Biden to campaign in St. Paul, Trump’s Minnesota rally location in flux

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – Both presidential candidates will campaign in Minnesota on Friday, just four days before Election Day.

President Donald Trump’s early evening rally is in flux and has moved locations at least twice. The event was originally scheduled for Rochester International Airport before the campaign suddenly moved it to McNeilus Steel in Dodge Center. But late Thursday, the event was on the move again back to Rochester, though Republicans said they did not know exactly where.

The reasons for the switch were not immediately clear, but appear to be linked to Minnesota’s 250-person limit on crowd size during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rochester city attorney Jason Loos told FOX 9 that the president is expected to fly into Rochester’s airport and do a short press briefing there.

“The event will comply with state Covid-19 regulations,” Loos said in an email. Loos did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about how Rochester would handle a campaign rally if there were more than 250 attendees.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has scheduled a drive-in campaign event in St. Paul at 3:45 p.m. The Biden campaign hasn’t answered questions about the event’s location.

Both campaigns have spent considerable time in Minnesota over the last few months—a state which Trump lost to Hillary Clinton by a narrow 1.5% margin in 2016. Recent polls show Biden has a small lead over the president.

Biden’s visit is his second since absentee voting started Sept. 18. Trump’s rally will be his third in Minnesota since voting started.

Nearly 1.2 million absentee ballots have already been returned statewide as of last Friday, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State Office. That amount is already about 40 percent of the entire voter turnout in 2016, and will grow when the new weekly numbers are released Friday.