In a rare joint campaign rally, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris shared the stage at Girard College in Philadelphia on Wednesday to launch their official strategy to court Black voters ahead of the November election.
What You Need To Know
- President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris shared the stage at Girard College in Philadelphia for a campaign rally on Wednesday to launch their official strategy to court Black voters ahead of the November election
- The event in battleground Pennsylvania capped a month packed with outreach to Black communities from the president and his reelection team as polls show Biden’s likely 2024 Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, could be making inroads with such voters
- Biden used Wednesday’s rally to deliver sustained rebukes of his predecessor, criticizing Trump for, among other things, the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and appointing three of the justices on the Supreme Court who ruled in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade
- Following the rally, Biden stopped at a local Black-owned small business for an event with the Black Chamber of Commerce
The event in battleground Pennsylvania capped a month packed with outreach to Black communities from the president and his reelection team as polls show Biden’s presumptive Republican rival in November, former President Donald Trump, could be making inroads with such voters.
“Let’s talk about Trump’s MAGA lies,” Biden said, before quipping: “I don’t have an hour.”
Biden used Wednesday’s rally to deliver sustained rebukes of his predecessor, criticizing Trump for, among other things, the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, appointing three of the justices on the Supreme Court voted to oveturn Roe v. Wade, and adding to the national debt.
“The threat that Trump poses is greater in his second term than in his first,” Biden said. “It’s clear that when he lost in 2020, something literally snapped in this guy.”
The president ticked through what he considers to be his own biggest accomplishments, including removing lead pipes from communities, expanding affordable health care with actions such as capping insulin prices, signing a bipartisan gun safety bill into law, pardoning some people convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana and canceling student debt.
“I remember sitting in the Oval Office with our president, Joe Biden, shortly after the United States Supreme Court struck down our initial plan to forgive billions of dollars in student loan debt,” Harris said on Wednesday. “A different leader, a different kind of leader would have thrown in the towel – not Joe Biden.”
“I’m gonna tell you what he said that day: ‘This is not over,’” she said.
“Folks, all progress, all freedom, all opportunities are at risk,” Biden said on Wednesday. “Trump is trying to make the country forget just how dark and unsettling things were when he was president.”
The president repeated his oft-used comment that America has never fully lived up to the idea that we are all created equal but we have never fully walked away from it either.
“I’ll be damned if I am going to let Donald Trump be the reason,” Biden said on Wednesday.“I’ll be damned if I am gonna let Donald Trump turn America into a place filled with anger and resentment and hate.”
Biden was joined by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including its chair Rep. Steve Horsford, D-Nev., for the event to launch Black Voters for Biden-Harris at Girard College, a boarding school for students from families with limited financial means.
Also present Wednesday were Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, the first Black man to hold the position, and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, the first Black woman in the role, as well as union leaders and representatives from other groups such as the NAACP and HBCU presidents.
It comes as Biden this month has honed in on trying to connect with Black communities less than six months from the 2024 general election.
Earlier this month, the president hosted plaintiffs from the Brown v. Board of Education case and their family members in the Oval Office to mark the anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. That day, White House Director of Public Engagement Steve Benjamin announced the administration has designated more than $16 billion in federal funds to go toward Historically Black Colleges and Universities over Biden’s time in office.
The next day, the commander in chief remarks at the National Museum of African American History and Culture before hosting the leaders of the Divine Nine, a group of historically Black sororities and fraternities, at the White House for a historic meeting.
That weekend, Biden traveled to Atlanta and Detroit in the swing states of Georgia and Michigan to take part in small events with Black voters and give the keynote address at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner. In what was a closely-watched speech, he also delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s school.
Polls show support for Biden among Black voters may be slipping. A poll from The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer released this month showed Trump bringing in more than 20% support when those surveyed were asked to choose between Biden and Trump – a figure that would be a new high for a GOP nominee.
And a survey from The Wall Street Journal released earlier this year found 30% of Black men and 11% of Black women said they will likely support Trump in 2024. That marked an increase, the Wall Street Journal noted in its poll findings, from the 12% and the 6% respectively who supported the former president in 2020 according to AP VoteCast.
“I’m still optimistic,” Biden said on Wednesday. “But I need you.”
“In 2020, Black voters in Philadelphia and across our nation helped President Biden and me win the White House,” the vice president said. “And in 2024, with your voice and your power, we will win again.”
Following the rally, Biden stopped at a local Black-owned small business for an event with the Black Chamber of Commerce.
