US election roundup: Trump celebrates Barrett's confirmation, Biden hits road & more

President Donald Trump reveled in one of his signature achievements on Monday at a White House ceremony to celebrate U.S. Senate confirmation of his third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, eight days before the election.

The made-for-TV prime-time event on the White House lawn mirrored one a month ago, when Barrett's nomination was announced, which preceded a coronavirus outbreak among top Republicans including Trump himself.

It came little more than an hour after the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Barrett to the lifetime appointment on a 52-48 vote, with Democrats unified in opposition.

Her confirmation as successor to liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month, creates a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court. One Republican, Susan Collins, voted against the confirmation.

With just a week to go until the November 3 election, President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden will criss-cross the country on Tuesday in an intense day of campaigning that will also see former President Barack Obama back on the stump.

Trailing Biden in national opinion polls, Trump will hold rallies in three states key to his reelection hopes - Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska - while Biden journeys to Georgia and Obama campaigns on Biden's behalf in critical Florida.

The 2020 US presidential campaign has been unlike any other as a raging coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed more then 225,000 Americans pushes record early voting. More than 64 million votes have been cast so far, approaching half the total 2016 vote, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

Young American adults are expected to vote in large numbers in the 2020 US Presidential elections, and Democratic nominee Joe Biden's favourability has increased considerably in the last few months, according to a poll conducted by the Harvard University's Institute of Politics.

The nation-wide poll, which surveyed the age group of 18 to 29 years, found "historic interest in the upcoming election, with a higher proportion of respondents indicating they will 'definitely be voting' than has been observed in the twenty years the poll has been conducted, suggesting higher turnout than has been observed in this age group in several decades."

Youth enthusiasm to vote and likelihood of turning out on track will hit record levels in 2020, with 63 per cent of respondents indicating they will “definitely be voting,” a contrast to 47 per cent during the 2016 elections.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is planning to spend around $15 million on television advertising in Texas and Ohio during the final week of the presidential campaign to help Democratic candidate Joe Biden defeat President Donald Trump, a Bloomberg spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Statewide ads in Texas and Ohio will run from Wednesday through Election Day next Tuesday.

Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who lost to Biden in a crowded field for the Democratic nomination, previously vowed to spend up to $100 million of his personal fortune to support Biden in Florida though his super PAC, Independence USA, and other Democratic groups.

Gabe Loiacono is the kind of voter President Donald Trump can ill afford to lose. He lives in a pivotal county of a swing state that is among a handful that will decide the presidency.

A college history professor who last cast a ballot for a Democrat more than 20 years ago, Loiacono is voting for Democrat Joe Biden because he thinks Trump has utterly failed in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

"President Trump still does not seem to be taking the pandemic seriously enough. I wish he would," said Loiacono. He said he never thought of Trump as "all bad" but added, "There is still too much wishful thinking and not enough clear guidance."

And now the virus is getting worse in states that the Republican president needs the most, at the least opportune time. New infections are raging in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the upper Midwest. In Iowa, polls suggest Trump is in a toss-up race with Biden after carrying the state by 9.4 percentage points four years ago.

Social media company Twitter Inc on Monday flagged a tweet by US President Donald Trump about mail-in ballots, adding a disclaimer describing the post's content as "disputed" and potentially misleading.

"Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Must have final total on November 3rd", Trump tweeted late on Monday, with the tweet giving no evidence for his assertion.

"Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about how to participate in an election or another civic process", Twitter's disclaimer said. The disclaimer included a link to a page highlighting how mail voting was legal and safe.

Many states have expanded early voting and the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the Nov. 3 election, as some Americans try to avoid crowded polls during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kamala Harris is smart as a devil, has a backbone like a ramrod and is vastly experienced, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said, defending his decision to select the California senator as his running mate.

Biden named Harris as his running mate in August, making her the first Black woman to run on a major political party's presidential ticket.

"Number one: her values. Number two: She is smart as a devil. Number three: She has a backbone like a ramrod. Number four: She is really principled. And number five: She has had significant experience in the largest state in the union, running a Justice Department that's only second in size to the United States Justice Department," Biden told CBS News in an interview on Monday.

Donald Trump's market-friendly policies, tough stance against China and acknowledgement of the contributions of the Hindu community in the US have struck a chord with a group of Hindu-American women who are rooting for the Republicans to ensure that he wins the November 3 presidential election.

Participating in an online session, a panel of Hindu-American women, from different walks of life, expressed their strong views in favour of President Trump.

Karishma Himatsinghani, a media entrepreneur from Dallas, said that she is neither a Leftist, nor a Rightist, but a moderate centrist who finds Trump treading a centrist path in programmes and policies.

US President Donald Trump is expected to hold his election night party at his hotel in Washington even as there are limits on large gatherings in the city due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a media report.

The New York Times reported that Trump will hold his election night party at his hotel in Washington on November 3 and this could set up a potential standoff with the city's Democratic mayor over the district's limits on gatherings.

The NYT report added that the District of Columbia has little say over events on the White House grounds, but the campaign's selection of the Trump International Hotel as the venue for the president's election night festivities could be different.