Trump votes early in Florida as 2020 campaign enters final days

President Donald Trump cast his early ballot in West Palm Beach, Florida Saturday morning, as the 2020 presidential campaign enters its final week with tens of millions of Americans having already voted.

Trump exited the voting area at the West Palm Library while wearing a mask.

“I voted for a guy named Trump,” he told reporters. The president then repeated his unsubstantiated claim that in-person voting is more secure than mail-in voting.

With just about 10 days until the Nov. 3 election, more than 56 million Americans have cast their votes early, about 38.6 million by mail and around 17.5 million in person, according to the U.S. Elections Project. Voter turnout is already at 40.6% of the 2016 election.

Many states have expanded mail-in voting this year as a health precaution amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s repeated attacks on mail-in voting may be influencing behavior among his supporters.

Not every state reports party registration data, but numbers show that Democrats have favored vote-by-mail, while Republicans are making up ground at in-person polls now that early voting is underway.

Republicans represent 39.8% of in-person early votes so far, while Democrats represent 37.9%, according to the U.S. Elections Project. Democrats represent 45.8% of mail-in ballots, while Republicans make up 37.3%.

Trump departed Florida to hit a busy schedule of rallies in Lumberton, North Carolina; Circleville, Ohio; and Waukesha, Wisconsin. Tomorrow, Trump will speak at another rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The president’s rallies have raised concern among public health experts, who fear they could become super-spreader events with coronavirus cases already hitting daily records as the nation heads into winter, the most dangerous season for viral transmission.

The Trump campaign says it provides temperature checks, masks and hand sanitizer to attendees, though many of the president’s supporters do not wear masks at the rallies.

Joe Biden’s campaign criticized Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic ahead of his rally in Wisconsin, a state that has been particularly hard hit in recent weeks with record hospitalizations.

“Just this week, 47 Wisconsinites lost their lives in a single day, and the sad truth is that it didn’t have to be this bad,” the Biden-Harris campaign said. “President Trump knew the severity of this virus and failed to tell the American people the truth.”

The Trump campaign defended the president’s record, pointing to the travel restrictions imposed on China at the beginning of the pandemic and the administration’s efforts to rapidly develop a vaccine.

More than 224,000 people in the U.S. have died from the virus and more than 8.5 million have been infected.

Biden and his wife Jill will are campaigning in Pennsylvania Saturday, a key swing state, where they are holding socially distanced drive-in events.