October 15, 2020: Joe Biden and Donald Trump are participating in competing town halls on Thursday night after the second presidential debate was canceled. The Biden campaign responded to a New York Post story on his alleged involvement in his son’s business dealings in Ukraine.
“In 2016, 94% of all campaigning took place in just 12 states and two-thirds of the events took place in just six states. More than half of all states did not have one campaign event in 2016 after the national party conventions. No candidate stepped foot in any state with just 3 electoral votes, undermining the argument that the Electoral College forces candidates to run national campaigns.
The same pattern has emerged this fall. Since the conclusion of the national party conventions in August, Over 70% of all campaign events — either virtual or in person — have been held in just six states (Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan and Minnesota). If you want to know where the presidential election will be decided, you need look no further than where the candidates are spending their time and money.”
– Robert Alexander, director of the Institute for Civics and Public Policy at Ohio Northern University
Election Updates
Joe Biden is participating in a town hall in Philadelphia hosted by ABC News and moderated by George Stephanopoulos on Thursday night.
The Biden campaign announced on Wednesday that the campaign, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, raised a record-setting $383 million in September.
The Biden campaign responded to a New York Post story that said Hunter Biden introduced Joe Biden to an executive from a Ukraninan energy company, where Hunter Biden was a member of the board. “The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month,” The New York Post said. The article referenced a hard drive and emails given to The New York Post by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement that “we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.” Politico reported that the Biden campaign did not rule out the possibility that Biden had an informal interaction with Pozharskyi. Bates also said, “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.”
Donald Trump began airing an ad questioning Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine on Wednesday. The narrator says, “The question is not why Hunter Biden used his name to get these gigs. It’s why Joe Biden let him do it.”
Trump is participating in a town hall in Miami hosted by NBC News and moderated by Savannah Guthrie.
