Daily US Times: Joe Biden and Donald Trump have been spending the final hours of the election race delivering their closing message to voters in critical battleground states.
President Trump was visiting Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania while Joe Biden campaigned in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
National polls suggest a healthy lead for Democratic candidate Biden in Tuesday’s election.
But his lead is thinner in the handful of states that could decide the result.
More than 97 million people have already cast their votes in early in person or mail-in ballots, putting the country on course for its highest turnout in a century.
In the US election, voters decide state-level contests rather than an overall single national candidate.
To seal the White House, a candidate must win at least 270 votes in what is called the electoral college. Each US state gets a certain number of electoral college votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs.
This system explains why it is possible for a candidate to win the most votes nationally but still lose the election. This happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016. She won the popular vote, but still lose the election.
Tuesday’s vote comes amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The US has recorded more deaths and more cases than any other country worldwide, reporting more than 81,000 new infections on Sunday alone.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top virus expert, has sharply criticised the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, drawing a rebuke from the White House on Sunday.
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