• Trump makes visit to Biden’s old backyard in bid to woo Pennsylvania,
OLD FORGE, Pa. — Determined to keep Pennsylvania in his column, President Donald Trump took the fight to Joe Biden’s old backyard on Thursday and insisted his Democratic rival would be the state’s “worst nightmare” if elected president.
In a particularly in-yourface bit of campaign trolling, Mr. Trump staged a small rally just outside the former vice president’s birthplace in Scranton hours before Mr. Biden was to formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination.
The campaign framed Mr. Trump’s speech as a review of “a half-century of Joe Biden failing America,” and the location pointed to the importance of Pennsylvania as a battleground state.
“Joe Biden is no friend of Pennsylvania — he is your worst nightmare,” Mr. Trump declared.
Mr. Trump sought to diminish Mr. Biden’s ties to Scranton. The former vice president often spotlights his early years in the northeast Pennsylvania city as evidence of his middle-class upbringing.
Mr. Biden was born in Scranton but his family moved to Delaware when he was 10. His father, Joe Sr., was once a sales manager at a car dealership in Scranton, but quit when he thought the owner was trying to humiliate employees during a Christmas party.
Mr. Biden’s speech from his Delaware hometown, as the culmination of the fourday convention, will surely dominate headlines and cable news chyrons. But Mr. Trump has offered a robust slate of competing activity, holding multiple in-person events this week meant to draw a contrast with the largely virtual campaign Mr. Biden has conducted during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Trump visited two other battlegrounds — Wisconsin and Arizona — as well as Minnesota, one of the few blue states from 2016 that Mr. Trump’s team feels like he may have a chance to flip this fall. But his campaign has been warily watching his standing falter in the trio of Rust Belt states that carried him to the presidency in 2016.
Mr. Trump planned more convention counterprogramming Thursday evening with an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show.
The so-called Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, meant to provide Electoral College insurance for Hillary Clinton, instead all broke for Mr. Trump by slim margins in 2016.
Many in the Trump campaign have all but written off Michigan, a state battered by the virus. But advisers believe Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, remains in play and could be captured again if the economy continues to rebound.
Mr. Trump returned to northeastern Pennsylvania, where he did unexpectedly well in 2016, winning Luzerne County and nearly winning in Lackawanna County, both of which have a solid registration advantage for Democrats. They bear the hallmarks of Trump country: They are whiter, with lower median incomes and fewer people with college degrees, than the rest of Pennsylvania.
The number of GOP registrations in Pennsylvania has outpaced Democrats this cycle and many political observers believe the state, which has many white, older voters, could become stronger for Republicans. But Mr. Trump has stubbornly trailed in the polls to Mr. Biden, whose team aims to return Pennsylvania to the blue column, where it had been from 1992 until 2016.