In July, President Donald J. Trump visited Morrisville, North Carolina, to check on a possible vaccine for COVID-19. The infectious disease has claimed nearly 170,000 lives in the United States alone and infected more than 5 million people.
The coronavirus pandemic is not the only reason Trump visited this Southern state. The president, who is running for re-election, is hoping to win over more voters in North Carolina. In many polls, Democratic candidate Joseph R. Biden leads Trump by a narrow margin.
The election will be held on November 3. Trump is hoping to win a second four-year term in office. But many Americans say that they are disappointed with his handling of the pandemic, which has led to a sharp economic downturn in the U.S. Tens of millions of people are unemployed, and many families are struggling to put food on the table.
By early August, Trump had lost a significant amount of ground in six battleground states that helped ensure his presidential victory in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.