Candidates focus on swing states

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally on October 24, 2016 at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Trump insisted he was the voice of the American everyman and urged voters to ignore his 18-month candidacy of overheated rhetoric.
  • Clinton was seeking to cement her lead by conquering battlegrounds including Florida, North Carolina and Ohio where early voting has already begun.
  • Trump continued to assure his supporters that the polls were unfairly tilted towards Clinton and that he would prevail.
  • At least seven million Americans have already voted, according to the US Elections Project.

WASHINGTON

Donald Trump urged Americans on Monday to “rise above the noise” of the caustic 2016 race and elect him president, as he insisted he was winning against Hillary Clinton despite polls that show the opposite.

Casting the election as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to reject the nation’s political elite, the provocative Republican billionaire insisted he was the voice of the American everyman and essentially urged voters to ignore his 18-month candidacy of overheated rhetoric.

“You’ve got to get out and vote,” Trump told an enthusiastic crowd in Tampa, Florida, as early voting kicked off in the state barely two weeks before Election Day November 8.

But instead of treading the optimistic high ground, he swiftly returned to rounding on Clinton, decrying the “phony polls” that show him trailing, and questioning the centuries-old integrity of the US election process.

“Our system is rigged,” he said, as he berated Clinton for using a private email server and highlighted revelations in Monday’s Wall Street Journal that the organisation of a Clinton ally paid nearly $500,000 (Sh50.8 million) to the political campaign of the wife of an FBI official who later helped oversee the investigation against her.

“She never had a chance of being convicted, even though everybody in this audience... knows that she’s 100 per cent guilty,” he said. Clinton, who turns 69 on Wednesday, aims to become the nation’s first female president.

CEMENT HER LEAD

She was seeking to cement her lead by conquering battlegrounds including Florida, North Carolina and Ohio where early voting has already begun.

Trump, who faces an increasingly narrow path to victory amid damning revelations about his treatment of women, continued to assure his supporters that the polls were unfairly tilted towards Clinton and that he would prevail.

Residents of Chicago, Charlotte, Miami and Las Vegas are already going to polling stations to cast ballots — with initial indications suggesting a surge in early voting among Democrats. “We’ve got to get people turning out. That’s the most important thing we can do,” Clinton told WZAK radio in Cleveland.

At least seven million Americans have already voted, according to the US Elections Project.

At a Monday fundraiser in La Jolla, California, President Barack Obama acknowledged that he wants an overwhelming victory for Clinton in order to send a message that Americans were rejecting Trump’s divisive rhetoric.

“We’re winning, not only Florida, but we’re going to win the whole thing,” Trump said in St. Augustine.

Residents of Chicago, Charlotte, Miami and Las Vegas are already going to polling stations to cast ballots — with initial indications suggesting a surge in early voting among Democrats.