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ANXIETY MOUNTS WITH RACE AT A BITTER END

CLEVELAND Joseph R. Biden Jr. focusing on Ohio on Monday.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

PITTSBURGH Mr. Biden hopes to flip Pennsylvania this year.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. President Trump in the battleground state.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. The president aims to hold Michigan.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

adopt statewide.And everywhere, in a year that

has seen record levels of early vot-ing and a huge surge in use of vot-ing by mail, Republicans are gear-ing up to challenge ballots withmissing signatures or unclearpostmarks.

In his last days of campaigning,Mr. Trump has essentially admit-ted that he does not expect to winwithout going to court. “As soon asthat election is over,” he told re-porters over the weekend, “we’regoing in with our lawyers.”

Trailing consistently in thepolls, Mr. Trump in that momentsaid out loud what other Republi-cans have preferred to say quietly,which is that his best chance ofholding onto power at this pointmay rest in a scorched-earth cam-paign to disqualify as many votesas possible for his Democratic op-ponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

If there is a clear-cut outcomeon Tuesday night that could notplausibly be challenged via legalaction, all of the planning on bothsides could become moot. But ifthere is no decisive result, the fol-lowing days would likely see an in-tensifying multifront battle foughtin a variety of states.

After months of claiming thatany election outcome other than avictory for him would have to havebeen “rigged,” the president usedhis final days on the campaigntrail to cast doubt on the veryprocess of tabulating the count,suggesting without any evidencethat any votes counted after Tues-day, no matter how legal, must besuspect.

Both sides expect Mr. Trumpand his allies to try again to dis-qualify late-arriving ballots in theemerging center of the legal fight,Pennsylvania, after the state’shigh court rejected a previous at-tempt and the Supreme Court re-

With the election coming to aclose, the Trump and Biden cam-paigns, voting rights organiza-tions and conservative groups areraising money and dispatching ar-mies of lawyers for what could be-come a state-by-state, county-by-county legal battle over which bal-lots will ultimately be counted.

The deployments — involvinghundreds of lawyers on both sides— go well beyond what has be-come normal since the disputedoutcome in 2000, and are the re-sult of the open efforts of Presi-dent Trump and the Republicansto disqualify votes on technicali-ties and baseless charges of fraudat the end of a campaign in whichthe voting system has been se-verely tested by the pandemic.

In the most aggressive movesto knock out registered votes inmodern memory, Republicanshave already sought to nullify bal-lots before they are counted inseveral states that could tip thebalance of the Electoral College.

In an early test of one effort, afederal judge in Texas on Mondayruled against local Republicanswho wanted to compel state offi-cials to throw out more than127,000 ballots cast at newly creat-ed drive-through polling places inthe Houston area. The ruling,which Republicans said theywould appeal, came after a statecourt also ruled against them.

In key counties in Nevada,Michigan and Pennsylvania, Re-publicans are seeking, with mixedresults so far, to force electionboard offices to give their electionobservers more open access sothey can more effectively chal-lenge absentee ballots as they areprocessed, a tactic Republicans inNorth Carolina are seeking to

As Americans Surge to Polls, Trump Contests Some Ballots, Setting Up

Fight Over Which Ones Count

This article is by Jim Rutenberg,Michael S. Schmidt, Nick Corasani-ti and Peter Baker.

Continued on Page A22

GENEVA — On a cold weekendin mid-February, when the worldstill harbored false hope that thenew coronavirus could be con-tained, a World Health Organiza-tion team arrived in Beijing tostudy the outbreak and investi-gate a critical question: How didthe virus jump from animals to hu-mans?

At that point, there were onlythree confirmed deaths fromCovid-19 outside China, and scien-tists hoped that finding an animalsource for the coronavirus wouldunlock clues about how to stop it,treat it and prevent similar out-breaks.

“If we don’t know the sourcethen we’re equally vulnerable inthe future to a similar outbreak,”Michael Ryan, the World Health

Organization’s emergency direc-tor, had said that week in Geneva.“Understanding that source is avery important next step.”

What the team members did notknow was that they would not beallowed to investigate the sourceat all. Despite Dr. Ryan’s pro-nouncements, and over the adviceof its emergency committee, theorganization’s leadership had qui-etly negotiated terms that side-lined its own experts. They wouldnot question China’s initial re-sponse or even visit the live-ani-mal market in the city of Wuhanwhere the outbreak seemed tohave originated.

Nine months and more than1.1 million deaths later, there isstill no transparent, independentinvestigation into the source of thevirus. Notoriously allergic to out-side scrutiny, China has impededthe effort, while leaders of the

W.H.O. Ceded Control to China In Murky Hunt for Virus Origin

This article is by Selam Gebreki-dan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin andJavier C. Hernández.

Continued on Page A8

A man collapsed and died in Wuhan, China, as the crisis began.HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

SCRANTON, PA. The president made Pennsylvania a priority.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

MONACA, PA. Mr. Biden visited a community college on Monday.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

PLANO, Texas — Facing thetoughest race of his Senate career,John Cornyn warned a smallcrowd of supporters from the sec-ond floor of his campaign bus lastweek that his party’s long-helddominance in this historicallyruby-red state was at risk.

But while the three-term Texassenator demonized Democrats atlength, he did not spend muchtime talking up the obvious alter-native: President Trump, theleader of his party, the man at thetop of his ticket on Tuesday.

Asked whether Mr. Trump, theman who redefined Republican-ism, was an asset to Mr. Cornyn’sre-election effort, the senator wassuddenly short on words.

“Absolutely,” he said, stone-faced.

Mr. Cornyn’s gentle distancingfrom Mr. Trump foreshadows a far

less genteel battle to come. Thisyear’s election seems likely toplunge Republicans and Demo-crats into a period of disarray nomatter who wins the White House.With moderates and progressivespoised to battle each other on theleft, and an array of forces lookingto chart a post-Trump future onthe right (be it in 2021 or in fouryears), both parties appear des-tined for an ideological wildernessin the months ahead as each triesto sort out its identities and priori-ties.

The questions facing partisanson both sides are sweeping, andremain largely unresolved despite

For the Next Battle, Two PartiesWill Be Taking On Themselves

By LISA LERER

Continued on Page A15

Challenge to ReconcileCompeting Visions

President Trump arrives atElection Day on Tuesday tog-gling between confidence andexasperation, bravado and griev-

ance, and marinat-ing in frustrationthat he is trailingJoseph R. BidenJr., whom he con-

siders an unworthy opponent.“Man, it’s going to be embar-

rassing if I lose to this guy,” Mr.Trump has told advisers, a la-ment he has aired publicly aswell. But in the off-camera ver-sion, Mr. Trump frequently ex-claims, “This guy!” in referenceto Mr. Biden, with a salty adjec-tive separating the words.

Trailing in most polls, Mr.Trump has careened through amarathon series of rallies in the

last week, trying to tear downMr. Biden and energize his sup-porters, but also fixated oncrowd size and targeting per-ceived enemies like the newsmedia and Dr. Anthony Fauci,the federal government’s infec-tious disease expert whom hesuggested on Sunday he mighttry to dismiss after the election.

At every turn, the presidenthas railed that the voting systemis rigged against him and hasthreatened to sue when the elec-tion is over, in an obvious bid toundermine an electoral processstrained by the coronaviruspandemic. It is not clear, howev-er, precisely what legal instru-

President, in His Own Bubble, Makes Mad Dash to the FinishThis article is by Maggie Ha-

berman, Alexander Burns and Jon-athan Martin.

Chafing Over His Foesbut Acting Upbeat

POLITICALMEMO

Continued on Page A21

NEW HOPE, Pa. — Voters onboth sides of the nation’s wideningpolitical divide prepared on Mon-day to render a verdict on Presi-dent Trump’s four tumultuousyears in the White House and, inparticular, his management of thecoronavirus pandemic that hasupended American life for thepast eight months.

As Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Bi-den Jr. raced across the most im-portant battleground states in afrenzied final push for votes, the

2020 election was unfolding in acountry with urgent problems: anuncontrolled public health crisis, abattered economy, deep ideolog-ical divisions, a national reckon-ing on race and uncertainty aboutwhether the outcome of the votewill be disputed.

Undeterred by the pandemic,Americans have already dis-played an uncommon determina-tion to have their voices and votesheard this year. Nearly 100 millioncast their ballots in advance ofElection Day, shattering recordsas they endured long lines at earlyvoting sites or sent in their ballots

by mail.Much of the country felt on

edge, as if the often-predicted“most important election of a life-time” had finally arrived. Aheadof the polls opening on Tuesday,businesses in cities from Denverto Detroit to Washington, D.C.,

were boarding up their windowswith plywood as they readied forthe possibility of civil unrest.Some governors were readyingthe National Guard.

“Everyone is starting to panic,”Fernando Salas, a constructionworker, said as he pounded nailsinto a plywood frame at a store-front in a trendy shopping districtnear Los Angeles.

Election administrators bracedthemselves to pull off the twinchallenges of holding an electionduring a pandemic and fending off

Pandemic Shadows the Final Appeals From Trump and BidenBy SHANE GOLDMACHER A Country in Turmoil

Sees a Stark Displayof Differences

Continued on Page A19

Twenty years after three astronautsreported for duty at the InternationalSpace Station, we’ve compiled a historyof our home in the heavens. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

Lots of Life in SpaceThe photographer Priscilla Rattazzibrings to life the amazing Hoodoo rocksculptures of southern Utah. PAGE C5

ARTS C1-6

A Fantasia in StoneAt least two people were killed and 15wounded after men with rifles openedfire in the heart of the city. PAGE A11

INTERNATIONAL A10-12

Terrorists Strike in Vienna

HBO’s “How To With John Wilson”managed to make a mundane subjecthilarious and topical all at once. PAGE C1

The Best Scaffolding Jokes EverProtests calling for more constitutionaloversight of the monarchy resurrecttalk of a military coup. PAGE A10

A Familiar Refrain in Thailand

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is caughtbetween fellow party members whooppose his national lockdown and oppo-nents who say it’s not enough. PAGE A4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9

Revolt on Limits in BritainMembers of the Atlanta Falcons areworking with local high school studentsto support voter participation on Elec-tion Day. PAGE B5

SPORTSTUESDAY B5-7

Recruiting Future Voters

If symptomatic, they were more likelyto develop complications and die thanother women with symptoms. PAGE A6

Risks for Pregnant Women

Amy Coney Barrett asked assured andprobing questions in a Freedom ofInformation Act case. PAGE A29

NATIONAL A13-29

Justice Hears First Argument

How Facebook, Twitter and YouTubeplanned to handle the communicationand information challenges facing thembefore, on and after Tuesday. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-4

Social Media on Election Day

Harry Belafonte PAGE A31

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A30-31

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,866 © 2020 The New York Times Company TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00

Sunshine. Warmer. Breezy near thelake. Highs upper 50s to middle 60s.Clear skies and breezy tonight.Lows 40s. Partly cloudy tomorrow.Weather map appears on Page B10.

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