» Bidding for Pennsylvania, Trump visits Biden’s hometown.
OLD FORGE, Pa. — Determined to keep Pennsylvania in his column, President Donald Trump took the fight to Joe Biden’s old backyard Thursday and insisted his Democratic rival would be the state’s “worst nightmare” if elected president.
In a particularly in-your-face bit of campaign trolling, Trump staged a small rally just outside the former vice president’s birthplace in Scranton hours before Biden was to formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination.
The campaign framed 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,” Trump declared.
Trump sought to diminish 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.
Biden was born in Scranton but his family moved to Delaware when he 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. The family eventually moved to Delaware, where Joe Sr. found work.
“He’ll remind us that he was born in Scranton, but you know he left like 70 years ago, right?” Trump said.
Trump was planning more convention counterprogramming Thursday evening with an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show just before Biden is to deliver his acceptance speech.
The so-called Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, meant to provide Electoral College insurance for Hillary Clinton, instead all broke for Trump by slim margins in 2016. He captured Pennsylvania by a mere 44,000 votes four years ago and has since clashed with the state’s Democratic governor over efforts to reopen its economy.
Many in the Trump campaign have all but written off Michigan, a state battered by the virus, and whose governor has repeatedly fought with the president. But advisers believe Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, remains in play and could be captured again if the economy continues to rebound.
To that end, Trump is seeking to portray Biden as out of touch with more moderate and conservative parts of the state, making the argument that Biden is a “puppet of the radical left.”
Trump said he’s best suited to return the country back to its prepandemic status, when unemployment stood at the lowest rates since the early 1960s and the economy was experiencing moderate growth. He said a Biden win in November would usher in economic pain for Americans and more chaos in U.S. cities that have endured sometimes violent protests in recent months over police brutality and racial injustice.
“If you want a vision of your life under a Joe Biden presidency, imagine the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland and the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago coming to every city and town in America,” Trump said.
Trump also took aim Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, accusing him of slowing the reopening of the state’s economy to hurt the president’s reelection chances.
“Shut down Wolf,” Trump complained. “You can’t do this. He’s gonna destroy your soul.”
The Biden campaign dismissed Trump’s visit.
“This sideshow is a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that Trump’s presidency stands for nothing but crises, lies and division,” said Biden spokesman Andrew Bates.