OMAHA – A nation with nearly 8% unemployment and grieving over 231,000 Covid deaths, where four in five Americans say they are nervous about the country’s future, has one last chance on Tuesday to decide which candidate is best equipped to lead him beyond these discouraging numbers
The division and anxiety are evident in conversations between voters in the long lines outside early polls and on the burnished autumn lawns where warring yard signs pit neighbor against neighbor to neighbor Here in the middle of the country, where the number of cases is increasing and college football matches have been postponed after much angst this past weekend, concern is all linked, from people on both sides from the political abyss
Coronavirus trends are particularly pronounced in several battlefield states, including Wisconsin and Michigan, as Joseph R Biden Jr is fighting to win back Democrats after President Trump’s victories there in 2016, and where infection rates increased as the schedule ended
A fundamental unease about the country hangs over most other concerns voters describe when they vote: America’s future concerns them more than whether they risk losing jobs in this recession , if they could get sick in this pandemic, if they could be personally harmed by a violent crime
In a nationwide poll by the New York Times and Siena College, voters from all walks of life say they fear the next generation of Americans may be worse off And they fear America lose your democracy
This sentiment means different things to voters on the left and on the right Republicans describe fears of creeping socialism within the Democratic Party and sweeping changes in American values amid protests against police and historical figures Democrats fear threats to democracy from the White House itself, as they describe Mr. Trump undermines the country’s institutions and the rule of law
Other pre-election opinion polls have shown Americans to be deeply divided not only over which candidate they support in the election, but also over issues that have become inseparable from partisan politics this year
Democrats believe the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come; Republicans believe the worst is already behind the country Democrats, by wide margins, endorse the Black Lives Matter movement; Republicans, to a comparable degree, denounced it
Voters from both parties disagree on the economic outlook, the importance of wearing masks and even whether schools should reopen in person
They even see different realities in their personal lives: Only one in five Democrats said they were personally better off than four years ago, in a recent Times / Siena national poll Almost nine in ten Republicans said they were doing better after the first Trump administration
As election day approached in 2016, presidential candidates – and the country – faced an upward-looking economy There had been 79 months of uninterrupted employment gains in the private sector, unemployment was below 5% for the first time since the start of the Great Recession, wages were rising and consumer confidence was high
Today the economic situation is very different The official unemployment rate in September was 79 percent and more than 126 million people are unemployed – five million more than when M Trump took office
There has been progress since the spring, when the spreading pandemic shut down the economy and virtually halted trade But the improvements, fueled in part by $ 2 trillion in government assistance to individuals and to businesses disappear Hundreds of thousands of new jobless claims are reported every week at levels that still eclipse previous records
Several large companies have said they expect another wave of layoffs and time off Wall Street analysts warn growth is expected to continue to slow, leaving the economy about 25% smaller than last year
In several battlefield states, including Pennsylvania (81 percent), Texas (83 percent), Ohio (84 percent), Michigan (85 percent), and Nevada (126%), the rate of Unemployment is above the national average Others fare better, with Wisconsin at 54 percent, Georgia at 64 percent and North Carolina at 73 percent All, however, are in a much worse condition than they weren’t a year ago
Throughout most of the Trump administration, views on the economy closely followed political preferences. Republicans could be relied on to hold optimistic views on the economy and on President Trump’s credit, while Democrats had a much more negative view of the country’s prospects and that Mr. Trump’s effect on them
« People’s views on the economy are always influenced by party identification, » said Lynn Vavreck, political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles
Republicans remain more positive than Democrats, but overall confidence in the economy is low, according to Gallup polls in mid-October, and only 28% of those polled approved of the way things were going in states -United
Ms Vavreck said that during this unusual year, managing the economy and dealing with the pandemic have been linked in a way that is difficult to separate
In Nebraska, the unemployment rate in September was 35%, not that far from its rate last September and the lowest in the country Many supporters of the president here are touting the economy of the country as a whole as a reasons they are considering voting for him They attribute the economic problems to the pandemic, which they believe is out of their control
« Trump has improved the economy and once they get a shot I’m sure the economy will pick up again, » said Eli Duberow, 42, of Lincoln, as he waited for M Trump’s rally in Omaha to start last week
In addition to economic and electoral concerns, America is facing a pandemic with a growing number of victims; 93 million Americans have been infected
Nebraska, which divides the votes for its constituency and has been a focal point for M Trump, has averaged over 1,100 coronavirus cases per day over the past week, most from all points of the pandemic
That, rather than the economic toll of the pandemic, is more present in the minds of some Nebraska voters – with, for Republicans, the creep of socialism and for Democrats, improvements in health care
In the state’s second congressional district race in the Omaha metropolitan area, Democratic candidate Kara Eastman is described by her opponent as a radical socialist. Her Republican rival Don Bacon, whom she has called ruthless not to support Covid relief funds, had scheduled an in-person election night at a hotel, but turned it into a scaled-down event for staff and family as new cases of coronavirus were increasing
Nationwide, outlook for virus is grim and increasingly gloomy Infection numbers tend to rise in 41 states, and more than 20 states have set weekly records for cases in recent days has averaged over 82,000 cases per day over the past week, the most Deaths, which tend to delay cases, climbed more slowly to around 800 per day, still well below the spring peak
Much of the recent increase is due to explosive growth in the same northern battlefield states that could decide the presidential race
The situation is particularly dire in Wisconsin and Iowa, which are third and fifth nationally in recent cases per capita Ten of the country’s 17 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of new cases in the two Wisconsin in recent weeks More than 14,000 cases were reported in Iowa in the seven-day period ending Sunday, the most in a week-long pandemic
Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan all see worrying increases Cases have also reached record levels in the Omaha region, where Mr. Trump held a rally last week that drew thousands of mostly unmasked attendees
On the southern battlefields the picture is a little more encouraging, but not yet good Cases are increasing in Arizona, Florida and Texas, but so far remain below peak levels seen this summer In Georgia, which has also improved since the summer, reports of new infections have leveled off in recent days But in North Carolina, new cases and deaths are still emerging near record levels
Concerns about voter fraud, misinformation, misinformation, possible violence and disruption in the ballot also worry many Americans But in Omaha, the recent culprit of a more than an hour’s stoppage of early voting to the Douglas County Election Commission was less harmful: a squirrel had chewed electrical equipment
Dionne Searcey reported from Omaha, Emily Badger from Washington, Patricia Cohen from New York and Mitch Smith from Chicago
Donald Trump, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Joe Biden, US Presidential, 2020
News from around the world – AU – Country facing high unemployment, virus rates and anxiety chooses its president
SOURCE: https://www.w24news.com
