.
Biden, Democratic Party challenger in the United States presidential election, is in an early lead, polls show ahead of Tuesday’s voting.
Biden is ahead of Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Sun Belt states of Florida and Arizona, according to a poll of likely voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.
His strength is most pronounced in Wisconsin, where he has an outright majority of the vote and leads Trump by 11 points, 52 per cent to 41 per cent.
Trump is trailing, polls suggest, due to his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Under his watch, a total of 9.28 million people have caught the virus while 231,000 of that number have died.
Biden is also getting support from first-time voters putting him in a stronger position heading into election day than any presidential candidate since at least 2008.
The president, who narrowly carried all four states against Hillary Clinton, is now running behind his 2016 vote shares in all of them, a grave position for a sitting president just days before the election. He has also trailed consistently in public polls of Michigan, another large state he captured in 2016, which along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania was part of the so-called Blue Wall along the Great Lakes that Democrats had relied on for decades.
Meanwhile, Trump has reportedly threatened to head to court with his lawyers as soon as the election was over, sparking concerns that he may fail to concede if he loses to Biden.
CNN’s White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, said Trump told pool reporters as soon as elections are over “we are going in with our lawyers.”
His tweet @Acosta reads, “Trump tells WH pool reporters as soon as the election is over “we’re going in with our lawyers.” Trump adviser tells CNN campaign plans to be aggressive on election night and could declare win if Trump is on the verge of 270 electoral votes even as ballots are being counted. Trump denies it.”
Meanwhile, an enhanced security measures were seen across the U.S., a country that is bracing for possible violence related to the high-stakes presidential election with election day on Tuesday.
In Washington, D.C., shopfronts are boarding up their windows with plywood or putting up other makeshift barriers, some of them stretching nearly entire blocks.
The deputy mayor of Washington D.C. for planning and economic development, John Falcicchio, in a statement, said that “we do not have any intelligence on planned activity to suggest the need to board up; however, we remain vigilant.
“We understand the difficult position building owners and operating businesses are in, and we call upon all who participate in First Amendment activities to denounce violence and report it immediately should it occur.’’
Fences have been erected around the White House, where demonstrators gathered Saturday night to protest against President Trump Card-boards on which anti-Trump slogans were written were attached on the fences.
Similar scenes of businesses protecting their properties also appeared on the streets in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked residents to express their political opinions in a safe way. “What I’m encouraging people to do is to express themselves but do it in a way that honours our traditions.
“We don’t have the right to take out our frustration, our anger, on someone else.’’
Rich Guidice, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, in a press conference said Chicago “is taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to planning for election day security arrangement.
“We have been performing drills and holding workshops to be ready to respond to any situation or possible event that should occur in this city before, on or after election day.’’
