Donald Trump sees you as expendable, Joe Biden tells OAP voters in Florida

Joe Biden in Florida
AP
Michael Howie14 October 2020

Joe Biden has told elderly voters in Florida that Donald Trump sees them as “expendable”, as the election rivals appealed directly to Americans in battleground states less than three weeks before polling day.

The Democratic candidate was courting the grey vote amid signs that support for President Trump among this age group is slipping over his handling of the coronavirus.

Speaking at a residential centre in Pembroke Pines, Mr Biden said that to his rival “you’re expendable, you’re forgettable, you’re virtually nobody”.

The “only senior Donald Trump seems to care about” is himself, Mr Biden added on his third visit to Florida in a month.

Recent polls have given him a double-digit percentage point lead over Mr Trump among elderly voters — in sharp contrast to the 2016 election when exit polls showed the Republican won the cohort by eight points.

Mr Biden, 77, also held a drive-in rally yesterday designed to promote voter mobilisation in the heavily African American community of Miramar.

“I’m running as a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president,” he told supporters, who sounded car horns as they listened from their vehicles. “I’ll work as hard for those who vote against me as those who vote for me.”

The 74-year-old president is trailing in the polls and is on a campaign blitz following his apparent recovery from Covid-19. He has visited four states this week and last night held a rally in Pennsylvania — another key battleground — where he unleashed fierce attacks on Mr Biden’s fitness for office.

On the offensive: Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania
AP

“He’s shot, folks. I hate to tell you, he’s shot,” the president told a big rally crowd at an airport in Johnstown, most of whom were not wearing masks. “Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like this? It’s unbelievable.”

He also tweeted a crudely doctored photograph showing Mr Biden in a wheelchair in a care home, with the tagline “Biden for Resident”.

Making a local pitch to the crowd in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump hammered home his claim that a Democratic administration could limit fracking in areas where the economy is heavily dependent on energy.

Touting his elimination of a federal rule that would have brought more low-income housing to the suburbs, he also zeroed in on groups whose support he has struggled to retain, including female voters turned off by his rhetoric.

“So I ask you to do me a favour. Suburban women: Will you please like me? Please. Please. I saved your damn neighbourhood, OK?” Mr Trump said.

“The other thing: I don’t have that much time to be that nice. You know, I can do it, but I gotta go quickly.”

As Mr Trump races against the clock, Americans are casting ballots early at a record pace. Nearly 12 million people have voted and long queues yesterday snaked out of polling places and down pavements in Texas and Georgia. Early voting was starting today in Kansas, Rhode Island and Tennessee.

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