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WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The recent dip of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the polls has sparked a new round of confrontation between the real estate mogul and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, as they wrangled over a group of issues such as Obamacare and poll performances.
With the clock ticking toward Election Day, both candidates are focusing on a handful of key battleground states they hope will turn the tide.
TRUMP TO SCRAP OBAMACARE ONCE ELECTED
This week, both Clinton and Trump began their campaigns in swing states on the East Coast, such as Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire and Virginia. But insiders said both candidates would head west soon.
As the two staged rallies Tuesday in the crucial battleground state Florida, the United States' third most populous state, Trump denounced the Obamacare overhaul, saying it is a "monster" that has robbed Americans of jobs and money.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicted a big increase in insurance costs in the 38 states with federally-managed health care exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), marking the largest jump in premiums for the program.
In a bid to attract Florida's retiree voters, Trump announced to get rid of Obama's healthcare program, which he vowed to "repeal and replace" if he is elected.
"Obamacare is just blowing up," the 70-year-old mogul said. "Job-killing Obamacare is just one more way that our system is rigged, believe me."
"Obamacare has to be repealed and ... it has to be replaced with something much less expensive for the people, otherwise this country is in even bigger trouble than everybody thought," and Clinton "wants to keep it," he added.
In response, Clinton's team said later that Trump wants to "rip up the ACA and reverse the progress we have made."
Trump would "throw 20 million people off their coverage and let the insurance companies write the rules again," Clinton's campaign spokesperson Julie Wood said, adding "Hillary Clinton wants to build on the progress we've made and fix what's broken."
The latest polls show that Clinton was more popular than Trump in Florida with a lead of 3.1 percentage points, and nationally by 5.4 points.
BICKER OVER CLINTON'S LEAKED EMAILS
"The criminal conduct of Hillary Clinton threatens the foundations of our democracy," Trump said in a Florida rally, in response to the crowd's chanting of "Lock her up!"
Further taking aim at Clinton's Achilles' heel -- the leaked emails -- Trump also accused Obama of having known Clinton's use of a private email server, which he once denied and claimed he had just learned about from news reports.
"In other words, they were saying he had to know Hillary was using an illegal server but he claimed otherwise," Trump said. "That means Obama is now into the act."
Since Oct. 7, WikiLeaks has published on its website thousands of stolen emails from John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman. In one of Clinton's secret speech transcripts to Wall Street bankers, she implied that action was necessary to curb Wall Street "for political reasons," and she once contemplated the necessity of holding "both a public and a private position" on politically contentious issues.
Earlier this month, U.S. intelligence agencies issued a joint statement claiming that Russia was behind the recent hacking of emails so as to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
Citing these conclusions, Clinton accused Russia of being behind data breaches at Democratic political organizations and "trying to interfere in our election."
Last week, Clinton also charged that Russian President Vladimir Putin was backing Trump because "he'd rather have a puppet as president."
"PHONY" POLLS
Despite the increasingly unimpressive poll results, Trump on Monday rejected the "phony" polls from the "disgusting" media and asked supporters to join in the "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to dip the establishments in Washington.
"I believe we're actually winning," Trump declared in Florida, accusing the media of using biased "phony" polls to discourage Republican supporters from voting.
"The media isn't just against me. They're against all of you ... they're against what we represent," he said.
A Gallup poll released before the third debate found that neither Clinton nor Trump is particularly well-liked. Only about half of those who view either candidate favorably say they have strongly favorable views. By contrast, most of those who have unfavorable views of the candidates say they are strongly unfavorable.
"This reinforces the idea that for many voters, the 2016 election is a choice between 'the lesser of two evils,'" Gallup said.
