WASHINGTON, Oct 13: President Donald Trump, who claims he had a quick recovery from a bout of coronavirus infection, resumed his re-election campaign in Florida, with a rally at Sanford airport in Orlando, on Monday evening, attended by a crowd of a few thousand people, not following any physical distancing nor wearing any mask.

"They say I'm immune - I feel so powerful. I'll walk in there and kiss everyone. I'll kiss the guys and the beautiful women, I'll give you a big, fat kiss," wearing no mask, he appeared or rather wanted to be in his vigorous best.

In his speech he listed his achievements as stock market growth and establishment of a space force. He added to his credit two conservative confirmations and one nomination to the Supreme Court. He also spoke against continuing any corona shutdowns and castigated Biden's mental fitness. Calling news media a "fraud," he sought to make tall claims over killing of terrorists!

Trump is ten points behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden in national level opinion polls. Either needs 270 electoral college votes (of total 538) to win the election which is not decided by popular votes. Florida, a swing State, has 29. As in some States he has an edge over Biden, it wouldn't be unfounded to say at this moment they are in the race neck and neck.

He narrowly won Florida last time. This time the New Yorker must win his adopted home State to make up for losses elsewhere.

Trump in Florida, a battleground State, addressed his supporters, many of whom not wearing masks, in an open air rally outside the Sanford airport. Florida is one of the worst affected by the epidemic with 15,000 deaths.

Joe Biden is scheduled to tour the suburban areas of the State on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Biden went round in drive-in campaigns in Ohio, another swing State, telling people, "215,000 dead because of Covid... Trump knew how dangerous the disease was but did nothing. Why didn't he warn us?" He claimed that he and the then President Barack Obama successfully tackled the global recession and bailed out America from a huge financial crisis.

Infected by covid, Trump was admitted in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, from Ocober 2 till October 5. He had tested positive and had developed cold-like conditions and at least on two occasions suffered from hypoxia (low oxygen), a critical condition in covid cases. However, all the time he used to claim he was perfectly well. Before the Orlando rally, first time after the October 1 test, the White House released his latest test result as negative. Earlier on Sunday he was cleared by his doctor as fit to resume normal activities and that there was no threat of transmission of the virus, although he did not release any medical details at that time.

Meanwhile, the in-person early voting has registered a total of 10. 5 million votes, according to an estimate. A large number of people are expected to use postal ballots in view of the coronavirus epidemic.

In the US, there is no central election authority to conduct the elections. The States undertake the exercise and each State has its own rules about the mode of voting and the timeline for counting. In-person early voting and postal voting are almost same and that can be anytime before or even after the physical polling date, that is November 3. This time postal voting is higher because of fear of covid and it is predicted that the ballot votes will be mostly Democratic as that jells with their policy of compliance with the corona restrictions.

In Georgia, in-person voting started on Monday with long queues at many places, the wait lasting 6-7 hours at places. There were machine glitches too, adding to the delay. In Georgia the last date for in-person voting is October 30. Some people had enough time as Monday is off day for federal workers.