CNN –
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump campaigned on opposite sides of Pennsylvania on Saturday, offering a preview of their potential 2024 rematch as they made a final push for their parties’ respective Senate and gubernatorial candidates in a field of key battle of 2022.
Commonwealth, which offers Democrats the best chance to pick up a seat that could help them retain control of the U.S. Senate, went from supporting Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020. But anger over inflation, along with the economic uncertainty of voters worldwide. The nation has created an even more challenging climate for Democrats facing historic difficulties this year, as the party in the White House often faces steep losses in Congress in the first midterms of a new administration. .
Democrats, including Biden and former President Barack Obama, who joined him in Philadelphia on Saturday, are closing the campaign by arguing that Republicans have no plans to ease the burden of inflation, saying they could also jeopardize the Social Security and Medicare. as the basic tenants of democracy for their blind loyalty to Trump.
Biden’s approval ratings are underwater, which has meant that Pennsylvania is one of the few places where the Scranton native has appeared with a Senate candidate in a hotly contested race. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running against Trump’s handpicked nominee Mehmet Oz, is trying to win the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. Democrats, who control the Senate 50-50 because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, are fighting to defend seats in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority, so Democrats are hoping a Pennsylvania win could mitigate their side’s losses in those other states.
After walking on stage with Obama, Biden used his former (and possibly future) rival to tell the boisterous crowd that they could be heard in Latrobe, where Trump was appearing two hours later with Oz and the candidate for Republican Gov. Doug Mastriano, an election denialist, was in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Your right to choose is on the ballot. Your right to vote is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot,” Biden said at the Liacouras Center on Temple University’s North Philadelphia campus.
He noted that his goal when he ran for president was to “build a bottom-up, middle-out economy,” which he described as a “fundamental shift, compared to Oz and the Republican trickle-down economy of the mega MAGA”.
“This is not your father’s Republican Party,” the president added. “This is a different breed of cat. I really mean it. Look, it’s about the richest getting richer. And the richest staying rich. The middle class gets stiffed. The poor get poorer under the his policy”.
Appearing after Biden, Fetterman called on Oz to appear with Trump on a rally stage, “a real exercise in restraint,” he quipped, as he tried to remind Pennsylvanians of how Trump stoked the conspiracy theories they fueled the insurrection of January 6 in the Capitol.
He added that “inflation has hurt working families in Pennsylvania, but it takes a senator who really understands what that really means,” pointing to Oz’s wealth to argue that he is unfamiliar with the pain of higher prices.
Trump campaigned for Oz in Latrobe days after teasing a 2024 run in Iowa, where he told the crowd he would “very, very, very likely” run for the White House again.
While Trump’s presence in western Pennsylvania may help Oz shore up GOP base voters, it could also complicate his ultimate appeals to the moderates and independents the GOP Senate nominee needs to win the win: voters who were alienated by Trump during his presidency. Speaking in front of Trump at the rally, Oz did not mention the former president, a telling move considering how Trump-backed candidates often praise the former president at their events.
It was an indication of how Trump’s visit may do more for himself than Oz, as Trump tries to build anticipation for his own plans. Aides expect a possible announcement in the third week of November if Republicans do well in next week’s midterm elections, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Much of Trump’s speech focused on his own accomplishments, grievances and debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 election. He called Oz “a good man” who could help turn around “a country in decline.” .
“This could be the vote that makes the difference between a country and not a country,” Trump said in his push for Oz. “It could be 51, it could be 50,” he said of the balance of power in the Senate. If it’s “49 for the Republicans, this country, I don’t know if it’s going to live another two years.”
But Trump also spent part of the Latrobe rally rehashing the latest poll numbers he’d seen for his potential rematch with Biden in 2024 in swing states (and even several red states).
Not all Republicans are happy to have the former president on the court in the final stretch of the midterms. Former New York Gov. George Pataki noted on CNN’s “Newsroom” Saturday that the disproportionate attention Trump’s potential 2024 bid is getting so close to Election Day has been unhelpful to the candidates of the GOP running in blue states, including New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who is challenging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in an unexpectedly close race.
“It’s classic Trump that it has to be about him. It’s not about him,” Pataki told CNN’s Jim Acosta. “It’s about the future of our states, the future of America, and I’m scared when he does everything he can to get publicity.”
While Trump may be causing headaches for some Republican candidates, it is Obama, more than Biden, who has been the Democrats’ most powerful messenger in these closing days of the midterm elections.
Campaigning with Fetterman and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, Obama hammered home his double-edged message that election-denying Republicans like Mastriano could put democracy at risk in 2024 as he accused Republicans of having no plans to help American families with their costs.
He tried to draw a particular contrast between Oz and Fetterman on this front, attacking the famous surgeon’s career on television. “If somebody’s willing to sell snake oil to make money, they’re probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected,” Obama said in Pittsburgh. Later, in Philadelphia, he described Fetterman as “a guy who has been fighting for ordinary people his whole life.”
To galvanize younger and other less reliable voters in a midterm year in Philadelphia, where Democrats must run up the score to win Pennsylvania, Obama reflected on his own midterm setbacks, telling the crowd that wanted to “provide a history lesson.” ” based on his party’s losses in 2010 and 2014.
“Sometimes I can’t help but imagine what it would have been like if enough people had voted in this election,” Obama said. “Imagine if we had been able to fix our broken immigration system in 2011. Imagine if we had been able to pass meaningful gun safety legislation at that time to prevent more deaths. Imagine if we had been able to reduce our emissions even more than we did. We will go further in avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. If we had kept the Senate in 2014, we would have a very different Supreme Court making decisions about our most basic rights. So mid sessions are no joke.”
Earlier in Pittsburgh, Obama noted that some Republicans are already talking about impeaching Biden if they win the majority. “How will it help you pay your bills?” he asked.
While Obama has been able to criss-cross the country campaigning in competitive states like Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, the disappointment with Biden has remained a drag on the most vulnerable Democrats and has limited his appearances.
And comments he made in California on Friday, in which he suggested coal plants across the country should be shut down, didn’t go over well outside the blue state. He drew a swift rebuke from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a moderate in the Senate, while Republicans argued that his comments would not be helpful to Democrats in coal-producing states like Pennsylvania.
Manchin said in a statement that Biden’s comments “were not only outrageous and divorced from reality, but they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling due to rising energy costs.” .
Trump also tried to seize the moment at his rally in Pennsylvania. “Biden has resumed the war on coal – your coal. Yesterday he declared that we are going to shut down coal plants across America. Can you believe that? In favor of highly unreliable wind and solar that cost us a fortune. L ‘Most Expensive Energy You Could Have: An Outrageous Slap in Pennsylvania Coal Country’.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s words had been “twisted” to “suggest a meaning that was not intended; I am sorry if anyone who heard these comments s “has offended”.