OCALA | The polls are bad, his own camp doubts: in difficulty, Donald Trump went to Georgia and Florida on Friday, two states he can hardly afford to lose if he wants to win against Joe Biden on the 3rd November.
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Nothing is played, of course. There are 18 days of campaign left.
“We are going to witness a red wave (the color of the Republicans, Editor’s note) of an unprecedented amplitude,” launched from Ocala in Florida, the American president who is counting on an intense field campaign to, as in 2016, make lie polls.
Opting for an increasingly aggressive register – “Joe Biden is a disaster (…), Joe Biden is a corrupt politician” – the tenant of the White House throws all his forces into the battle to avoid that the “Sunshine State ”, which he had narrowly won in 2016, does not switch to the Democratic side.
“On election day (…), we are going to inflict a resounding defeat on Joe the Sleeper,” he thundered in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
The president, 74, then spoke from Macon, Georgia, a state where he was well ahead of Hillary Clinton four years ago, but where he is behind Joe Biden, 77, in the latest polls.
Listen to international political columnist Loïc Tassé with Benoit Dutrizac on QUB radio:
“Competing against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Imagine that I lose (…), what will I do? I’m not going to feel very good, I might have to leave the country, I don’t know, ”he said in front of a hilarious crowd.
But the feverishness is a little more palpable every day in the Republican camp.
According to data transmitted by the Nielsen Institute, the “town hall” (televised exchange with voters) of the former reality TV presenter on Thursday evening was less watched than that of his Democratic opponent (13,461,000 viewers against 14 135,000).
The two televised meetings were held at the same time, in place of the debate which had finally been canceled between the two men.
Several tenors of the “GOP” (Grand Old Party, the Republican Party) are now openly worried about a Democratic tidal wave.
After the doubts expressed aloud by Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, it was Ben Sasse, elected from Nebraska, who expressed his deep concerns.
Donald Trump is a “mediocre” leader, he said, deeming his defeat likely, in a recording revealed by the media.
“He mocks evangelicals behind their backs, his family took advantage of the presidency as a business opportunity, he flirted with white supremacists,” he said.
– Retweets frenzy – The days go by and look the same for Donald Trump with, every morning, a frenzy of tweets and retweets.
Even before sunrise on Friday, he hastily relayed a post from the satirical site The Babylon Bee, taking a parody article to the face.
“Twitter is shutting down its entire network to slow down the spread of negative information about Biden,” one read, in an allusion to the outage that hit the network.
On Thursday night, during his exchange with voters on NBC, he did nothing to clarify his position on a series of conspiracy theories that he has been fueling for weeks.
Asked why he retweeted a message about the “false death” of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the US president, who has more than 87 million Twitter followers, declined responsibility.
“It was a retweet, it was someone’s opinion,” he said. “It was a retweet, I’m putting it out there, people can make up their own minds for themselves. “
The president also refused to explicitly condemn the conspiratorial movement “QAnon”.
Joe Biden denounced Friday his rival’s procrastination regarding white supremacists.
The former US vice president was speaking alongside Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a staunch opponent of Donald Trump recently targeted by a plot of far-right men who wanted to kidnap her and “try” her for “Betrayal”.
“It should shock the conscience of all Americans, and the refusal to condemn these guys is astounding,” he thundered.
Joe Biden leads nearly ten percentage points in the national average for presidential polls. But above all, albeit with a narrower margin, in the key states which make the elections in the United States by switching from one party to another.
And he can count on the support of Barack Obama, who announced he would participate in his first campaign event on the ground in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.