US Democrats fear a late Trump surge despite opinion polls

Though Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden holds a nine-point lead over President Donald Trump across the US, Democrats remain concerned that Trump can still find a path to reelection, just as he surprisingly won four years ago.

With less than two weeks to go until the elections, Biden is backed by 50 percent of likely voters, compared with 41 percent for Trump and 3 percent divided among other candidates, according to New York Times/Siena College poll.

Democrats, however, say they are not confident in poll numbers, as the 2016 election proved that the number of votes a candidate wins is less important than where he/she wins them.

Two weeks from that election, national polls had shown Clinton had a 6.1 percent lead over Trump.

This year, less than 14 days from the election, Biden’s 8.6-point lead in his advantage over Trump in critical battleground states has tightened to 3.9 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls.

“Every Democrat working in politics was traumatized by 2016,” said Meredith Kelly, a communications operative who worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018.

Trump seeks campaign boost as Biden leads in battleground Pennsylvania

US President Donald Trump is campaigning in the key state of Pennsylvania, where his Democratic challenger Joe Biden is holding a lead two weeks before Election Day.

Democrats also remain concerned over mail-in ballots as their supporters are overwhelmingly voting via mail-in ballots to avoid the coronavirus infection.

If large numbers of mail-in ballots are thrown out due to technicalities or because they were filled out improperly, that could affect Biden’s vote total, Democrats say.

According to the University of Florida’s US Elections Project, more than 30 million American voters have already cast their ballots across the nation — more than one-fifth of the total vote in the last presidential contest four years ago.

This is while, as Trump has constantly cast doubt on mail-in voting, most Republican voters are expected to cast their ballot in person on Election Day.

Those are “things that cause me to sleep with one eye open at night,” said the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, T.J. Rooney.

US voters prefer Biden to Trump on almost all major issues: polls

Biden now leads Trump, as a majority of likely voters say they have more trust in the former vice president to manage pressing issues like the coronavirus pandemic and economy, says New York Times/Siena College poll.

The survey says voters preferred Biden over Trump to lead on the coronavirus pandemic by 12 points.

They also trust the Democratic nominee over Trump to choose Supreme Court justices and to maintain law and order by six-point margins.

Voters flock to Florida polls as US early voting nears record 30 million mark

Florida voters cast their ballots in early voting in a key state fought over relentlessly by President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Americans see Biden as more capable of uniting the country by nearly 20 points, according to the survey, which was conducted from October 15 to 18.

The poll said that crucial constituencies are poised to reject the incumbent president because they cannot abide his conduct.

Some 56 percent of women and 53 percent of white voters with college degrees said they had a very unfavorable impression of Trump.

According to the poll, 53 percent of voters said they viewed Biden in somewhat or very favorable terms, compared with 43 percent who said the same of Trump.

A majority of voters said they saw Trump unfavorably, with 48 percent viewing him very unfavorably.

Biden is also on track to win with the overwhelming support of women, people of color and whites with college degrees.

If women alone voted, the Times wrote, the election would be a landslide of epic proportions as the Democrat is ahead of Trump among female voters by 23 points — 58 percent to 35 percent.

Biden is also leading the Republican president among white women by a formidable margin, 52 percent to 43 percent.

Trump, however, still retains a few bastions of support — most notably among white voters without college degrees — who favor him over Biden by 23 percentage points.

The lead is far narrower than the advantage Trump held among less-educated whites four years ago, when those voters preferred the real estate mogul over then Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 37 points.

The survey also shows that Trump is facing widespread criticism for failing to meet the great challenge of his presidency, the pandemic.

COVID tightens grip on US as hospitalizations hit two-month peak

The number of COVID-19 patients in US hospitals hits a two-month peak as the nation is contending with a surge in virus infections ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Trump has this week repeated his common claim about having the pandemic under control, saying that the US was “rounding the turn” of the outbreak.

People, however, are deeply concerned about the virus, with 51 percent of those sampled saying they feared the worst of COVID-19 was still to come, the poll shows.

Only 37 percent said they believed the worst of the outbreak was over.

Voters are also divided over a vaccine for the viral infection, with 33 percent saying they would definitely or probably not take a vaccine after it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

With 8,336,031 confirmed coronavirus infections and 222,176 deaths, the US stands on the top of the list of the world nations, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

A top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Wednesday about a “distressing trend” in the US’ coronavirus outbreak.

The CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, Jay Butler said COVID-19 cases are now growing “really in all parts of the United States.”

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