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The Latest: Harris seeks to boost Black support for Biden

Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 4 years, 2 months AGO
| November 1, 2020 10:03 AM

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

12:25 p.m.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris says Black voters are critical to defeating President Donald Trump and electing Joe Biden president.

But as the California senator arrived to campaign in Georgia on Sunday, she stressed that “we are not telling anybody they’re supposed to vote for us” and are working to “earn the vote.”

Harris is the first Black woman on a major party national ticket. A considerable part of her campaign time this fall has been focused on Black voters and in states with prominent Black populations.

Sunday marks her second trip to Atlanta in the campaign’s closing weeks. She will head to Pennsylvania on Monday.

Democrats haven’t won Georgia’s electoral votes since 1992 and Pennsylvania slipped away narrowly four years ago. But Black turnout in both states could tip the scales Tuesday.

Harris said it’s an “ongoing job” for the Democratic ticket to show Black voters that a Biden White House understands the “disproportionate impact” Black Americans have endured from the COVID-19 pandemic and longstanding economic and social inequities.

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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

Preelection virus spike creates concerns for polling places

— Races for governor take top billing in Missouri, Montana

— 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

— US Paris climate pact exit, vote may dictate how world warms

— Under Trump, citizenship and visa agency focuses on fraud

— Election could move California further left on taxes, race

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE HAPPENING:

11:55 a.m.

President Donald Trump is braving flurries and a stiff wind chill as he rallies thousands of supporters in Michigan.

Trump took the stage Sunday in Washington Township and told the crowd: “It’s freezing out here.”

The president is aiming to run up support in the whiter, more rural parts of Michigan as Democrat Joe Biden was in the state Saturday with former President Barack Obama in a bid to increase turnout among Black voters.

Trump expressed confidence and said of Biden, “I don’t think he knows he’s losing.”

It’s the first stop of Trump’s final blitz of 10 rallies in the final 48 hours of the campaign. On Sunday, he is also visiting Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

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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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