Biden hits battleground states
President expanding staff as campaign tries to seize offensive
ROSE VALLEY, Pa. — Fresh off his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden on Friday laced into former President Donald Trump — by name this time — as he and his senior aides began barnstorming the country to aggressively sell his vision for a second term to voters.
The president is trying to ride the post-speech momentum to Pennsylvania and Georgia for campaign events in two critical battleground states that he flipped in 2020 and is hoping to keeping in his column this November.
He arrived at a private home in the pivotal Philadelphia suburbs along with his wife, Jill Biden, to hold what his campaign billed as a “kitchen table” conversation with brothers Jack and David Cunicelli, the owners of 320 Market Cafe, and their families ahead of remarks to supporters at the local middle school. He’ll move on to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan next week.
Biden’s re-election campaign was almost giddy after the speech, vowing to stay on the offensive against Trump. Introducing her husband at Strath Haven Middle School, Jill Biden said, “Last night, Joe showed the world what I see every day.”
While Biden had referred only to his “predecessor” during Thursday’s speech before Congress, on Friday it was a different story on the campaign trail, as Biden and his wife laid into Trump for raising the deficit, rolling back abortion access and fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
He also blamed Trump for the coarsening of the country’s political discourse.
The president’s campaign announced Friday that he and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit every major swing state in coming days, while launching a $30 million, six-week advertising campaign on TV and digital platforms designed to highlight key themes from the State of the Union to Black, Asian and Hispanic communities.
Harris is making her own trips, first to Arizona to continue her nationwide tour to promote reproductive rights and then to Nevada for her own campaign stop.
Biden’s re-election campaign said the first hour of the State of the Union prompted its best fundraising hour since it launched in 2023, and the next two hours each set new records. It did not say how much money it actually collected.