October 2, 2020: Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19 and will quarantine at the White House. Joe Biden began airing ads in 14 states focused on his Catholic faith.
“No modern president has publicly endured a health crisis this close to a re-election attempt. Ronald Reagan was shot and convalesced in 1981, just over two months after he was first sworn in. And Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while in office, but it was more than a year before he faced the voters for a second time.”
– Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, and Matt Stevens, The New York Times
Election Updates
Joe Biden is holding a campaign event focused on the economy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday.
Biden began airing ads focused on his Catholic faith on Christian and Catholic television programs in 14 states.
Donald Trumpannounced he had tested positive for COVID-19 on early Friday morning, along with First Lady Melania Trump. He earlier confirmed reports Thursday that White House adviser Hope Hicks, who traveled with him to the debate and a rally in Minnesota this week, had tested positive. Trump’s Friday rally in Florida has been canceled. Trump is quarantining at home in the White House.
The Trump campaign said on Thursday that it would not support format changes to the remaining debates. Campaign officials also said the Commision on Presidential Debates was biased against Trump.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $3.5 million on a pair of pro-Trump ads in South Florida.
An NBC News analysis of campaign ad spending by the Biden and Trump campaigns in September found the top three media markets were Orlando, Phoenix, and Tampa, each with $20 million or more in spending.
