30 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020Election
A day after the nation hit a new
high for coronavirus cases, Presi-
dent Trump returned to the cam-
paign trail for a series of rallies
and again sought to minimize the
surging pandemic, mocking his ri-
val, Joseph R. Biden Jr., for follow-
ing the social distancing recom-
mendations of public health offi-
cials.
In the face of spiking numbers,
Mr. Trump on Saturday continued
to lean into the idea that the news
media and his critics were obsess-
ing about the virus, even as polls
show widespread public concern.
A recent New York Times/Siena
College poll found that a slim ma-
jority of voters (including half of
independents) believed the worst
of the pandemic was yet to come.
“That’s all I hear about now.
That’s all I hear, turn on televi-
sion,” Mr. Trump said at a cam-
paign event in Lumberton, N.C.
“Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid,
Covid, Covid,” a refrain he made in
the state as well on Wednesday.
With just over a week until Elec-
tion Day and with hundreds of
thousands of voters expected to
cast their ballots as long lines
marked the first weekend of early
in-person voting in Florida, New
York, Wisconsin and other states,
Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden
presented sharply divergent
cases, both in words and actions,
for how they would handle the vi-
rus crisis still gripping the coun-
try.
Making two stops in the key bat-
tleground of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bi-
den cited the milestone in cases at
a drive-in rally in the Philadelphia
suburbs on Saturday and criti-
cized Mr. Trump for asserting that
the country was “rounding the
corner” as cases spike.
“You’re asking us to learn how
to die with it, and it’s wrong,” Mr.
Biden said in Bucks County, recall-
ing his exchange with Mr. Trump
on the subject at the debate on
Thursday. He added that there
was “going to be a dark winter
ahead unless we change our
ways.”
The beeping of car horns punc-
tuated his remarks, a familiar
soundtrack at his socially dis-
tanced drive-in events in theweeks before Election Day. “I
wish I could go car to car and meet
you all,” Mr. Biden said at a com-
munity college, where he spoke
from a stage decorated with
pumpkins and hay bales. “I don’t
like the idea of all this distance,
but it’s necessary. I appreciate you
being safe. What we don’t want to
do is become superspreaders.”
In North Carolina, it seemed
that Mr. Trump had watched his
rival’s event, mocking Mr. Biden
for his careful crowd limits. “You
know, people in cars. I don’t get it,”
Mr. Trump said.
“You heard a couple of horns,”
he added. “The weirdest thing.”
From there, Mr. Trump was off
to Circleville, Ohio, outside Co-
lumbus, and then Waukesha, Wis.
On Sunday, he will fly to New
Hampshire, the lone state on his
weekend itinerary that he did not
carry in 2016 and part of a hop-
scotching schedule reminiscent of
his intense final push four years
ago.
But the virus’s surge has en-
sured that even Mr. Trump’s well-
attended rallies can be a political
liability, a reminder to voters fear-
ful of the pandemic of his regulardisregard for expert and public
health advice. Mr. Trump used his
own contracting of the disease, his
weekend of hospitalization and
subsequent recovery as a pitch to
minimize the severity of a pan-
demic that has cost more than224,000 lives in the United States
out of more than eight million
cases.
“By the way, I had it, here I am,”
he said.
Mr. Trump began his day in
Florida, where he joined the more
than 56 million Americans who
have already voted. He cast his
ballot in person at the Palm Beach
County Main Library, declaring,
“I voted for a guy named Trump.”
Afterward, he also continued to
baselessly question the integrity
of the election and in particularmail-in ballots. “It’s the only way
we can lose,” Mr. Trump said, cit-
ing the size of crowds at his rallies.
Most polls show Mr. Trump be-
hind by a sizable margin nation-
ally and in many of the critical bat-
tleground states.
Mr. Biden’s full day in Pennsyl-
vania was a sign of the state’s cru-
cial importance in his Electoral
College calculations. After his
rally in Bucks County — which
Hillary Clinton won by less than a
percentage point in 2016 — he flew
to Luzerne County in the blue-col-
lar northeastern part of the state,
where he held a drive-in rally that
included a performance by the
singer Jon Bon Jovi. Luzerne
County is near Mr. Biden’s home-
town, Scranton, and it is a histori-
cally Democratic county that Mr.
Trump flipped by a wide margin in
2016.
Along with Mr. Biden’s appear-
ances this weekend, Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont was in
Western Pennsylvania on Satur-
day, holding a get-out-the vote
event in Pittsburgh and a drive-in
rally with the state’s lieutenant
governor, John Fetterman. And inanother sign of Pennsylvania’s po-
tential as the 2020 tipping point,
the Biden campaign dispatched
former President Barack Obama
there this past week for his first in-
person event of the general elec-
tion. Mr. Obama campaigned in
Florida on Saturday.
“It may come down to Pennsyl-
vania,” Mr. Biden said in Bucks
County. “And I believe in you. I be-
lieve in my state.”
For Mr. Trump, it may come
down to the coronavirus. At a rally
in Circleville, Ohio, on Saturday,
along with his continuing focus on
Mr. Biden’s stance on fracking and
his attacks on Mr. Biden’s son
Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump contin-
ued his efforts to redefine the vi-
rus, and his own experience with
it.
He played down the threat the
pandemic posed, pointing to his
own family’s experience as an ex-
ample of why a virus that has
killed more than 224,000 people in
the United States is not so bad. “It
worked out,” he said of his own
hospitalization for the virus. “By
the way, 99.9 percent is good and
then you’re immune.”At Dueling Rallies, Campaigns Present Starkly Different Visions on Virus
This article is by Shane Gold-
macher, Thomas Kaplanand Annie
Karni.
A whirlwind tour for
Trump while Biden
courts Pennsylvania.
Thousands of New Yorkers
flooded polling places and waited
hours in long lines on Saturday,
the first day of early voting, with
many saying that they turned out
because of concerns that their bal-
lots might not be counted if they
tried to vote by mail.
Lines stretched for blocks out-
side polling sites, including Bar-
clays Center in Brooklyn and the
Armory in Washington Heights,
as election officials contended
with malfunctioning electronic
poll machines and tried to calm
anxious voters.
The hurdles for voters and poll
workers on the first day of voting
reflected the challenges of a hold-
ing a contentious presidential
election in the middle of a pan-
demic. But many people remained
undeterred by the delays and the
coronavirus.
The line for early voting at the
Andrew Freedman House in the
Bronx stretched down Grand Con-
course and around the corner,
halfway down East 166th street.
The pandemic was on the minds
of most of the people in line. Many
wore face masks, and some of
them even had on gloves. They
tried to spread out at least six feet
apart, but it was difficult to main-
tain social distancing in the more
narrow parts of the street.
Bryan Washington, 60, said the
reward of casting his vote early
outweighed the risk of contagion.
“I am one of the ones that truly be-
lieves this is one of the most im-
portant elections we ever had,”
Mr. Washington said. “I truly be-
lieve this is an election for the soul
of the country.”
At Barclays Center in Brooklyn,
Barbara Ali, 75, showed up to vote
at 6:50 a.m. She called 311, the
city’s information line, because
she thought the polls opened at 7
a.m. They did not for another
three hours, but she decided to
wait.
“This is the most important
election of the century,” said Ms.
Ali, a retired city worker from
Park Slope. “This one is the icing
on the cake, I don’t want to call out
names, but we know what’s up.”
She contemplated absentee vot-
ing because of the coronavirus
but, she said, “sliding it into the
computer is the way I wanted to
go.”
In fact, recent mishaps involv-
ing mail-in ballots seemed to drive
many voters to the polls on Satur-
day. Some said they did not trust
that their votes would be counted
if they did not show up in person,
and many did not want to wait un-
til Election Day.
Late last month, the city’s
Board of Elections came under
fire after as many as 100,000 vot-
ers in Brooklyn received absentee
ballots with the wrong names andaddresses.
This is the first presidential
election during which New York-
ers are allowed to cast ballots
early. The State Legislature ap-
proved early voting in 2019, after
Democrats took control, making
New York one of the last states to
adopt it.
Sarah Steiner, a New York elec-
tion attorney who has repre-
sented candidates seeking public
office, said on Saturday that it was
not unusual to hear reports of long
lines and other problems during
the first day of early voting.
Throughout the day, photos on
social media showed New Yorkers
descending upon polling sites
across the city and state. Those
images were signs of a better-
than-expected turnout, Ms.
Steiner said.
“There’s always a couple of
glitches. This is an event for a lot
of people, and it is a wonderful
sign of civic engagement,” Ms.
Steiner said, adding later, “I’m
happy to see it.”
Early voting lines tend to de-crease after the first day, so voters
should expect shorter waits as
early voting continues, Ms.
Steiner said.
Voters will have until Nov. 1 to
cast their early ballots. The nine-
day early voting period is aimed at
increasing voter participation by
making voting more convenient.
Depending on the day, early vot-
ing sites will open as early as 7
a.m. and remain so until as late as
8 p.m., including this weekend and
the next.
The nine days of early voting
were expected to draw a record
voter turnout. As many as 3.3 mil-
lion people out of 4.7 million active
New York City voters, or 70 per-
cent, are expected to vote by mail
or in person, according to one esti-
mate.
Unlike in many other states and
the rest of New York, where peo-
ple can cast ballots at any early
voting center in their county, vot-
ers in New York City are allowed
to vote early only at assigned loca-
tions.
The city announced that Madi-son Square Garden and Barclays
Center would be used as polling
sites for the first time, but if voters
were not assigned to them, they
could not vote there.
The changes in locations con-
fused many voters.
By the time Rebecca Jones, 38,
arrived at Madison Square Gar-
den for early voting around 10:15
a.m., more than 600 people had al-
ready filed in line in front of her.
Ahead of the June primary in
New York City, Ms. Jones voted
early at a polling site about two
blocks away from where she lives
in Hell’s Kitchen.
“I’m very confused why they
funneled so many people to one
place. I think it’s stupid,” she said.
“If it’s about the numbers of volun-
teers who run it, then I’m all for it.
But they’ve managed it before. So
I’m not thrilled with it.”
More than a dozen police offi-
cers were stationed outside and
inside Madison Square Garden,
and the Police Department an-
nounced earlier in the week that
at least one police officer would beposted at each of the city’s 88 early
polling sites.
The police were not aware of
any specific threats directed at
polling sites, but the department
was devoting more resources to
security than in past elections be-
cause of the contentious climate
surrounding the presidential elec-
tion, Chief Terence A. Monahan
said.
On Election Day, there will be
1,201 polling sites open, and offi-
cers will be at all of them, Chief
Monahan said.
“The public should have no fear,
and should come out and vote,” he
added.
On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio,
however, expressed worry about
the early voting process during an
interview with MSNBC.
He said he expected interfer-
ence from vocal supporters of
President Trump in poor and im-
migrant communities come Elec-
tion Day. “We cannot have this,”
Mr. de Blasio said.
The mayor said he was plan-
ning to dispatch hundreds of law-
yers, city officials and volunteers
to ensure that every New Yorker
who wants to cast a vote can do so
without fear.
“We’re going to have a strong
voter protection effort because
you cannot let this election be stol-
en by intimidation,” he said.
On Saturday, a small rally broke
out outside the Brooklyn Museum
next to a snaking line of voters.
State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a
Democrat, cheered on voters.
“The reports of democracy’s de-
mise are greatly exaggerated,”
Mr. Myrie said.
Laurie Cumbo, the City Coun-
cil’s majority leader, echoed that
sentiment. She said she was as-
tounded by the line of voters at
Barclays Center. “I’m feeling the
fire. Shout out to all the people
who came out early this morning.”Voters waiting on Saturday outside the town hall of Fishkill in Dutchess County, N.Y. Early voters experienced similar hourslong lines at polling sites all over the city and state.TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMESMargaret Victor waited at the Queens Public Library in Jackson
Heights. She said she did not want to rely on absentee voting.KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Milien Machieu of Brooklyn, left, got directions in Barclays Cen-
ter. Voters in New York City can vote only at assigned early sites.DAVE SANDERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESNew Yorkers Line Up in Droves at Early Polling Sites
This article is by Edgar Sandoval,
Troy Clossonand Nate Schweber.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Elisha
Brown contributed reporting.
.