Wed. Oct 30th, 2024

President Joe Biden traveled to Pennsylvania on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024 to visit small businesses and discuss his economic agenda. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Amid a slew of national media reports suggesting he has been sidelined by the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden will campaign for the Democratic ticket in his childhood hometown of Scranton on Saturday, on the final weekend before the election.

A source familiar with the trip said Biden will campaign for Harris-Walz and Democrats down the ballot. That likely includes boosting fellow Scranton son U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) who is in a tough reelection battle, with recent polls showing him neck-and-neck with GOP challenger Dave McCormick. Additional details about the trip were not immediately available Tuesday.

Biden spent the first 10 years of his life in Scranton before his family moved to Delaware. The president said during a campaign trip to Scranton in April, while he was still at the top of the Democratic ticket,  that he lessons he learned there remained with him.

“Scranton is a place that climbs into your heart and it never leaves,” Biden said. He likened the 2024 race as a competition between two sets of values: “Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values.”

Northeast Pennsylvania is a must-win region of the commonwealth for both campaigns.

‘Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values’: Biden makes his case for reelection in childhood hometown

During former President Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, he made gains in Lackawanna County, where Scranton is situated, and neighboring Luzerne County.  Hillary Clinton won Lackawanna County by 3.5 points over Trump, while Obama won the county over Republican Mitt Romney by 27 points in 2012. Obama carried Luzerne County by about 5 points in 2012.

Trump flipped Luzerne County red in 2016 by a nearly 20-point margin. But in 2020, Lackawanna stayed blue and Luzerne County stayed red, with Biden making gains in both. He won Lackawanna County by nearly 8.5 points, while Trump won Luzerne County by about 14.5 points.

Biden’s most recent campaign trip on behalf of the Harris-Walz ticket was a low-key visit to Pittsburgh on Saturday, where he delivered pizzas to volunteers at a field office, and spoke at a rally with the Laborers’ International Union of North America. He celebrated the audience of union members, adding that his father used to preach about the importance of labor.

“My dad would say, ‘Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in the community. It’s about how people treat you and look at you,’” he said.

Biden became the first sitting president to appear on a picket line last year, when he joined workers in Michigan for the United Auto Workers strike against General Motors, Ford and Chrysler maker Stellantis.

Union workers are a key demographic for Democrats where Harris has not received the same full-throated support Biden did early in his reelection bid. The United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers Union announced their endorsements of Biden early on.

But the Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate for president this year. with a survey of rank-and-file Teamsters saying they preferred Trump over Harris 59.6% to 34%. Dozens of local Teamsters chapters, however, including several in Pennsylvania, announced their endorsements of Harris.

Biden last campaigned in Pennsylvania with Harris on Labor Day, where the two spoke to union workers at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Hall on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

Saturday is shaping up to be one of the busiest on the campaign calendar, as the candidates try to shore up support in crucial swing states including Pennsylvania, for its 19 electoral votes. Former first lady Michelle Obama will make her first Pennsylvania campaign stop, and Trump is expeected to attend the Ohio State-Penn State game in State College.

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