Rust Belt strategy
Democrat tries to expand reach in state Trump won in 2016
Biden making big push in Ohio, a state once seen as long shot for him./
Joe Biden made two campaign stops Monday in Ohio, attempting to expand the battleground map and keep President Donald Trump on the defensive in a state long thought to be out of reach for Democrats after Trump’s wide margin of victory there four years ago.
The Democratic presidential nominee stressed an economic message and touted his own record while casting Trump as having abandoned working-class voters who helped him win Rust Belt states that put him in the White House in 2016. The president’s re-election campaign countered that few expected Trump to win Ohio so comfortably four years ago and that he would repeat a similar upset on Election Day.
In Toledo, Biden addressed United Auto Workers who represent a local General Motors powertrain plant. The former vice president spoke in a parking lot with about 30 American-made cars and trucks arrayed nearby, and he struck a decidedly populist
note, praising unions and arguing that he represented working-class values while the Republican Trump cared only about impressing the Ivy League and country club set.
“I don’t measure people by the size of their bank account,” Biden said. “You and I measure people by the strength of their character, their honesty, their courage.”
Biden highlighted his role as vice president as the Obama administration rescued the U.S. auto industry after the 2008 financial collapse. President George W. Bush signed the aid package after the 2008 election, but the Obama ad
ministration managed most of the rescue program.
“The auto industry that supported one in eight Ohioans was on the brink,” Biden said at the drive-in rally, eliciting horn honks from people listening from their vehicles. “Barack and I bet on you, and it paid off.”
Trump was in Florida, resuming campaign travel for the first time since testing positive for the coronavirus. And Vice President Mike Pence staged his own event in Ohio’s capital, Columbus, speaking at Savko & Sons, an excavation company that hosted Obama at one of its job sites in 2010. “You said yes to President Donald Trump in 2016, and I know the Buckeye State’s going to say yes to four more years,” Pence told the crowd.
In a nod to Senate confirmation hearings on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Pence declared to applause, “We’re going to fill that seat.” He also noted that Biden has declined to say whether he will heed the calls of some progressive Democrats who would like to see the party expand the number on the Supreme Court.
The Biden campaign has increased advertising in Ohio lately, even as Trump has scaled back his efforts in the state and elsewhere. Biden’s perceived increases in support have largely come as the president has seen his backing slip in cities — but he is looking to cancel that out by further expanding his already-strong support among voters in rural areas.
Biden argued that Trump has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbating the resulting economic fallout. He said the Trump administration “squandered” the strong economy it inherited from the Obama White House four years ago, and he promised to create new, high-paying union jobs once the country gets the virus under control.