WASHINGTON — With election day now just two weeks away, Americans are continuing to shatter early voting records with the coronavirus pandemic looming large over both presidential campaigns.
In the home stretch of the campaign, the presidential candidates making starkly different closing arguments about the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump downplaying the virus as cases and hospitalizations spike again.
"People are pandemic-ed out. You know that? They're pandemic-ed out," said Trump.
While Joe Biden in a new campaign ad highlights its personal and economic toll.
"We have this virus now out of control, people out of work, no health care, how is that helping people?"
The pandemic's effect reaching all the way to the supreme court.
In a 4-4 decision, the court upholding Pennsylvania's state court ruling allowing officials three days after the election to continue tallying mail-in ballots because of expected postal delays.
Many voters choosing to wait hours in line to cast their ballots instead, an early voter in Wisconsin said they would never mail their ballot because they don't trust the post office.
More than 31 million Americans have already cast their ballots, according to the United States Election Project.
At this time in 2016, that number was just 5.6 million.
In Wisconsin, some voters waited for hours during the first day of in-person voting.
"As you can see the line extends for many, many yards," said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll shows Joe Biden with a one-point lead over President Trump in battleground North Carolina.
Trump trails Biden by 10 points in FiveThirtyEight's National Polling Average.
With the window closing to sway the few remaining undecided voters, the candidates will appear together on stage for the final presidential debate Thursday.
Biden off the campaign trail Tuesday to prepare, while the president is holding a rally in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
First Lady Melania Trump had been scheduled to appear with her husband in Pennsylvania in what would have been her first appearance at a rally since June 2019, but her office canceled citing a lingering cough from her COVID-19 infection.
