Biden, other top officials kick off stops in rural America

WASHINGTON — President Biden will visit a family farm in Minnesota on Wednesday as part of two weeks of stops in rural America by top administration officials that are intended to highlight how increases in government spending can help improve people’s lives.

Biden’s focus on the state comes just five days after Democratic Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota announced he was running for president, becoming the party’s first elected official to challenge Biden in the 2024 primary.

Administration officials say the trip to Minnesota was planned long before Phillips’s announcement, even though the congressman had been publicly mulling a primary campaign for months, and is more about promoting policy than politics.

Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will use the farm as a backdrop to highlight how federal investment in rural areas helps farmers through legislation the White House helped champion, including the public works law that Congress passed in 2021 and last year’s health care and green energy package.

The White House wants to highlight improvements to critical infrastructure, including high-speed internet, safer roads and bridges, clean drinking water, and reliable energy. The goal is to show that Americans in rural communities do not have to move away in search of economic opportunity, according to the White House.

Phillips’s presidential aspirations aside, the tour may ultimately serve to boost Biden’s reelection campaign, making voters more aware of potentially popular programs in rural areas that have shifted heavily toward Republicans in recent elections.

The trips that begin Monday will emphasize several administration initiatives in rural areas, including $1 billion to expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity, which is meant to give farmers more market options and reduce prices.