DALLAS, Pa. -- President Donald Trump assured supporters Saturday that "we're rounding the turn" on the coronavirus and criticized his Democrat challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, for raising alarms about the pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden bemoaned to a smaller gathering the need to campaign at a distance.
On Saturday night, Vice President Mike Pence's office confirmed that his chief of staff, Marc Short, has tested positive for the coronavirus, taking the pandemic into the vice president's inner circle. Earlier Saturday, it was reported that one of Pence's closest political advisers, Marty Obst, had also been infected.
Short is Pence's top aide, a constant presence in his company who frequently acts as a public spokesman for the vice president. Pence, who delivered a campaign speech in Tallahassee, Fla., on Saturday evening, had not reported a positive test.
The vice president was aware of Short's positive test before leaving for Florida, according to people familiar with the matter. Short was not seen aboard Pence's plane, according to the pool reporter traveling with the vice president.
It wasn't immediately clear if Obst or Short had developed symptoms of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
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Obst tested positive Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Short was diagnosed Saturday, according to Pence's office.
The office said the vice president is considered a close contact of Short but would not quarantine and would maintain his schedule as "essential personnel" under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES
With coronavirus infections reaching their highest point of the pandemic just as the election heads into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took different approaches to the public health crisis in appealing for votes in battleground states.
"We don't want to become super-spreaders," Biden told supporters at a "drive-in" rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pa.
The beeping of car horns punctuated his remarks, a familiar soundtrack at his socially distanced drive-in events. "I wish I could go car to car and meet you all," Biden said. "I don't like the idea of all this distance, but it's necessary. I appreciate you being safe."
The former vice president pressed his case that Trump was showing dangerous indifference to the surging virus on a day Biden looked to boost his candidacy with the star power of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi, who performed before Biden took the stage at a second drive-in rally in Luzerne County, Pa.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the president holding large rallies, pointing to protests that occurred over the summer as well a Women's March last weekend in Washington.
"You have a right to go to a political rally in this country," she told reporters at the White House. "Ultimately, it's the choice of the American people whether to come out and engage in political speech as the First Amendment allows them to do."
Meanwhile, in Lumberton, N.C., Trump called Biden "an inspiring guy" for raising alarm about the pandemic. The president said he watched Biden's Bucks County rally as he flew to North Carolina and jokingly observed that it appeared attendees, who were in their cars, weren't properly socially distancing.
"You know, people in cars. I don't get it," Trump said.
"You heard a couple of horns," he added. "The weirdest thing."
Trump's campaign says its precautionary measures include holding the events mostly outdoors, handing out masks and deploying hand sanitizer.
"You know why we have cases?" said Trump, who also campaigned later in Circleville, Ohio, outside Columbus, and then Waukesha, Wis. "Because we test so much. And in many ways, it's good. And in many ways, it's foolish. In many ways, OK? In many ways it's very foolish."
Today, the president will fly to New Hampshire, the only state on his weekend itinerary that he did not carry in 2016 and part of a hopscotching schedule reminiscent of his final push four years ago.
"You're asking us to learn how to die with it, and it's wrong," Biden said in Bucks County, recalling his exchange with Trump on the subject at the debate Thursday. He added that there is "going to be a dark winter ahead unless we change our ways."
At his rally, Trump continued to criticize Biden's "dark winter" outlook. "We're rounding the turn ... our numbers are incredible," Trump said.
Biden in his stop in Luzerne County reminded supporters that as the nation reached 200,000 deaths a few weeks ago, Trump had suggested that the mortality rate was lower outside predominantly Democratic states.
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"Where does this guy come from?" Biden said.
The president has repeatedly accused Biden and other Democrats of pushing measures that are worse than the coronavirus itself by advocating for lockdowns and limits on gatherings that Trump says wreak havoc on the economy.
Biden, in an interview with Pod Save America aired Saturday, said his first priority is to "get control of the virus" because the economy can't move forward without stemming the disease.
"As I said before, I will shut down the virus, not the economy," Biden said in Bucks County. "We can walk and chew gum at the same time, and build back better than before."
TRUMP VOTES
Trump, who spent Friday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort after campaigning in Florida, visited an early voting site set up at a public library to cast his own ballot Saturday morning.
Greeted at the polling site by a crowd of cheering supporters, Trump opted to vote in person rather than mail in his ballot. He wore a mask inside, following local rules to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. He later said he voted for "a guy named Trump" and that a poll worker asked him for identification. The president said he used his passport.
Biden hasn't voted but is likely do so in person on Election Day because Delaware doesn't offer early voting. Trump, who has made claims of fraud about universal mail-in voting, gave another plug to in-person voting.
"When you send in your ballot, it could never be like that. It could never be secure like that," Trump said.
Biden's focus on Pennsylvania again highlights the state's central place in the election. Bucks County is part of suburban Philadelphia that Democrat Hillary Clinton won by a slim margin in the 2016 White House race. Luzerne County is a blue-collar area that twice voted for former President Barack Obama but went overwhelmingly for Trump four years ago.
Bon Jovi, a native of neighboring New Jersey who as a child spent summers with grandparents in Erie, Pa., performed three songs at the Luzerne County event.
Along with Biden's appearances this weekend, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders was in western Pennsylvania on Saturday, holding a get-out-the vote event in Pittsburgh and a drive-in rally with the state's lieutenant governor.
And in another sign of Pennsylvania's potential as the 2020 tipping point, the Biden campaign dispatched Obama there earlier in the week for his first in-person event of the general election. Obama was to campaign in Florida on Saturday.
"It may come down to Pennsylvania," Biden said in the parking lot of a community college. "And I believe in you. I believe in my state."
VIRUS FACTOR
Meanwhile, the surge in coronavirus cases in counties critical to Trump's victory may disrupt his plans to drive up in-person voting on Nov. 3, potentially reducing Republican turnout in areas the president can least afford it.
In Kenosha, a Wisconsin county that voted for Obama in 2012 and for Trump in 2016, the positivity rate for covid-19 test results has reached 27%. In relatively populous Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania where Trump won by more than 50,000 votes four years ago, the positivity rate for coronavirus cases has nearly tripled in two weeks, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
And Calhoun County, Mich., which gave Trump a double-digit margin of victory in 2016 after narrowly voting for Obama in 2012, has recently seen the fastest spread of the virus of any county in lower Michigan.
Epidemiologists and political experts alike believe numbers like these point to an increasingly dire Election Day picture in counties where Trump must run up the score but the illness could scare voters away from the polls.
"I think we can assume that around the time of the election, unfortunately, we're going to see increased rates of death in particular, given the acceleration we're seeing in many parts of the country," said Dr. Laura Jarmila Rasmussen-Torvik, chief of epidemiology in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
"Of the areas that are being pretty hard hit right now, there are several Midwestern areas, for example, where you're seeing the health systems about to get overwhelmed -- and maybe we will see changes in behavior in response to that," Rasmussen-Torvik said. "In many places, we are very much headed in the wrong direction."
VOTING BY MAIL
A record number of Americans are voting by mail, and with polls indicating that Democrats are far more likely to take advantage of that option, Republicans are warning that health scares could upend their last, best chance to catch up in the vote count.
Democrats, meanwhile, have already been voting early in droves, particularly through the mail. That's sparked concern among some Republicans who say they'll need to match Democratic turnout engineered over the course of weeks in just a single day.
"It's safe to say Republicans will need to achieve some historical level of turnout to dig themselves out from this hole," said Tom Bonier, a Democratic analytics expert who has closely tracked the early vote. "That's not to say they can't do it."
Some Republicans acknowledge at least limited concern about saving much of their vote for Election Day.
"Regardless of how one feels about covid -- how dangerous it is, how dangerous it isn't -- none of that has any bearing on the fact it's a legitimate issue and concern within society right now," said Brian Westrate, treasurer of the Wisconsin Republican Party. "It would be foolish not to consider that as a potential preventative for people to vote."
But the treasurer added that Democrats should be concerned about their own voters who plan to turn out on Election Day if infection rates soar in that state. The Republican Party has actively encouraged its voters, locally in the state, to cast their ballots through the mail if they're comfortable doing so, he said.
"We've made it very clear, I hope, to voters that we're not discouraging Wisconsinites from voting by mail," Westrate added.
FOSSIL FUEL
In the final minutes of Thursday's debate, Biden said he supports a "transition" away from oil in favor of renewable energy. The campaign released a statement hours later declaring that he would phase out taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuel companies, not the industry altogether.
Trump, campaigning in North Carolina, hammered Biden on the issue and used it as a way to question his rival's mental acuity. "He's either crazy or he's the worst liar," Trump said. "I actually think there's a third category. I think he doesn't remember."
Biden sought to clarify his position during remarks Saturday, rejecting Trump's charge that he would ban fracking, which has proved to be a boon in Pennsylvania.
"I will not ban fracking, period. I'll protect Pennsylvania jobs, period," Biden said. "No matter how many times Donald Trump says it."
Information for this article was contributed by Jill Colvin, Will Weissert, Aamer Madhani, Ellen Knickmeyer, Kathleen Ronayne, Marc Levy, Bill Barrow and Alan Fram of The Associated Press; by Shane Goldmacher and Thomas Kaplan of The New York Times; by Jordan Fabian, Josh Wingrove, Jennifer Jacobs and Tyler Pager of Bloomberg News; and by Michael Wilner and Alex Roarty of Tribune News Service.
