Coronavirus Pandemic Takes Center Stage as Election Campaign Enters Final Weekend

President Donald Trump is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticizing public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States.

Campaigning in the Midwest on Friday, Trump delivered a closing message that promised an economic revival and a vaccine to combat COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day.

But he also directed attacks at his rival in Tuesday’s election, Democrat Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden has never succeeded before, Barack Obama said that if you want to see things screwed up, just ask Joe Biden to do it.”

The president also criticized Democratic officials in Minnesota for enforcing social-distancing rules that limited his rally to 250 people.

“Your far left Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison and your Democrat governor tried to shut down our rally, silence the people of Minnesota and take away your freedom and your rights. They thought he would cancel, a word they are very familiar with cancel, cancel culture. But I said, no way. I will never abandon the people of Minnesota. I will come up. I will come up,” Trump said.

“It’s a small thing, but a horrible thing.”

Opinion polls show Trump trailing Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern.

Biden, for his part, has accused Trump of giving up in the fight against the disease, which has killed almost 229,000 people in the United States.

Campaigning in Wisconsin on Friday, he urged his supporters to deliver a thumping victory on November 3 and warned of tough days ahead.

“Donald Trump waved the white flag, surrender to the virus, but the American people don’t give up. We don’t give in. Well, like Donald Trump, we’re not going to surrender to this virus. We’re simply not going to surrender.”

In the final weekend of the election campaign, both candidates are frantically hitting key battleground States in a final push for votes. President Trump and Biden have been in the Midwest, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa.

On Saturday, the President will visit Pennsylvania while Biden will visit Michigan where he’ll hold a joint rally with former President Barack Obama.