Campaigning at frenetic pace, Trump tries to rally two days before election

WASHINGTON: Two days before Election Day, President Donald Trump on Sunday launched a campaign sprint across US battleground states starting with a chilly outdoor rally in Michigan, a state crucial to his election chances as he seeks to defy the polls and fend off Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Trump, aiming to avoid becoming the first incumbent president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992, has a frenetic schedule for Sunday, with stops also planned in Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Biden is due to campaign in Pennsylvania.

Buffeted by snow flurries in Washington, a town north of Detroit, Trump wore his trademark red cap emblazoned with the words "Make America Great Again" as he addressed a boisterous crowd on a cold and blustery morning.

After the crowd loudly chanted, "We love you" Trump responded, "I love you, too. If I didn't, I wouldn't be standing here because it's freezing out here."

Trump predicted he would repeat his 2016 victory in Michigan and touted his efforts to create auto jobs, a key issue for the auto manufacturing state.

"We brought back your car industry. Your car industry was finished. You would have had nothing left," Trump said.

Biden has held on to a steady lead in national opinion polls as a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 230,000 Americans and battered the economy has weighed on Trump's campaign. The former vice president was ahead 51% to 43% in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken Oct. 27-29.

Polls show Trump still close in enough battleground states that could give him the 270 votes needed to win in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the overall victor.