As Donald Trump was basking in the glory of falling balloons and the adulation of his supporters at the Republican convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night, a Covid-stricken Joe Biden was fighting to keep his re-election bid alive from his holiday home in Delaware.
The diverging fortunes of the two leading candidates for the White House this week marked the latest, dramatic chapter in a rivalry that has dominated American politics for the past four years.
On Friday morning, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, insisted the president would remain in the race, defying the intense pressure building from vast swaths of the Democratic party for him to quit in the wake of his disastrous performance in a debate against Trump last month.