Biden agrees with Trump that the ‘gloves are off’ between the two

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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday appeared to acknowledge that the gloves are off between himself and President Trump with just 50 days to go until the November general election.

Asked by a reporter after concluding a speech Monday in Delaware on the raging western wildfires and climate change if the “gloves were off,” the former vice president said “yes.”

BIDEN CALLS TRUMP A 'CLIMATE ARSONIST'

Biden’s comments come the day after the president emphasized at a campaign rally near Las Vegas, Nev., that the “gloves are off” as he slammed Biden as unfit for the presidency.

WILMINGTON, DE - SEPTEMBER 14: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks about climate change and the wildfires on the West Coast at the Delaware Museum of Natural History on September 14, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden has scheduled campaign stops in Florida, Pennsylvania and Minnesota later this week. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A night earlier, at a campaign stop in northern Nevada, Trump vowed to “be really vicious" in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.

Both candidates have heavily criticized each other since April, when Biden became his party’s presumptive presidential nominee and the general election campaign started taking shape.

The former vice president leads Trump by 7.4 percentage points, according to an average of the latest national polling compiled by Real Clear Politics. That’s down from 7.7 points a month ago and 8.8 points two months ago. The new average includes a new Fox News national poll released Sunday that showed Biden topping the president 51%-46% among likely voters.

The Real Clear Politics average of national polling on this date four years ago showed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump by 2.3 points. Clinton led Trump by 3.2 points on the eve of the general election – and ended up winning the national popular vote by 2%.

But the race for the White House isn’t a fight for the national popular vote. Trump narrowly topped Clinton in many of the key battleground states, which helped him trounce her in the all-important Electoral College count to win the White House.

Biden currently retains a slight edge over the president in many of the key general election battlegrounds.