Americans face stark choice as Election Day 2020 dawns

Bloomberg

Election Day 2020 was underway and for American voters the choices couldn’t be more stark.
Donald Trump was a novelty four years ago, a reality television star and real estate developer with a penchant for bombast and Twitter insults. The 74-year-old president has erased any notion that the Oval Office would tame him, thrilling Republicans by cutting regulations and taxes, restricting immigration and appointing three Supreme Court justices.
Joe Biden, 77, passed on a chance to run in 2016 but said Trump’s reaction to racial protests in Virginia the following year convinced him to return to politics. After lagging in the primaries, the former vice president emerged as a unity candidate, portraying himself as a man of decency who would listen to scientists fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, restore America’s overseas alliances and confront climate change.
The election entered its final day on Tuesday with a record-shattering 98 million ballots already cast. It’s taking place amid a third deadly wave in the pandemic, warnings about renewed foreign interference and a political environment even more polarised than in 2016, with both sides warning that a vote for the other risks plunging the country into ruin.
“A vote for Biden is a vote to hand the keys to government over to people who despise you and people who want to rob your children of their American dream,” Trump told a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Biden, joined by wife Jill Biden and two granddaughters, attended a mass on Tuesday at St Joseph on the Brandywine.
While there, the Democratic challenger visited the grave of his son Beau, who died in 2015 after battling brain cancer. The former vice president has often said that he decided to launch a third presidential bid as a way to carry on his late son’s legacy. Polling stations on the US East Coast started opening at 6 am local time. The key states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania will be among the first to close, starting at 7 pm Trump is planning to watch the results in Washington, while Biden will be in his home state of Delaware.
National surveys and polls of most key states give Biden the advantage, but Democrats scarred by Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat in 2016 have taken little solace from their candidate’s lead.
Trump, meanwhile, has called the polling “fake news” and points to his strong support within the Republican Party. Surveys say he’s lost votes he had in 2016 among women a
nd the elderly while gaining strength with some Latino groups. “President Trump is spreading division and discord. He thinks that he can divide us,” Biden said at a rally in St Paul, Minnesota. “We need a president who will bring us together, not pull us apart.”
Despite the expected record turnout, Americans may not know who will be sworn in next January for days or weeks if a tight race in battleground states prompt judicial challenges over late-arriving ballots. Trump says Biden can only win through fraud and has said all the votes should be counted on Tuesday night.