Dems seek to seize control of Michigan House
Biden back to Scranton roots to pitch tax plan
WASHINGTON, April 16, (AP): US President Joe Biden returns to his childhood hometown of Scranton on Tuesday to open three straight days of campaigning in Pennsylvania, capitalizing on the opportunity to work the battleground state while Donald Trump spends the week in a New York City courtroom for his first criminal trial.
The Democratic president plans to use Scranton, a working class city of roughly 75,000 people, as the backdrop for his pitch for higher taxes on the rich. At the same, he will portray Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee and a billionaire himself, as a tool of wealthy interests.
It’s all aimed at reframing the conversation around the economy, which has left many Americans feeling sour about their financial situations at a time of stubborn inflation and elevated interest rates despite low unemployment.
Biden plans to spend Tuesday night in Scranton before continuing to Pittsburgh on Wednesday morning. He then goes back to the White House, only to return to Pennsylvania on Thursday, this time visiting Philadelphia.
Importance
By the time the week is over, Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris will have visited the state eight times this year, reflecting its importance to Biden’s hopes for a second term.
“It’s hard to draw paths to Biden winning the White House that don’t involve Pennsylvania,” said Daniel Hopkins, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. No Democrat has become president without winning the state since Harry Truman in 1948.
Scranton, the president’s first destination, will blend the personal and the political for Biden. He grew up in a three-story colonial home in the Green Ridge neighborhood until his father struggled to find work and moved the family to Delaware when the future president was 10.
Although Delaware eventually became the launching pad for Biden’s political career, he often returned to Scranton and grounded his autobiography in the city. He visited so often, he was sometimes called “Pennsylvania’s third senator.”
In 2020, Biden described the presidential campaign as “Scranton versus Park Avenue,” and his reelection team is framing this year’s race in a similar way.
“You’ve got Joe Biden, who sees the world from the kitchen table where he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Donald Trump, who sees the world from his country club down in Mar-a-Lago,” said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director.
Political
Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, described Scranton as a “mythical place in political culture,” and it will provide a test for Biden’s political appeal.
“It’s an area that, on paper, aligns perfectly with the populist gains of the Republican Party during the Trump era,” Borick said.
However, Biden won the city and the surrounding county in 2020. If he’s able to carry Scranton and similar places again this year, as well as limit Trump’s winning margins in rural areas, Biden may be able to secure another victory in Pennsylvania.
“Everything is on the margin. Everything
that we talk about are small shifts,” Borick said.
Biden’s pitch on taxes is a key part of his effort to blunt Trump’s populist allure.
When Trump was president, he signed into law a series of tax breaks in 2017 that disproportionately benefit the rich. Many of the cuts expire at the end of 2025, and Biden wants to keep a majority of them to fulfill his promise that no one earning less than $400,000 will pay more taxes.
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LANSING, Mich: Democratic lawmakers are hoping to win back a majority in the deadlocked Michigan House and regain control of the state government in two special elections on Tuesday.
Democrat Mai Xiong is taking on Republican Ronald Singer in District 13, while Peter Herzberg, a Democrat, faces Republican Josh Powell in District 25. Both districts are located just outside Detroit and are heavily Democratic, with the previous Democratic incumbents each having won by over 25 percentage points in 2022.
The lower chamber has been tied 54-54 between Democratic and Republican lawmakers since November, when two Democratic representatives vacated their seats after winning mayoral races in their hometowns. Democrats previously held a majority in both chambers along with control of the governor’s office.
“These special elections will determine who controls the House here in Michigan and set the tone for November, when we will decide whether Democrats hold on to the state House,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes.