Voting Rights Exercised in Key Battleground State Florida... Melania Does Not Accompany
"In-Person Voting Is Safer Than Mail Voting"
Campaign Rush Visiting 3 States in One Day
[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] U.S. President Donald Trump cast an early vote at a polling station set up in Florida on the 24th (local time).
President Trump arrived at the polling station set up at the West Palm Beach Library around 9:53 a.m. that day. He arrived later than the originally scheduled 9:30 a.m. and immediately entered the polling place. His wife, Melania, did not accompany him to the polling station.
After voting, President Trump met with reporters while wearing a mask and said, "I voted for the man named Trump," adding, "It is an honor to vote. In-person voting is much safer than mail-in voting."
This is interpreted as urging supporters to participate in early voting rather than mail-in voting. President Trump voted absentee in the Florida primary elections in March and August, but ahead of the presidential election that will decide his re-election, he chose to vote in person. Vice President Mike Pence also cast an early vote the day before in his home state of Indiana.
In the 2016 presidential election, President Trump voted in his hometown of Manhattan, New York. Since then, he left his hometown of New York City and moved his residence to Florida. Instead of New York, where his approval rating is low, he made Florida his second hometown, where he secured victory in the last election and owns a golf course.
President Trump has referred to this area, which holds 29 electoral votes, as his "hometown," visiting it multiple times and putting in considerable effort. In Florida, a campaign encouraging early voting for President Trump is being led by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Outside the polling station that day, Trump supporters gathered to cheer on the president's vote.
President Trump also claimed, "There is tremendous spirit here. I've heard we are doing very well in Florida, and very well everywhere else," asserting that he is leading in the battleground state of Florida. According to RealClearPolitics (RCP), Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leads President Trump by 1.5 percentage points in Florida, but since it is within the margin of error, a fierce competition is effectively underway.
The day before, after finishing a campaign rally in Florida, President Trump spent the night at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which he owns, for the first time since March.
After voting that day, President Trump plans to visit three states?North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin?to campaign for re-election. According to RCP, as of the 24th, the nationwide support gap between Biden and President Trump slightly increased after the final TV debate, but in battleground states that will decide the outcome, the gap actually narrowed from 4.1 percentage points to 3.8 percentage points.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
