Biden To Mark Labor Day With Union Event as US Campaign Enters Homestretch
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is headed on Monday to the crucial electoral state of Pennsylvania, where he plans to mark the U.S. Labor Day holiday by speaking with union workers as the presidential campaign…
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is headed on Monday to the crucial electoral state of Pennsylvania, where he plans to mark the U.S. Labor Day holiday by speaking with union workers as the presidential campaign enters its homestretch.
The trip kicks off another flurry of travel to battleground states this week by both Biden and President Donald Trump as some opinion polls show the race tightening with fewer than 60 days until the Nov. 3 election.
With the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest over racism and police brutality gripping the country’s attention in recent months, Biden is seeking to maintain his edge by painting the Republican incumbent as an ineffectual leader who thrives on chaos and has left the working class behind.
Trump has struggled to change the contours of the campaign despite highly charged rhetoric on racial polarization and “law and order” intended to motivate his base and draw new supporters in suburban parts of key swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
He has also faced a new controversy after The Atlantic magazine, citing four unnamed people, reported last week that he had referred to Marines buried in an American cemetery near Paris as “losers” and declined to visit their graves during a 2018 trip to France. Trump vehemently denied the report.
The president has no campaign events scheduled for Monday but plans to visit North Carolina, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania later in the week. The two candidates’ running mates, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, will mark the holiday with events in Wisconsin.
The Biden campaign sought to capitalize on the uproar over Trump’s reported disparaging of fallen military members by relaunching an advertisement on Sunday in battleground states with large numbers of military personnel that highlighted his own record of support for the armed forces.
Biden’s campaign has said as many as 16 states could be up for grabs in November, with doubts about Trump’s coronavirus response and the battered economy making places like Arizona, Texas and Georgia more competitive for Democrats.