Trump, Biden to Campaign in Minnesota As Early Voting Begins

US President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, will both fly to Minnesota 's main midwestern state on Friday as early voting starts there before the November election.

Trump, who trails Biden in national polls, is playing an offense in Minnesota in an effort to reclaim the state he narrowly lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 while winning Wisconsin, reports Reuters.

But recent opinion polls in Minnesota have given Biden a strong lead; the RealClearPolitics voting station found Biden up by an average of 10.2 points as of Thursday.

The polling advantage of Biden underscores the degree to which the new electoral map benefits the former vice president. He leads all three of the former industrial "Rust Belt" states that Trump flipped from the Democratic column on his way to victory in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Trump is expected to hold a campaign rally at Bemidji Airport, Minnesota, in the evening. Before delivering a speech, Biden will visit the union training center in Duluth earlier in the day.

The state was a flashpoint for national race relations when George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer had been standing on his neck for a few minutes, long after he seemed to lose consciousness.

The killing sparked widespread civil unrest, which lasted for months, and further convulsed a nation already besieged by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn.

Trump reacted to the protests by vowing to uphold "law and order" while depicting many of the demonstrators as far-left extremists who would be further motivated by a Biden victory in the Nov. 3 election.

Biden has denounced the violence at some protests while expressing support for the protesters’ objections to racism and police brutality. He has blamed Trump’s divisive rhetoric for inflaming the situation.