Trump campaign postpones North Carolina rally, citing high winds from Zeta storm

Tar Heel State rally could become dramatic election campaign finale as president’s team sets up last 2020 rallies

The Trump-Pence campaign has postponed a planned Thursday evening rally in the deadlocked battleground state of North Carolina until Monday, saying winds from the former Hurricane Zeta are too high.

“Because of a wind advisory issued with gusts reaching 50 miles per hour and other weather conditions, the outdoor Fayetteville, NC rally has been postponed until Monday,” the campaign said in a brief statement.

The announcement came as Mr Trump and First Lady Melania Trump had walked offstage at a rally in Tampa, where he slammed his rivals and called for a formerly anonymous whistleblower to have “bad things … happen to.”

Mr Trump, joined by First Lady Melania Trump, was back in Florida and North Carolina for yet more Sunshine State and Tar Heel State rallies as he and Mr Biden jockey for their 29 and 15 Electoral College votes, respectively.

Asked if he could afford to postpone a rally in the key swing state, Mr Trump said they were forced to do if for safety reasons.

“Very bad weather, the wind was terrible. We were forced to do it for safety reasons. But we're doing it, we're re-making it on Monday, big crowd. We're re-doing it on Monday,” he said.

Most polls show a statistical dead heat in both battlegrounds.

But Nathan Gonzales of Inside Election and Roll Call has put the two states in the “tilt Democratic” column. The Cook Political Report, which shifted Texas from tilting towards Mr Trump to the toss up column, forecasts both Florida and North Carolina toss-ups.

On paper, Mr Trump’s antics appear to have turned off most Americans. But then, he has a shot at winning a second term.

A new poll from The Independent shows the president trailing nationally by 14 points, a 3-point increase in his deficit from just a few weeks back. Despite a myriad scandals and controversies – and a pandemic that killed at least 228,000 people in the US – 45 per cent of respondents to The Independent’s poll said Mr Trump has been “good” for the economy.

Only 33 per cent of voters say that Donald Trump made America great again, with 52 per cent disagreeing, according to the same survey.

That poll landed a day before FiveThirtyEight published its new Electoral College forecast, which predicts a Biden landslide. The organisation forecasts the former vice president will win the election, with 346 Electoral College votes to Mr Trump’s 192. (It takes 270 to win the presidency.)

But political strategists on both sides of the aisle this week described a race that is too close to call, noting the Trump team already is challenging the ability of states to count mail-in votes. Those ongoing and expected post-Election Day court battles could alter the outcome, analysts say.

Mr Trump’s campaign released a schedule of rallies into Monday. Not on the list was Texas, which some outfits now call a toss-up as Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has been dispatched there. Could the Lone Star State be the difference-maker?

“Biden may narrowly lose Texas but he doesn't need the electoral votes there to win. Biden will probably secure all the states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and the three Great Lakes states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Trump won by close margins. Victories in all those states will give the former vice president more than 270 votes in the Electoral College,” said political strategist Brad Bannon.

“Trump doesn't have the money to compete with Bloomberg's Biden TV buys in Texas in the last few days,” he added. “The best Trump can do now is to juice turnout in rural areas, rely on [GOP governors’] efforts to restrict turnout in urban areas and hope for the best.”