Trump, Biden confident of big victory as US goes for polls

Trump predicted that a red wave would re-elect him to the White House, while his Democratic challenger Biden is confident of a “big win”

Washington: US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden on Tuesday exuded confidence of a big victory in the presidential polls as Americans in large numbers headed to cast their ballots to decide the fate of the two leaders in the world’s most significant democratic exercise.

Trump predicted that a red wave would re-elect him to the White House, while his Democratic challenger Biden is confident of a “big win”.

Addressing as many as five election rallies in as many states on the last day of the campaigning, Trump exuded confidence of winning the race with a much greater margin.
“We are gonna have a red wave. It’s gonna be a beautiful sight,” Trump told thousands of his supporters in Wisconsin on Monday.

At his last rally at Grand Rapids in Michigan, which passed midnight, Trump asked his supporters to give him a bit bigger margin of victory.
“We want to do it just like last time. ..but give me a little more margin than last time,” the president told his cheering supporters who had waited for him for hours in the bitter Michigan cold. “The level of enthusiasm and I think you are going to see a great red wave tomorrow,” Trump, 74, told his supporters in Florida.

Meanwhile, Biden, 77, at an event in Pittsburgh on Monday, which was headlined by popular singer Lady Gaga, said he is confident of a big win.“Folks, I have a feeling we’re coming together for a big win tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow, we can put an end to a presidency that has left hard-working Americans out in the cold. Tomorrow we can put an end to a presidency that has fanned the flames of hatred.
“Tomorrow we can put at end to a presidency that has failed to protect this nation,” said the former vice president.

Biden continues to lead over Trump with the polls indicating that the margin between the two leaders. In the key battleground states, the average lead of Biden by Tuesday morning has reduced to 2.3 per cent, according to Real Clear Politics which keeps track of all major opinion polls.

This is within the margin of error. The top battleground States are Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Biden’s average national lead is not 6.7 percentage points, according to Real Clear Politics.

Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.Com, which is known for prediction of election results, said that Biden is favoured to win the election.

“Our model forecasts Biden to win the popular vote by 8 percentage points, 1 more than twice Clinton’s projected margin at the end of 2016,” Silver said on Tuesday.

“Indeed, some of the dynamics that allowed Trump to prevail in 2016 wouldn’t seem to exist this year. There are considerably fewer undecided voters in this race — just 4.8 per cent of voters say they’re undecided or plan to vote for third-party candidates, as compared to 12.5 per cent at the end of 2016. And the polls have been considerably more stable this year than they were four years ago,” he wrote.

“Finally, unlike the ‘Comey letter’ in the closing days of the campaign four years ago — when then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress that new evidence had turned up pertinent to the investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state — there’s been no major development in the final 10 days to further shake up the race,” Silver said.

According to The Hill newspaper, the key to White House depends on the election results of five states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.