Press. voanews.com.
President Barack Obama was in Florida on Friday to campaign for
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in an event intended to
address "the high stakes of November's election for Florida
families." The Clinton campaign said the event would highlight the candidate's plan
to build an economy "that works for everyone, not just those at the
top."
Florida is seen as a battleground state where the vote could go either
way: for Clinton, or her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. The state has 29
electoral votes, making it an important player in the nation's final choice for
president. A candidate needs at least 270 Electoral College votes to win the
presidency.
Meanwhile, Clinton appeared in Iowa, where she said Trump was pursuing a
"scorched earth" policy by trying to discourage Clinton supporters
from voting.
While she campaigned, her campaign manager, John Podesta, addressed the
breaking news that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton's use
of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. Podesta
questioned the timing of the development and demanded the FBI release more
information.
A Bloomberg poll released Wednesday put Trump 2 percentage points ahead
of Clinton in a four-way race that included Green Party candidate Jill Stein
and Libertarian Gary Johnson.
In 2012, Obama won Florida by less than 1 percentage point.
Meanwhile, Trump was campaigning in the northeastern United States
Friday, with stops in New Hampshire and Maine.
With the election race in its final two weeks, Clinton's campaign has
outspent Trump's by more than a 2-to-1 margin.
Reports filed by the candidates with the U.S. government showed that
Clinton had raised nearly $950 million and had about $178 million on hand for
television advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts in the last days ahead of
the election. Trump's campaign has raised about $449 million and has $97
million on hand.
The government reports showed that 25 U.S. presidential candidates —
Democrats, Republicans and minor party candidates — raised more than $1.2
billion in direct contributions to their campaigns, most of which began in late
2014 or last year. Independent committees have raised hundreds of millions more
to support those campaigns.
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