CHRISTIAN DATOC
SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the 2020 election should be delayed until “people can properly, securely and safely vote.”
It should be noted that the president has no authority to determine when the general election takes place. The Constitution expressly grants that power to Congress, which could delay the voting with approval from both chambers, yet that has never happened.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” (RELATED: Trump Predicts Mail-In Voting Will Lead To ‘Most Corrupt Election’ In US History)
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
The president also characterized mail-in voting as a “catastrophic disaster” in an earlier tweet.
“Even testing areas are way off,” he wrote. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there’s no accurate count!”
Mail-In Voting is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster. Even testing areas are way off. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there’s no accurate count!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden suggested during a recent appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah that Trump might attempt to delay the election. During a speech in July, he argued that the president’s attacks on mail-in voting are attempts to “indirectly steal” the results. (RELATED: The Polls Look Bad For Trump, So Why Are Two Top Pollsters Still Saying He Can Pull Off Reelection?)
Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president and Trump’s son-in-law, declined to rule out delaying the election back in May.
“I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,” he told Time Magazine.
Trump is currently trailing Biden in most election polls, both nationally and in a host of key battleground states. Notably, he has lost significant support among Republicans for his coronavirus pandemic response over the past two months. A poll from ABC, The Washington Post, and Langer Research Institutes also found that just 38% of survey participants approved of the federal government’s response to coronavirus. The same poll showed that 63% would prioritize regaining control of the pandemic over jump-starting the economy.
rump frequently talks about the inaccuracy of polls and points to 2016 metrics that showed him trailing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by a significant margin heading into November. He additionally told a group of reporters gathered Monday at the FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies facility in North Carolina that his campaign’s internal polling showed him leading Biden in most battleground states.
“We’re leading in North Carolina. We’re leading in Pennsylvania. We’re leading in Arizona,” the president stated. “We’re leading nicely in Florida. I think our poll numbers are very good. We’re leading substantially in Georgia.”
“Four years ago, I was losing everywhere. I had poll numbers where I wasn’t going to win any state, and I ended up winning every one of them,” he continued. “You know the swing states, I wasn’t going to win any of them and I won all of them.”
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