BIDEN PUSHES TO FLIP OHIO WITH POPULIST MESSAGE
Accuses Trump of turning his back on union workers
Almost four years after President Donald Trump cemented his strength among White working-class voters by winning Ohio, Joe Biden pushed on Monday to put the state back in play for Democrats in November, as he sought to energize the party’s base and court some of those same Americans who powered Trump’s victories across the industrial Midwest.
Campaigning in Toledo, Biden lashed his opponent as an out-of-touch plutocrat who has repeatedly betrayed union workers, while playing up his own Irish Catholic, middle-class background and stressing the Obama administration’s efforts on behalf of the auto industry. Lucas County, which includes Toledo, is a traditionally Democratic stronghold, but Trump performed better there in 2016 than the previous two Republican nominees.
“He turned his back on you,” Biden said of his opponent. “I promise you, I will never do that.”
Biden delivered his populist pitch at what the campaign called a “drive-in rally” outside the United Auto Workers’ Local 14 union hall, where attendees periodically honked in approval. He focused heavily on economic matters, detailing the challenges facing manufacturing workers in the state on Trump’s watch, but also laced his speech with criticisms of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, which has been Biden’s central message throughout the pandemic.
He accused Trump of “reckless personal conduct” and said that the president’s behavior since testing positive for the virus had been “unconscionable.” Trump held a campaign event later Monday in Sanford, Fla.
“The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get,” Biden said. According to the Biden campaign, the Democratic nominee tested negative for the coronavirus on Monday.
And he jabbed at the Trump campaign’s decision to use Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, in an ad without Fauci’s consent.
“Trump and his campaign deliberately lied,” Biden said.
“It was a knowing lie, like we’re being told about everything about this COVID consequences.”
A poll from The New York Times and Siena College found last week that Biden and Trump were effectively tied in Ohio among likely voters, with Biden leading, 45 percent to 44 percent. Seven percent of Ohioans said they were undecided.
Biden’s trip Monday was his latest effort to cut into the margins of Trump’s base, especially in states that are critical to the president’s path to victory. After the first presidential debate, in Cleveland, Biden embarked on a train tour that took him through eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, regions that swung heavily in Trump’s direction in 2016.
But after a sound defeat four years ago and several other disappointments since, many Democrats still view flipping Ohio as a stretch compared with other places. The state has not been a central focus of Biden’s team throughout the race, though officials emphasize that they want to create as many pathways to electoral victory as possible.