In Final Pre-Election Push, Biden and Trump Gird for Possible Court Battle

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Michigan Sports Stars Park, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Washington, Mich. (AP)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Michigan Sports Stars Park, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Washington, Mich. (AP)
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In Final Pre-Election Push, Biden and Trump Gird for Possible Court Battle

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Michigan Sports Stars Park, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Washington, Mich. (AP)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Michigan Sports Stars Park, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, in Washington, Mich. (AP)

President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden made a last-ditch push for votes in battleground states on Monday as their campaigns prepared for post-election disputes that could prolong a divisive presidential election.

Trump, who is trailing in national opinion polls, has continued to lob unfounded attacks on mail-in ballots, suggesting he would deploy lawyers if states are still counting votes after Election Day on Tuesday.

Trump told reporters on Monday evening that Pennsylvania’s plans to count mail ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day would lead to widespread cheating, although he did not explain how.

He urged the US Supreme Court to reconsider its decision that left the extension in place. The court has left that possibility open.

“Bad things will happen and bad things lead to other type things,” he told reporters in Wisconsin, another battleground state.

On Twitter, Trump said the court decision would “induce violence in the streets.” The social media platform flagged his message, adding a disclaimer to the tweet that its content “might be misleading.”

Twitter said earlier it would attach a warning label to any tweets that claim an election win before election officials or national news outlets do so.

It is not unusual in the United States for states to take several days or even weeks to count their votes, and a record surge in mail ballots as a result of the coronavirus pandemic could draw out the process further this year.

“Under no scenario will Donald Trump be declared a victor on election night,” Biden campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told reporters.

Biden himself predicted a quick victory, but also sought to downplay the drama.

“I’m hoping for a straightforward, peaceful election, a lot of people showing up,” he told reporters in Pittsburgh.

The election has prompted an unprecedented wave of litigation over whether to adjust voting rules in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both sides have amassed armies of lawyers who are prepared to take on post-election battles.

On Monday, a federal judge in Texas rejected a Republican bid to throw out about 127,000 votes already cast at drive-through voting sites in the Democratic-leaning Houston area.

Trump, 74, is seeking to avoid becoming the first incumbent president to lose re-election since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992. Despite Biden’s national polling lead, the race in swing states is seen as close enough that Trump could still piece together the 270 votes needed to prevail in the state-by-state Electoral College system that determines the winner.

Trump has spent the final days of the campaign predicting victory and deriding Biden for backing restrictions that aim to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“A vote for Biden is a vote for lockdown, misery and layoffs,” he told the crowd in Scranton.

‘A little worried’

Many Democrats said they were nervous about the results after expecting Trump to lose handily in 2016. “I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried,” said Patti Cadoso, 41, a medical school administrator who attended a Miami rally hosted by former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Obama, whom Biden served as vice president for eight years, said Trump’s push to stop counting votes on election night was undemocratic.

“That’s what a two-bit dictator does,” he told a rally in Miami. “If you believe in democracy, you want every vote counted.”

After visits to North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Trump headed to Wisconsin and Michigan - four states he won narrowly in 2016 but that polls show could swing to Biden this year.

As he has done for months, the president spoke to large crowds, where many attendees eschewed masks and social distancing despite the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden, 77, who has made Trump’s handling of the pandemic the central theme of his campaign, has restricted the size of his rallies to avoid spreading the virus.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll in Florida, a perennial swing state, showed Biden with a 50%-46% lead, a week after the two were in a statistical tie.

Early voting has surged to levels never before seen in US elections. A record-setting 98.7 million early votes have been cast either in person or by mail, according to the US Elections Project.

The number is equal to 71.6% of the entire voter turnout for the 2016 election and represents about 40% of all Americans who are legally eligible to vote.

That unprecedented level of early voting includes 63 million mail-in ballots that could take days or weeks to be counted in some states, meaning a winner might not be declared in the hours after polls close on Tuesday night.

Some states, including critical Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, do not start processing mail-in votes until Election Day, slowing the process.

Trump has repeatedly said without evidence that mail-in votes are prone to fraud, although election experts say that is extremely rare in US elections. Mail voting is a long-standing feature of American elections, and about one in four ballots was cast that way in 2016.

Democrats have promoted mail-in voting as a safe way to cast a ballot, while Trump and Republicans are counting on a big Election Day in-person turnout.

In a sign of how volatile the election could be, storefronts were boarded up in cities including Washington, New York and Raleigh, North Carolina.

The FBI was investigating an incident in Texas when a pro-Trump convoy of vehicles surrounded a tour bus carrying Biden campaign staff.

Trump will wrap up his campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same place he concluded his 2016 presidential run, while Biden will spend Election Day in Scranton, his childhood home, and Philadelphia.



Pakistan Tests Missile, India Orders Drills amid Kashmir Standoff

In this photo released by the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, second left standing on tank, chant 'long live Pakistan' slogans with soldiers during his visit to witness military exercises, in Tilla Field Firing Range in the Jhelum district, Pakistan, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Inter Services Public Relations via AP)
In this photo released by the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, second left standing on tank, chant 'long live Pakistan' slogans with soldiers during his visit to witness military exercises, in Tilla Field Firing Range in the Jhelum district, Pakistan, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Inter Services Public Relations via AP)
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Pakistan Tests Missile, India Orders Drills amid Kashmir Standoff

In this photo released by the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, second left standing on tank, chant 'long live Pakistan' slogans with soldiers during his visit to witness military exercises, in Tilla Field Firing Range in the Jhelum district, Pakistan, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Inter Services Public Relations via AP)
In this photo released by the Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, second left standing on tank, chant 'long live Pakistan' slogans with soldiers during his visit to witness military exercises, in Tilla Field Firing Range in the Jhelum district, Pakistan, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Inter Services Public Relations via AP)

Pakistan carried out a second missile test in three days on Monday and India said it ordered several states to conduct security drills, as fears mounted the neighbors could be heading to a confrontation over a deadly attack in Kashmir.

Moody's warned that the standoff could set back Islamabad's economic reforms as world powers called for calm.

Relations between the nuclear-armed states have nosedived since gunmen killed 26 people on April 22 in an attack targeting Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, the worst such assault on civilians in India in nearly two decades.

India has accused Pakistan of involvement. Islamabad has denied the allegations but said it has intelligence that New Delhi intends to launch military action against it soon.

The countries have shut their land borders, suspended trade, and closed their airspace to each other's airlines, and there have been exchanges of small arms fire across the frontier in Kashmir.

India's interior ministry has asked several states to conduct mock security drills on May 7 to ensure civil preparedness, a government source told Reuters on Monday. They did not say which states or mention Pakistan or Kashmir.

The drills will include air raid warning sirens, evacuation plans and training people to respond in case of any attacks, added the source, who asked not to be named.

Earlier, the Pakistani army said it had tested a Fatah series surface-to-surface missile with a range of 120 km (75 miles), two days after a successful launch of the Abdali surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 450 km.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the successful test launch "made it clear that Pakistan's defense is in strong hands".

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told journalists there was no communication channel open with India at the moment.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir lies at the heart of decades of hostility between Hindu-majority India and Islamist Pakistan, both of which claim it in full but rule it in part.

India has accused its neighbor of supporting Islamist separatists battling security forces in its part of the region. Pakistan says it only provides diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiris seeking self-determination.

ECONOMIC COST

Moody's said the standoff could hurt Pakistan's $350 billion economy, which is on a path to recovery after securing a $7 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund last year and staving off a default threat.

"Sustained escalation in tensions with India would likely weigh on Pakistan’s growth and hamper the government’s ongoing fiscal consolidation, setting back Pakistan’s progress in achieving macroeconomic stability," Moody's said.

"A persistent increase in tensions could also impair Pakistan's access to external financing and pressure its foreign-exchange reserves," it added.

The report comes two days after Reuters reported that India has asked the IMF to review its loans to Pakistan.

India's economy is not expected to see major disruptions since it has "minimal economic relations" with Pakistan - although higher defense spending could weigh on New Delhi's fiscal strength and slow fiscal consolidation, Moody's added.

Iran's foreign minister, who earlier said his country was ready to help India and Pakistan "forge greater understanding" after the attack, was in Pakistan on Monday to meet leaders. He will visit India on Thursday.

Russia said on Monday it was following the situation with great concern and that it valued its ties with both countries.

President Vladimir Putin "strongly condemned" the Kashmir attack in a call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed full support to India in its "fight against terrorism", India's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on X.

Pakistan said on Monday it will "formally apprise" the United Nations Security Council of the situation and call upon it "to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security by taking appropriate measures".