President Biden traveled to North Carolina, a potential swing state in the fall election, on Thursday to tout his efforts to replace toxic lead pipes as part of his administration’s program to expand and modernize the nation’s road system, airports and other critical infrastructure.
During a stop in Wilmington, the president announced $3 billion in new spending from the bipartisan infrastructure bill he pushed through Congress in 2021. This is one of the key legislative achievements he wants to use to show voters that he can be effective despite political polarization.
“How can we say we are a leading nation in the world until the United States of America, God loves us, deals with this?” he told a crowd of supporters at the Wilmington Convention Center. “For God’s sake, we’re better than this.”
Mr. Biden has committed to replacing all lead pipes across the country within a decade. Lead exposure can affect brain development in children, damage the kidneys and affect the production of red blood cells that carry oxygen. The government estimates that more than nine million homes, schools, daycares and businesses still receive water through lead pipes, particularly in marginalized communities.
In choosing North Carolina to announce the third installment of his program, Mr. Biden turned to a state that has sided with Democrats in only two of the last 14 presidential elections (1976 and 2008), but that Democrats believe in that it is developing in their direction. Mr. Biden lost the state and its 15 electoral votes by just 1.3 percent of votes cast in 2020, despite trailing by six percentage points in the cumulative average of polls calculated by the political website FiveThirtyEight.com.
The Biden campaign has invested resources in North Carolina, opening 11 offices so far and funding television ads in the state, while the president’s strategists said they had not seen any major efforts from Mr. Trump’s team. Mr Biden’s visit on Thursday was his third visit to the state this year, and Vice President Kamala Harris has been here four times.
The president arrived in Wilmington after a stop in Charlotte, where he met with the families of four police officers killed Monday and some of their injured colleagues. The meeting took place out of sight and Mr Biden did not speak publicly at the time out of respect for the families’ privacy, but later acknowledged them in his speech in Wilmington.
“Every time an officer puts up that shield and walks out the door, a family member wonders if they’re going to get that call. “Will they come home?” he said. “The entire nation is praying for these families.”
Source link
2024-05-02 22:18:56
www.nytimes.com
