In the last weeks before the election Biden is showing the United States that he is a leader, but Trump is just wasting the last bit of time he has by provoking politically-damaging headlines.

Trump’s campaign pulled their ads off the air from Ohio and Iowa, and Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said, “President Trump and his campaign are extremely confident about our chances in these states. We have been talking directly with voters for years via multiple avenues about the success of President Trump’s America First agenda. Unlike Joe Biden, campaign ads aren’t the only way we know how to campaign.”

This is a questionable decision because if Trump loses the popular vote in Ohio and Iowa he may just lose to Biden across the board. Biden had a record-breaking fundraising month, and he is now planning to expand his ads to include Texas, Ohio and Iowa. Biden has also been able to outspend Trump in all 6 of the core battleground states.

Biden is the obvious current frontrunner. Biden’s campaign published a video from former first lady Michelle Obama making a “closing argument” against Trump. During the video Michelle Obama also talked about a strong endorsement that Biden has received from singer Taylor Swift. Polls show that Biden is ahead among young voters. Surprisingly, polls also show that Biden is ahead in voters 65 and older. This is surprising for a Democratic candidate.

Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, who administers the United States Election Project, estimated that 65% of the U.S. Population would vote in this election, which would represent the highest percentage in more than a century.

In the 30 states that have made their voting data available, nine million ballots have been cast. Democrats have sent in more than twice the number of ballots that Republicans have.

It makes more sense to use mail-in voting right now, but I think Trump has made a lot of people mistrustful of this very helpful process.

“One of the advantages of having absentee ballots or voting by mail is it gives you a little bit of a snapshot as they are returned, and finding out who is returning them and where you are in your field operation,” Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist, said. “If Republicans aren’t getting accurate reads on that, they’re not getting accurate reads on where they need to adjust more.”

I hope that more people than ever before show up to vote for this election whether they vote in person or by mail.

Lindsey Ulrey is a freshman political science major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or lrulrey@eiu.edu.