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The Latest: Biden puts campaign focus on Pennsylvania

Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 4 years, 2 months AGO
| November 1, 2020 9:03 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):

11:35 a.m.

Joe Biden is spending the final Sunday before Election Day rallying voters in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania.

Biden will make two stops in Philadelphia on Sunday — an appearance at a Baptist church for a “Souls to the Polls” event, and a rally in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park downtown.

Biden’s return to Philadelphia underscores the significance of Pennsylvania, the Rust Belt state that helped deliver President Donald Trump the White House four years ago. Biden has visited Pennsylvania more times than any other battleground state this cycle, and Philadelphia remains a key base of Democratic support in the state. Biden and the rest of his top surrogates — his wife Jill, Sen. Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff — will also fan out across the state on Monday.

While Biden’s campaign argues the Democrat can still win without Pennsylvania, Trump’s path to victory would narrow considerably without the state’s 20 electoral votes. The president has made Pennsylvania a priority as well - he held four rallies across the state on Saturday, and will return Monday for a campaign event in Scranton, Biden’s hometown.

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9:45 a.m.

The government’s top infectious diseases expert is cautioning that the U.S. will have to deal with “a whole lot of hurt” in the weeks ahead due to surging coronavirus cases. Dr. Anthony Fauci's comments in a Washington Post interview take issue with President Donald Trump’s frequent assertion that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the virus.

Fauci says the U.S. “could not possibly be positioned more poorly” to stem rising cases as more people gather indoors during the colder fall and winter months. He says the U.S. will need to make an “abrupt change” in public health precautions.

Speaking of the risks, Fauci says he believes Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump is “looking at it from a different perspective.” Fauci, who's on the White House coronavirus task force, says that perspective is “the economy and reopening the country.”

In response, White House spokesman Judd Deere says Trump always puts people’s well-being first and Deere charges that Fauci has decided “to play politics” right before Tuesday's election.

Deere says Fauci "has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy” but instead is “choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known.”

Fauci has said that in his decades of public service, he's never publicly endorsed any political candidate.

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE:

With two days to go until Election Day, Democrat Joe Biden is campaigning in Philadelphia and President Donald Trump's schedule has him in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Read more:

— GOP tries to save its Senate majority, with or without Trump

Networks line up election law experts for vote coverage

— EU faces knotty trade fights with US — no matter who wins

Obama criticizes Trump in scathing, personal terms

— Biden looks to restore, expand Obama administration policies

— Expect a lot more of the same if Trump wins a second term

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