Election 2020 live updates: Biden leads Trump in Wisconsin, Georgia; Americans are stressed about the election
With six days until Election Day, the campaigns turned to swing-state Arizona on Wednesday
President Donald Trump is holding rallies in Bullhead City and Goodyear while Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee, meets with Latina business owners and encourage residents to vote in Tucson and Phoenix.
A last-minute push by both sides suggests Arizona is very much still in play. USA TODAY's average of averages on Monday had Joe Biden leading by 2.7 percentage points in Arizona, but with Trump making gains. The campaign stops Wednesday likely break an all-time record for presidential ticket visits to the state.
Meanwhile, Biden attacked his opponent over his coronavirus response, calling it a "failure" during a speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
☕ The latest:
Amy Coney Barrett: How will the battle to confirm the latest Supreme Court justice affect Senate races in November?
Where is Pence?: Vice President Mike Pence makes campaign stops in Mosinee, Wisconsin, and Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday.
Biden quotes FDR: In Warm Springs, Georgia, the former vice president quoted the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying "Today … we must cultivate the science of human relationships — the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world at peace."
Iowa: Biden and Pence will campaign in Iowa this week. Here's why.
The Trump-Fauci relationship: The president's relationship with the United States' leading infectious disease expert has publicly eroded as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. Here's a timeline of Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci's relationship.
Obama in Florida: Biden's former boss had a lot to say about the Trump administration during his stop in Orlando on Tuesday, including Jared Kushner's most recent statement about Black Americans.
📊 What the polls are saying: Biden leads Trump by five percentage points in two state polls released Wednesday. The former vice president is up 50%-45% among registered Georgia voters, a new Monmouth University poll found. Biden also leads Trump 48%-43% among likely voters in Wisconsin, according to a Marquette University Law School poll.
📆 Six days until Election Day, 84 days until Inauguration Day, 65 days left in 2020.
🗳️ Voting: See USA TODAY's Voter Guide for information on registering to vote, when your state begins voting and what the candidates think about the issues.
We will update this article throughout the day. You can follow all of USA TODAY's politics reporters on Twitter or subscribe to our daily On Politics newsletter.
Zuckerberg says Facebook throttled Hunter Biden article after FBI warning
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that Facebook throttled the spread of a New York Post article earlier this month after a warning from law enforcement to be on "heightened alert" about "hack and leak operations" in the final days before the 2020 election.
Zuckerberg said Facebook was not contacted by the FBI about the New York Post article, which alleged ties between the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings with Ukraine. He also said he had no evidence that the article was the work of Russian election interference.
He made the remarks during questioning from lawmakers at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing where Zuckerberg testified Wednesday alongside Google’s Sundar Pichai and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
“One of the threats that the FBI has alerted our company and the public to was the possibility of a hack and leak operation in the days or weeks leading up to this election," Zuckerberg said.
– Jessica Guynn
Tech chiefs testify: Facebook throttled Hunter Biden article after being warned by FBI of 'hack and leak' operations, Mark Zuckerberg says
Barack Obama to campaign with Joe Biden in Michigan
For the first time on the 2020 campaign trail, former President Barack Obama is set to campaign in-person with Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Obama, who has stumped for Biden individually the past week, will campaign Saturday with his former vice president in Michigan three days before the Nov. 3 election. The campaign did not announce a city or location.
“President Obama will join Joe Biden in Michigan to discuss bringing Americans together to address the crises facing the country and win the battle for the soul of the nation,” the campaign said.
Michigan, where polls show Biden leading, is among three Rust Belt battleground states, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that Democrat Hillary Clinton narrowly lost in 2016. Clinton failed to get the same turnout as Obama had in 2012 and 2008 in cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
The past week, Obama has campaigned for Biden in Philadelphia, Miami and Orlando, delivering blistering attacks on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and leadership in the White House.
– Joey Garrison
Joe, Jill Biden vote early in Delaware
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden voted early in-person Wednesday afternoon in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
The former vice president voted “by appointment” after he gave a speech on health care and combating the coronavirus pandemic at a nearby location.
“Well, we just voted,” Biden said, walking down the steps of the Carvel Delaware State Building, holding hands with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.
Six days from the election, more than 74 million people have voted early, either by-mail or in-person, shattering turnout records for early voting.
– Joey Garrison
Biden: Trump a 'failure' in dealing with COVID-19
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden blasted President Donald Trump on Wednesday for failing to better curb the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden compared Trump’s departure Tuesday from a rally in Omaha, Nebraska, where hundreds were left in sub-zero cold, to his abdication in dealing with COVID-19.
“It’s an image that captures President Trump’s whole approach to this crisis,” Biden told reporters at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware. “He gets his photo op and then he gets out. He leaves everyone else to suffer the consequences of his failure to make a responsible plan.”
Biden’s 12-mintue speech came after a health briefing with Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former U.S. Surgeon General; Dr. David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and board chair of the Center for Science in the Public Interest; Dr. Celine Gounder, clinical assistant professor at New York University; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate professor of medicine at Yale University
Kessler noted a 32% increase in cases during the last two weeks, with 500,000 cases last week.
“Almost the entire nation is worsening at this point,” Kessler said. “I don’t think anyone can tell you how high this is going to get.”
Biden vowed if elected to develop a national program for testing and tracing infections, and for providing free vaccine once it is developed. Biden also proposed to have the federal government negotiate lower drug prices with manufacturers, as it does under Medicare, a contentious issue that would need congressional legislation.
“We will start on day one doing the right things,” Biden said. “I’m going to fight to protect your health care.”
Biden proposed to expand the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration is seeking to overturn in the Supreme Court, with a hearing scheduled Nov. 10. But Biden quoted Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview Sunday, when the president said, “I hope that they end it.”
– Maureen Groppe and Bart Jansen
The majority of Americans are stressed about the election
Americans are moving through the final stretch before Election Day with lumps in their throats, trying to quell the unsettling sensation of the in-between.
Nearly 70% of U.S. adults say the presidential election is a significant source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association's Stress in America survey this month, a dramatic increase from the 2016 election when 52% of Americans said the same. While Democrats are more stressed than Republicans, majorities of both political parties say the contest between President Donald Trump and challenger former Vice President Joe Biden is a significant stressor.
– Alia E. Dastagir
Election 2020:: Terrified to lose and afraid to hope
Positive COVID-19 test on staff puts Iowa Democrat's Senate campaign on hold
Theresa Greenfield, Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa, will pause her campaign's RV tour after members of her staff came into contact with a person who later tested positive for COVID-19.
The disruption comes just six days before Election Day as campaigns make their final push to meet with and persuade voters. Greenfield is in the midst of an intensely competitive race against Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. The race is key in Democrats' efforts to take back the Senate from Republican control.
"While masks and social distancing measures are required at all of our in-person events, our campaign is temporarily pausing our RV tour, including today’s events, at the advice of medical professionals in order to take appropriate precautions to ensure we protect the health and safety of Iowans and our team," campaign spokesperson Sam Newton said in a statement Wednesday.
Newton said Greenfield plans to be tested.
"Theresa regularly gets tested for COVID-19 and recently tested negative, but she’s getting tested again to be safe," he said in the statement. "She is eager to get back on her GOTV tour once we get test results and we’re absolutely certain it’s safe to do so, which is hopefully very soon.”
– Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register
Iowa Senate race: Democrat Theresa Greenfield pauses RV tour after staff members possibly exposed to COVID-19
Bloomberg spending $1 million per day to help Biden in Texas
In the latest sign that Texas is really in play in the presidential race, Michael Bloomberg will be spending about $1 million a day the last week of the campaign on statewide advertising in Texas in both Spanish and English to help Democratic nominee Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump.
Howard Wolfson, a top Bloomberg adviser, told The New York Times Tuesday morning that the billionaire businessman and former Democratic presidential contender, who has already committed $100 million to helping Biden in the critical swing state of Florida, had asked his team to poll other states where Trump may be especially vulnerable and both Ohio and Texas looked ripe.
Altogether, Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, will spend $15 million on advertising in the two states beginning Wednesday, the Times reported. The Texas ads will attack the president for mismanaging the response to COVID-19.
The ads will run through Election Day.
– Jonathan Tilove (Austin American Statesman)
Thousands of Trump rally attendees in Nebraska stranded in freezing cold after event
It was 34 degrees when President Donald Trump ended his campaign rally in Omaha, Nebraska’s Eppley Airfield Tuesday night and boarded Air Force One.
Over the course of the next four hours, thousands of Trump rally attendees were stranded outside of the event — waiting for buses that were delayed due to what the Trump administration told an Omaha reporter was a traffic jam.
Aaron Sanderford, a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald, was told by Trump officials that buses were having difficulty traveling through the access road to the rally site — which was “limited to one direction.”
The report was corroborated by CNN correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who said that thousands continued to be stuck nearly an hour-and-a-half after Trump left Omaha and called the scene a "cluster."
– Joshua Bote
Omaha: Thousands of Trump rally attendees in Nebraska stranded in freezing cold after event
Trump to women at Michigan rally: 'We're getting your husbands back to work'
President Donald Trump made an appeal to women voters at a rally in the battleground state of Michigan one week before Election Day: that he would help their husbands recover from the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
"I'm also getting your husbands, they want to get back to work, right? They want to get back to work. We're getting your husbands back to work, and everybody wants it," Trump said. "And the cure can never be worse than the problem itself."
Moments earlier, Trump was touting his support among women, claiming that they would back him in the presidential election because "they want security, they want safety, they want law and order."
"We're going to do great. And I love women, and I can't help it. They're the greatest. I love them much more than the men," he said.
– Jeanine Santucci
Trump to women at Michigan rally: 'We're getting your husbands back to work'
Poll: GOP Sen. Susan Collins trails Democratic challenger Sara Gideon
With less than a week until Election Day, Republican Sen. Susan Collins is trailing Democratic challenger Sara Gideon by a slim margin, according to a poll released Wednesday.
Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House, is leading Collins, 47% to 43%, among likely voters, according to the poll by Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and first reported by USA TODAY. A combined 7% of voters are supporting Independent candidates Lisa Savage (5%) and Max Linn (2%).
Dan Shea, Colby College government department chair and lead researcher on the poll, noted there hasn’t been much movement over the past few months between Gideon and Collins, as there are few undecided voters left.
– Rebecca Morin
Poll: Collins trails challenger Gideon by small margin; Biden leading Trump statewide
Big Tech chiefs Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Pichai to testify before senators
Republicans will escalate charges of anti-conservative bias against social media companies a little less than a week before Election Day when they haul the leaders of the nations’ top internet companies before a Senate committee to question how these powerful online platforms decide what content is allowed and what’s not.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai are scheduled to answer growing criticism from the right over the moderation of prominent conservatives' posts, including President Trump, before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Fueling tensions ahead of the hearing are explosive allegations by conservatives that Facebook and Twitter interfered in the 2020 election by throttling a New York Post article earlier this month that alleged ties between the Democratic presidential nominee and his son Hunter’s business dealings with Ukraine.
– Jessica Guynn
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 2020 Election live updates: Biden leads Trump in Georgia, Wisconsin
