WASHINGTON \u2014 President Joe Biden hit the campaign trail to boost Democrats as crunch time ahead of the midterm elections kicked off, visiting the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to mark Labor Day with trade unionists he hopes will turn out in force for his party in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe middle class built America. Everybody knows that,” Biden told a workers\u2019 gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. \u201cBut unions built the middle class.”<\/p>\n
Later Monday, he was flying to Pittsburgh \u2014 returning to Pennsylvania for the third time in less than a week and just two days after his predecessor,\u00a0Donald Trump, staged his own rally in the state.<\/p>\n
Trump spoke Saturday night\u00a0in Wilkes-Barre, near Scranton, where Biden was born. The president\u00a0made his own Wilkes-Barre trip\u00a0last week to discuss increasing funding for police, decry GOP criticism of the FBI after the\u00a0raid on Trump’s Florida estate\u00a0and to argue that new, bipartisan gun safety measures can help reduce violent crime.<\/p>\n
Two days after that, Biden went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for a\u00a0prime-time address denouncing the \u201cextremism\u201d\u00a0of Trump’s fiercest supporters.\u00a0On Monday, he’s attending Labor Day festivities\u00a0in Milwaukee, in another key swing state, Wisconsin, before traveling to Pittsburgh for that city’s parade.<\/p>\n
The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally starts a political busy season where campaigns scramble to excite voters ahead of Election Day on Nov. 8. That’s when control of the House and Senate, as well some of the country’s top governorships, will be decided.<\/p>\n
Trump has\u00a0endorsed candidates in key races around the country\u00a0and Biden\u00a0is warning\u00a0that some Republicans now believe so strongly in Trumpism that they are willing to undermine core American values to promote it. The president said Thursday that the midterms will be a battle \u201cfor the soul of the nation,\u201d the same slogan he used to win the 2020 election, and that \u201cblind loyalty to a single leader, and a willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump responded during his Saturday rally that Biden is \u201can enemy of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, Biden said \u201cI\u2019m not talking about all Republicans\u201d but slammed \u201cMAGA Republicans, the extreme right and Trumpies.\u201d That referred to his Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d campaign cry and Biden highlighted incidents like last year’s\u00a0mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n
The crowd jeered as Biden chided Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin for voting against a Democratic-backed measure meant to lower prescription drug prices.<\/p>\n
Biden told the Milwaukee rally that many in the GOP have \u201cchosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate, division.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut together we can, and we must, choose a different path forward,\u201d Biden said. “A future of unity and hope. we’re going to choose to build a better America.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president also returned to another theme that was a centerpiece of his 2020 campaign, that labor unions were America\u2019s economic engine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come from the corporation state of the world,\u201d Biden said, referring to his decades representing pro-financial business Delaware in the Senate. But he drew cheers declaring that he wasn\u2019t anti-corporatation, but the country\u2019s big businesses should \u201cpay their fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Union endorsements helped Biden overcome\u00a0disastrous early finishes\u00a0in Iowa and New Hampshire to win the Democratic primary, and eventually the White House. He has since continued to praise labor unions \u2014 even though many voters without college degrees, many working class, remain among Trump’s strongest bloc of supporters.<\/p>\n
Mary Kay Henry, president of the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union, called Biden championing unions heading into the midterms \u201ccritical\u201d and said that the labor movement must \u201cmobilize in battlegrounds across the country to ensure that working people turn out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about the president speaking directly to workers about, if he had the opportunity, he\u2019d join a union,\u201d Henry said. She added: \u201cThis president has signaled which side he\u2019s on. And he\u2019s on the side of working people. And that matters hugely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden, meanwhile, has personal history with Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade, which is among the nation’s largest. He attended the 2015 installment as vice president and returned in 2018. Both times, Biden, now 79, faced questions about whether he\u2019d run for president in upcoming elections \u2014 which he opted against in 2016 before winning the White House in 2020.<\/p>\n
This year, the oldest president in the nation\u2019s history has\u00a0faced speculation about if he\u2019ll seek a second term\u00a0in 2024 \u2014 though he’s insisted that’s his intention, and the pressure has dissipated some in recent weeks,\u00a0amid a string of policy and political successes\u00a0for Biden and his party.<\/p>\n
Still, both perennial presidential battleground states Biden is visiting on Monday may provide key measures of Democrats’ strength before this November and 2024. With\u00a0inflation still raging\u00a0and the president’s\u00a0approval ratings remaining low, how much Biden can help his party in top races remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
That was on full display in Wisconsin, where Democratic Lt. Gov.\u00a0Mandela Barnes\u00a0is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Sen.\u00a0Ron Johnson, but drew criticism from Johnson’s campaign for being noncommittal beforehand about appearing with Biden in Milwaukee. In the state’s other top race,\u00a0Tim Michels, a construction executive endorsed by Trump, is attempting to deny Democratic Gov.\u00a0Tony Evers\u00a0a second term.<\/p>\n
Evers was speaking at the labor event Biden addressed and also briefly greeted the president in a backstage photo line. Barnes did not and the president noted in his speech that the candidate \u201ccouldn’t be here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a president who understands the challenges facing working families,\u201d Evers told the crowd. He said that Biden \u201chasn\u2019t forgotten that working families matter, not just on Labor Day, but every single day of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania voters are choosing a new governor, with state Attorney General\u00a0John Shapiro\u00a0facing another Trump-endorsed Republican,\u00a0Doug Mastriano, and a new senator. That race is between Democratic Lt. Gov.\u00a0John Fetterman\u00a0and Trump-backed celebrity heart physician\u00a0Mehmet Oz. Shapiro and Fetterman both planned to attend Monday’s Pittsburgh parade.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania and Wisconsin races could decide which party controls the Senate next year, while the winner of each governorship may influence results in 2024’s presidential election. The stakes are particularly high given that some Trump-aligned candidates have\u00a0spread lies\u00a0about\u00a0widespread fraud that did not occur\u00a0during the 2020 election \u2014 raising questions about what might happen if a candidate they don’t support wins the next presidential contest.<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris marked Labor Day in Massachusetts, where at a breakfast meeting with the Greater Boston Labor Council, she said, “When union wages go up, everybody\u2019s wages go up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen union workplaces are safer everyone is safer,” Harris said. “When unions are strong, America is strong.\u201d<\/p>\n