Democratic US presidential nominee Biden votes early in Wilmington

WILMINGTON, Delaware - US presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife Jill cast their ballots for the 2020 election on Wednesday, joining more than 74 million Americans who have voted with six days remaining in the contest.

He voted at the Carvel State Office Building in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware.

The Democratic candidate spent the day taking briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic and was scheduled to deliver a speech in Delaware, a state he is expected to easily win, with just six days to go until the Nov. 3 election against President Donald Trump.

Trump, who has been holding more campaign events in battleground states amid rising coronavirus cases, voted for himself on Saturday at a public library across the street from one of his golf clubs in the battleground state of Florida. He changed his residency from New York a year ago.

The number of people who have voted early represents more than 53% of the total turnout in the 2016 election, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

Delaware allows some early voting by appointment.

Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, which also show a public increasingly dismayed by Trump's handling of the largest public health crisis in US living memory. Polls in battleground states that might decide the election are tighter. -- Reuters