Three days from U.S. Election Day

With three days remaining until Election Day in the United States on Tuesday, the race is neck and neck in critical states. Although Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is still leading President Donald Trump, Republicans are narrowing the early voting gap in battleground states as more Trump supporters participated in early voting contrary to expectations.

According to The Washington Post on Thursday (local time), an analysis of early voting counts in four key battleground states, including Iowa, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, showed that Democrats registrants cast 54 percent of all ballots, compared with 17 percent from Republicans a month ago. But the gap has sharply reduced now, with Democrats casting 44 percent of all ballots and Republicans 33 percent.

CNN reported that Democrats dominated the initial balloting in Florida, which is entitled to 29 presidential electors, by nine percentage points, but the gap has narrowed to four percentage points this week. A similar pattern has been observed in other key states. Experts say a lot of Trump supporters appear to be participating in early voting.

Biden is still ahead of Trump in the polls. According to RealClearPolitics (RCP), Biden led President Trump by 7.4 percentage points nationwide on Friday (local time). Based on the poll results, Biden is expected to get 216 votes out of the total 538, compared with just 125 for President Trump.

But with over a third of votes (197) seen as toss-ups, there is still a possibility that Trump might win re-election depending on the results in battleground states. In particular, the two candidates are practically tied in crucial states, including Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, with less than one percentage point gap.

Both Trump and Biden held made their final appeals to voters in Florida on Thursday. President Trump focused on conservative Hispanic voters with his wife Melania. He called Biden a leftist considering that Latino voters from Venezuela and Cuba have a strong resistance to socialism. Appealing to voters in Florida, Biden called the state the “Soul of America,” adding the state holds the key. The two candidates will hold campaign events in battleground states in Minnesota and Wisconsin on Friday.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com