Trump and Biden embark on final day of campaigning as US heads to polls

2 November 2020, 10:28 | Updated: 2 November 2020, 15:14

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are set to embark on a hectic final day of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election.

Both candidates will make their case to voters in critical battleground states for one last time before the country heads to the polls.

Mr Trump will visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan as his campaign continues at a frenetic pace, while Mr Biden will campaign in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Lady Gaga will join Mr Biden at a rally in Pittsburgh, while Kamala Harris will appear alongside singer John Legend in Philadelphia.

More than 93 million people have already voted with each campaign insisting it has a pathway to victory.

However Mr Biden appears to be in a stronger position, with his options for picking up the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win more plentiful. Mr Trump is banking on a surge of enthusiasm from his most loyal supporters.

Heading into the closing 24 hours, both painted the other as unfit for office and described the next four years in near apocalyptic terms if the other were to win.

Mr Trump told a rally in Iowa: "The Biden plan will turn America into a prison state locking you down while letting the far-left rioters roam free to loot and burn."

Mr Biden said America was on the verge of putting "an end to a presidency that's fanned the flames of hate".

Speaking in Philadelphia, the biggest city in a state that could decide the presidency, he said: "We're done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the hate."

It comes as the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 Americans and cost nearly 20 million their jobs, reached a new peak in infection rates, further threatening lives and livelihoods.

Mr Biden described Mr Trump's handling of Covid-19 as "almost criminal".

Meanwhile Mr Trump, having spent months claiming without evidence that the votes would be ripe for fraud, threatened to attempt to stop the tabulation of ballots arriving after election day.

As soon as polls closed in battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, Mr Trump said, "we're going in with our lawyers". It was not clear exactly what Mr Trump meant.

There is already an appeal pending at the Supreme Court over the counting of absentee ballots in Pennsylvania that are received in the mail in the three days after the election.

The state's top court ordered the extension and the Supreme Court refused to block it, though conservative justices expressed interest in taking up the propriety of the three added days after the election.

Those ballots are being kept separate in case the litigation goes forward. The issue could prove crucial if the late-arriving ballots could tip the outcome.

Under the shadow of possible legal battles, Pennsylvania loomed as most important battleground on the map.

Mr Trump also suggested the FBI should stop investigating an incident in which his supporters were seen surrounding a Joe Biden campaign bus in Texas.

The president's tweet came hours after the FBI confirmed that it was "aware of the incident and investigating".