President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump campaigned on opposite sides of Pennsylvania on Saturday, offering a preview of their potential rematch in 2024 as they made a final push for their parties’ respective Senate and gubernatorial candidates in a key battleground state. of 2022.
The commonwealth, which offers Democrats their best chance to pick up a seat that could help them retain control of the U.S. Senate, has swung from supporting Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020. But anger over inflation , combined with economic uncertainty among voters across the nation, has created an even more difficult climate for Democrats facing difficult historical adversity this year, as the party in the White House often faces heavy losses in Congress in the first midterms of a new administration .
Democrats – including Biden and former President Barack Obama, who accompanied him to Philadelphia on Saturday – are closing the campaign trail arguing that Republicans have no plans to ease the burden of inflation, claiming it could jeopardize Social Security and medical care. as basic tenants of the republic because of their blind loyalty to Trump.
Biden’s approval ratings are underwater, meaning Pennsylvania is one of the rare places where the Scranton native has appeared with a Senate candidate in a closely contested race. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running against Trump’s pick in Mehmet Oz, is trying to win the Senate seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Pat Tomei. Democrats, who control the Senate 50-50 because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote, are struggling to hold onto seats in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority, so Democrats are hoping a win in Pennsylvania could offset any losses on their part in those other states.
After strolling on stage with Obama, Biden blasted his former – and possibly future – rival, telling the raucous crowd that they could be heard all the way to Latrobe, where Trump was appearing two hours later with Oz and his gubernatorial candidate GOP Doug Mastriano. election denier standing in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Your right to choose is on the ballot. Your right to vote is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot,” Biden said at the Liakouras Center on Temple University’s campus in North Philadelphia.
He noted that his goal in running for president was to “build an economy from the bottom up and from the middle out,” which he described as “fundamental change, compared to Oz and the mega MAGA Republican trickledown economics ».
“This is not your father’s Republican Party,” the president added. “This is a different breed of cat. I really mean it. Look, it’s all about making the richest richer. And the richest stays rich. The middle class is hardening. The poor are getting poorer with their politics.”
Appearing after Biden, Fetterman invited Oz to appear with Trump on a rally stage — “a real exercise in moderation,” he quipped — as he sought to remind Pennsylvanians of how Trump fueled the conspiracy theories that fueled the Jan. 6 riot at the capitol.
He added that “inflation has hurt working families in Pennsylvania, but you need a senator who really understands what that means,” pointing to Oz’s wealth to argue that he is unfamiliar with the pain of higher prices.
Trump campaigned for Oz in Latrobe just days after the 2024 tease in Iowa, where he told the crowd he would “very, very, very likely” run for the White House again.
While Trump’s presence in western Pennsylvania may help Oz boost GOP base voters, it could also complicate his final appeals to the moderates and independents the GOP Senate nominee needs to win — voters alienated by Trump during his presidency. Speaking before Trump at the rally, Oz did not mention the former president — a telling move given that Trump-backed candidates often praise the former president at his events.
It was a sign of how Trump’s visit may do more for himself than Oz, as Trump tries to build anticipation for his own plans. His aides are looking to the third week of November for a possible announcement if Republicans do well in next week’s midterm elections, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Much of Trump’s speech focused on his own accomplishments, grievances and debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 election. He called Oz a “good man” who could help turn around “a country in decline.” .
“This could be the vote that makes the difference between a country and not a country,” Trump said in his push for Oz. “It could be 51, it could be 50,” he said of the balance of power in the Senate. If it’s ’49 for the Republicans, this country – I don’t know if it’s going to live another two years.’
But Trump also spent part of the Latrobe rally touting the latest poll numbers he’d seen about his potential rematch with Biden in 2024 in swing states (and even some red states).
Not all Republicans are happy to have the former president out on the trail in the final stretch of the midterms. Former New York Gov. George Pataki noted Saturday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the heightened attention that Trump’s potential 2024 nomination comes so close to Election Day hasn’t helped Republican candidates in blue states — including the incumbent New York Republican Governor Lee Zeldin. who is challenging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in an unexpectedly close race.
“It’s classic Trump that it should be about him. It’s not for him,” Pataki told CNN’s Jim Acosta. “It’s about the future of our states, the future of America, and I cringe when he does everything he can to get publicity.”
While Trump may be causing headaches for some GOP candidates, it is Obama — rather than Biden — who has been the most powerful messenger for Democrats in these final days of the midterm elections.
Campaigning with Fetterman and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, Obama sent his double-edged message that election-denying Republicans like Mastriano could endanger democracy in 2024, as he accused Republicans of not planning to help American families with their costs.
He tried to create a particular contrast between Oz and Fetterman on this front, attacking the celebrity surgeon’s career on television. “If somebody’s willing to sell snake oil to make money, then they’re probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected,” Obama said in Pittsburgh. Later in Philadelphia, he described Fetterman as “a guy who fought for regular people his whole life.”
To galvanize younger and other less-than-trustworthy voters in a midterm year in Philadelphia — where Democrats must win the vote to win in Pennsylvania — Obama reflected on his own midterm failures, telling the crowd that he wanted to “ offers a history lesson” based on his party’s losses in 2010 and 2014.
“Sometimes I can’t help but imagine what it would have been like if enough people had turned out to vote in this election,” Obama said. “Imagine if we had been able to fix our broken immigration system in 2011. Imagine if we could have passed meaningful gun safety legislation then to prevent more deaths. Imagine if we could reduce our emissions even more than we have been doing. We would be further away from avoiding the worst effects of climate change. If we had retained the Senate in 2014, we would have had a very different Supreme Court making decisions about our most basic rights. So the in-betweens aren’t funny.”
Earlier in Pittsburgh, Obama noted that some Republicans are already talking about impeaching Biden if they win the majority. “How will it help you pay your bills?” asked.
While Obama was able to criss-cross the country campaigning in competitive states like Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, disenchantment with Biden continued to be a drag on more vulnerable Democrats and limited his appearances.
And comments he made in California on Friday, in which he suggested coal plants across the country should be shut down, did not play well outside the blue state. He earned a swift rebuke from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a moderate in the Senate, while Republicans argued that his comments would not be helpful to Democrats in coal-producing states like Pennsylvania.
Manchin said in a statement that Biden’s comments “were not only outrageous and disconnected from reality, but they ignore the severe financial pain the American people are feeling due to rising energy costs.”
Trump tried to seize the moment, too, at his rally in Pennsylvania. “Biden has restarted the war on coal — your coal. Yesterday he stated that we are going to close coal plants across America. Can you believe this? In favor of wildly unreliable wind and solar that have cost us a fortune. The most expensive energy you could have – an outrageous slap in the face of Pennsylvania coal country.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s words have been “twisted” to “connote a meaning that was not intended. sorry if anyone who heard these comments was offended.”
